Into the Abyss (Tom Swift, Young Inventor) (4 page)

“And
you
?” Yo asked me.

I crossed my fingers. “I’m hoping,” I said.

They both knew what I meant. This was the perfect chance to test out my Swift Kick Shark Zapper
and
my deep-sea diving suit, under real world conditions.

“When is the ship sailing?” Bud asked.

“Next week, on Tuesday. I know it’s kind of last-minute, but my dad only told me about it this morning.”

“What makes you think they’d take me and Bud?” Yo asked. “I mean, we’d be pretty useless to them—just dead weight.”

She looked over at Bud, who’s not overweight—except that he’d just eaten about four scoops of ice cream, and his stomach was sticking up like a beached whale under his shirt.

Bud nodded toward the empty tureen that had
held the Kitchen Sink Sundae. “A whole
lot
of dead weight,” he said.

“Really, Tom,” Yo said. “Why would they agree to take us? We’d be worse than useless.”

“No you wouldn’t,” I told her. “But I’m sure they could use your help on their computers, Yo—you’re so great at that stuff. And Bud—well, there’s a whale of a story there for the
Gazette
, right?”

They looked at me with raised eyebrows.

“Besides, you wouldn’t be useless to
me
,” I went on. “Have you forgotten already? You guys saved my life last night.”

Yo blinked. “Oh. Yeah. We did, didn’t we? Hah. I guess you’re right—we’d better come with you to keep an eye on you and make sure you don’t do anything stupid.”

“That’s the spirit,” I said, patting her shoulder. “Besides, I already asked my dad if you could come, and he said yes.” I turned to Bud. “You in?”

Bud didn’t hesitate. “Hey, man,” he said, “I can’t swim that well, and I’m scared of sharks, not to mention drowning, but a chance to watch deep-sea exploration up close and personal? I wouldn’t miss it—not for ten Kitchen Sinks.”

“How come
I
don’t get to go with Dad on the ship?”

My sister Sandy was sitting across the breakfast table from me, holding her cereal spoon in her hand like she was going to start banging it on the table.

Sandy is a year younger than me, and she always has to do everything I get to do. She can be a real pain sometimes, but I’ll tell you, there’s no better basic research scientist at Swift Enterprises—or anywhere else, for that matter. Sandy is a huge brain, with a photographic memory on top of it, and sometimes, that makes her even more of a pain.

“I’m going because I have some new inventions I want to try out,” I explained.

Oh, yeah? Like what?”

I told her about the diving suit and the shark zapper.

“Those don’t sound so great,” she said, stirring the milk in her bowl in search of one last corn flake. “I think I should get to go this time.”

“And what, try out your newest mathematical theorem?”

Sandy stamped her feet. “I
never
get to go anywhere or do anything cool!”

“Sandy,” Mom said, coming into the kitchen,
“finish your breakfast and stop pestering your brother. You know you went with me to New York last spring for the international sculpture exhibition.”

Mom is a well-known sculptor herself. She specializes in those huge prehistoric animals you see at museums of natural history.

Sandy made a face. She knew she had no argument. In New York she and Mom had gone to two Broadway shows, seen three real-live movie stars crossing the street, and bumped into two Nobel Prize—winning scientists in an elevator.

“Tom, you haven’t eaten a thing,” Mom said. “Aren’t you hungry?”

“Not really. I’m actually kind of tired, to tell you the truth.”

“Oh? Is something the matter?”

“No, I’m fine—I was just up most of the night, working on the diving suit’s control panel,” I said. “I still haven’t gotten it quite right.”

She leaned over and kissed me on the forehead. “Well, don’t worry, you will. You always do in the end, when you put your mind to it.”

“Hmph,” Sandy grunted. “His calculations are probably off.”

“Sandy,” Mom said, “you know, I’m going to Washington this weekend for a show at the Smithsonian Institution. Would you like to come along?”

That got her. Sandy dropped her spoon right in the milk, sending a shower up that got her shirt—not that she even noticed. “Awesome! Mom, that is so cool—I can really come with you?”

“Uh-huh,” Mom said, chuckling softly.

“So there,” Sandy said, sticking her tongue out at me. “Now who’s jealous?”

I sat there and didn’t say anything. I was glad for Sandy. She’d have a ball in D.C., going to science museums, visiting NASA, and jogging past the White House (she’s a star on the school track team).

And I could prepare for my ocean research voyage in peace.

I only hoped the diving suit and the zapper would be ready on time—and would perform the way they were supposed to. If not … well, I didn’t even want to think about that.

The following Tuesday, Bud, Yo and I met at four a.m. at the Shopton Bay Marina, and boarded a small dinghy that took us out into the bay, where the Swift
Enterprises research vessel
Nestor
was waiting.

Bud gripped the seat with both hands as the little dinghy rocked forward and back. He looked terrified.

“What’s the matter with you?” Yo asked him. “Haven’t you ever been on a boat before?”

Bud’s eyes shifted left and right. “Um, not really,” he said. “Does a rowboat on the lake count?”

Oh, boy,
I thought.
Maybe inviting Bud and Yo along wasn’t such a great idea.

Oh, well. It was too late to turn back now.

The sky was still dark as we climbed aboard the
Nestor
. But in the east, there was a faint hint of purple—the dawn on its way.

This ship is so
small
!” Yo whispered.

“It’s not a cruise ship, Yo,” I reminded her. “It’s a research vessel. See all the radar dishes?”

“Cruise ships have those too,” she said.

“Don’t expect cruise ship food, either,” I warned her.

“No?”

“No. It’s probably more like the school cafeteria.”

“Eeeew!”

