Rick Brant - The Lost City Part 2

"Helmet, rather. You know ... one of those sun helmets. So I thought I'd go him one better and see if t could figure out a transceiver ..."

"A what?"

"A set that transmits as well as receives. Then we could each have one, and we could send messages back and forth. See?"

"Yes," Scotty marveled. "But why should we send messages back and forth? We're together all the time. And this wouldn't work at long range, would it?"

"Don't get practical," Rick replied. "I was just figuring it out for the fun of it. We might find a use for it someday."

The skipper came by, on his way down from the bridge, and stopped. "Hungry, boys? Chow is down."

"That's for me," Scotty said.

As they fell in step, Rick asked, "Captain, was anyone in the hold earlier today?"

The skipper looked at him curiously. "Not to my knowledge. Why?"

"I just wondered if perhaps the acid was knocked over accidentally by someone who went into the hold."

"I'll ask the mates, but I doubt that anyone was in the hold. I think your acid spilled over when the crates shifted. Improper stowage caused it. If I find the man responsible, he'll regret it. I will not tolerate carelessness on my ship."

Rick let the matter drop, but he was not satisfied. Shifting cargo was too pat an answer. Still, there was no other explanation. He would just have to accept it. Fortunately, no damage had been done.

After dinner, he went to work on the little radio unit, working with such delicate tools as a pair of tweezers and a jeweler's screw driver. Scotty sat on the opposite bunk cleaning his rifle with loving care. To the ex-marine, weapons were holy things. He inspected the rifle every day, running an oily rag through the barrel and wiping off the mechanism.

"Someday you're going to take one of those things apart and not be able to get it back together again," Rick teased.

Scotty grinned good-naturedly. "Stick to your gimmicks and leave the shootin' irons to me, son." He held the rifle barrel up to the light and peered through it. "Like a mirror," he said with satisfaction.

It was a beautiful weapon, a present to Scotty from Hartson Brant. Scotty had added a telescopic sight. With that and his marine training, plus the high power of the rifle - it was .303 caliber - he could break a dinner plate at better than five hundred yards. Rick had seen him do it.

"Hope we won't need that," he remarked.

"We won't," Scotty said optimistically. "But maybe I'll get a shot at a wild goat, or maybe a panda."

When Zircon and Weiss came in, the boys climbed up to their bunks. Scotty put his rifle into its canvas case, and Rick put his little radio set on the cabin desk. They undressed quickly and got into bed.

In a little while Zircon snapped out the lights and there was silence in the cabin. The ship pitched slightly to the swell, a slow, soothing motion that made Rick's eyelids droop.

Just before he dozed off, he asked sleepily, "Scotty, why would anyone want to stop the experiment?"

Hobart Zircon answered for Scotty, his voice loud in the darkness. "No one would, Rick. Go to sleep and stop worrying about it."

"Yes, sir," Rick said. He punched his pillow into a more comfortable shape, and after a while he slept.

It was shortly after midday of the next day that Rick made another discovery. The morning had been spent on the foredeck, sun bathing and chatting with the professors and Scotty. Not until after lunch did he feel bored and decide to go back to his work on the radio set.

It wasn't on the cabin desk where he had left it.

He hunted through the cabin, through their baggage, even under the bunk mattresses. Then he hurried out to Scotty and the professors, who were leaning against the rail.

"Did any of you take my radio unit?"

There were three negative answers.

"Someone did," he insisted. "I left it in the cabin and it's gone."

"You undoubtedly mislaid it," Professor Weiss said.

"No, sir. I looked everywhere. It's not there."

"He left it on the desk," Scotty remembered. "Just before we went to bed last night."

"It will turn up, Rick," Zircon boomed. "Surely no one would steal it."

"It wouldn't do them any good," Rick replied. "It doesn't work." He left his friends and hurried to the bridge.

Captain Marks greeted him cordially. "Something on your mind? You look worried."

"My radio unit is gone," Rick blurted out. He told the skipper about it, adding, "It must have been taken. It isn't in the cabin."

Captain Marks rubbed his chin. "You're sure of that? I don't want to start something and then have it turn up under your bunk."

"I searched every inch of our cabin, sir," Rick said.

The skipper shook his head. "I hate to think we have a thief aboard. I'll have the first mate talk to the crew, one at a time. It would do no good to search the ship. Too many places it could be hidden. You say it's of no value?"

"To no one but me, sir. It's just a gadget I was working on."

At supper that night Captain Marks reported: "Not a thing doing, Rick. The crew denies all knowledge of it. I'm afraid it's gone for good unless it just happens to turn up somewhere."

"I put in a lot of work on it," Rick lamented. "Now I'll have to wait until we get home before I can start again, because we haven't the parts here."

"Never mind," Zircon soothed him. "We have a nice big radar transmitter for you to play with until we get back."

Rick looked at him sharply and saw the twinkle in the big professor's eyes. "It's not the same thing," he said. "This was my pet project. The radar transmitter is yours."

"You can have a share," Zircon suggested.

Rick fell silent, but the loss of his toy rankled. Anyway, he thought, whoever stole it won't get much out of it. It was a long way from being finished.

In the excitement of pa.s.sing through the Mediterranean, the loss of the little transceiver was forgotten by everyone but Rick.

When they stopped at Port Said to refuel the ship, the boys had their first look at a foreign port. But there was no chance to go ash.o.r.e, so they had to content themselves with watching from the deck. The professors, both experienced travelers, had been in the colorful port before and didn't think much of it.

