"Got a job for me, skipper?" asked Doc Simpson, Swift Enterprises' young medic.
"Yes. Help the boys, if you like, rig the undersea elevator, and then assemble a tractorized air dome," Tom suggested.
"Will do," Doc promised.
A ladder was dropped. Tom and Bud excitedly descended to the Sea Hound. The search for the lost missile was about to begin!
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. They saw nothing but the deep accumulation of silt on the ocean bottom, which made the going difficult.
"This is too slow," Tom called over his sonarphone. "Let's try the air dome."
The dome was a huge underwater bubble of air, created by a repelatron device which actually pushed the ocean water away. The air supply inside was kept pure by one of Tom's osmotic air conditioners which made use of the oxygen dissolved in the water.
The air bubble, however, even with its jet-propelled platform, also proved inadequate for the research job. Its caterpillar treads repeatedly bogged down in the silt.
"Maybe the seacopter itself is our best bet," Bud suggested.