“Dad sure will be glad to hear all this,” Tom declared when Horton had concluded. “Thanks for the report, Ken.”
He had no sooner said “Roger” than another news flash came, this time from the Mongolians. They were going back to their own country!
“Probably it’s just as well,” Tom commented.
“And you’ll invent a better force-ray machine,” Bud consoled him.
“It’s a challenge,” Tom agreed.
The young inventor once more concentrated all his attention on the Challenger’s progress.
“How close to our goal are we?” Bud asked him.
“We’re down to thirty miles a second and Dad’s only seventeen thousand miles ahead,” Tom announced with excitement in his voice. “We’re close enough to change the controls to manual.”
Presently the planet Venus came into view on the space position finder screen as a small greenish dot. The next moment the radarman reported: 182 SPACE SOLARTRON
“Object dead ahead, skipper!”
“Your dad’s rocket!” exclaimed Bud.
Minutes later, a glistening speck appeared in the inky void. It grew steadily in size, finally becoming recognizable as the disk-shaped space ark.
“Brand my moon calves, I remember now!” Chow whooped. “This is jest like that flyin’ saucer what carried them sick space critters. This must be it, all right, boss!”
Tom nodded, grinning with relief. After overtaking the odd-shaped craft, he locked the Challenger on a parallel course alongside it. A moment later a sliding panel opened in the ark and a space-suited figure emerged into view.
“It’s Dad!” Tom cried joyfully.
A minute later Mr. Swift unharmed, entered through the Challenger’s air lock.