CHAPTER VI
BRUNGARIAN COUP
Tom, Sandy, and Bud listened as the radio announcer continued:
"Reports just in say that Brungaria has been taken over by a rebelgroup. Military aid to support the rebel coup is pouring in fromMaurevia, Brungaria's powerful province in the north. The Brungarianprime minister, his cabinet, and all loyal administrative personnel havefled or been arrested.
"Worried United States State Department officials admit that thesurprise coup poses a new and dangerous threat to free-world security.Further news reports will be broadcast as soon as they reach thisstation," the announcer ended.
For a moment Tom and Bud were too stunned to speak. Sandy was wide-eyedwith the realization that the news spelled trouble for Swift Enterprisesand all America.
"Looks as though that CIA man who briefed us wasn't kidding, eh,skipper?" Bud muttered at last.
"It came sooner than he expected!" Tom said.
Jumping up from the table, Tom switched off the radio and hurried to thehall telephone. In a few moments he managed to get a long-distance callthrough to Wes Norris of the FBI.
"Is the news on this Brungarian coup as bad as it sounds, Wes?" Tominquired.
"Worse! That rebel bunch really has it in for us, as you know, Tom,"Norris replied. "They envy America and they'll move heaven and earth tosteal our scientific secrets. This could touch off a whole epidemic ofsabotage and other spy activity!"
Tom's jaw clenched grimly. He then asked the FBI man his opinion aboutthe discovery of the secret arms cache in Pete Latty's basement.
Norris admitted he was puzzled. "It doesn't add up, Tom," the FBI agentsaid thoughtfully. "If our enemies were planning to destroy Shopton by aquake, why would anyone be needing a gun?"
"I can't figure it myself, Wes--unless they were planning to raid andloot Enterprises after the place was thrown into disorder," Tom deduced."What about Narko himself? Has he talked yet?"
Norris replied that although he had not interviewed Narko himself, FBIagents who had grilled the spy had failed to elicit any information.
"Here's something else, though, which might interest you," Norris wenton. "We now have reports that at the time of the Harkness and Medfielddisasters, seismographs recorded simultaneous quakes off the coast ofAlaska near the Aleutian chain. Tremors were also felt off the southwestcoast of South America."
A new factor to consider! Tom frowned in puzzlement as he hung up thetelephone after completing his talk with the FBI man.
After Tom had repeated the conversation to his companions, Bud said,"You mean the H-bomb idea goes out the window?"
Tom shrugged. "Wes says they've found no evidence to support the theoryof man-produced underground blasts. It just doesn't jibe with thoseother remote tremors. They'd be too much of a coincidence, happening atthe same time!"
"Then the quakes at Harkness and Medfield were real earthquakes!" Sandyput in.
"Looks that way," Tom admitted. "Those other tremors Wes mentionedfollow a natural circum-Pacific belt which is well known toseismologists. I'm no expert, but perhaps they could have set off chainreactions below the earth's crust which triggered the two quakes in thispart of the country."
In that case, the young inventor reflected, it was only a freak ofnature that the Faber and nose-cone factories had been wrecked by theshock. But in spite of the seismographic clues, Tom was not entirelyconvinced. A nagging doubt still buzzed in the back of his mind.
The next morning Tom hurried off to his private glass-walled laboratoryat Enterprises, eager to continue work on his container, or robot body,for the brain from space.
Tom frowned as he studied the rough sketch he had drawn in his officethe afternoon before. "This setup's full of bugs!" he muttered.
Nevertheless, Tom decided, the basic idea was sound. Grabbing pencil andslide rule, he began to dash off page after page of diagrams andequations.
"Chow down!" boomed a foghorn voice. Chow Winkler, wearing a whitechef's hat, wheeled a lunch cart into the lab.
"Oh... thanks." Tom scarcely looked up from his work as the cook setout an appetizing meal of Texas hash, milk, and deep-dish apple pie onthe bench beside the young inventor's papers. Grumbling under hisbreath, Chow sauntered out.
Tom went on working intently between mouthfuls. In another hour hefinished a set of pilot drawings. Then he called Hank Sterling and ArvidHanson and asked them to come to the laboratory.
They listened with keen interest as Tom explained his latest creation.
"No telling if it will work when the energy arrives from space," Tomsaid, "but I think everything tracks okay. Hank, get these plansblueprinted and assign an electronics group to the project. You'd betterhandle the hardware yourself."
"Right." Hank rolled up the sketches.
"And, Arv," Tom went on, "I'd like a scale model made to guide them onassembly. How soon can you have it?"
Hanson promised the model for some time the next day, and the two menhurried off.
As usual, Arv proved slightly better than his word. The expertmodelmaker was devoted to his craft and as apt to forget the clock asTom himself, when absorbed in a new project. By working on in his shoplong after closing hours, Hanson had a desk-size model of thespace-brain robot ready for Tom's inspection when the young inventorarrived at the plant early the following morning.
