The elder Swift frowned and stopped pacing. “That’s an idea, son. Perhaps we’d better check it.”
Quickly the two inventors opened the housing and tested the electronic circuits.
“Nothing wrong here,” Tom muttered.
“Then our space friends must be in trouble,” Mr. Swift added.
He and his son exchanged worried glances. A moment later Tom reached a decision. “I’m going
14 THE RACE TO THE MOON
to try combining my journey to the moon with a visit to that satellite where their scientists carry on research. If this new repelatron does what I hope, the trip is in the bag!”
“Great!” said Bud. “And suppose you tell me where I fit in.”
“How’d you like to go on an errand to Fearing right now?” Tom asked. This was the Swifts’ privately owned island in the Atlantic which they used as a rocket-launching site.
Bud grinned. “Top-secret message?”
“Cargo,” Tom replied. “I’d like the portable model of this electronic brain carried over to Fearing. It’ll do the translating of any more space messages that the men may receive there. They won’t have to use the oscilloscope-type machine or figure out the symbols from our space dictionary. Also, I want to take the brain with me to the moon. It can be installed in the ship out at Fearing.”
“Glad to go,” said Bud. He chuckled. “Good thing my cargo is smaller than this twenty-ton elephant here. I’d sure have excess weight on my hands with that big baby. How’d you ever manage to make a portable model and get all the equipment in?”
Mr. Swift answered the question. “Tom figured out an ingenious type of storage system. Literally, there are a thousand pieces of wire to the square inch.”