I shook my head. If Yo was really expecting a cruise, she was going to be bitterly disappointed.

I worried about Bud, too. He was all excited about the research, but he’d never been at sea before. I was afraid he might get seasick.

I myself had been on the
Nestor
once, but not for a sail. As far as I was concerned, this trip was going to be totally awesome.

And the best part was, I didn’t even know what our mission was!

Oh, I knew
my
mission—to test my shark zapper and diving suit under real-life, deep-ocean conditions. I’d been making changes to the suit’s control panel for the past week—fixing the damage and moving it to the abdominal area for easier access. I’d had to rig it all in a hurry, too. I only hoped I would get a chance to try it out on this trip.

But I had no idea what my dad was up to. He had refused to tell me, saying he couldn’t talk about it until we were safely out at sea. He did mention that it was a deep-water mission, though, and that was all I needed to hear.

See, I knew that when my dad said he was going on a deep-ocean voyage, he meant he’d be going down into the abyss with Swift Enterprises’ newest
submersible, the
Jules Verne-1
. Dad didn’t know it yet, and neither did Bud or Yo, but my plan was to go down with him.

I hadn’t told him my plans in advance, of course. If I had, he might have said no.

Anyway, now that we were on board the
Nestor
, I was more than curious to know what the actual mission was.

The door to the bridge area above us opened, and out stepped a suntanned, middle-aged man with a trim white beard. He introduced himself as Captain Walters.

“Hi,” I said, shaking his hand. “Um, is my dad here yet?”

He looked up at the helipad that sat above and astern of the bridge. “Mr. Swift will be arriving in a few hours,” he said. “He said he had to attend an important meeting in New York City.”

“Ah,” I said.

Totally typical of Dad. He’s incredibly hard to keep up with. It would be really great if we could spend the next two days together on the ship, getting in some quality father-son time.

But I doubted it would happen. He’d always be too busy. That was the real reason I’d wanted Yo and Bud along—to keep me company.

“Why don’t we get you kids settled in?” the captain said. “Then I’ll show you around the ship.”

“Uh, don’t you have to drive it?” Bud asked.

I nearly cracked up, but I didn’t want to embarrass him.

Like I said, he’d never spent much time on the water.

“I do take the helm coming in and out of port,” Captain Walters said. Once we’re out on the open ocean, I’ll turn it over to one of the mates.” He chuckled. “There’s a lot more to do on this ship than drive. You’ll see. Come on with me.”

He led us through a hatch and down a steep set of stairs to the hold. “Here are your beds,” he said, showing us a stack of three bunks that would be our home for the next two nights.

“Get yourselves settled in, and I’ll be back in five minutes.” Pointing down the passageway, he said, “The head’s down there, if you need it.” The captain walked off quickly, leaving us to ourselves.

“The ‘head’?” Yo repeated.

“The bathroom, Yo,” I told her.

“Huh. They don’t call it that on a cruise ship.”

Then she looked over our sleeping arrangements. “I claim the top bunk!” she said, throwing her duffel bag over Bud’s head.

It landed right where she wanted it to.
Of course
it did. Yo is an amazing athlete. You know that event in the Olympics, the decathlon, where you compete in ten different sports? She could win that. From softball, to tae kwon do, to the duffel bag throw, she’s got it down.

And Bud? Ah … no. Not really.

“You want the middle bunk?” I asked him.

“You don’t mind?”

“Nah, go ahead—I don’t care.”

He was silent for a moment. Then, “Hey, Tom?”

“Yeah, Bud?”

“Why do you think they call it the ‘head’?”

“I have no idea.”

Yo giggled. “Maybe it’s because when landlubbers like Bud get seasick, they spend a lot of time with their
beads
in the
toilet
.”

“Not funny,” Bud said, but it was too late. Yo and I were already laughing our heads off.

Captain Walters was as good as his word. Five minutes later, we were getting the grand tour of the
Nestor
. “We’ll start off with the galley,” he said, leading us down a short flight of stairs.

Bud looked puzzled. “Galley?”

“It means the kitchen,” I explained.

“I knew that,” he said, nodding like he was Mr. Cool. “Yeah. Smells good. What is that, pancakes?”

“That’s right,” said the captain. “Chowtime’s at oh-five-hundred. That’s in about … ohh …” He checked his precision watch. “Fourteen minutes, twenty-five seconds.”

Next he led us down another flight of steps to the engine room.

“Whoa!” Bud said, examining the huge rack of hydrogen fuel cells that powered the ship. “What are those?”

Yo was silent, listening to the whir of the turbines.

“That’s our power supply,” Captain Walters said. “We’ve got enough power down here to navigate even in major storms.”

“We’re not expecting any of those, are we?” Yo asked, looking suddenly anxious.

“Uh, no,” said the captain. “Not really.”

“What do you mean, ‘not really’?” Bud asked.

“Well, there is a storm off the coast of Florida, but it’s not supposed to get here for about three days. We should be back in port by then, if everything goes as planned.”

I have been on enough scientific missions to know that things rarely go totally according to plan. For instance, my dad’s arrival was already delayed.

After the engine room, it was back on deck, where we saw the
Nestor’s
crane lifting the
Jules Verne-1
—or the “Swift-mersible,” as I call it—onto the mother ship.

“What is
that
?” Yo asked.

“It’s the
Jules Verne-1
,” I said. “It’s been a major project at Swift Enterprises for the past two years. It’s supposed to be the first of a series, each one larger and more capable than the previous model. For instance, the prototype, the
Jules Verne-0
, is a one-seater that can dive to fifteen thousand feet. This one can carry a crew of four to a depth of up to twenty thousand feet.”

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