Danny Dunn and the Swamp Monster Read online

  Contents

  COPYRIGHT2

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS3

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 314

  CHAPTER 418

  CHAPTER 524

  CHAPTER 629

  CHAPTER 734

  CHAPTER 840

  CHAPTER 946

  CHAPTER 1051

  CHAPTER 1155

  CHAPTER 1260

  CHAPTER 1365

  CHAPTER 1468

  CHAPTER 1573

  COPYRIGHT

  Copyright © 1971 by Jay Williams & Raymond Abrashkin.

  *

  Published by Wildside Press LLC

  www.wildsidepress.com

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The authors wish to express their gratitude for special advice and assistance to Leo Bennett, Chairman of Universal Control Equipment Ltd., Stroud; to John Atwood, of Perkin-Elmer, Inc., and to the Press Officer, Republic of Sudan, London. For material about the Nuer, who are a little-known and very independent people, I am indebted to the researches and writings of E. E. Evans Pritchard.

  CHAPTER 1

  A Message in Code

  Professor Euclid Bullfinch frowned through his glasses at the small piece of paper in his hand.

  “REGRET IMPOSSIBLE KHARTOUMWARDS EXWEEKS STOP SEVERAL PROBLEMS REQUIRE AMERICAN VISIT BOTHERATION WILL COMMUNICATE,” it said.

  The red-haired, freckled boy, reading it over his shoulder, pursed his lips in a soundless whistle.

  “I don’t get it, Professor,” he said. “What does it mean?”

  “Hard to tell, Danny,” said the Professor. “But the main problem is, who is it from?”

  He examined the envelope it had come in. It had the name of the Amstel Hotel in Amsterdam printed on it, and Professor Bullfinch’s name and address typed on the front. There was a Netherlands airmail stamp on it.

  “Whom do I know in Amsterdam?” murmured the Professor.

  “Maybe it’s a mistake,” Danny said.

  “Aha!” Professor Bullfinch nodded. “A very shrewd suggestion, my boy. It is certainly a mistake. Whoever sent it must also have typed out a telegram he meant to send someone else. Then he put the text of the telegram in this envelope instead of the letter. So we know two things about him. He must be rather absent-minded. And he must be well-to-do because the Amstel is the best hotel in Amsterdam.”

  He rubbed his chin pensively. “Two clues. Absent-minded and rich. But still not enough.”

  At that moment, the front doorbell rang. The Professor crammed the puzzling letter into a pocket of his old tweed jacket and went to the door. He returned after a moment with a large square package.

  “It was the messenger from the chemical plant,” he said. “These are the new materials I ordered. Now I’ll be able to complete my experiment.”

  “Can I watch?” Dan asked.

  “Certainly. Come along,” said the Professor, leading the way down the corridor to the back of the house.

  Danny’s father had died when the boy was only a baby, and Mrs. Dunn had had to look for a job to support herself and the child. She had found a post as housekeeper for Professor Bullfinch. The Professor, a world-famous scientist, lived in the university town of Midston. His many inventions had brought him enough money to maintain a private laboratory where he conducted his experiments. He treated Dan as if he were his own son, and the boy’s interest in science had grown until his knowledge of many aspects of it was greater than that of most grownups.

  The lab was a large room facing the back lawn and garden. It was filled with all sorts of equipment, had its own library, and was even connected by a direct teletype machine to the giant computer at Midston University. The Professor set the package down on one of the lab benches and unwrapped it. Inside, in a well-padded box, were four small glass jars full of liquid, each of a different color.

  “These substances, which I have developed and which the plant manufactured for me,” explained the Professor, “will unite to form a polymer resin plastic. I believe I can produce something with special qualities of lightness and strength.”

  He arranged a piece of apparatus on the bench. Its central part was a metal container surrounded by a wire grid and supported on four long legs. A small nozzle opened in the bottom. The Professor hooked up a length of cable to the wire grid. Then he poured the contents of the four jars into the container.

