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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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