Goodwin Harold Leland - The Egyptian Cat Mystery: A Rick Brant Science-Adventure Story стр 5.

"Believe me, I will be in your debt. And so will my associate, Ali Moustafa. You will like him. He is a great, jolly man, three times my size. If he had a beard, he would resemble your Santa Claus. And he will insist that you accept some token of his appreciation. I will send the instructions separately, so you need not bother with the technical reports."

"I couldn't accept a gift for such a little thing," Rick protested. He looked at the cat, now in Scotty's hands. It was a handsome little statue.

"Ali Moustafa is a hard man to refuse," Bartouki said. "You should not deprive him of the pleasure of making a gift. But I will not press you. It will be between you and him. You are quite sure it will be no trouble?"

Rick's words would return to haunt him during the days ahead. He said blithely, "No trouble at all."

CHAPTER III Cairo

"Excited?" Scotty asked.

Rick had to grin. "Excited? Why should I be excited? A trip to Egypt is an everyday event for me. Stop asking silly questions and look at the scenery."

"I would," Scotty told him, "only somebody's head is in the way. I won't exactly say it's a fathead, but it's too thick to see through."

"Real subtle. I like the way you give delicate hints." Rick moved back so Scotty could see, and watched as the great plane dropped toward the desert, then touched down and sped along modern runways to the administration building.

Two Egyptians were waiting as Winston and the boys walked down the stairway, and the scientist at once hurried to greet them. Obviously the three were old friends.

Winston introduced the two boys. The older of the two Egyptians was Dr. Abdel Kerama. He was a tall, gray-haired man of distinguished appearance. Rick thought that in traditional desert costume he would look like the head sheik of all the desert tribes. The younger Egyptian was Dr. Hakim Farid, a youthful, clean-cut man with an attractive smile.

Rick knew from Winston's advance briefing that these were the two leading radio astronomers of the United Arab Republic, and that both had international reputations in the field.

The Egyptian scientists made the boys feel at home right away. Dr. Kerama took Scotty and Winston by the arms, and Dr. Farid fell in step with Rick as the group walked toward the administration building.

"We're glad you could come," Farid said in excellent English. "We'll try to make your visit interesting."

Rick

thanked him. "I don't know whether we'll be of much use, but we're willing to do anything we're told. All we ask is a little chance to see your country."

"You'll have every chance," Dr. Farid told him. "Before there is any work for you, Parnell will have to do a pretty thorough analysis of data we've collected. It's a problem that has us what's the American expression? Buffaloed?"

"That's it," Rick agreed. "What kind of problem is it?"

"It's what you might call very strange behavior on the part of a hydrogen-line impulse we picked up while calibrating our receiver. Are you familiar with radio astronomy?"

"Not very," Rick admitted. "I tried to read some of the current literature when I found we were coming, but most of it is over my head."

"Then I won't bore you with a technical discussion. Briefly, the noise emitted by hydrogen gas in space is very important to us in our analysis of the nature and distribution of matter. This radio noise is, of course, random. Usually when we are examining a hydrogen source we get pretty continuous and regular signals. If we could hear it, there would be a sort of hissing noise. Do you follow me?"

"So far."

"Good. Our problem is that we are picking up impulses. You might even call them signals. They are on the frequency of neutral hydrogen, but it's hard to believe they're natural in origin. We've about concluded that somehow our amplifier system is modulating the incoming hydrogen signal from the antenna. The trouble is, we can't locate the cause."

"Is that why you called Dr. Winston?" Rick asked.

"Yes. He has a reputation for finding bugs in electronic circuits. If he can find this one, we'll be tempted to reward him with a pyramid or something appropriate."

Rick saw the twinkle in Dr. Farid's eyes. "Better not make it a pyramid," he said hastily. "His luggage is limited to sixty-six pounds. They might not let him on the plane with it."

"A happy thought," Dr. Farid said seriously. "You have saved us from possible embarrassment. It would be useless to give him a pyramid when his weight limit is thirty kilos, as we call sixty-six pounds."

Rick chuckled. One reason he so enjoyed his association with scientists was the dry sense of humor most of them seemed to share.

They reached the administration building and started through the formalities of customs and immigration. The Americans had filled out customs forms and currency declarations on the plane, and in only a short time the formalities were over and their admission into the United Arab Republic was official. The customs inspectors hadn't even asked them to open their luggage.