Tom had kept contact with Fearing throughout the flight. Now he began to radio back a report of the orbital maneuver. Absorbed, Tom failed to notice his crewmates’ silence.
Suddenly Bud slumped forward against the instrument panel. The copilot was unconscious!
“Help him, Hank!” Tom looked around and gasped in dismay. Chow had sunk to the floor. Hank and the radarman were leaning against the bulkhead, eyes closed, on the verge of collapse.
Tom checked the rest of the crew by intercom. No answer! “Tom to base!
Something’s happening to the crew!” he radioed frantically. “D-don’t know what’s wrong… . They … they’ve passed out!”
Tom’s eyes felt heavy. An overpowering drowsiness enveloped him. He fought to stay awake, then suddenly sagged in the pilot’s seat!
CHAPTER VII
THE FRIGHTENED FROGMAN
AT the tracking center on Fearing Island, George Billing and his crew waited tensely.
“Base to Tom! Come in, please! … Fearing calling Challenger! Can you read us?” Again and again Billing spoke into his headset mike.
The tracking technicians sat at their consoles in anxious suspense. “Tom must have blacked out, too!” an aide murmured to Billing.
Meanwhile, a deathlike silence reigned in the Challenger’s flight compartment. The ship circled soundlessly about the Green Orb with no hand at the controls.
Moments later, Tom stirred in the pilot’s seat. He felt as if a whining dentist’s drill were at work in his brain, piercing through thick layers of fog. The drill changed to a buzz saw, then to a wildly shrieking banshee as fire trucks raced toward him, sirens wide open. A giant alarm clock exploded and kept on shrilling insanely.