But Tom was worried himself. Not only might he be in danger, but it could involve his friends!
Nevertheless, he raised his voice above the excited babble1. "Please be calm, everyone! We'll have the lights on again in a jiffy!"
Taking Phyl by the hand, Tom groped his way toward the main door.
"Let's check the switch," he murmured, and ran his hand over the wall near the door. He located the metal plate and flipped2 the switch.
The lights went on! Good-natured cheers arose. Bud, grinning but puzzled, left Sandy's side long enough to come over and speak to Tom.
"What happened?"
"I guess some practical joker clicked off the switch."
Bud suddenly caught sight of a stout3 youth in a plaid shirt and blue jeans, who was standing4 in a nearby corner. He was shaking all over with half-stifled merriment.
"There's the wise guy! Rock Harriman!"
Rock, an all-star tackle on the Shopton High football team, was well known for his pranks5 and practical jokes. Bud rushed over.
"Don't get sore!" Rock gasped7 between chuckles8. "I couldn't resist. Boy, did you hear everyone squeal10 when the lights went out?"
Tom grinned in relief. "How about another dance, Phyl?"
As the music struck up again, he squeezed Phyl's hand. "I sure appreciate your concern, even if I didn't rate it."
The festivities finally ended after a thoroughly12 enjoyable evening. Both Sandy and Phyl declared to their dates that it more than made up for the forgotten beach party.
"But let's not wait too long for the next date," Sandy warned playfully.
"Okay, that's a deal," Bud promised.
The next morning at the plant Tom called on Harlan Ames. He told of the sinister13 hoax14 by the caller who had passed himself off as Lester Morris. The security chief promised to investigate.
"I'll tip off the police about Len Unger," Ames added. "If they can find him, we may be able to crack this case wide open."
Tom telephoned Bud, Hank Sterling15, and Arv Hanson to meet him at the helijet hangar. The four took off in one of the Swifts' Whirling Ducks, which was standing by loaded and ready. Soon they landed on Fearing Island, where Tom would try out his antidetection invention.
"What'll we use for a test sub, skipper?" Hank asked as they drove toward the docks.
"A jetmarine," Tom replied.
A truck with engineers and technicians was following the jeep. It carried the equipment which Tom and Bud had assembled the previous day.
When they arrived at the docks, Tom gathered the men in a loading shed. He showed them his drawings and explained how his "sonar-blinding" setup would operate.
"Don't let the diagrams fool you. The basic idea is very simple. We absorb all sonar impulses that hit the ship and transmit them out the opposite side of the hull16, instead of letting a ping bounce back and show up on the sonarscope of any hostile sub on the lookout17 for us."
Most of the job, he went on, would be tedious detail work. It would consist of attaching hundreds of mikes and speakers all over the hull to pick up and transmit the sonar pulses. The mikes would be receiving transducers and the speakers would be transmitting transducers.
"The leads from them," Tom ended, "will be centralized in a single electronic control unit inside the ship. I'll handle that part of it."
"Great idea, Tom!" Arv Hanson said admiringly.
"But what a job it'll be rigging those transducers," put in one of the technicians.
Tom nodded wryly18. "You're right, Danny. If this experiment works out, though, I think I can lick that problem on future installations."
The young inventor explained that he hoped to find a way to mold the transducers into a continuous plastic sheet. This could be applied19 to the hull of a submarine in a single operation.
"But this time we'll have to do it the hard way," Tom added with an apologetic grin.
A jetmarine was hoisted20 into drydock and the work crew swarmed21 over it, rigging the transducers. Would his experiment succeed? Tom wondered. Hopefully, he set to work assembling the electronic control unit.
Bud helped the men on the hull for a while, then descended22 through the hatch to see how Tom was progressing.
"I'd go gaga trying to keep track of those circuits," Bud said, as he watched Tom installing the delicate transistors23 and other components24 with an electric soldering25 gun.
The young inventor grinned. "It'll be simple enough when the control unit's all put together," he replied. "Just a single on-off switch and one test circuit."
By noon, after working at a frenzied26 pace, the job was done. Tom thanked each one of the men personally. Then everyone went to eat lunch.
After the meal, Hank Sterling asked, "How about a detection test to see how she works?"
"Coming right up," Tom said. "Want to skipper the jetmarine, Bud?"
"Sure do!"
"Okay. Pick out a couple of men for a crew and take her down." Tom produced a hydrographic chart of the waters around Fearing and marked out a test area. "Cruise around there for an hour and we'll try to spot you in the Sea Hound."
"Hide and seek, eh?" Bud grinned and snapped a salute27, then left to supervise the relaunching of the jetmarine.
For his crew, Bud chose Mel Flagler and another man. Mel was an experienced jetmariner who had gone on the Swift expedition to Aurum City, the underwater ruins of a lost civilization. Here Tom had used his spectromarine selector to restore the ancient buildings.
Tom, Hank, and Arv went back to the airfield28 and soon took off in the diving seacopter. Landing on the water, they submerged and began the undersea detection test.
Tom manned the sonarscope personally, eager to conduct as careful a search as possible.
"Getting any blips, skipper?" Hank called out from his post at the Sea Hound's controls.
"Not a ping, Hank. The system seems to be working out even better than I'd hoped."
Tom felt a glow of satisfaction. He explained, however, that the jetmarine's transparent29 nose pane—which had to be left unprotected for the pilot's visibility—offered one vulnerable spot to sonar detection.
"But a little smart maneuvering30 can cover up that angle," Tom added. "Try the hydrophones, Arv, and see if you can hear 'em."
