Mystery of Satellite 7
    By Charles Coombs
    1958
    Young Adult mystery about sabotage in the space program
    Version 1.0
     
    Project Argus is big stuff - part of the biggest of the twentieth century! And hep to it all are teen-pals Steve Kenton, Karl Hoffman, and Doris Bancroft, who get as deep into rocket trouble as their space-exploring fathers.
    Six times John Kenton and his fellow scientists have tried to place a test satellite into an orbital path some thousand miles above the earth. Six times they failed. Now with Argus 7 ready for launching, hope wears a grim face around the civilian-backed installation at isolated Point Victor, Florida. The budget, guaranteed by contract with a group of communications companies, provides for a total of eight satellites. Success with just one test means everything to the plan for establishing in space a television relay-station, which will do the work of thousands of transmitting systems.
    When Argus 7, like No. 6, mysteriously explodes at an altitude of forty-two miles, talk of sabotage runs loud. Worried but unable to help the Project, Steve, Karl, and Doris pursue their summer side line: hunting on lonely, overgrown Beacon Island for conch shells, which they sell to a mainland curio shop.
    Several puzzling incidents on the island lead Steve to suspect a connection between them and the rocket failures. On the day before the final test vehicle is scheduled to blast off from Point Victor, he and Karl sail over to Beacon Island to investigate in earnest.
    From that moment on they're at the sinister center of the satellite mystery. Whether their dangerous discovery can save Argus 8 is a very moot question until a terrific development involving Doris and a young newspaperman settles the point.
    Here's the book to get you behind the astronautical headlines. It's one of the best yet for all young readers in these thrilling geophysical years.
    
    CHARLES COOMBS was a newsboy, farm hand, carpenter's helper, store clerk, and aircraft worker before becoming a full-time author. He graduated from UCLA and began his writing career on a card table set up in a closet. To date he has published over 500 stories, at least 200 articles, and 22 books. Photography and science are his special interests. 
     
     Philadelphia
     THE WESTMINSTER PRESS
     MYSTERY OF SATELLITE 7
     Charles Coombs
    
    
     Westminster Press Books by Charles Coombs
     Celestial Space, Inc.
     The Case of the Purple Mark
     Treasure Under Coyote Hill
     Mystery of Satellite 7
    
    
    
