Tom plopped down at his desk, frowning. “Bud, I’ve been itching to get to work on a non-detectable sub, like the one that attacked us. But maybe it would be smarter to get a line on Mirov’s pals first.”
“You mean down in the South Atlantic?”
Tom nodded. “I’d sure like to know if they found that missile.”
“You and I both, pal!” Bud agreed. “Hey! We could use the electronic hydrolungs for scouting around!” he added eagerly.
“I intend to,” Tom said. “But we’ll need speed to cover the area. So first I want to add an ion drive to our equipment.”
“Ion drive? For underwater?” Bud, who was familiar with ion propulsion for spaceships, wrinkled his brow in a puzzled frown.
“A goofy idea just occurred to me, but I think it may work out,” Tom replied.
He seized a pencil and began explaining what he had in mind.
The drive unit would take water into itself, separate the ionized molecules, and expose them
62 THE ELECTRONIC HYDROLUNG
to an electric field. Thus a stream of water would be forced out. This procedure, in turn, would set up a siphoning action through a central tube-in effect, creating a small but powerful water-jet motor.
“We’ll be human submarines!” Bud exclaimed.
By the time Bud left the laboratory half an hour later, Tom had already plunged into work on his newest invention. The idea was simple enough in itself, Tom felt. The main problem would be the design job-laying out a compact, lightweight unit which a swimmer could easily carry on his back.
Fascinated, the young inventor worked late into the evening, stopping only in response to a telephone plea from Mrs. Swift. By midmorning the next day, Tom had assembled a pilot model of his ion-drive jet. In appearance, it was a slender metal cylinder, two feet long, with an inner concentric tube projecting at each end.
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