"Wonderful, Arv!" Tom approved. "Every time I see one of your models ofa new invention, I'm _sure_ it'll work!" Hanson grinned, pleased at thecompliment.
Tom hopped into a jeep and sped across the plant grounds to deliver themodel to Hank Sterling and his project crew. Work was already well alongon the electronic subassemblies and the strange-looking "body" wastaking shape.
That afternoon Ames and Dilling returned from Washington. The reportthey gave to Tom bore out his hunch that the rebel Brungarian scientistsmight well be able to divert the space energy.
The next day was Friday. Tom was hoping, although none toooptimistically, that the container might be completed before the weekend. To his delight, an Enterprises pickup truck pulled up outside thelaboratory later that afternoon and Hank rolled the queer-looking deviceinside.
"Hi, buster!" Tom greeted it. "Is this your daddy?"
Hank chuckled. "Don't look at me. It claims _you're_ its daddy. Buthanged if I can see much resemblance!"
"Think it'll live?"
"If not," Hank replied, only half jokingly, "the boys who worked on itwill sure be disappointed. No kidding, skipper, that's quite a gadgetyou dreamed up!"
The device stood about shoulder-high, with a star-shaped head, one pointof which could be opened. The head would contain the actual brainenergy. Its upper body, cylindrical in shape and of gleaming chrome,housed the output units through which the brain would react, and alsothe controls. Antennas projecting out on either side gave the look ofarms.
Its "waist" was girdled with a ring of repelatron radiators for exertinga repulsion force when it wanted to move, by repelling itself away fromnearby objects.
Below the repelatrons was an hourglass-shaped power unit, housing asolar-charged battery.
The power unit, in turn, was mounted on a pancake-shaped transportationunit. This unit was equipped with both casters and a sort ofcaterpillar-crawler arrangement for the contrivance to get about overobstacles. Inside was a gyro-stabilizer to keep the whole deviceupright.
Tom felt a glow of pride--and eager impatience--as he inspected thedevice. If it worked as he hoped, this odd creature might one dayprovide earth scientists with a priceless store of information aboutintelligent life on Planet X!
Bud and Chow, entering the laboratory soon after Hank Sterling had left,found Tom still engrossed in his thoughts.
"Wow! Is this your spaceman?" Bud inquired.
Tom nodded, then grinned at his callers' gaping expressions. Each wastrying to imagine how the "thing" would look in action.
"Sure is a queer-lookin' buckaroo!" Chow commented, when Tom finishedexplaining how it was supposed to work.
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On a sudden impulse, the old cowpoke took off his ten-gallon hat andplumped it on the creature. Then he removed his polka-dotted redbandanna and knotted it like a neckerchief just below the star head.
Tom laughed heartily as Bud howled, "Ride 'em, spaceman!"
Tom was eager to notify his mysterious space friends that the containerwas now ready to receive the brain energy. Bud went with him by jeep tothe space-communications laboratory. Chow, however, stayed behind andstared in fascination at the odd-looking robot creature.
The stout cook walked back and forth, eying the thing suspiciously fromevery angle. "Wonder what the critter eats?" he muttered.
Feeling in his shirt pocket, Chow brought out a wad of his favoritebubble gum. Should he or shouldn't he? "Shucks, won't hurt to try," theold Texan decided.
Chow unlocked the hinged point of the star head and popped the guminside. He was somewhat disappointed when nothing happened. Feeling atrifle foolish, Chow finally removed his hat and bandanna from thecreature and stumped off.
Meanwhile, in the space-communications laboratory, Tom was pounding outa message on the keyboard of the electronic brain. Tom had invented thisdevice for automatically coding and decoding messages between the Swiftsand their space friends. It was connected to a powerfultransmitting-and-receiving apparatus, served by a huge radio-telescopeantenna mounted atop the communications building.
Bud looked on as Tom signaled:
TOM SWIFT TO SPACE FRIENDS. CONTAINER FOR ENERGY IS NOW READY. SHOULD IT BE PLACED OUTDOORS?
Stirred by a worrisome afterthought, Tom added:
MESSAGES MAY BE INTERCEPTED BY ENEMY WHO WISHES TO STEAL ENERGY. SUGGEST YOU USE FLIGHT PATH TO LAND EXACTLY TWO MILES WEST OF FIRST CONTACT WITH US.
"By 'first contact,' you mean when that black missile landed atEnterprises?" Bud asked.
Tom nodded. At that time, he reminded Bud, the Brungarians and theirconquerors had not yet learned of the Swifts' communication from anotherplanet. Hence they would have no idea of the site referred to--whichwould hamper any plans to kidnap the brain energy.
"I get it," Bud said. "Smart idea, pal!"
Tensely the two boys waited for a reply from outer space.