And His 3-D Telejector, page 8
part #24 of Tom Swift Jr Series
"Glad you made such a fast recovery," Tom said, shaking hands. "Think you're up to going back on the job so soon without a little more rest?"
"Eh?... Oh, rest. No, no, I can't bear to lie idle in a hospital bed. That's why I insisted on going home last night. I'm sure I'll regain my strength faster on the job."
Tom was doubtful, but said, "Well, that's great. Felix and Arv are still in bad shape, so I guess you and I will have to get the probe gear ready. Let's go take a look at those robots."
Dr. Grimsey, who was a lone-wolf type of scientist, had been assigned to a lab of his own at the rear of the building. It was there that he had been working on the ion-propulsion mechanism which would enable the camera-carrying robots to move freely about the Orb. The robots themselves, however, were under construction in a large central workshop area.
Tom and the elderly scientist examined the parts Arv and Felix had been working on. Then Tom suggested looking at the ion-drive generator which had been troubling Dr. Grimsey before he fell ill. But Grimsey, who seemed vague and unsettled, asked that Tom wait until later.
Tom grinned apologetically. "Okay. I didn't mean to rush things. Take it easy and let me know if you need any help on the job."
Tom hurried to his own laboratory and resumed work on the TV camera gear. Late in the day Hank Sterling dropped in, looking puzzled.
"Say, skipper, do you have the blueprints Arv made for those cybernetic controls?"
Tom frowned. "No. Can't you find them?"
Hank shook his head. "We've turned the place upside down, but they've disappeared - just when we need them in production. Arv probably stashed them in some out-of-the-way spot."
"Look, if you're really stuck, I can sketch the stuff out for you," Tom offered.
"No, don't bother - you're up to your neck as it is," Hank said glumly. "We can take the details and dimensions from the pilot model Arv rigged. But it'll sure slow us down."
"That is a tough break. I'm sorry, Hank."
Tom worked until six o'clock, then broke off to go home to dinner. As he was leaving the table, the telephone rang. Tom answered it.
"Remember that letter telling you to lay off your 3-D TV project?" Said a muffled voice.
Tom was instantly alert. "What about it?" He said, waving frantically to draw Sandy's eye.
The unknown caller seemed to read Tom's mind. "Don't bother tracing this number," he said. "I'm calling from a booth far from Shopton and I'll be gone before anyone can get here."
"All right, I get the picture," Tom gritted.
"That dud bomb was just to show you I'm not kidding," the man went on. "Next time you won't get off so easy - if there is a next time."
"Meaning what?"
"I'm hoping you've wised up enough to drop your television project."
"Why should I give up such a gold mine?" Tom stalled, hoping to draw his caller out.
"Don't worry - you'll be well paid for the time you've put into it," the stranger said. "Or, if you don't want to sell, how about a deal to hold your set off the market for five years?"
Tom pretended to consider. "Let's say I'm willing to talk about it."
The caller rose to the bait. He suggested a meeting at ten o'clock that night. After naming a wild, desolate spot, he told Tom to fly over it and watch for a light flashing. "But no trickery, Swift - or you'll regret it!"
Tom heard a click as his caller hung up.
The young inventor replaced the phone on its cradle and stood for a moment in deep thought. Mr. Swift had flown to The Citadel, their atomic research plant in New Mexico, that day, and Tom did not want to worry his mother or Sandy by telling them the situation. Tom always tried to avoid calling Enterprises' employees at their homes, but he decided that Harlan Ames should be informed of the proposed meeting. At once he dialed Ames's number.
The security chief was alarmed at the plan. "It could be a trap, Tom - it's too dangerous."
"Maybe so, Harlan, but it could also be dangerous not to go through with it. If the guy thinks I'm giving him the runaround, he might try another bomb stunt - and someone could get hurt. Besides," Tom argued, "this is a chance to learn his identity, maybe our only chance."
"Did this fellow sound like the other man who called and offered to buy your 3-D TV?"
Tom frowned. "I don't think so. But I have a hunch he is connected with some rival TV manufacturer and not a member of Sturko's gang."
"Take me along," Ames suggested.
