“Please! Let us talk sense,” he urged Tom. “You have something we want, and we can supply information that you want. Why not co-operate?”
“If that means giving you the secret of my matter maker, it’s out of the question!” Tom snapped. “Tell me, where’s my father? You’d better produce him fast! And who are you?”
The stranger, who refused to give his name or that of his companions, answered noncommittally, “The truth is, we cannot produce your esteemed father because he is no longer aboard this ship.”
“It is true,” the other two men chimed in, nodding their heads vigorously.
The young inventor felt a pang of alarm. “Then where is he?” Tom demanded.
“He disappeared several hours ago.” The enemy leader explained that Mr.
Swift had complained of feeling ill. He had begged to put on his space suit and go outside for exercise after
A RACE TO THE RESCUE 175
his long, cramped imprisonment aboard the rocket. “We knew he could not get far with only the reaction pistol on his space suit,” the Mongolian continued, “so we granted his request.”
“Well, what happened?” Tom said impatiently.
“Suddenly a strange-looking spaceship appeared. It drew your father inside, and sped off. We tried to follow it and recapture him, using our own force ray. But we were unable to overtake the other craft or draw it to us. It traveled at incredible speed!”
Tom asked what the strange ship looked like. The man replied that it was flat and saucer-shaped, and made of polished blue-green metal, with no apparent openings other than the sliding panel through which Mr. Swift had been taken aboard.
Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133