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The drive unit was connected to the board by a suspended cable. "Boy, this'll be like playing with a speedboat in a bathtub!" Tom thought with a chuckle as he changed into swim trunks. He climbed into the tank and slid the drive unit to one end of its track. Then Tom metered out power slowly. With a gentle whoosh, the ion-drive unit whizzed along the unitrack to the other end of the tank.
Apparently the power line to the ion-drive control board had somehow picked up the boys' scrambled conversation underwater. The signal had been transferred by inductance in the wall wiring and amplified over the public-address system. "Our wall mike was on," Tom added, "and it probably picked up some of the sound waves from the tank.
I'm trapped!" Tom squirmed desperately in a vain attempt to free himself. The ion-drive unit had hurtled to the far end of the tank at the first flick of power. But its exhaust tube was still jetting out a current of water with stunning force. Tom could feel the near-crushing pressure against his chest, even the full length of the tank away! "H-h-help!" Tom gasped.
"One's for breathing adjustment, one's for the density unit, one is my ion-drive 'throttle, and this last is for the sonar pulse which will duplicate the porpoise sound." The suit worked perfectly in a tank test. Chow was amazed as he listened to Tom gliding about, via an underwater microphone. "If that don't beat all!" he declared. "Can't tell the difference 'twixt you an' Smiley!"
There was Al Webber, an amiable, soft-spoken little man who owned a fleet of small ion-drive cargo ships that plied the spacelines between Earth and Mars, and who also exported dreamdust to the colony on Pluto, where the weed could not be grown. Seven or eight others showed up occasionally at Hawkes' apartment.
The main problem would be the design job laying out a compact, lightweight unit which a swimmer could easily carry on his back. Fascinated, the young inventor worked late into the evening, stopping only in response to a telephone plea from Mrs. Swift. By midmorning the next day, Tom had assembled a pilot model of his ion-drive jet.
Swift, among the first to arrive, took in the situation at a glance. He dashed to the control board and slammed shut the main switch, thus cutting off power to the ion-drive jet. "Whew! Th-thanks, Dad!" Tom's chest was heaving as he gulped in air to relieve his tortured lungs. Tom Sr. helped him climb out of the tank. "B-b-brand my rhubarb rockets," Chow stuttered. "What in tarnation happened?"
Tom and Bud donned flippers and belt, and helped each other strap on his ion-drive jet. "Down we go, into the wilds of sharks!" Bud chortled lustily. "Watch your step, Tom." "Just make sure you come up again in one piece," Zimby said with a grin. "Also, don't get carried away with that ion squirt gun and take off on a round-the-world underwater cruise." "Who knows?" Tom joked.
They went out through the air lock, plunged into the bracing salt water, and switched on their ion-drive units. "Can you see 'em?" Mel asked over his mike. "Not yet. Let's speed up before we lose 'em completely!" Both pushed their ion drives to capacity, scanning the water ahead in all directions. "There they are!" Bud exclaimed presently.
Using microelectronic components, he was able to reduce all the units to amazingly small size. Next, Tom began tailoring himself a completely new skin-diving suit. Mask, ion-drive jet, and the various hydrolung units were molded into the plastic, with no loose wires or tubes showing. Monday morning he was ready to try the outfit.
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