Tom Swift and the Asteroid Pirates Read Online Free PDF Page A

of Asian descent."
    "What institution did he break out of?" Tom asked.
    "Don’t know yet. The caller says they didn’t mention it, and their car was unmarked. And strangely enough, although we have a homicidal psychopath who must have got loose at least several hours ago, surely, we’ve had no bulletin on the escape."
    Tom snorted derisively. "It’s one-hundred-percent phony! Tsu owns this car, based on the license info. How did the guy just happen to have his own car handy? It didn’t sit in a hospital parking garage for three years . How did he renew his license? And that M.I.T. sticker is for this year."
    "And then there’s the blood business," Rock added. "Looks to me like the make-believe ‘guards’ raced on ahead, lay in wait just outside the wall, and winged old John pretty good!"
    At that moment a screaming siren heralded the arrival of the ambulance Dr. Bell had called in from Shopton. "Shopton Memorial?" asked the driver.
    Dr. Bell nodded, but Tom suddenly held up his hand. "No! There’s a private surgery clinic north on the highway outside the city limits. Know it?"
    "I know it," said the driver.
    "Take him there, please. I’ll phone the medical chief—he’s a friend of the family."
    Rock chuckled in a gruff way. "Fast thinking, Tom—and you’re on the beam, all right. We may have scared off those guys, but they’ll probably check out the big hospital first thing. And they’re still armed! I’ll send one of these nice troopers along to keep watch over our Mr. Tsu."
    As the ambulance men began to apply an oxygen mask to Tsu, his eyes flickered open weakly and focused on the young inventor. They were wide, panicked, desperate. He choked out something beneath the mask.
    Asking the ambulance attendants to stand back for a moment, Tom approached the collapsible stretcher and bent down. "We’re taking you to a safe hospital, Mr. Tsu," he said gently. "Don’t be afraid. Did you want to tell me something?"
    The man made a movement with his eyes, and Tom pulled back the oxygen mask a crack. As if summoning all his remaining strength, Tsu muttered something—then collapsed back, eyes closed.
    "Let’s get going!" ordered the ambulance driver.
    As the vehicle sped away, Bud asked: "What did he say?"
    "Just a sec." Tom made a note in the notebook he carried. "I’m writing down how it sounded. I think it was Chinese."
    Phil Radnor rejoined Tom and Bud, reporting that he hadn’t found any clues in the brush near the roadway. "Let’s go talk to Jilly," Rad suggested.
    In the plant switchboard room, Radnor asked Jilly for details of the warning call. "Oh, Mr. Radnor, I just don’t have much information. He didn’t identify himself. He just said to warn Tom Swift that someone was on his way ‘now’ to kill him."
    "Did you recognize the voice, Jilly?"
    "No, not at all," she replied. "And I have a good ear. I’m sure I’ve never heard it before."
    "What was the voice like?" Tom asked. "Did he have an accent?"
    "Yes, a slight one. I couldn’t tell what kind, though. He spoke well—kind of cultured, a deep voice. An older man, I think."
    Bud said: "You must’ve got where the call was coming from, right?"
    "No. It was ID-blocked."
    Thanking the switchboard operator, Radnor left to return to the security office. Tom motioned Bud away, toward a waiting nanocar. "Where’re we going?" Bud asked.
    "Let’s go hunt up Felix Ming."
    "I get it. If the words Tsu said are Chinese, he’ll be able to translate." Felix was a Chinese-American aircraft engineer at Enterprises who had previously assisted Tom in a similar situation.
    Locating Felix in one of the construction hangars, Tom took out his notebook and attempted to repeat the sounds John Tsu had uttered.
    "One more time, please," Felix requested, frowning in concentration. At last he said: "Well—it’s pretty difficult, Tom. There are many distinct dialects of what we, in this country, call ‘Chinese’. To make things worse, it’s an inflected language.