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Here Tom had used his spectromarine selector to restore the ancient buildings. Tom, Hank, and Arv went back to the airfield 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?"
"Your system blinded our sonar okay, skipper," Hank commented, "but this proves she could still be spotted 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. "How about it, pal?" Bud asked, when he reported aboard the seacopter a while later.
Rather than lose time trying to contact Bud, Tom decided to let him find the Sea Hound. Accordingly, he switched off the antidetection system and ordered all ships to submerge. Arv's seacopter and Mel's jetmarine were to maintain close formation and stand guard while Tom's craft did the actual searching. Now the missile hunt began.
On a chance that it might become necessary to operate at greater depths either in searching for the lost missile or in shadowing the enemy Tom also assigned Arv Hanson the job of rigging the Sea Hound and another seacopter with his new inventions. Four crewmen volunteered for the cruise. When the jetmarine was ready, Tom and Bud exchanged tight handshakes. "Good luck!" "Thanks, Tom."
Hank sent the Sea Hound zooming toward the surface while the boys changed quickly into slacks and T shirts. Then Tom took over the controls for the flight home. "Brand my vitamin vittles! Are we just goin' to turn tail an' run every time them varmints come skulkin' around?" Chow fumed as the seacopter arrowed northward. "Not if I can help it," Tom vowed.
Once the boys were aboard, the seacopter submerged and dived quickly to the ocean floor. Tom and Bud each climbed into a Fat Man suit and went out through the air lock. The suits, shaped like huge steel eggs with a quartz-glass view plate for the operator seated within, had mechanical arms and legs. The boys waddled about, the built-in searchlights of their suits piercing the murky gloom.
Ten minutes later the sleek seacopter, its searchlight off to avoid detection, was plummeting downward through water that changed before their eyes from greenish blue to a deep-gray gloom. Iridescent fish darted past the cabin window. "Think the enemy sub was searching for our Jupiter prober?" Hank asked. "It must have been," Tom reasoned. Hank frowned.
As soon as the seacopter touched bottom, Tom and Bud swam out through the air lock with their hydrolungs. They probed about for half an hour, ranging farther and farther from the Sea Hound. Then Tom felt a touch on his arm. He turned and saw Bud pointing off excitedly to the right. A strange submarine was moving slowly toward them!
His only hope now was that a radio message from the jetmarine might have been picked up while they were gone. As soon as the seacopter was moored, Tom leaped ashore. The crewmen on the docks had no news to report, so Tom piled into a jeep with Arv and sped off to the Fearing communications center. Hank remained aboard the Sea Hound to secure all gear.
Arv Hanson would captain one seacopter, Mel Flagler the jetmarine, while Zimby Cox, Chow, and four crewmen would accompany Tom in the Sea Hound. Because of their sonar-blinding systems, Tom realized there was a chance of the ships losing contact with one another especially if their analyzer sonars developed trouble.
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