ine and watching the Nile
boats below.

"Farid says to take the morning off," Rick reported. "The scientists are
about convinced that the signal isn't internal receiver noise, but that
leaves them up a tree. If part of the circuit isn't causing the trouble,
what is?"

Scotty waved his hand at the scene across the Nile where a great
concrete tower rose into the sky. "It's this land. Look at it. There's a
tower for television. A couple of miles away are the pyramids. Down the
street is a new office building with aluminum walls, and it's right next
to a stone mosque that's nearly as old as the city. If you ask me, Horus
or Thoth or one of the old Egyptian gods is getting fed up and messing
with the signal just for the fun of it."

Rick knew exactly how Scotty felt. The remarkable blend of the very old
and the ultramodern was visible everywhere in Cairo. But somehow the two
did not conflict, probably because the Egyptians had been wise in their
choice of architecture.

"Maybe we'd better burn some incense and do a chant or two," Rick
suggested. "How's this? Oh, Osiris, son of Isis, please get the bugs out
of our antenna."

"That's no fit chant," Scotty objected. "A chant should rhyme, shouldn't
it?"

Rick searched his memory for incantations to Egyptian gods, but there
had been none in the books Bartouki had given them, although the gods
had been described. He improvised quickly. "Then how's this?"

He took a pinch of sugar from the bowl and sprinkled it on Scotty's head
as an offering to the gods, then bowed like a high priest and chanted:

"_Anubis, Horus, Amon-Re,
Are you near or far away?
If you're tuned in close at hand,
Clean up the H-emission band._"

The piece of hard Egyptian bread thrown by Scotty caught him just behind
the ear. Rick picked it up and threw it back, grinning.

"The things I have to put up with," Scotty exclaimed hopelessly. "I'm
sorry I brought the whole thing up."

"It didn't help," Rick admitted. "But it gave me an idea. How about
going to the Egyptian Museum this morning?"

"With Hassan?"

"It's right across the park. Hassan can take the morning off and come
back after lunch to drive us to the project."

"I'm your boy," Scotty agreed. "If you keep your chants to yourself,
that is. Try one on those old statues at the museum and they'd fall on
you."

"Oh, I don't know," Rick said loftily. "Maybe those old Egyptians had a
better ear for poetry than you have."