Appleton, Victor – Tom Swift Jr 23 – And His Aquatomic Tracker

“I mustn’t lose consciousness!” Tom told himself. “If I don’t keep control of my wits, we’re both goners!”

Soon he was close enough to reach out and grab Bud by the belt. The husky copilot kicked and flailed his arms wildly. The resistance of the water gave a dreamy, slow-motion effect to the struggle. Tom managed to swivel himself and Bud around

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so that they were turned in a safe direction, then clung doggedly to Bud as they jetted away from the danger zone.

Presently the tingling sensation in Tom’s brain was almost gone. In a few moments he cut his own jet and succeeded in switching Bud’s ion-drive unit to a frothing halt.

“Wh-what happened?” Bud demanded woozily. “Was I having raptures of the deep or something?”

“You’d have been playing a harp in another minute or so,” Tom told him.

“You were heading straight into water with enough electrical current to knock a whale silly!”

The young inventor pointed toward the huge volcanic formation. It was now partly hidden from view by swarming fish of all sizes-mackerel, cod, herring, tunny, even a few dolphins and sharks. All were swimming frantically in the same direction, moving gradually upward as if into a narrowing, invisible funnel.

“I d-don’t get it,” Bud stammered in confusion.

“There’s an electric deep-sea fishing rig suspended up there in the water somewhere-it’s the only answer,” Tom said. “The fish are drawn helplessly to the electrode by a process called electrotaxis. When they get close enough, they’re electrocuted and sucked up through a pipe to the fishing vessel. We were too dazed to notice.”