ming and enough sense to stay out of at
least the more obvious troubles novices can get into. He was content
now to let them go off on their own, which they did fairly often.
After Rick's estimated hour the girls were ready--except that Barby
had to make a phone call. She spent another fifteen minutes arranging
a small get-together at a friend's home to introduce Jan to her chums.
"Now," she said brightly. "We're ready. Are you?"
Rick wisely refrained from comment.
Ten minutes later the four were in the Brants' car, en route to
Barby's destination. Rick dropped the girls off and arranged to pick
them up in two hours, then he turned the car toward town.
"Let's visit Duke and Jerry," he suggested.
Scotty looked at him. "Still bothered, aren't you?"
Rick shrugged. It was hard to pinpoint the way he felt. He tried to
put it into words. "I've talked to the scientists, including Parnell
Winston. None of them has ever heard of an ailment like the thing that
struck the team scientists. Winston especially knows a lot, because
he's studied the human brain extensively. He doesn't even know of
anything similar."
Scotty knew all this because he had been present. But talking aloud
helped to make things clearer, so he only commented, "And where does
that leave us?"
"At the starting line. We haven't moved an inch forward. But at least,
if medical history seems to have no record of any such cases, we can
assume that something new and different caused the scientists to go
off the beam."
"Yes, but if some enemy caused it, how was it done?"
"Glad you asked that," Rick answered gloomily. "Wish someone could
answer. Anyway, we know why it was done--if it was done. It was to
cause trouble with the project. That would be important enough for an
enemy to go to a lot of trouble."
Scotty shook his head. "The thing that sticks in my craw is, how come
only two of the scientists got hit? Why wasn't the same thing used on
the others? If anything was used, that is."
Rick was bothered by the same point, and he had no answer--nor did
Steve Ames, with whom they had discussed the problem.
To both boys, the puzzle was more than just an interesting problem to
be solved. If some enemy really had penetrated the project and somehow
caused disruption of the scientists' brains, then the people nearest
and dearest to both of them were also in jeopardy. Spindrift now
provided three out of five for the new project team.
Rick swung
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