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Outside, Farid showed them the self-contained diesel-electric power plant. They stood directly under the massive concrete mount for the great dish and marveled at its size. The main bearings on which it moved were bigger around than Scotty was tall, yet the whole affair was so delicately balanced that a tiny electric motor could control it with fantastic precision.
Still under construction were offices and barracks. The latter would allow the scientists to stay there for days at a time when working on particular projects. The offices were nearly done, and plasterers were at work, but the forms for the barracks floor were just being completed. The pouring of concrete would start on the following day.
Rick looked at the pyramids on the horizon and contrasted this scene of construction with the one that had produced the great tombs. Then, it was only men thousands of them. Today, it was a handful of skilled workers plus machinery.
"Now," Farid said, "let's get back to the control room. Kerama is going to review the situation for the staff. Some of them are new on the job."
As Farid and the boys rejoined the others, Dr. Kerama was pointing to a series of peaks on the Sanborn tracings. "You will note that these peaks occur at intervals, with the spacing apparently random. The main sequence of noise out of which the peaks rise is the 21-centimeter hydrogen line. Notice also that the peaks have nearly identical amplitudes. Obviously, the source is neutral hydrogen, which is to say hydrogen in its normal form, not ionized as we find it in plasma in a star's atmosphere. Our problem is simply to locate the source of the peaks. Somewhere in the circuit there seems to be an effect that serves to modulate the incoming signal. Our antenna will be useless unless we eliminate this interference so that the signal can be pure once again."
Rick had seen Sanborn tracings before. The system was a standard method of recording. His first experience with it had been in making permanent records of telemetered signals from rockets.
A technician asked, "Sir, do these peaks occur 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, and by someone in a hurry.
Rick's hand went to the Egyptian cat in his pocket.
"They wanted the cat," he said slowly. "I can't see that anything is missing. But why is the cat so important?"
He drew it out of his pocket and stared at it. Then his eyes met Scotty's. His pal shrugged. Neither of them had even the slightest clue.
CHAPTER VI The Cat Has Kittens
Rick and Scotty sat on a box under the antenna while Hassan squatted and watched them. For the moment there was nothing for them to do. The scientists were occupied with calculations, and neither boy could make a contribution to high mathematics of the kind used in radio astronomy.