He soon became completely docile and perched on Tom’s shoulder.
When the spaceship landed, the young inventor decided to stay aboard and check charts automatically produced, recording some of the character-104 THE RACE TO THE MOON
istics of hydraulic systems. “Go ahead, everybody,” he told the others. “I’ll be with you in ten minutes.”
Phyl took Nicky, and the passengers trooped off the ship. The girls were fascinated with the little monkey.
“I’m going to make a space suit for him,” Sandy declared, “so he won’t have to stay inside the ship all the time.”
Bud waited around the launching area, chatting with Hank Sterling and other crewmen. Half an hour went by. Still Tom did not emerge from the ship.
“I’ll bet he’s redesigning the whole crate,” Bud thought with a chuckle. “I’d better go haul him out before he starts inventing a new ship!”
He climbed the accommodation ladder and went aboard. Tom was not in the flight compartment. The doors had all been latched by hydraulic control, after a final sight-seeing tour by the passengers.
Bud went down in the port elevator to the lower deck, thinking Torn might be tinkering with the ship’s drive system in the repelatron gear room. But the young inventor was nowhere in sight.
Puzzled, Bud switched on the intercom system and called over the mike, “Hey, genius boy! Where are you hiding?” There was no reply.
By this time, Bud was beginning to worry. He unlatched the door of each room and looked inside, working his way upward from the bottom SURPRISE MASCOT 105