"Appleton, Victor - Tom Swift Jr 10 - And His Ultrasonic Cycloplane" - читать интересную книгу автора (Appleton Victor)

do any mischief to the plane.
Tom was baffled. If none of his men was the saboteur, then who had been
doing the hammering? Unfriendly natives, perhaps? Natives who had already
captured Bud and Hank, and were even now keeping watch on the rescue party?
But wild tribesmen would have damaged the Flying Lab in some cruder
fashion, Tom reflected. It was a mystifying problem.
"Just to be on the safe side, we'd better search the plane for stowaways," he
announced. "Arv, you take charge, will you? Slim and I will go back to work on
the engine."
Hanson responded with a quick salute, "Righto, skipper!"
Twenty minutes later he reported, "Tom, we've been over every inch of the
ship. No one's hiding on board."
"Okay, Arv. Thanks." Tom laid down a beryllium wrench and wiped a smear
of grease off his face with his sleeve. "By the way, we've spotted the trouble." He
held up a length of copper tubing. It was part of the servo-control hookup to the
jet-lifter throttle. "Someone crimped the line with a pair of pliers," he explained
tersely.
42 ULTRASONIC CYCLOPLANE
Hanson's eyes widened in dismay. "Then it was sabotage!"
"No doubt about it. Whoever did this planned the whole thing ahead of time
and installed a dummy fitting to hide the damage." Tom said no more, though he
was greatly worried. A highly skilled technician, possibly a white man, was back
of the sabotage.
After replacing the length of tubing, he took the Sky Queen up for a brief test
flight. This time, the mammoth ship checked out perfectly. Since the jungle was
now shrouded in darkness, Tom felt that further searching that day would be
fruitless. They would continue in the morning. He brought the ship down and
arranged for guards during the night. There were no visitors, however.
Mist still drifted among the trees when the Sky Queen soared aloft at dawn.
With Slim as copilot, Tom headed eastward to the spot that Bud had indicated in
his frantic radio call. For half an hour they cruised back and forth over the area
without spotting the wreckage.
Finally Tom said, "I think our best bet is a storm area." Suddenly he pointed
off to starboard, where a mass of dark clouds blotted out the landscape. "That
may be it, Slim!"
Banking sharply, Tom steered straight for the area of heavy weather. As they
plowed through the overcast, two towering volcanic peaks loomed up ahead!
Chow, who had come forward to the flight
JUNGLE ESCAPE 43
compartment with Hedron and two other members of the rescue party,
gulped nervously. "Brand my ripcord, I sure hope you know where you're goin',
Tom!"
"Bud and Hank may have crashed between those peaks or just beyond,"
Tom replied coolly. "I want a closer look."
As they entered the turbulent storm area, the giant ship began to buck and
shudder violently. Tom seemed to lose control of the Sky Queen.
Chow yelled in panic, "We're goin' to crash!"
CHAPTER VI
BETWEEN VOLCANOES
THE FACES of Tom's crewmen blanched with alarm. But the young inventor