itions. As usual, a
ten-gallon hat was perched on his balding head and he was stomping along
in high-heeled boots.

"Wow! A shirt to end all shirts!" Tom chuckled.

"Real high style, eh?" Chow twirled about to display his latest Western
creation. The shirt seemed to be made of silvery fishlike scales, which
glistened like a rainbow.

"I figured as how this was just the thing fer an ocean jaunt," Chow
added with a grin. "How soon do we take off, boss?"

"As soon as we get the rest of this gear stowed," Tom replied.

Twenty minutes later the _Sky Queen_ soared toward the ocean. Soon they
came in sight of Fearing Island rocket base, a few miles off the coast.
Once a barren stretch of sand dunes and scrub-grass, the island was now
the Swifts' top-secret rocket laboratory, guarded by drone planes and
radar. It served as the supply base for Tom's space station and as the
launching area for all space flights. Seacopters and jetmarines were
also berthed here.

A radio call from Tom brought a sleek, strange-looking craft zooming up
to join them.

It was the _Sea Hound_, latest and largest model of Tom's amazing diving
seacopter. It had an enclosed central rotor, powered by atomic turbines,
with reversible-pitch blades for air lift or undersea diving.
Superheated steam jets provided forward propulsion in either element.

As the _Sea Hound_ streaked alongside the Flying Lab, two figures in the
seacopter's flight compartment waved to Tom and Bud. One was Hank
Sterling, the blond, square-jawed chief pattern-making engineer of
Enterprises. The other was husky Arv Hanson, a talented craftsman who
transformed the blueprints of Tom's inventions into working models.

"All set," Hank radioed. "Lead the way."

"Roger!" Tom replied.

Flying at supersonic speed, they reached the area of the lost missile in
the South Atlantic soon after lunch. Already on hand were ships of the
Navy task force assigned by Admiral Walter to participate in the missile
search. The _Sea Hound_ settled down on the surface of the water, while
the _Sky Queen_ hovered at low altitude nearby.

Tom contacted the government craft and learned that as yet no sign of
the lost Jupiter prober had been detected. Then he made ready to begin
his own search.

"Let's try the Fat Man suits first," Tom told Bud. Turning to Slim
Davis, a Swift test pilot who was in the crew, the young inventor added,
"Take over, will you, Slim?"

"Righto." Slim eased into the pilot'