     Chapter 1
    
    It was nearly sunrise at the rocket-launching site located on Point Victor. But the final preparations had been going on since long before dawn on the barren and isolated sandspit on the Florida coast. In fact, for the past three weeks, the total efforts of some three hundred civilian engineers, scientists, and technical specialists had been directed specifically toward Project Argus. Their goal was this morning's zero moment, the launching of the Earth Satellite Vehicle carrying the coded designation of Argus 7.
    "Zero minus ten minutes!"
    The time warning boomed from the metallic throats of the loud-speakers, and echoed across the brush-covered, sandy wastes. Inside the steel-reinforced concrete blockhouse located off to one side of the launch pad, young Steve Kenton glanced at the project safety officer who was calling the countdown into his desk microphone. In front of the PSO stood a black metal console about the size of an upright piano. It was crowded with a varied assortment of gauges, dials, and switches. Several telephones were clustered on the desk.
    It was the project safety officer's touchy job to gather and evaluate all the range-clearance data being transmitted to him from numerous sources. After weighing all the information quickly but carefully, the PSO would make the decision as to whether or not the firing should take place as scheduled. It was a responsibility that Steve would not have relished. A canceled launching was a costly and time-consuming event. Yet it was more than counterbalanced by the total loss that would result if the satellite vehicle was launched in the face of even the slightest uncertainty and fail in its mission.
    The project safety officer glanced up and winked at Steve. "This looks as if it might be a good one, Steve, "he said. "Everything's nicely in the green so far. "He made a sweeping gesture across the instruments, as an indication that their readings were as they should be.
    "Let's hope it stays that way, huh?" Steve said eagerly. "After all the trouble there has been, something good is due to happen on this project. I'm keeping my fingers crossed."
    As he turned away, Steve saw the firing-crew foreman pick up a microphone. "Finish up your final adjustments and inspections, "the foreman instructed the men swarming over and around the giant rocket vehicle which rested on the thick concrete launch pad. "Report anything you come across that is even slightly questionable. Repeat. Report anything even slightly questionable!"
    Steve read plenty of meaning into the simple statement. There was no allowable margin for error in launching an earth satellite vehicle. Once an ESV blasted off from the pad, there was, of course, no opportunity to make manual corrections. Also, when something went wrong, it was usually an extremely difficult task trying to determine the cause. The ground-located receivers, once tuned to the telemetered advice sent out from the rocket, would tell a few things. But a rocket vehicle that veered off course and exploded high in the sky left few or no clues for tracing the mishap.
    And mishaps had been all too frequent during the past few months at the Point Victor satellite assembly and launching installation.
    "Zero minus nine minutes!"
    Being careful to stay out of everyone's way, Steve eased over to one of the large windows that overlooked the enormous launch pad. The windows were actually constructed like periscopes, for the combined blockhouse and instrument control center was buried deep in the Florida sand. Only the top three feet of its forward wall and its mushroom roof of thick concrete projected above ground. Beneath the overhang of the dome roof, the green-tinted eyes of the periscope windows looked out on to the launch pad - looked out upon as strange a sight as man's physical and mental ingenuity had been able to compound.
    "She's a beauty, isn't she, Son?"
    Steve turned at the sound of his father's voice at his elbow. He also noticed the strange tightness in the words. It was a tightness that was not typical at all of iron-nerved John Kenton, top boss of the entire civilian satellite program called Project Argus. Yet, it was a tightness that had become increasingly noticeable during the past few weeks.
    "She sure is, Dad," Steve said. He ran his hand over his tanned forehead. "Looks even faster than the others."
    "The longer nose cone gives it that appearance," the elder Kenton explained. "It needed the extra length to accommodate the new cooling system we've developed. Let's hope it's the answer for getting No. 7 through the friction-heat barrier without melting the craft, or overheating the delicate instruments inside of the satellite."
    "I'm on your side, Dad," Steve said.
    "Put me on that team too," a girl's voice spoke up behind them.
    "Oh, hello, Doris," Steve's father turned to greet the pleasantly attractive redhead with the ready smile and freckle-peppered cheeks. "I didn't know girls were interested enough in rockets to get up this early to watch a firing."
    "It's not that, Dad," Steve spoke up. "It's just that the air conditioning is so good here in the blockhouse, and it's a muggy morning outside. See, Doris even brought a magazine along to read."
    "Hey, I like that!" Steve's sixteen-year-old friend and neighbor pouted elaborately. "Don't forget that my father works on this project too."
    "He certainly does, Doris," Mr. Kenton agreed. "And they don't come any better than Dr. Bancroft."
    "Thanks, Mr. Kenton," Doris said, smiling. "As for you, Steve, believe it or not, I know a few things about rockets."
    "Are you sure it's not all in your head?" Steve said.
    "I get it, boy. Rockets in my head - ha, ha!" Doris Bancroft laughed dryly. "Well, anyway, it was nice seeing you again, Mr. Kenton." Making a playful grimace at Steve, she turned and sauntered away.
    "Zero minus eight minutes!" The countdown progressed, right on schedule.
    Steve directed his attention back to the large periscope window. He watched with growing excitement as men scampered nimbly around on the steel webwork of the enormous gantry crane. The giant mobile unit reached the full length of the satellite vehicle and provided access to any part of the rocket that needed servicing or inspecting.
    Towering eighty-five feet above the concrete launch pad, the three-stage Earth Satellite Vehicle presented an awesome sight. Fifteen feet in diameter at the bottom, the ESV tapered gently upward. Two major steps marked the separation points of the three stages. The third, or topmost stage, was long and slim, coming finally to a sharp point. Inside and well behind the point of the third stage rode the space satellite itself.