"They said we didn't miss much," Rick said regretfully as the ship steamed between the narrow banks of the Suez Ca.n.a.l, "but I still wish we could have gotten ash.o.r.e for a little while."'

The pa.s.sage through the ca.n.a.l pa.s.sed without incident and the freighter plowed into the Indian Ocean. The heat was like a wet, heavy blanket now, and sleep was almost impossible. But the party looked forward eagerly to Bombay.

"Can't be soon enough," Scotty remarked as they climbed into the bunks one night. "I want a look at this India."

"Same here," Rick answered. He swung into the up. per bunk, careful not to step on the professor below him.

He stretched out, only a sheet over him, and soon drifted off into a dreamland peopled with natives who wore cloth-of-gold trappings and turbans, and where elephants roamed the streets at will.

Then suddenly he jerked awake, and sat bolt upright, his ears filled with the ear-splitting clang of the alarm bell! All four of the party leaped off their bunks, and Zircon snapped on the lights just as the third officer ran by.

"Fire!" he shouted. "All hands! Fire in the forward hold!"

CHAPTER IV.

A Man Named Conway

RICK beat Scotty to the hold by about a yard and stopped short. "The equipment!" he exclaimed in horror.

Seamen were directing the streams from the extinguishers and sea hoses into the hold right at the precious radar gear. Overhead, the hatch was being lifted so that more water could be poured in.

Smoke curled out, mixed with steam. Captain Marks came out through the smoke, blackened and red-eyed. "Cut down on that water!" he yelled hoa.r.s.ely. "Cut it down! It's nothing but smoke."

Professor Weiss grabbed Rick's arm. "The equipment! Rick, do something!"

"Nothing he can do," Hobart Zircon bellowed. "It's up to the captain and the crew."

"We are ruined this time, Hobart. Do you hear?" Weiss was on the verge of hysteria.

Rick and Scotty pressed close to the door, forgetting they were in pajamas and bare feet. Through the swirling smoke they could see shadowy piles of cargo, and they knew their equipment was in there where the smoke was thickest.

"Professor Weiss is right. This finishes us, Scotty," Rick said huskily.

He had a swift vision of his father's face, and those of the other scientists, when they heard the news. Months of preparation had gone up in smoke in that blackened hold.

Captain Marks pushed by him into the hold again, shouting, "All right, get that hatch off. Smartly, now! Let's get this smoke out of here."

Rick was at his heels, feeling the blast of fresh air as the big hatch cover on deck finally came off. Someone threw a switch and the hold was flooded with light from emergency lamps, the smoke eddying upward in the draft of air.

Rick pushed his way to the equipment, ankle-deep in dirty water and floating debris. He turned to find Scotty behind him.

"Over here," he motioned. The stacked equipment was charred and dirty. A lump came into Rick's throat, and his eyes watered with something more than smoke irritation. "What a mess!" He shook his head sadly.

"Wait a minute," Scotty said. "Maybe it isn't so bad." He was already lifting crates off the top of the pile, examining them on all sides.

"Look, Rick, the outer ones are charred a little, but most of them are okay. They're all wet, though."

Rick jumped to help him, his hopes rising. "The wetness doesn't matter. They have waterproof plastic linings. Come on, Scotty, let's dig!"

The professors were with them now, and they worked frantically, unstacking the crates, looking anxiously for signs of damage.

Zircon straightened up from his inspection of a bulky wooden box. "Thank G.o.d," he said. "The radio-frequency oscillator unit is undamaged."

Beside him, Weiss pounced on another crate. "The modulator!" He looked it over feverishly. "Not burned. Hobart, what good fortune!"

Captain Marks appeared beside them. "How bad is it?"

"Possibly not hopeless," Zircon replied. "Well have to get the crates out on deck and open them to really tell."

"Well do that right away," the captain said, "after we find out what started this. There's nothing combustible down here. Most of the cargo is toolmaking machinery."

The skipper and the first officer began a careful inspection of the hold. Scotty and Rick followed, watching curiously as they looked for the origin of the fire.

Right behind the stack of scientific equipment, Scotty bent down and picked up a charred rag. "Holy smoke!" he exclaimed. "Look at this!"

The ship's officers and Rick hurried to his side. The rag smelled strongly of kerosene.

Captain Marks and the mate exchanged glances.

"Sabotage," the captain said sharply. "It looks like the fire was set right next to your gear, Rick."

A thread of fear went through him.

Professor Weiss had been exploring a stack of cases beyond the equipment. Suddenly he let out a hoa.r.s.e yell.

"Look! There's a dead man here!"

Instantly all hands were running to him. Captain Marks bent over the limp form lying behind the cases.

"He's not dead. Someone help me get him up."

Scotty took hold of the man's shoulders and they lifted him to a near-by crate.

Rick saw that it was the ship's carpenter, Meekin, his mouth open and his eyes closed. He was breathing, but with quick, shallow breaths.

"Let's get him into the air," the skipper urged. Willing hands lifted the prostrate form and carried him up the ladders to the deck.

In the open air, Meekin stirred feebly and tried to sit up, looking around him with dazed eyes.

"There's your saboteur," Scotty said.

There was a hint of dazed comprehension in the carpenter's face. "What happened, Chips?" Captain Marks grated.

Meekin coughed smoke from his lungs.