"That would be asking for trouble, Harlan. If he spotted you, he might not show himself - there might even be gunplay."
"Then at least radio me an exact fix of the spot before you land," Ames begged.
"He'll probably be monitoring our frequency to check for a double cross," Tom pointed out. "I have another idea-track me on radar."
Ames agreed. Tom drove to the plant and took off in an atomicar. In half an hour he reached the meeting area - a dark, rocky valley fringed with timber. Tom skimmed low. Suddenly a pinpoint of light stabbed upward, then twice more.
Tom brought his atomicar down cautiously and landed it on what appeared to be the bed of a dried-up creek. He got out and looked around.
Suddenly a yellow beam caught him square in the face. Tom stood pinned in the glare. Then the light moved and played over the transparent bubble dome of the flying car.
A man's voice spoke from a clump of rocks and brush. "Hands up, Swift, and walk this way."
Tom obeyed. A figure rose from the brush, but - the glare was too blinding for Tom to see the man's face.
"Turn around!"
Tom complied and the speaker frisked him.
"Now go back and open your car trunk, so I can make sure you've brought no one else along."
Satisfied at last, the man conducted Tom to a car parked off a dirt road nearby. The man forced Tom to take the wheel and climbed in.
"This is a poison-dart gun I'm holding," he added, "so no funny business."
Tom started the car and headed along the road, following his captor's directions. A forty-minute drive brought them to a small Quonset hut nestled among trees. The man took Tom inside and turned on fluorescent lights. The place was a laboratory, crammed with electronic gear, but Tom was more interested in his captor.
The man was red-haired and pudgy with darting, ferrety eyes. "My name is Horst," he said with a nervous smile. "Now that we're face to face, we should be able to talk business."
He named a large sum if Tom would agree to hold his 3-D television off the market. The young inventor stalled and tried to find out what company Horst was representing. Tom's tactics seemed to enrage the red-haired man.
"All right, Swift, you've had your chance!" He snarled. Wild-eyed, he aimed his dart gun at Tom. "Now you'll get what's coming to you!"
CHAPTER XIV
THE HIDDEN KEY
TOM froze, expecting Horst to fire. Instead, the red-haired man backed out of the lab and slammed the door. A key turned.
Pale and perspiring, Tom rushed to the door. It was too solid to break down and the formidable-looking lock appeared pickproof. The sound of a car engine told him that Horst was driving away.
Tom stood still, wiping his damp forehead. He was a prisoner miles from the spot where he had landed. Even though Ames had tracked him on radar, it might take hours or days for police to comb the area and locate the Quonset hut.
"But there must be some way to get out of here," Tom thought, glancing around. The laboratory was windowless, its walls lined with workbenches and racks of equipment. Suddenly Tom grinned. His pencil radio lacked sufficient range to contact Enterprises. But what was to prevent him from making a two-way radio with a far more powerful transmitter?
"It should be a cinch with all the electronic gear around here!" Tom thought. He began to search for parts. Suddenly Tom started as a voice spoke in the Quonset hut: "This is Horst calling Tom Swift!"
Tom quickly spotted the source - a small radio receiver on a cluttered workbench.
Horst's voice was edgy, almost hysterical. "I-• I've been under a great strain. I was afraid all my years of work would be wasted because of your 3-D TV, so I wanted to keep it off the market. Now I know it's hopeless. I must have been out of my mind to resort to that bomb scare and - and what I planned for tonight."
What had Horst planned? Tom wondered.
As if in answer, Horst said, "Look under the workbench on which this radio is standing - quickly! You'll find a bomb attached underneath. It's set to go off in a few minutes."
Tom darted to the workbench. The bomb was there! With trembling fingers he disarmed it.
Horst went on shakily, "I couldn't go through with murder. I'll tell you how to get out. All I ask is time to elude the police.
"Look in my safe," he said. "The combination is ten right, left twenty-one, two right. Believe me, it's not a booby trap. There are papers inside. Under them you'll find a key that will open the lab door. . . . I'm signing off now, but please give me time to escape."
The radio loudspeaker fell silent.
