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

54

THE FRIGHTENED FROGMAN 55

Tom came awake with a painful effort. “Those crazy noises!” he thought.

Then he realized the sounds were coming over the radio-high-pitched squeals, buzzing, and raucous beeps!

Tom grabbed the mike. “Challenger to basel” he exclaimed. “Can you read me?”

“We read you-loud and clear,” Billing’s voice replied. “Are you all right, skipper?”

“I-I guess so. … But what was that racket on the radio? Someone jamming our frequency?”

Tom could hear Billing chuckle with relief. “We were just trying to jam you awake. You must have blacked out. What about the others aboard -are they okay, too?”

Tom glanced around. His crewmates were moving groggily. They seemed to be fighting to regain consciousness as if they, too, had been roused by the piercing radio noises. But their heavy-lidded eyes looked ready to close again.

Tom shook himself as he felt the same drowsiness as before dulling his brain. “Over for now, George,” he mumbled into the microphone. “We’d b-better clear out of here p-p-pronto!”

Leaden-fingered, Tom fumbled at the controls, setting a course back to base.

Then he sagged against his seat belt as the Challenger veered from the Orb and streaked earthward again.

Twenty minutes later the astronauts began to revive-Tom and Bud first, then Hank Sterling, the radarman, and finally Chow.

“What happened?” Bud wanted to know.

56 3-D TELEJECTOR

“Something made us pass out,” Tom replied. “We were in a state of induced sleep.”

Tom checked the rest of the spaceship’s crew by intercom. All had revived.