Appleton, Victor – Tom Swift Jr 13 – And His Space Solartron

Boarding their flying platforms, Chow and Bert sped back to the ship. Arv Hanson listened to their story and immediately decided that Tom TRAPPED IN THE ABYSS 143

and Bud could not climb out in their bulky space suits.

“We’ll have to fix it so they can take them off,” he said.

“But how?” Bert asked.

Arv suggested sealing off the whole crevice with a huge plastic dome. A number of these domes, similar to the ones Tom used for his undersea helium city, had been brought along for purposes of establishing a camp on the moon.

“Bert, move all the flying donkeys out to the landing platform!” Arv ordered.

“We’ll have to disassemble the solartron and transport it piece by piece. We’ll need at least three of the energy collectors, too!”

Pushing the intercom button on the bulkhead, Arv barked out orders over the loud-speaker system. Two of the crewmen were detailed to stay aboard and handle the Challenger. Doc Simpson,’ who had been treating a crewman for a sudden illness, had to remain behind to administer some necessary injections.

Everyone else was ordered to join the rescue party on the double.

Working with frantic speed, Arv soon had the solartron set up on the brink of the chasm. Two separate domes were erected in order to cover the whole length of the crevasse, one enclosing the machine.

While this was going on, Chow let out a yelp of joy. “Brand my prairie sunshine, there’s a light down yonder! I kin see it for sure now!”

144 SPACE SOLARTRON

Several of the crew rushed to look. Arv signaled by waving his arms, and was delighted to see the glow of light blink off and on as Tom beamed out an “all right” in code.