"Appleton, Victor - Tom Swift Jr 07 - And His Diving Seacopter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Appleton Victor)

TOM SWIFT AND HIS DIVING SEACOPTER


CHAPTER I
THE STOLEN CODE

"It's gone! Stolen!" cried Tom Swift in dismay. The tall, young inventor was
digging frantically through the drawers of his office desk, scattering papers and
blueprints.
"That's impossible!" exclaimed his father, who was searching through his
own desk. "The space dictionary was here only yesterday. Did you see it, Bud?"
Mr. Swift asked the tall, dark-haired, eighteen-year-old pilot who had just walked
in.
"No, Mr. Swift," Bud Barclay replied. Walking over to Tom, Bud grinned.
"What could I do with all those symbols you and your dad use to communicate
with space beings? Webster's dictionary is tough enough for me!"
Ordinarily Tom would have smiled, but now he was very serious. "Bud," said
the blond-haired boy, "this may be a matter of life and death."
2 DIVING SEACOPTER
"Good night! I didn't realize that. Don't forget I just flew in from Frisco this
morning."
"Okay," Tom said with a wry smile. "This is the story. Our mysterious space
friends are planning to send us a rocket with planetary life aboard."
"What!"
"Yes. And any day now. We're waiting for a message about when it will land
at Enterprises and we're to tell them if the time is okay. That's why we need the
space dictionary so desperately."
Bud gulped. "Smokin" rockets! If someone else on Earth should send phony
signals to these space people, they might drop the rocket in the wrong place!"
"Exactly," said Tom as he paced back and forth.
For months, the Swifts had been in touch with friendly beings from another
planet. The first message had been received in the form of a strange black
meteorlike missile which had plunged onto the grounds of the Swift Enterprises
experimental station.
Later, other messages had been picked up by oscilloscope in the form of
weird mathematical symbols. Tom and his father had decoded these and had
sent return messages over a powerful transmitter. In time, Mr. Swift had compiled
a list of these symbols and their meanings in what he termed a space dictionary.
Now these mysterious beings were about to launch a rocket in order to send
the Swifts a sam-
THE STOLEN CODE 3
pie of their type of life. In turn, the two inventors were to relay instructions
about how the friendly planeteers might survive Earth's atmosphere. Then they
would visit this planet. With the space dictionary gone, however, the entire
project might take a different twist with disastrous results.
Bud gave a low whistle. "Have you any hunch about who might have taken
the dictionary?"
Tom and his father exchanged troubled glances before the younger inventor
replied, "The last outsider in this office, so far as we know, was Mun-son
Wickliffe."