shook his head. "Smarter than you think, these Moros. Sometimes
use strange way to get letter far distances. I amazed."

"What is this strange way?" Zircon asked.

"You know there plenty parrots here? Moros teach birds to talk, then
tell message and say, 'Okay bird. You go now and tell Charlie.'"

Rick and Zircon stared at the Hindu boy incredulously, but Scotty had
been the object of Chahda's humor often enough to recognize it first. He
grabbed the lithe brown boy and held him out over the muddy harbor
waters in spite of his struggles.

"Take it back!" he demanded.

"Is took!" Chahda yelled. He straightened his shirt as Scotty hauled him
in again, and looked at the dark-haired boy accusingly. "That plenty
good yarn. You just scooptical, that's all."

"Skeptical," Rick corrected.

"Is so. Anyway, if parrots don't fly, pigeons do. Sometimes my Indian
friends use pigeons for messages to islands with no radios. So why not
pirates?"

Why not? Rick thought Chahda very likely had the answer. Carrier pigeons
would serve a useful purpose in a remote place like the Sulu Sea, and
one could have reached the channel from Zamboanga after they departed.

"Let's go into the cabin," Zircon suggested. The boys followed him and
took seats on the bunks, waiting expectantly.

"Let's start with Chahda. Learn anything?"

The Hindu boy nodded. "Little. Some peoples here think pirates took
plenty boats now missing. Not many hear of pirates, but more than in
Davao."

"Any guesses on their hideout?" Scotty asked.

"None good. Some say far to south, maybe near Tawi Tawi. Plenty small
islands, no people."

"I agree," Zircon added. "I've studied the chart, and that seems to be
the most likely area. We can go right on to Borneo, if need be. It's
only about a hundred and twenty-five miles from Jolo. It's even possible
the pirate hangout is off the Borneo coast."

Rick spoke up. "I've been thinking about that pirate attack. Yesterday
we got away through sheer speed, right? Well, word about our speed will
spread. Now, we don't want the pirates to give up because our boat is
too fast for them. We want them to think they can attack us
successfully, because the attacks are our best clue to whether or not
we're on the right track."

He believed that no further attack would mean they were getting cold,
while increasing attacks would mean they were getting warm, to use the
old game terms. The closer to the pirate stronghold, the more det