Bud mused. He lifted the telephone receiver. “No dial tone!” he reported. The intercom also proved to be dead.
Ames and the two boys began looking for the cause of trouble. Bud found it almost immediately. All the communications wiring entered the 92 MEGASCOPE SPACE PROBER
laboratory through a single conduit. At the outlet, the cable insulation had burned through, fusing several wires together and short-circuiting both the telephone and the intercom system.
Ames flashed Tom a questioning look. “Sabotage?”
“I think not. The insulation could have been worn just enough to start a leakage of current. It’s even possible my experiments affected the wiring by induction.”
The young inventor made a careful examination and concluded the electrical failure was accidental.
“It was sheer luck the hydrogen plot didn’t succeed,” Ames said thankfully.
Tom wanted to get out of his lab if only for a short while. Just now the sight of his ruined experiments was too disheartening.
“We’ll go over to sick bay and have Doc Simpson take a look at your noggin,”
he told Bud.
His husky friend objected. “You don’t think a little bump would bother a thick skull like mine, do you?”
Tom chuckled. “Frankly no, but we live in the age of miracles, you know.”
“Skipper’s right. Better have it looked at,” Ames said with a smile. He added, “In the meantime, I’ll check into that gas-tank switch.”
Grumbling but sensing Tom’s real reason, Bud
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accompanied his two friends out to the jeep. Tom took the wheel, dropped Ames at the security building, then drove on to the infirmary.