Appleton, Victor – Tom Swift Jr 24 – And His 3D Telejector

Tom conceded gloomily, “It doesn’t add up.”

“What about that letter Q?” Ames went on. “Doesn’t that mean something in electronics?”

“Yes, it’s a technical term, but I doubt if that’s what he meant,” Tom said.

“Maybe it was the first letter of a word he wanted to write.”

Ames nodded. “Well, I’ll have his prints tele-photoed to the FBI right away.

We’ll check him out with Gus Miller, too.”

Tom left. He decided to go directly to his private laboratory. It took up one floor of a modernistic, glass-walled building and was filled with a vast array of scientific equipment.

Here, Tom made three phone calls. Then he connected the tank of space dust to his electrical-control panel. By reversing the polarity of the ionizing rays, he soon neutralized the charge on the metallic mass in the tank.

Presently Dr. Grimsey, Felix Wong, and Arvid Hanson arrived. All three had been working with Tom on his three-dimensional television system. Felix, a round-faced young Chinese-American, was a brilliant engineer. Arv was a genial, hulking craftsman who often turned out the pilot models of Tom’s new inventions.

Tom showed them the space dust and said, “This should provide enough luminescent material until I perfect my light-image circuitry.”

GOVERNMENT MISSION 39

“How do we diffuse the stuff through the air?” Arv queried.

“I have an idea that will enable us to use the same particles over and over again.” Taking a pencil, Tom sketched a system of tubing-an upper rack of tubes to go near the ceiling and a lower rack near the floor. These were connected to a centrifugal air pump.