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asked. "Something about the limitations of drawstring swimwear, perhaps?"
    "That, and more," Tom said. "Thanks to Bud, I now know that I have some real problems to overcome in the design of the ultrasonic generators."
    Sandy asked if a flaw in the generators had caused the Drumhawk to become unstable.
    "In the generators themselves, or at least in their positioning," was the answer. "That funny sound we heard was an interference effect due to sonic resonance in the metal shell of the platform. It may have had to do with the waves being reflected back from the sand dunes all around. I didn’t anticipate it."
    "Well, Tomonomo," observed Sandy, "even genius-boys can’t anticipate everything."
    Bud rubbed his head. "And even handsome young sky-surfers can get a surprise now and then." He bent over and knocked water from his ears.
    Two days later, while Tom was busy in his private lab perfecting new engine mounts for the cycloplane to counteract the wave-buffeting problem, the phone rang. Answering it, he heard the calm, crisp voice of Munford Trent, the two Swifts’ office secretary. "Tom, the communications center is relaying a call from the space outpost—it’s Ken Horton."
    "Thanks, Munford—"
    "I’d prefer to be called ‘Trent,’ please."
    "Sorry. Go ahead and put Horton through."
    In a moment Tom was speaking to the young head of the Swift space station facility, their voices conveyed over more than 22,000 miles of cosmic emptiness. "Tom, we’ve finished those polyfrequency photo studies you requested. I’ll be transmitting the data shortly, but I thought I’d give you some advance word."
    "You found something?"
    "Definitely, Chief!" said Ken excitedly. "Dr. Jespers and the astronomy boys say they’ve identified a big old crater smack in the middle of New Guinea!"
    Tom was amazed. "A crater?"
    "Yep, an ancient one, so eroded-down and covered by jungle that you can’t recognize it at ground level, or even from a plane. Jespers thinks it’s from a meteor strike several hundred million years back. But it’s mighty big, amigo—the crater walls, what’s left of ’em, circle almost the entire region you wanted us to look at."
    "My thanks to everyone," Tom said. "If the holmium was originally carried to earth by the meteor itself, the densest concentration should be near the center of the crater. Someone must have mined it out of the ground there, centuries ago."
    "If I know you, you’re going to go take a look!"
    Tom chuckled. "Obviously! But first we need to narrow down the range of the search."
    Later in the afternoon, Tom discussed the matter with his father in their shared office, Bud sitting in attendance as he often did.
    "Finding a source of rare-earth substances is certainly a worthy goal," observed Mr. Swift. "You could fly a search pattern above the region in the Sky Queen, as you did in the Verano uranium project. The improved metal detector and long-range spectronalyzer will allow you to map out the element distribution from an altitude of 30,000 feet or more."
    "Great! Let’s go!" Bud cried spiritedly.
    Tom rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I don’t want to leave Enterprises right now, not while I’m right in the middle of the cycloplane project. On the other hand, I don’t want to just set it aside for too long."
    "Look, guys, why not do it in two phases?" Bud suggested. "Slim Davis told me you were planning to have him fly those asbestalon samples, your new formulation, to Australia overnight, so why not have me tag along with him? On the way back we could fly right over the center of that New Guinea crater, and see what the instruments pick up. Then when you’re ready to fly there in the Queen, you’ll have less ground to cover."
    The two Swifts approved Bud’s idea, and arranged for the necessary equipment to be installed on the Swift Construction Company jet that was to be used. By dinner time Bud and Slim, a seasoned company pilot, were airborne and headed for Australia.
    Two mornings