For a moment Tom felt numb with despair. But he set his jaw firmly and
turned to the admiral.
"Sir, I'd like helicopters readied for take-off immediately," Tom said.
"As soon as the tracking instruments lose contact, have the recording
tapes picked up from every ship in the task force and brought here to
the _Recoverer_."
Admiral Walter nodded tersely. "Very well. Then what?"
"I'll get to work right now," Tom replied, "and lay out a computer
program to process the readings."
The data--consisting of millions of information "bits" from the
shipboard instrument tapes--would be fed to an electronic brain. The
brain would then calculate the probable location in latitude and
longitude of the sunken missile.
As the admiral snapped out orders, Tom exchanged a brief worried glance
with his father. Each was pondering the same thought.
_Could Tom find the lost Jupiter probe missile? Or would their enemy
locate it first?_
CHAPTER II
UNDERSEA SURVEY
With an effort, Tom forced all thoughts of failure out of his mind and
concentrated on the job at hand. In an hour he had the computer program
blocked out.
Mr. Swift and several of the other scientists checked his work. Each
nodded approval. By this time, the fused blip had long since disappeared
from the radarscopes, indicating that the Jupiter probe missile--or what
was left of it--had plunged to the ocean bottom.
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