ccur no matter how the antenna
is pointing?"

Kerama shook his head. "No. If you will examine the peaks in terms of
time and the co-ordinates, you will see that they began at a particular
point during a sweep of the sky. Our first thought was that we had
picked up some source emitting pulsed signals, but the source is
apparently moving. This is why we concluded the difficulty was in our
system, since no sky source moves with such angular velocity."

The Egyptian scientist began giving assignments. Rick and Scotty were
given a test kit and put to work checking a part of the circuit one wire
at a time. It was slow, difficult work, requiring great care.

It was warm in the control room. Rick hung up his coat, pausing to touch
the Egyptian cat in his pocket. He hadn't thought of the little beast
for some time. What was he to do with it? From a simple delivery job, as
a favor to an acquaintance, the cat had become a problem. Rick couldn't
resist a mystery, but this one had him stopped cold for the time being.
He didn't know what to do next. The only solution that had occurred to
him was to send a cable to Bartouki, to ask for further instructions.

He shrugged and put the problem aside, and went back to helping Scotty.

It was late before Kerama called a halt. The boys rode back to the hotel
with Hassan, grateful for the relief of concentrating on thousands of
tiny wires. They told the dragoman to go on home, then went into the
dining room for dinner before retiring for the night. Winston, who never
seemed to tire when working, had stayed with Kerama and Farid to
continue discussions of possible sources of trouble.

After dinner Rick picked up their key at the hotel desk and they rode
the tiny elevator to their floor. They opened up and went in. Rick
locked the door while Scotty snapped on the lights.

Scotty let out a sudden yell! Rick whirled and gasped. The room was a
shambles. Every drawer was open and their contents were dumped out on
the floor. Their suitcases had been left open. The bed-clothes were in a
heap in the middle of the room, and the mattresses were on the floor.

Rick glanced at the key in his hand and realized that it was a very
ordinary type; master keys that would allow a thief access could be
bought in any hardware store. He followed Scotty to the closet and saw
that their clothes had been searched and dropped carelessly. Nothing was
left on the hangers.

The room had been searched inch by inch