"Appleton, Victor - Tom Swift Jr 08 - In The Caves of Nuclear Fire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Appleton Victor)

boys donned them and Bud picked up a Geiger counter.
"We'd better take some lead-glass light bulbs with us," Tom said. "You can
bet that radiation has burned out the filaments in the regular bulbs."
Looking like space men in the protective suits, the boys walked down the
corridor and entered the laboratory. They paused to replace a few bulbs with the
lead-glass ones, then looked around.
"Hey!" Bud cried. "This place is still mighty 'hot'! Listen to the Geiger counter!
Don't you think we should get out?"
"We'll be safe in these suits for a while," Tom assured him. "The rays are
considerably weaker than they were, but later we must wash this room down with
a cadmium salts solution."
Tom picked up a few samples of the metal objects and glass pieces which
had changed shape under the radiation. "Let's take a look at this stuff in the lab
next door," he said. "And, Bud, bring the opaque tube, will you?"
Switching off the lights, Tom followed his friend from the room. In the
laboratory he made a careful examination of the misshapen samples and
discovered that they were extremely hard. "This whole thing is baffling," he said.
"I'm going to call in the radiation boys."
8 THE CAVES OF NUCLEAR FIRE
He summoned Enterprises' staff of radiation technicians, who helped him to
determine the atomic structure of the opaque tube. They found that the material
contained a new isotope of silicon.
"I can't believe it!" Tom exclaimed. "This isotope is unheard of here on earth!"
Bud raised an eyebrow. "Naturally. The tube wasn't made on this earth."
Tom chuckled, recognizing his friend's logic. "It's still fantastic," he insisted.
"Silicon has an atomic weight of 28 and has three known isotopes; the first with a
weight of 28, the others 29 and 30. The isotope in this tube has a weight of 33!"
"Is this what almost turned us into a couple of human neon signs?" Bud
asked, grinning.
Tom shrugged. "I don't know yet. It'll take a lot more research to find out."
At that moment the phone rang and the young inventor picked up the
receiver. "Tom," said Miss Trent, private secretary to Tom and his father, "Craig
Benson is on the line."
"Craig Benson!" Tom repeated, his jaw sagging in disbelief. Craig was a pilot
who had crashed two years before in Africa and had not been heard from since.
A deep, pleasant voice said, "Hello, Tom? Surprised to hear from me? . . .
I'm calling from your home. Just got here. I want to talk to you and your father."
AN EERIE LIGHT 9
"Craig! It's really you!" Tom exclaimed. "Bud and I will be there in less than
half an hour. This is wonderful news."
Craig, a former flier for Enterprises, had been lent to a foreign government to
open up a cargo air route. It was during a flight in connection with this project that
the pilot had crashed. An intensive search for the missing plane had proved
fruitless. Since that time, the air route had been fully developed.
Tom put the phone in its cradle and turned to give Bud the astounding
information. He was as amazed as Tom. "Craig sure will have a whale of a story
to tell," he remarked.
The sun was setting as the two friends set off for the Swift home in Bud's
convertible. A few minutes later they parked the car in the garage and strode
across the lawn and through the magnetic-alarm field which surrounded the