Kicking away from the reaching fingers of his pursuers, Bud leaped out into space. With one hand he grabbed the lowest rung of the seacopter's ladder, then pulled himself hand over hand up the other rungs. Finally he managed to get a foothold and quickly climbed the swaying ladder.
       The boys dropped onto the floor of the copter, puffing from exertion. The ship soared off, leaving a band of raging, frustrated Brungarians on Horsehead Point. The men were carrying rifles, and sent a fusillade of bullets after the craft, trying to bring it down. Whizzing lead ricocheted off the Tomasite hull.
       "That's a harmless barrage," said Ted Brice, the pilot. "They couldn't possibly penetrate this plastic."
       Ted was one of the young airmen at Swift Enterprises. He could always be relied upon to handle dangerous flying assignments.
       "Ted, get some altitude," Tom urged.
       As the seacopter zoomed upward, Tom placed the carrier with the galaxy ghost next to the door, then picked up the spray can of Soluweb.
       "We can't communicate with the P-E because we don't have the Racodio," he told Bud. "But this ghost knows what it has to do. The sooner we speed it on its way to the moon the better."
       The young inventor explained to the others what he intended to do. Bud nodded and took up a position by the door. Tom lifted the Tomasite carrier by the handle and cocked the Soluweb spray in the other hand.
       When the seacopter reached a level altitude, Bud pushed the door wide open. Tom flung the glowing case out and at the same time engulfed it with a large dose of Soluweb spray. Instantly the Tomasite case dissolved. It was far enough away, however, so its radiation did not hit the boys. A pulsating globule streaked up into the sky.
       "There goes the galaxy ghost, headed for a lunar landing," Tom exulted. "It'll soon be giving our message to its companions."
       "In the nick of time, too," Bud pointed out. "The invasion of the earth by the Photo-Essence would have started in a matter of hours."
       "That reminds me, Bud. I'd better report that the danger is over."
       Tom got in touch with the Sky Queen, and instructed the radioman to relay the news to all the world capitals.
       "Also," Tom said, "alert the Chilean authorities about the Brungarian spy headquarters at the estancia. It's near Horsehead Point on the Strait of Magellan. Is there any further word about the Transmittaton?"
       "Yes," the Sky Queen's radioman responded. "The hacienda lab reports the machine is now in working order. And so is the receiving tank at the university."
       Tom signed off and turned to Bud. "Everything seems to be under control. We may as well have a meal and some shut-eye before we reach the Sky Queen."
       The boys awoke just before Ted docked at the Flying Lab. He maneuvered skillfully into the hangar at the stern of the big aircraft and cut the motors. Ted accompanied Tom and Bud to the pilot's compartment.
       "Bad news, Tom," the Sky Queen's pilot said as they entered. "Your father has been captured by the Brungarians."
       "What!"
       "The band that kidnapped him sent the message to us. Seems Mr. Swift went out of the jetmarine to reconnoiter in a Fat Man suit, and they seized him while he was inspecting the mastodon on the floor of the ocean."
       Tom had invented the Fat Man suit for use in underwater work. Made of light metal, it was an egg-shaped chamber with pantograph arms and legs that had almost human abilities. By means of buttons, the operator seated inside could control the suit's movements. A gyroscopic automatic brain kept the Fat Man balanced. Oxygen was drawn from the surrounding water.
       Tom looked grim. "I'll have to go down myself and see if I can rescue him."
       "No use going alone," Bud said. "It'll take at least two to deal with the Brungarians."
       "Count me in too," Ted insisted. "I'll handle the seacopter while you fellows are operating on your own. You'll need a mobile base."
       Tom and Bud wedged themselves into Fat Man suits aboard the seacopter. When the hangar doors opened, it catapulted into space. Ted guided his craft in a long glide, then turned its nose straight down at the ocean below.
       The seacopter flashed through the air and cut into the water. The craft plummeted at high speed until Ted cut the power and brought it to rest on the ocean bottom.
       "You should find the mastodon straight ahead," the pilot said.
       Tom instructed him to thread his way to a position behind a huge mass of sunken rock. Then Tom and Bud made their exit and waddled off in the murky water toward the spot where Mr. Swift presumably had been left. Tom carried his sonar pen in case the device in his suit might not be strong enough to communicate with the seacopter.
       "Tom, there's the mastodon," Bud said.
       "And still in its column of ice," Tom answered. "A few chunks have been chipped from the rim. But the beast is well protected. We can move it without any fear of the ice breaking up."
       "There's no sign of your father or the Sea Dart," Bud remarked, surveying the area.
       "Let's try this direction, Bud."
       The boys made their way to the edge of a dark abyss.
       "I'd hate to go down there." Bud shivered. "No telling how deep it is."
       "Could be a mile or more," Tom said. "The Pacific has a number of places exceeding depths of thirty-five thousand feet."
       "Let's go back, Tom."
       "Okay, Bud. I don't feel too happy here either."
       As they started to turn, a current whipped along the ocean floor. An instant later it met another current, resulting in a riptide.
       The boys' pantograph feet were jerked from under them. The riptide picked up the two Fan Men and churned them along helplessly. It sucked them over the edge of the oceanic ledge into the dark abyss!


       Tom and Bud were bounced around in their suits until the turbulence made them dizzy. Suddenly they jolted to a halt in a glare of light. They heard a hatch slam shut. Breathing hard and shielding their eyes with the pantograph arms, the boys saw the bare metal walls of a room illuminated by fluorescent lighting.
       "Dad!" cried Tom.
       His dejected father sat on a bench. "You shouldn't have come after me," he said. "This is a Brungarian sub. Now we're all prisoners."
       A door opened and two men, an officer and a sailor, appeared. The officer was a swarthy individual with a mashed nose, probably the result of a dockside brawl. Confronting his prisoners, he ordered them out of their suits.
       "I am Captain Roccula of the Brungarian Navy," he said. "You need not introduce yourselves. I am familiar with the Swifts and their friend Barclay. You, so to speak, walked into my trap."
       "We were dragged in," Tom retorted. "How?"
       "We have a wonderful new invention––an artificial vortex. It is powerful enough to allow us to maneuver anything or anyone we aim it at."
       Roccula grinned sarcastically. "Tom Swift, the boy genius, should be able to understand the scientific principle of the vortex."
       "The scientific principle is easy to understand," Tom admitted. "But I wouldn't have applied it in the same manner. Our aims are different."
       Mr. Swift spoke up. "You Brungarians should put your knowledge to better use."
       "How did you spot us?" Tom asked.
       "Our sonar and the remote-vision underwater periscope picked you up. All I had to do was maneuver my sub to a point just below the edge of the underwater precipice. I kept track of you on the screen. When I had you lined up in my sights, I activated the artificial vortex."
       "Caught like a couple of kooks!" Bud groaned.
       "Captain Roccula," Mr. Swift addressed the Brungarian commander, "what do you intend to do with us?"
       Roccula scowled. "You foiled our plot to use the Photo-Essence radiation as a weapon. We owe you something very unpleasant."
       He moved over to the wall and placed his hand on a switch. "There's an airlock under this holding chamber," Roccula went on. "We use it to dump useless objects into the water. For instance––"
       With a twist of his wrist, he flicked the switch. A center panel nearly the length of the floor tilted sharply downward.
       The three prisoners began sliding on the smooth metal toward the pit below!