    Although hidden now inside of the nose cone, the satellite was a familiar object to Steve. It was a round, highly polished magnesium ball measuring nearly four feet in diameter. It weighed upward of three hundred pounds. The weight was composed primarily of one of the most intricate and valuable sets of instruments ever conceived and constructed. In due course of time, should the present tests be successful, similar, yet even more advanced, instruments could completely revolutionize the field of electronic communications.
    The prime purpose of Project Argus was to blaze a pathway into space, and to test the types of equipment that would be used later in a more important project, even now well along in the planning stage.
    The enormous first section of the rocket was brightly checkerboarded with scarlet and white paint. The gaudy brilliance was there to aid optical sighting and tracking devices during the early part of the vehicle's flight. The second and third stages needed no such garish paint job in order to highlight them as telescopic targets. They traveled far outside the range of visibility. They were painted white in order to deflect the intense solar heat which threatens the sunward side of any object traveling through the cold reaches of outer space.
    "Zero minus seven minutes!"
    Steve watched a technician high up on the gantry crane reach toward the rocket and screw down one of the last inspection plates. Several of the men had already finished their tasks. They had backed down the ladders to the ground, and hastily retreated toward the protection of the submerged blockhouse.
    "So far, so good, Son," his father spoke again. "This could be the one."
    "I hope so, Dad," Steve said. He wished there were some better and less hackneyed way he could have expressed it. Yet, simple as they were, the words certainly did sum up the thoughts of all the scientists, engineers, and technicians working on the project.
    Project Argus had one goal. That was to place at least one of the eight programed Argus satellites in a space orbit at an approximate altitude of one thousand miles above the earth.
    And hope had become an uppermost thought in the minds of the dedicated men and women at work on the project. They were people of strong vision and small capacity for pessimism - the only kind of people, in fact, which could be of any value in such an attempt to convert fantasy into fact. Yet, the frequent delays and the costly series of unexplained mishaps during the past few weeks had caused a certain amount of damage to the workers' enthusiasm for and confidence in the project's success. Everyone on the job was aware that both time and money were running out. When that state of affairs arrived, a host of dreams would be shattered. Countless man-hours of planning and building and testing would be wasted. A major step in space science would collapse and be many, many years in the mending.
    Yes, at this stage, hope seemed as apropos a word as any.
    "Mr. Kenton!" Tom Sempers, the chief radio technician, rushed up to Steve's father. "We - we just picked up some radio interference on our receivers."
    "Interference?" the elder Kenton said sharply. "But I thought all frequencies in the area had been cleared fifteen minutes ago, Tom. You know we've got to have a clean sky for the launching."
    Steve knew it too. The ESV's intricate guidance system was operated by a combination of radar and radio signals. Any outside electrical interference could cause the electronic guidance system to suffer a sort of nervous collapse. Therefore it was essential that all types of electronic activity be closed down during the first few minutes before and after the blast-off. There had always been complete outside co-operation in this respect.
    "The air was cleared," Tom Sempers assured Mr. Kenton. "Then suddenly this quick burst of interference came through."
    "Let's have a listen," Steve's father said, turning to go with the radioman.
    "'Fraid you won't hear anything, Mr. Kenton," Tom Sempers said. "It hasn't repeated since that one short burst. It sounded as if someone could have been testing frequencies. We didn't even have time to vector a directional bearing on it. But I thought I should report it to you, anyway."
    "Absolutely, Tom," Mr. Kenton said. He seemed suddenly relieved that the interruption had been temporary. "Probably some aircraft wandered into our communications blackout zone, then got right out."
    "Might have been that," the radioman agreed," although our radar didn't pick it up."
    "He could have been flying too low," Kenton said. "At any rate, be sure to let me know immediately if it repeats. Otherwise we'll remain clear for the blast-off."
    "Right," Tom Sempers said, and left.
    "How can you account for that kind of radio interference, Dad?" Steve asked.
    "Hard to say. Maybe an airplane. Maybe any number of other things."
    "Radio hams?"
    "Our survey didn't locate any hams close enough to Point Victor to cause any interference," his father said. "Oh, there's one ham in Victorville, but he's away at summer school. Anyway, the interference was apparently a temporary thing. So, if it doesn't repeat, we won't worry. Well, Steve," Mr. Kenton added as he turned to leave," don't get in anyone's way, will you?"
    "I should say not," Steve promised. He knew full well that if he ever did, it would be his last visit to the control center during a rocket launching. And that was a privilege he cherished greatly.
    "Zero minus six minutes!"
    Steve glanced around the interior of the blockhouse. The room was a large one, probably one hundred feet long and a full fifty feet wide. It was jam-packed with enormous metal cabinets that contained a wide assortment of complex instruments. The vast array of dials, gauges, buttons, flashing lights, and switches made Steve dizzy just to look at them.
    Right now, except for a few pulsating lights and the slow swaying of a half dozen needlelike gauge pointers, the electronic monsters seemed to be dozing peacefully. Yet Steve knew that once the rocket vehicle blasted away from the launch pad, the banks of instruments would spring to life. There would be a burst of electronic activity which could be compared roughly to a Fourth of July fireworks display at the county fairgrounds.
    Some forty men and women were inside the blockhouse, although at least half of them were hidden from Steve's view by the various instrument consoles. Except for himself and Doris Bancroft - and Karl Hoffman, if he was around this morning - every person inside the blockhouse had a definite function to perform during the firing and subsequent flight of the satellite vehicle.