  He touched a switch. A faint humming came from the wires. The container began to revolve slowly.

  “We have a little time while the stuff cooks and mixes,” said the Professor. “Meanwhile, let’s look at that peculiar letter again.”

  He pulled it from his pocket and smoothed it out on the lab bench. Danny rested his chin on his hands, his elbows on the bench, and read the message aloud.

  “What do you suppose this word means?” he asked. “K— Kartum—”

  “Khartoum,” said the Professor. “It’s a city in the Sudan, in Central Africa. Khartoumwards means ‘to Khartoum.’ It’s cablese.”

  “What’s that? An African language?”

  Professor Bullfinch chuckled. “No, cablese is the special language used by people who send a lot of messages by telegraph. Newspaper reporters, for instance. When you send a message by radio, or by the Atlantic cable, you have to pay for every word. So reporters have developed a special shorthand way of saying things. For instance, instead of saying ‘to me,’ which would be two words, they say, ‘mewards’ which is only one.”

  “That means that whoever wrote this message must have been a reporter!” Danny exclaimed.

  “Perhaps. Or he could have been someone who sends a lot of telegrams. Someone who travels a good deal.”

  “To places like Central Africa.”

  “Just so. Distant places.” Professor Bullfinch tapped the paper on his palm. “There’s another clue in this message. What does a scientist use to show an unknown quantity?”

  “An x,” Danny said.

  “The message says ‘exweeks.’ An unknown number of weeks. So this man is a scientist—”

  “And he’s sending the message to another scientist,” Danny finished. “Someone who would also know what ‘exweeks’ meant.”

  The Professor snapped his fingers triumphantly. “Correct! And I’ve just thought of another thing. Now the pieces fall into place. I think I can guess—but I must just make a phone call.” He hurried to the door. “Keep an eye on the cooking pot. If the warning light goes on, shut off the power.”

  He went out, leaving Danny to eye the revolving container.

  “I forgot to ask him which light is the warning light,” Dan mused. “Let’s see. This must be the temperature dial. This light is green so that must mean the current is running into this wire—”

  He was interrupted by a sudden loud thump and a rattle of glass behind him. He swung round.

  Between two large windows, a glass-paned door led into the garden. Just outside stood a smallish man with a weather-beaten face and a wild white beard. He was rubbing his forehead in a dazed way.

  Danny ran to open the door. “Were you knocking?” he asked.

  “No, no,” said the man. “Don’t mention it. I’m sorry. I seem to have walked into your door.”

  He stepped forward and took Dan’s hand. “How are you, old friend?” he asked, shaking it warmly.

  Danny stared at him open-mouthed. The bearded man’s eyes were curiously blank. He looked at Danny as if not really seeing him.

  “I’m—I’
m fine, I guess,” Danny gulped. “How are you?”

  “It’s been a long time,” the man went on. “Years and years. You haven’t changed a bit.”

  Then, as abruptly as if someone had turned a switch, his eyes seemed to come into focus. He blinked at Danny.

  “But you have!” he exclaimed. “You’ve changed a lot. In fact, you’re not you at all.”

  “What do you mean?” Danny began backing away in alarm. “Of course I’m me. Who do you think I am?”

  “Well, I really can’t say who you are,” said the man. “If you don’t know, how do you expect me to know? We’ve never met. Or have we? You see,” he said, coming into the lab and leaning comfortably against a bench, “I meet so many people. And I’m afraid as I get older, my memory gets worse. Have we met?”

  “Why, er—no—I don’t think so,” Danny stammered.

  The man was wearing a strange, wide-brimmed hat with a leopard-skin band. He took it off and began fanning himself with it.

  “That’s a relief,” he said. “But really, my boy, you ought to pull yourself together. See a doctor or something. It’s pretty serious when you can’t remember who you are.”

  “But I do remember who I are!” cried Danny, in confusion.