The chief modelmaker slipped on the earphones and listened intently. For another ten or fifteen minutes they probed about with no sound trace of the "invisible" jetmarine.
But presently Arv snapped his fingers to catch Tom's attention. "Got her, skipper!"
Tom took over the hydrophones. Sure enough, his ears could make out the faint hum of the jetmarine's atomic turbines. Tom directed Hank toward the sound, then ordered him to switch on the Sea Hound's powerful search beam.
The light cut a path of radiance through the murky31 dark-green waters. Dead ahead, the jetmarine could be seen gliding32 across their field of view.
"Your system blinded our sonar okay, skipper," Hank commented, "but this proves she could still be spotted33 by enemy listening devices."
Tom refused to be discouraged. He ordered Hank to return to base and wait for Bud. Meanwhile, the young inventor applied himself to the problem of how to mask the sub's noise.
Tom explained the results of the test and the need for an added safeguard against hydrophone detection. "Think I see a simple way out, though," he added with a pleased chuckle9.
"Natch! With a brain like yours, it's a cinch," Bud quipped. "Explain, professor."
"Well, we can never do away with the noise of a sub's propulsion machinery," Tom began. "That goes without saying. So we'll have to camouflage35 it—lose it in the underwater jungle noises, so to speak."
Bud scratched his head. "How do we do that?"
"By amplifying36 the natural undersea sounds all about it," Tom explained. "Fish and all forms of underwater life make a background noise over the hydrophones, you know."
As Bud nodded, Tom went on, "So we simply step up the volume till the sub's own noise gets drowned out or 'wasted' in all the racket."
This could be done, he concluded, with fairly simple amplifying equipment. Bud, Hank, and Arv were jubilant at the idea.
"Nice going," Bud said. "How soon can we give it a try?"
"Soon as I can rig up the amplifier," Tom promised.
In less than two hours they were ready to submerge again. Zimby Cox joined the crew. Bud suggested taking along hydrolungs in case of any need for tinkering with the transducers or amplifying equipment.
This time, the jetmarine scored perfectly37 on the test, successfully eluding38 all the Sea Hound's efforts to detect it. Tom returned happily to base, feeling that the antidetection problem was now solved. The jetmarine, however, failed to appear.
"That's funny. The test was over at four-fifteen," Tom murmured.
"Maybe Bud surfaced out at sea somewhere," Arv Hanson suggested.
Repeated radio calls brought no response. Tom, now seriously worried, took the seacopter down again for another search, hoping that Bud would have switched off the antidetection gear by this time. But neither sonarscope nor listening devices revealed the slightest clue.
Tom, Hank, and Arv exchanged fearful glances. Had the jetmarine foundered39 on the ocean bottom—perhaps fouled40 somehow by Tom's new invention? Or had Bud and his crew fallen victim to the enemy?
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收听单词发音
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1
babble
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| v.含糊不清地说，胡言乱语地说，儿语 | |
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2
flipped
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| 轻弹( flip的过去式和过去分词 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥 | |
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4
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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5
pranks
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| n.玩笑，恶作剧( prank的名词复数 ) | |
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6
ferocious
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| adj.凶猛的，残暴的，极度的，十分强烈的 | |
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7
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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8
chuckles
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的名词复数 ) | |
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9
chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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10
squeal
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| v.发出长而尖的声音；n.长而尖的声音 | |
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11
confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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12
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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13
sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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14
hoax
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| v.欺骗，哄骗，愚弄；n.愚弄人，恶作剧 | |
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15
sterling
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| adj.英币的(纯粹的，货真价实的)；n.英国货币(英镑) | |
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16
hull
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| n.船身；(果、实等的)外壳；vt.去(谷物等)壳 | |
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17
lookout
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| n.注意，前途，瞭望台 | |
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18
wryly
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| adv. 挖苦地，嘲弄地 | |
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19
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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20
hoisted
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| 把…吊起，升起( hoist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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21
swarmed
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| 密集( swarm的过去式和过去分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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22
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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23
transistors
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| 晶体管( transistor的名词复数 )； 晶体管收音机，半导体收音机 | |
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24
components
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| （机器、设备等的）构成要素，零件，成分； 成分( component的名词复数 )； [物理化学]组分； [数学]分量； （混合物的）组成部分 | |
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25
soldering
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| n.软焊；锡焊；低温焊接；热焊接v.（使）焊接，焊合( solder的现在分词 ) | |
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26
frenzied
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| a.激怒的；疯狂的 | |
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27
salute
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| vi.行礼，致意，问候，放礼炮；vt.向…致意，迎接，赞扬；n.招呼，敬礼，礼炮 | |
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28
airfield
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| n.飞机场 | |
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29
transparent
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| adj.明显的，无疑的；透明的 | |
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30
maneuvering
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| v.移动，用策略( maneuver的现在分词 )；操纵 | |
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31
murky
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| adj.黑暗的，朦胧的；adv.阴暗地，混浊地；n.阴暗；昏暗 | |
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32
gliding
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| v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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33
spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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34
pal
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| n.朋友，伙伴，同志；vi.结为友 | |
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35
camouflage
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| n./v.掩饰，伪装 | |
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36
amplifying
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| 放大，扩大( amplify的现在分词 )； 增强； 详述 | |
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37
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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38
eluding
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| v.（尤指机敏地）避开( elude的现在分词 )；逃避；躲避；使达不到 | |
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39
foundered
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| v.创始人( founder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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40
fouled
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| v.使污秽( foul的过去式和过去分词 )；弄脏；击球出界；（通常用废物）弄脏 | |
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