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

“Hurry!” Tom urged the crew over his radio. “And keep an eye on your space suits. If you spot a leak in your suit, slap a patch on it and get back to the ship pronto!”

The job was completed in a few minutes. But even before the last hole in the tubing was patched, the iodine shower had ceased.

“Wow!” Bud gasped. “I’m sure glad that’s over. Where do you suppose the stuff came from, skipper? Another stunt of our enemies?”

Tom shook his head, thoroughly puzzled. “You’ve got me, pal.”

Back aboard the Challenger, Tom opened the stopcocks on the helium tanks and pumped more gas into the tubing to make up for the leakage. Then, elevatoring to his laboratory, he checked some of the crystals with a Swift spectroscope. As he had surmised, they were iodine.

“I’ll analyze them even more minutely when I have a chance,” he told himself.

Just then, a call over the intercom summoned the young inventor to the ship’s bunkroom. “Ted has just recovered consciousness,” Doc Simpson reported. “He’s ready to tell us what happened.”

“Be down in a jiffy!” Tom replied excitedly.

160 SPACE SOLARTRON

The patient was sitting up in his bunk, finishing a bowl of hot soup, as Tom entered. “Hi, skipper!” he said cheerfully.

Tom shook hands with him warmly. “You don’t know how glad I am to see you well and safe, Ted!” he exclaimed. “Sure you feel like talking?”

“You bet!” Ted declared firmly. “The sooner I tell you everything, the sooner we can rescue your dad!”

Tom’s pulse raced with hope. “Let’s have it, Ted!”

“Well, your father and I were working outside the space station,” Ted began, “when it happened. We had just finished adjusting the electrodes and were talking about the cosmic dust experiment, when all of a sudden we noticed we were being drawn away from the outpost. Apparently it was being done by some kind of force ray, and our jet pistols couldn’t counteract it. We tried to call for help, but couldn’t get any response over our radios.”