Tom hesitated. Horst's weird outburst had taken him by surprise. Was the business with the safe another deadly trick! Tom doubted it. Horst already had passed up two chances to kill him - with a dart gun or the bomb - so why bother with a booby-trapped safe routine?
But Tom proceeded warily. He took an insulated wire from the workbench, fastened one end to a water pipe, and touched the other to the safe dial. There was no spark.
"It's not electrified," Tom thought. He twirled the combination. Then he used the same wire and attached it to the safe door. Stepping well back, he tugged the door open.
"So far, so good," Tom muttered. He peered into the safe. It contained papers and blueprints. Tom lifted them out. A click sounded. Tom listened but could hear nothing more.
"Whew. . . Well, there's the key!"
Tom plucked it out, strode across the laboratory, and tried the key in the lock. It worked! In a second he had the door open.
"Wow! What a relief!" Tom said to himself as he stepped out into the fresh night air.
Suddenly Tom stared in surprise. The car he had come in with Horst was parked where they had left it! Apparently the red-haired fugitive had had another car concealed nearby.
"This one must be a stolen car," Tom decided. "Horst probably used it, so that in case of a hitch I couldn't trace his license number. It's a break for me. Now I won't have to hike back."
Tom was confident his captor had had no time to tamper with the car. But he gave it a quick inspection. The key was in the ignition. Satisfied that the car was safe to drive, Tom hopped in and sped back to the landing site.
His watch showed a few minutes to twelve when he reached the atomicar. "Just in time," Tom thought. Midnight was the deadline when Ames would launch a search if Tom had not reported. The young inventor contacted Ames over the atomicar radio and told what had happened.
"The guy sounds like a nut!" The security chief snorted. "Are you sure there's not more to this than meets the eye, skipper?"
"I'm wondering that myself," Tom confessed uneasily. "The whole thing panned out too -"
"Too neatly, you mean?" A third person's voice cut in on the conversation.
"Horst!" Tom exclaimed with a gasp.
"Quite right, my dear Swift. You're also right in thinking everything was carefully staged!" A cackle of glee came over the radio.
"What's your game, mister?" Ames exploded.
"When Swift removed those papers from my safe," Horst said, "he heard a click. Right?"
"What about it?" Tom said.
"The noise was from the shutter of a hidden camera. It snapped you in the act of stealing the plans for my new 3-D television system."
"Your 3-D system?" Tom blurted in dismay.
"Exactly," Horst replied gloatingly. "I am now back at my lab and your fingerprints are on the dial of my safe. I could call the police and charge you with safe-cracking!. . . Moreover, you've stolen my car and your prints are on that, too. You fell into my trap, Swift, and now I have you right where I want you!"
Tom set his jaw. "What's this leading up to?"
"A deal," Horst said. "Sell your 3-D system or sign a contract to hold it off the market for five years. The terms will be generous. If you refuse, I'll say you stole my plans and smear your name all over the headlines."
Tom choked back his rage. "You want a Yes or No answer right now?"
Horst chuckled. "I know the answer, Swift - it has to be Yes. You'll hear from me later about the contract details."
Grim-faced, Tom flew back to the plant for a midnight conference with Harlan Ames.
"Surely he can't get away with this," Tom fumed, stalking up and down. "It's blackmail!"
"The police will never swallow it," Ames agreed. "But once Horst gives out his story, Tom, you're sunk. He has your prints on his safe and a photo of you lifting out plans. A lot of people are bound to believe his tale. Enterprises' good name could be ruined."
"What can we do, Harlan?"
"Horst must be tied up with some rival manufacturer," Ames reasoned. "Probably the same outfit behind that anonymous phone call."
"Any leads on that yet?" Tom asked.
"Just one. The private operatives I hired say Teletron, Incorporated, is rumored to have a stereo TV in the tooling-up stage. Their set will give a three-dimensional depth to the screen, but viewers must wear special glasses."
"Who's the head of the company?" Asked Tom.
"A man named Alan Fosburg."
"We'll have a talk with him first thing in the morning," the young inventor decided.
At eight a. M. Tom and Ames took off by helijet for Teletron's main plant. Fosburg, a big, balding man, received them in his office. Tom came straight to the point. In cold, angry words he told of the phone call offering to buy his new 3-D TV system, and Horst's attempts to frighten and blackmail him into a deal.