    How all their efforts tied together was too complicated a subject for Steve to know. But someday he would find out exactly how everything worked, and the importance of Project Argus to the over-all field of space exploration. His father was an acknowledged pioneer in the field. He knew as much about it as any other living American. Like his father, Steve was determined to make the sciences of rocketry and astronautics his life's work. He had made this decision after the first time he had seen a rocket fired from White Sands Proving Grounds, New Mexico, while his father was still in the Army. The decision had remained firm during the last six of Steve's seventeen years.
    "Zero minus five minutes!"
    The final checks had been made on the rocket outside, and the last inspection plates were screwed down into place. As Steve watched, two men midway up on the gantry crane carefully detached the fuel and oxidizer hoses which had been feeding the ESV its volatile, liquid diet. Dressed in cumbersome rubberized suits and helmets to protect them from the corrosive propellents, the men looked as though they might have dropped from another world.
    With the space rocket fully fueled, the inspections completed, and the electrical circuits hooked up, the big gantry crane was backed away slowly over the twin rails stretching across the sandy waste beyond the launch pad. Now Argus 7 stood tall and proud, completely dwarfing the last man who plugged in a critical circuit and retreated hastily toward the blockhouse.
    "This has to be it, huh, Steve?"
    Steve turned to face the boy who was peering over his shoulder into the tinted window. Karl Hoffman was blond and blue-eyed. He was tall - about six feet - and definitely on the lanky side, although not what you could call skinny. Ordinarily he was calm and easygoing. But right now beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. He removed his glasses and wiped the lenses carefully with the short sleeve of his cotton sport shirt.
    "Hey, where've you been?" Steve asked. "I began to wonder if you were going to be here in time."
    "Be here?" Karl laughed. "I've been here since two thirty. I was helping my father check some of the fuel in the storage tanks. He wanted to be sure there wasn't any water condensation floating around on top. It wouldn't take much water to blow one of those things sky-high, you know. Or any other impurities, for that matter."
    "Yeah, I've heard," Steve said. If there was any teenager around Point Victor as serious about Project Argus as Steve was, Karl Hoffman was the one.
    Karl was seventeen and Steve's classmate at Victorville High. As a matter of fact, they lived only three houses apart right there in the limited housing facilities on Point Victor. The depth of the worn path through the sand between their homes was silent testimony to the depth of their friendship.
    Karl had been born in Germany during the height of Hitler's power. He had been brought to America by his widowed father shortly after World War II. Prof. Otto Hoffman had been a rocket-propulsion expert even before the war. He had highly resented being forced into the German V-2 program by the power-obsessed dictator. Yet, he had little choice in the matter, and found himself working out new propulsion systems at the rocket base at Peenemunde on the Baltic coast.
    Just prior to Hitler's defeat Frau Hoffman, Karl's mother, had been killed in a Berlin bombing raid. Sick with the thought and sight of destruction, Professor Hoffman had contacted the State Department as soon as the war ended. He had offered his services to any peaceful program of rocket research that America might be contemplating.
    At the time, American development in the comparatively new field of rocketry lagged far behind that of the Germans. As an expert, Otto Hoffman became a welcome member of the growing team of American technicians interested in applying rockets to peacetime pursuits. For several years Professor Hoffman had worked at White Sands, developing fuels and propulsion units which carried high-atmosphere sounding rockets to record altitudes. Those rockets had furnished the scientific world with entirely new information regarding the composition and behavior of the sky.
    It had been at White Sands that Steve's father had first met Professor Hoffman, and where Steve had first met Karl. They had been about ten years old at the time. They had remained close friends ever since, although they were sometimes thousands of miles apart due to the varying projects with which their fathers had been involved.
    It had been a big day for both boys when, shortly after receiving the gigantic task of supervising the entire space-satellite program, Steve's father had wired Otto Hoffman inviting him to join in the project. As soon as he could do it gracefully, Professor Hoffman had left his teaching position in a western university, packed his own and Karl's suitcases, and hurried across the country to Point Victor.
    "Zero minus four minutes!"
    The countdown warning snapped Steve out of his thoughts. "What'd you say, Karl?"
    "I haven't said a word for almost a minute," the other boy replied. "Hey, you're not really as worried as you look, are you?"
    Steve didn't answer. He glanced back out through the periscope window. Argus 7 stood stark and clean against the morning sky. Except for several white plumes of misty vapor escaping from fuel bleed-off valves, the scene through the window seemed more like the painted cover on a science-fiction magazine than the real-life thing.
    A slight movement off to one edge of the launch pad caught Steve's attention. It stopped. Then it moved again. He saw a small cottontail hop up to the edge of the concrete and pause to look around. The animal seemed quite curious about the strange, towering object that man had erected out there on the brush-covered, sandy wastes of Point Victor. Then, quickly losing interest, the rabbit turned to nibble at a clump of swamp grass.
    "Boy, there's going to be one mighty surprised bunny, if he hangs around there much longer," Karl spoke over Steve's shoulder.
    "He'll have something to hop home and tell his folks about, all right," Steve said.
    Karl laughed softly. "I can see that bunny in about three minutes, when - hey, Steve, what's the matter? You look queer. You sick?"
    "No, I'm not sick."
    "Just worried about this firing, huh?"
    "I - I guess so, Karl. Can't help it."
    "Can't blame you, pal," Karl sympathized. "After six failures a guy's entitled to a few butterflies in his stomach. I've got some big ones flapping their wings around inside of me, too. But ol' No. 7 may be the one to do what the other six haven't, huh?"
    "Let's hope you're right," Steve said fervently.
    "I'm right," the other boy said, but with rather obviously feigned good cheer. After six failures, genuine optimism was not easily come by. "Anyway, pal, quit worrying about -"
    "Zero minus three minutes!" the countdown warning interrupted his words.
    "At least," Steve said, as the echo of the loud-speakers died out," we'll know for sure in about three minutes."
    "Yeah," Karl said, nodding absently. "In about three minutes!"
    
