“It’ll squirt out the highway as if we were squeezing it out of a giant toothpaste tube,”
Tom explained.
“Brand my bridgework, that’s plumb remarkable.” Chow looked awed. “You ain’t fixin’ to squirt out the whole highway in one swoop?”
“No. The graphicopter will only hold enough mix to lay about half a mile per load.
But each section will bond automatically to the preceding span as the plastic hardens.”
Tom added, “I have two flying supply tanks on the drawing board- ‘helitanks,’ you might call them-for refilling the graphicopter in the air. They aren’t built yet, so for my demonstration I’ll refill from tank trucks on the ground.”
Within a week, Tom was ready for a pilot test of his repelatron skyway. The transmitters had been set up along one wall of the four-mile-square Enterprises enclosure. A crowd of employees gathered to watch the demonstration.
“Boy, this’ll really be something for you to write back to Texas about!” Bud remarked to Chow as they waited for the test to begin.
CHOW’S SKYWAY MISHAP 109
The cook’s face twisted into a conspiratorial leer. “Confidentially, Buddy boy, ole Chow is goin’ to have the honor o’ bein’ the first hombre to walk on Tom’s floatin’
highway!”
Bud turned in surprise. “How come?”
“Jest watch an’ see, son.” The stout cook stomped off with a sly chuckle.
Bud was puzzled, but soon forgot Chow’s boast as Tom came soaring into view from the airfield in his converted graphicopter. The young inventor hovered down to the precise height of the test skyway and lined up on the row of transmitters. Then he began to fly forward slowly, pouring out the plastic roadway in the copter’s wake.