  The man suddenly smiled. “Hello, old chap,” he said, moving forward with his hand outstretched.

  Danny retreated in a panic. Then, all at once, he realized that Professor Bullfinch had come back into the room. It was to him that the bearded man was speaking.

  Danny went to the Professor’s side.

  “Professor,” he whispered, “I think this man is crazy.”

  Professor Bullfinch patted him on the shoulder.

  “I don’t blame you for thinking so, Dan,” he said. “I’ve sometimes thought so myself. But, in fact, he’s one of the sanest men I know. He’s my old friend, Dr. Benjamin Fenster. Good to see you, Ben,” he added, gripping the bearded man’s hand. “I guessed it was you who sent that message.”

  “Of course it was me,” said Dr. Fenster with a puzzled look. “Who else should I have been?”

  Danny clutched at his head. “Oh, no!” he wailed. “Let’s not start that again!”

  CHAPTER 2

  The Superconductor

  Dr. Fenster patted the boy gently on the shoulder.

  “You seem disturbed, son,” he said. “Better take an aspirin and lie down for a while.”

  “I don’t blame him for feeling muddled,” said Professor Bullfinch. “You sometimes have that effect on people, Ben. For instance, look at this. This is the message you sent me.”

  He handed the piece of paper to Dr. Fenster. The bearded man tossed his hat on the lab bench, and with a lightness and ease that didn’t seem to go with his white hair and lined, brown face, hopped up to sit beside it. He took the paper and read it with a frown.

  “You’re a little muddled yourself, Euclid,” he said. “This is the message I sent Professor Ismail of the University of Khartoum. How did you get hold of it?”

  The Professor ran his hand wearily over his bald head. “You sent it to me,” he said patiently. “You will notice that you didn’t sign it. However, Dan and I were able to figure out who it came from.”

  Dr. Fenster broke into a merry laugh. “Good for you,” he said. “How’d you manage?”

  “We deduced that the sender was a scientist of some sort who did a lot of traveling and sent a lot of telegrams. I know three or four such people. Also, we knew he was absent-minded. That narrowed it down to two. Then I realized that he had to be almost supernaturally absent-minded, because he was someone who could carefully save words in a telegram and then put in an absolutely unnecessary word like ‘botheration.’ You’re the only one I know who fits the whole description.”

  Dr. Fenster stroked his beard. “I hope Professor Ismail is as clever. I don’t think I signed the letter, either.”

  “The telegram says that you’re coming to America,” Professor Bullfinch went on, “and I guessed that you must have written to me to say you were going to visit me. I telephoned the best hotel in town and they told me you’d registered this morning but were out. So I knew you were on your way here.”

  “Well,” said Dr. Fenster, “I guess I have given you a good deal of trouble.” He turned his twinkling black eyes on Dan. “I’m sorry, son. I didn’t mean to mix you up.”

  “That’s all right,” said Danny. “But I really do know who I am. I’m Danny Dunn.” They shook hands.

  Professor Bullfinch said, “It’s a great honor for you, Dan, to meet Dr. Fenster. He is a famous zoologist who has traveled to many out-of-the-way corners of the earth in search of strange animals. He has discovered many new species, written a dozen books, received half a dozen medals. He is known to his friends by the name some African people once gave him: Mtu anaye.”

  “What does it mean?” Danny asked. “Explorer? Great Hunter?”

  “It means The Forgetful One,” said the Professor.

  “I’ve never met a real absent-minded professor before,” Danny said. “In fact, I didn’t think there were any outside of books.”

  “In the first place, I’m not a professor,” Dr. Fenster objected. “And I’m not really absent-minded. It’s just that I have a lot of things to think about and I sometimes can only manage one at a time.”

  He turned to Professor Bullfinch. “That brings me to the reason for my coming,” he said solemnly. “I am about to embark on one of the most interesting expeditions of my career.”

  “What—?” began the Professor.

