172 THE VISITOR FROM PLANET X
“Whew! We really broke all speed records that time!” Arv panted.
The others looked at him with wan but triumphant grins. Then they began to speculate on what the beamlike bolt was, who was in the plane, and if their enemy knew who Tom’s group were.
Dawn was streaking the sky when the seacopter arrived at Fearing Island.
The adventurers flew back to Enterprises at once. Tom and Bud snatched a few hours’ sleep in the apartment adjoining Tom’s laboratory.
Later in the morning the whole group gathered in Tom’s laboratory to recount the raid to Mr. Swift and Harlan Ames. A bell signal from the electronic brain brought them rushing to the decoder. Grim news awaited them. The message said:
EXMAN TO SWIFTS. YOUR ENEMIES ARE NOW SURE I AM SPY. THEY
PLAN TO DESTROY ME.
“No! It mustn’t happen!” Tom cried in dismay. “Dad, I’ll rescue him myself!”
His words were greeted with shocked protests from the others.
“Don’t be crazy!” Bud said. “You wouldn’t have a chance!”
“It would be suicide!” Arv Hanson declared.
Chow grabbed his young boss by the arm. “Brand my cayenne pepper, before I’d let you
A FIENDISH MACHINE T73
make a blame fool move like that, I’d rope an’ hawg-tie you myself!”
Ames interjected the most convincing argument. “I know how you feel, Tom,”
he said sympathetically, “but I’m positive the United States government would never permit such a risky undertaking.”
Tom was beside himself with anxiety. Not only had he worked and struggled to make the space brain’s visit a scientific success, but also it was he who had thought of the scheme to use Exman as a spy. In Tom’s eyes, if the Brungarian rebels were to destroy the brain’s body, it would amount to murder! The young inventor knew that the destruction of the “body” would not destroy the energy, but that it would be “lost” as far as the earth was concerned.