Tom Swift and His Deep Sea Hydrodome Read Online Free Page B

"Besides, I’m holding the cut-off button in my hand. If you feel anything vital melting, let me know!"
    "I’ll do that," replied the young pilot. "My signal will be a high-pitched shriek."
    Sealing the test chamber the youths withdrew to positions in front of the observation window and Tom activated the all-frequency wave generator at its lowest power setting. There was no detectable response from the Lunite sample. After examining some monitoring instruments, he began to gradually increase the generex output, upping the power click by click.
    "Tom, d-do you feel something?" Bud asked. "Kind of a tickling sensation?"
    "No I don’t," replied the scientist-inventor absently, deeply concentrating on his work. "But the polarization scanners are showing some kind of field activity in the air around the rock sample. This could be an important clue to how that gravity device works, Bud." He touched a control knob. "Hmm! Getting a big response to slight frequency changes… and the field seems to be expanding."
    He touched the knob again.
    Suddenly a sharp, distant sound caused both Bud and Tom to look behind them, toward the locked laboratory door. "What was that?" Bud demanded. "You heard it too!"
    Tom nodded. "Sounds like someone talking loud, Bud, that’s all. Nothing to worry about." But at Bud’s nervous urging Tom shut down the generex and took a look out into the hall.
    "I mighta knowed!" exclaimed a foghorn voice. "You’re at one o’ them experiments o’ yours agin, sure as shootin’!"
    The voice issued from the generously sized mouth and double-chinned throat of Chow Winkler, a hefty older man who was not only chef to Tom and the rest of the Enterprises senior staff, but a close personal friend who never failed to lift the young inventor’s spirits.
    "What’s wrong, Chow?" Tom called to the ex-Texan, who stood several doors down in the building hallway, a tray in hand.
    "Brand my jumpin’ beans, why ast me?" grumped the cook. "Not like I know anythin’ about this here scientistical foolishness." He strode closer to Tom and Bud on his high-heeled western boots, and held out his tray for them to examine. "Look’t that salt-shaker! Whatter y’see, boys?"
    A large glass salt shaker stood in the middle of the tray. "I, er, don’t see anything, Chow," Bud said. Tom nodded his agreement, eyebrows raised.
    "Durn straight, a-cause they’s nothin’ to see! Here I am, walkin’ along, bringin’ a nice little afternoon snack t’ Franzenberg and his gang, when all of a sudden blame if’n my salt shaker don’t decide to jump up in the air like a hop-toad!"
    "Jump in the air? What do you mean?" Tom asked.
    "Mean what I say, boss. Jumped right up off’n the tray. If’n I warn’t so quick on the draw, she’d o’ shot right acrosst into the wall. But I snagged her with m’ right hand."
    "Well, pard," said Tom soothingly, "maybe you just took a misstep, or bumped against—"
    "Nawp!" Chow insisted. "Nothin’ like that—jest took off on its own. And then when I grabbed it, all th’ dang salt went flyin’ away!"
    Bud gave a half-shrug. "Too bad. Got all over the floor, hm?"
    The westerner’s face turned almost as red as the scarf around his neck. "Buddy boy, yew jest don’t get it! I didn’t say fallin’, I said flyin’! Tom, that there salt sprayed right through them little holes like they’s jet-propelled, ever’ bit of it! An’ that’s the last I saw of it!"
    Tom took a moment to examine the floor and walls of the hallway, rubbing a wetted finger along them.
    Bud asked, "Anything there? Ghostly ectoplasm, maybe?"
    Tom gave a tentative shake of his head, but frowned thoughtfully. "If there’s any salt here, it’s not a shaker-full—just a few grains here and there."
    "No surprise," Chow pronounced. "That salt was flyin’ like no tomorrow. Must be half-way down th’ hall and out the door!"
    Tom had no answer to the mystery. "I don’t see how my running tests on Lunite could have affected your salt