The Oriental’s face froze into a mask of cold rage. He merely shrugged and glanced at Captain Yao, who barked out a command. Two men grabbed Tom’s arms and took him below deck to one of the crew’s bunk compartments. Li Ching and Captain Yao followed.
“We will give you twelve hours to come to your senses,” Li Ching warned.
“Work for us and your life will be spared. Otherwise, your entire family is doomed!”
CHAPTER XX
A DARING PLAN
LI CHING’S threat sent a shock of fear through Tom. Once locked in the compartment, a prisoner of the Orientals, he would have no chance to warn his family of their terrible danger! Desperately Tom stalled for time.
“You’re still a fool, Li Ching,” he said, trying to sound unperturbed. “Without my help, you have no hope of gaining power anywhere. Since you had to steal the Sea Charger and capture my new spaceship, it’s obvious you have no scientific know-how of your own.”
Li Ching was stung to anger by Tom’s remark. “Ah! You think not? What about the way we disabled your space craft with our jamming-wave generator?
Or the way we camouflaged this ship from view with a synthetic cloud cover and the illusion of an iceberg? You call that nothing?”
176
A DARING PLAN 177
“Waste no more words on the young fool, Excellency!” Captain Yao snarled.
“Let us leave him here to choose between life and death!”
Again their faces became masklike and the Orientals withdrew from the compartment. A second later Tom heard the key turn in the lock and Li Ching saying, “If you tamper with the lock, Swift, you will set off the escape alarm which I am now switching on.”
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