"Appleton, Victor - Tom Swift Jr 12 - In the Race to the Moon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Appleton Victor)

happened. "The Brungarians?"
Tom shrugged despairingly. "Your guess is as good as mine, but I wouldn't
put it past them. Let's hope we can learn something from that man I captured."
By the time Tom and his companions reached base headquarters, the whole
story was in. George Billing was compiling a list of all the equipment which had
been stolen.
"There's the bad news, chief. Read it and weep!" he said, handing Tom the
list.
Tom felt like doing just that, as he realized the staggering blow Enterprises
had suffered. But he clenched his fists and managed to swallow his anger. Then
he turned to the prisoner who sat between two guards.
"What can you tell us about this?" he snapped.
The prisoner shrugged, glared sullenly, but made no reply.
46 THE RACE TO THE MOON
Bud glanced at Tom. "Think he's stalling?"
"I don't know. Let's search him."
The prisoner's pockets proved to be empty. Neither his space suit nor his
inner clothing bore any clues to his nationality.
Switching on the public-address system, Tom issued a call for all personnel
who spoke a foreign language to report to base headquarters at once. More than
a dozen crewmen complied.
One by one, they confronted the prisoner, addressing him in Polish, Italian,
Czech, and a number of other languages. But the prisoner merely shook his
head to all questions and maintained a stubborn silence.
"If you ask me, the guy's faking!" Bud declared in disgust.
"Could be," Tom agreed in baffled anger. "For all we know, he may even be
an American."
"Maybe we ought to work him over a bit, and then see if he'll talk!" growled
one crewman who had suffered a nasty blow on the temple when he was felled
by the sleeping gas.
"Nothing doing," Tom said firmly. "The Brungarians may mistreat prisoners in
their own country, but we won't use their tactics."
"What'll we do with him?" Bud asked.
"Take him back to Shopton and hand him over to the police," Tom decided.
"It's about all we can do, I guess."
Now that he had time to turn his attention to Sandy and Phyl, Tom realized
that their date for
TOM'S PRISONER 47
the evening was ruined. "I'm sorry," he said. "I suppose it's too late for the
party now."
Sandy nodded. "Don't worry, Tom. It wasn't your fault."
"Maybe we should apologize for bringing you such bad luck," Phyl added
sympathetically.
"Cut it out!" Tom grinned. "If you two hadn't prodded me to come over here to
pick up Bud, we might not even have captured this one prisoner."
Snapping his fingers, Tom turned to Bud. "Look, pal. Why don't you fly the
girls back in a jet? Maybe you can get there before the party breaks up and make
our apologies to Jerry."
"What about you?" Bud asked uncertainly.
"I'll take our prisoner back in the heliplane," Tom said. "It won't hold us all,