“Wow!” Hank Sterling was breathless at the sheer scope of the young scientist’s newest invention. “I’ll get hot on the job right away.”
After forty-eight hours of round-the-clock work, the equipment was ready.
Tom conferred by telephone with both Dr. Miles in the Bureau of Mines and Bernt Ahlgren in the Pentagon. He had already chosen the spots for the detector-transmitter check points.
Tom told the men that he believed the best spot for the Quakelizor itself was on a certain government reservation in Colorado. A deep un-78 THE VISITOR FROM PLANET X
derground cave there would provide a perfect site.
“We’ll be close enough to the San Andreas fault to prevent a really huge-scale disaster,” Tom explained. “And the Rocky Mountain structure will give us a good bedrock medium for shooting out waves anywhere across the continent.”
Dr. Miles and Ahlgren agreed enthusiastically. Tom and the two scientists spoke over a three-way telephone hookup-with automatic scramblers to counter the danger of enemy monitors-laying plans to install the equipment. Ahlgren agreed to fly a technical crew out to the spot in Colorado which Tom had named.
The next day, Tom, Hank, and several top Enterprises’ engineers, including Art Wiltessa, took off in the Sky Queen. This was Tom’s huge atomic-powered Flying Lab. The massive plane flew at supersonic speeds and was equipped with jet lifters for vertical take-off or hovering.
A Whirling Duck heliplane, loaded with communications equipment, accompanied the Sky Queen. In little more than an hour, the two craft touched down in a rugged Colorado canyon. The government technical crew was already on hand.