Fosburg was red-faced and perspiring. "I'll admit I was the one who made that phone call," he confessed. "But I had a good reason."
"Name it!" Ames snapped.
"Horst is a free-lance electronics engineer. He invented a stereo-vision TV set which Teletron was going to produce," Fosburg explained. "Then we learned Tom Swift was working on a new 3-D system. Our set would have been outdated even before it hit the market. In desperation I T22 3-D TELEJECTOR made that anonymous call, hoping to swing some deal that would save the money we had sunk into tooling up for the stereo-vision set."
"And when that failed," Tom said accusingly, "you sicked Horst himself on me."
"No! Absolutely not!" Fosburg insisted. "Teletron is a reputable firm. Once I found out you wouldn't sell, we simply canceled our production plans for the stereo set. Believe me, I knew nothing of Horst's plot."
Tom and Ames exchanged frowning glances.
"Could be," the security chief admitted. "Horst probably hoped to get rich off his royalties from Teletron. When production was canceled, he may have gone ahead on his own, trying to bulldoze you off the market."
The telephone rang. Fosburg answered. Suddenly his eyes widened. He put his hand over the mouthpiece and looked up at Tom and Ames.
"It's Horst!" Fosburg whispered. "He wants to see me. Says he has big news."
Tom's brain worked fast. "Are you willing to help expose Horst?" Fosburg nodded vigorously. "Then ask him to come here after lunch."
At one-thirty the red-haired engineer was ushered into Fosburg's office. The company president smilingly invited him to sit down.
"You have good news?" Fosburg asked.
"The best." Horst beamed gloatingly. "I've persuaded Swift to make a deal. You can buy the rights to his set or make a deal with him to hold back till you've flooded the market with our own stereo-vision TV. Either way, it leaves us a clear field to start production!"
Fosburg chuckled. "Terrific, Horst! You must be a slick operator. What kind of - er - persuasion did you use?"
Horst's ferrety eyes twinkled. "Between the two of us, I put young Mr. Swift right behind the eight ball! He has to deal with us now."
Convinced that the company president would approve of his trickery, Horst began to boast about how he had trapped Tom into opening the safe.
"And here's a picture of him - caught right in the act of stealing my plans!" Gleefully Horst unzipped the leather case he was carrying and produced an enlarged, glossy photograph.
"Thanks for making a full confession!" Said a voice that sent a chill down Horst's spine. The engineer gasped as Tom Swift and a slim, stern-eyed man walked into the office.
CHAPTER XV
A BLAZE IN THE DARK
TOM addressed Horst coldly. "Allow me to present Enterprises' security chief - you heard his voice over the radio."
Horst's face had gone pasty white. His ferrety eyes darted to Fosburg. "What's the big idea? If this is some kind of double cross -"
"Don't use that word to me," Fosburg retorted. "I had no part in your blackmail scheme. You've just convicted yourself by boasting about it."
Horst licked his lips nervously. "Don't be a fool," he argued. "This changes nothing. We can, still make a fortune on my stereo-vision TV! I have enough on Swift to shut him up. They'll never be able to prove I framed him."
"That's what you think," Ames growled. "Play back the video tape for him, Tom."
The young inventor tugged a cord, pulling aside some draperies. Behind them stood his 3-D camera and telejector. Tom flicked a switch to reverse the reel of tape, then adjusted several knobs on the machines, set a small loudspeaker in position, and started the telejector.
As if by magic, two other persons appeared in the room! Horst's eyes bulged. One of the persons was his own double - the other an image of Fosburg at his desk. The televised scene began at the moment Horst took a chair.
"You have good news?" Fosburg's image asked.
"The best," replied Horst's ghostly double. "I've persuaded Swift to make a deal."
The blackmailer's face began to ooze perspiration as the scene unreeled. Presently the tape reached a point where Horst was boasting: "Then, after I gave Swift enough time to disarm the bomb, I told him to look in the safe and gave him the combination." The image burst into chuckles. "The poor sap didn't know I had a hidden camera rigged to--"