  He was interrupted by a shout from Danny. “Look, Professor! The plastic!”

  They had forgotten all about the revolving container. It was spinning more rapidly and wobbling in a most alarming manner. A bright red light was blinking on and off. Worse yet, the nozzle at the bottom of the container had been opened by the violent spinning and a strand of dark, shining material about the thickness of ordinary string was jetting out. The wobbling motion made it fall in large coils one on top of the other on the stone surface of the workbench. The last of it fell as they watched.

  “Shut off the power!” cried the Professor.

  Danny shot forward, quicker than either of the men. He hesitated for an instant before the machine, not being able to find the switch that turned off the power. Then, impulsively, he made up his mind about the quickest way to do things—Danny was often given to headstrong action. He grabbed the cable and with one quick jerk yanked it free from its connections.

  The container swung slowly to a halt. But the cable was still live. Danny dropped it like a snake. The bare wires at its tip landed squarely on the plastic coils. They shone with an unearthly green light.

  At the same time, Professor Bullfinch had reached the power switch, which was set in a box on the wall and not on the machine. He snapped it off. Then he pulled out his handkerchief and mopped his forehead.

  Dr. Fenster said, “Life is pretty exciting here, Euclid. I think I prefer the peaceful jungle. What would that thing have done—exploded?”

  “Oh, no,” said the Professor. “Nothing like that. I was cooking up a polymer, but I’m afraid it may be ruined now.”

  “Why is it still glowing?” Danny asked.

  “Glowing?” The Professor stared. Sure enough, from the loops of plastic came a faint but unmistakable greenish gleam.

  “It’s just a reflection, isn’t it?” said Dr. Fenster. He had jumped down from his perch and now moved closer to look over the Professor’s shoulder.

  “No,” answered the Professor. “Some change has taken place in the structure of the material.”

  He reached to pick it up. He stood motionless, his hand a foot or so from the coiled plastic cord. On his face was an odd mixture of surprise and bafflement.

  “What’s the matter?” Danny said. “Don’t you feel well?”

&n
bsp; “The matter?” Professor Bullfinch sounded distracted. “Very curious. Very curious, indeed. The matter is that I can’t seem to get my hand any closer to the stuff than this.”

  “Is there something wrong with your hand?” said Dr. Fenster.

  “Nothing’s wrong. But—” The Professor’s voice died away. Then abruptly, he said, “Is it possible?”

  “Is what possible? What are you talking about?”

  Without replying, Professor Bullfinch withdrew his hand. Around his wrist was a watch with a stainless-steel band. Quickly, he unfastened the band and took off the watch. Once again, he reached for the plastic. This time, his fingers touched it.

  “Great heavens!” breathed Dr. Fenster. “A magnetic field! But how—?”

  “Don’t you see?” said the Professor. “It’s a superconductor.”

  “But that’s incredible!” Dr. Fenster said. “At room temperature—?”

  “So it appears. There’s no other explanation.”

  “A superconductor?” Danny put in. “What’s that?”

  Professor Bullfinch took out his pipe. He filled it from a worn pouch and deliberately lit it.

  Through the cloud of smoke, he said, “Well, my boy, you know that when an electrical current passes through what’s called a conductor—a wire, for instance—it meets a certain amount of resistance. This is caused by the atoms of the metal deflecting the moving electrons from their path. It has been discovered that if the material is cooled to a very low temperature, down to somewhere near absolute zero, it loses almost all its resistance. What we seem to have here, however, is a material with no resistance to an electrical current, without having to be made so cold. It’s more than just an electrical conductor, it’s a superconductor.

  “You might think of it this way: the conductor is a road with lots of obstacles in it. The electrons carrying the charge are deflected from their path so the traffic is slowed up. But this plastic is like a wide speedway. The electrons can move in large loops and avoid all the obstacles. So they go around and around at high speed, and if the speedway is a circle, they will never stop.”