Tom returned to the flight compartment. As he removed his space helmet he said to Bud, “Take her down, fly-boy. Dad’s new collector worked great. We have enough Stardust for half a dozen 3-D television shows!”
Twilight had fallen by the time the Challenger landed on Fearing Island.
Before returning to the mainland, Tom jeeped to base communications for a word with George Dilling, Enterprises’ lanky radio chief. Tom told him what Ahlgren had said about radio difficulties, then asked, “Have you experienced any trouble, George?”
“We sure have,” Dilling reported. “There’s no particular pattern to it, but we’ve had freak transmission, or have been knocked off the air at least twenty times in the past few days.”
With the space-dust collector loaded aboard their Whirling Duck, Tom and Bud started back to Enterprises. The jet whistled westward across the water in the gathering darkness. Minutes later, they were approaching the lighted ribbon of highway that ran past the experimental plant into the town of Shopton.
Bud gasped. “Roarin’ rockets! Am I seeing things?”
A radiant green ball was floating low in the sky!
Q 31
It was hovering between Enterprises and the outskirts of town. Its weird radiance shed a greenish glow over the whole area.
Tom was as astounded as Bud. He slowed throttle and extended the rotors, then cautiously steered toward the glowing sphere.
Both boys burst out laughing! The green ball was a moored balloon, coated with phosphorescent paint. It bore the words: EAT AT THE GREEN ORB
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