r, did you?"

"No. Our truck had only two crates on it. Besides, Angel--I mean
Nangolat--must be far beyond this point. He left last night early."

"How do you know?" Angel asked curiously.

"Yeah," Scotty echoed. "You sound sure."

"He got the scanner, didn't he? There was a risk that we might find out
that it was gone. He wouldn't hang around the airport knowing that we
might find out about the theft, would he?"

"Good point," Scotty agreed.

"I heard of this earth scanner," Angel said. "Dr. Okola told me. It
takes pictures of what is inside the ground, no?"

"Not exactly pictures," Scotty said. "It shows a kind of wave pattern.
You'll see how it works."

Rick snorted. "Optimist. What makes you so sure?"

"We'll get it back," Scotty said calmly. "No smart Ifugao is going to do
us in the eye, chum. Not without a fight. We'll find Tony and we'll find
the scanner. Then we'll clobber pal Nangolat--or let Angel do it--and
get to work."

"What do we do with Nast?"

"We get nasty with Nast."

Rick groaned. "That pun, pal, is strictly cornball."

"I've always wanted to be a pun pal," Scotty said.

Far ahead, green shelves gave a regular pattern to the base of one
mountain. Rick pointed them out to Angel. "What's that?"

"Igorot rice terraces."

"Igorot? I thought the rice terraces were Ifugao."

"The Igorots have them, too. They are not so--I don't have the word for
it. Big, make one open the eyes in wonder, very fine. The kind of thing
that makes you feel surprise here." Angel put his hand on his stomach.

"Breath-taking?" Scotty suggested. "Spectacular?"

"Yes. Both. These Igorot terraces are nothing. Wait until you see the
terraces at Banaue."

Three pairs of eyes scanned the road ahead. It was deserted.

"Tell us about rice," Rick asked. "There was rice below when we flew to
Baguio, too."

"Yes. A great deal of rice. You passed over Pampanga Province, which is
called the rice bowl of the Philippines. That rice is grown in paddies,
which are fields with little earth walls around them called dikes. The
paddies can be flooded. Rice needs much water. Down there, though, the
land is flat."

Scotty pointed to a razorback ridge. "This land sure isn't flat."

"No, but the Igorot and Ifugao workers make it flat by building
terraces. Each terrace is like a little paddy. It can be flooded, just
as the lowland paddies are. The water comes from the mountains in pipes
made of bamboo."

"It must be quite