    
     Chapter 2
    
    The cottontail was still nibbling at the grass near the edge of the launch pad when Steve turned away from the periscope window.
    "Where you going?" Karl asked.
    "Three minutes is a long time," Steve said. What he really meant was that he felt he had to move around a little to keep the mounting pressure of the tension inside of him from bursting. "I'll be right back," he added.
    Being especially careful not to get in anyone's way, Steve moved slowly to the rear of the room where he could get an over-all view of the activity. Most of the dozing electronic "monsters," as the technicians called them, had come partially awake. Spools spun thin wires through complicated recording devices. Small varicolored lights flashed and pulsated like fireflies on parade. Steve knew that every light had its definite message to convey to the intently watching scientists. The clack and whine of the fabulously complex machinery formed an unusual background symphony of sound. Greenish-blue radarscopes beamed strange, eerie images which only the skilled technicians could interpret.
    Near the center of the room, and close to the project safety officer, a man sat at a small console desk. There were several dials and switches set in the canted panel before him. Directly in front of him and within easy reach was one red plastic button, about three times the size of an ordinary doorbell button. In order to prevent it from being accidentally pressed, the button was protected by a guard of iron grillwork. The guard was hinged at the upper edge, so it could be quickly flipped out of the way when the man wanted to reach the button.
    The man was Herman Foster. His title was that of firing safety observer. The red button in front of him was called the "destruct button." Mr. Foster had life-or-death control over the satellite vehicle during the first few seconds after the firing switch was thrown closed.
    If all went according to plan, Herman Foster had nothing whatsoever to do except read a few critical instruments. But if anything went wrong, visually or mechanically - which would indicate a variation from the vehicle's preset flight plan - Mr. Foster had the responsibility of pressing the destruct button. A radio impulse would immediately trigger a device that would cut off the rocket's fuel supply by remote control. With its power killed, the giant vehicle would plunge back to earth or be dumped into the Atlantic Ocean before it had a chance to become a rampaging and lethal rocket monster threatening nearby settlements.
    Argus 2 had been destroyed in that manner when it started to run wild shortly after leaving the launch pad. Herman Foster's instant decision to press the destruct button had been a costly one, indeed. But it had been cheap compared to the havoc it might have cost in property or human lives if the firing safety observer had not made the correct decision at the right moment.
    Steve hoped desperately that Herman Foster would not need to use that button again today.
    "Zero minus two minutes'"
    An involuntary chill surged along Steve's spine. He realized that his hands were knotted into fists as though he was preparing to defend himself. Defend himself from what? In launching a space vehicle, the adversary was almost always unseen and unknown. Until the firing switch was thrown closed, there was no way of anticipating what numerous unsuspected opponents lay in wait to reach out and ambush the project. It could be a slight clog in one of the fuel lines. It might be a microscopic crack in a turbopump blade. Vibration might sever the filament of a critical subminiature vacuum tube. The increased gravity load resulting from the enormous thrust during the blastoff might damage one of the delicate transistors essential to the proper functioning of the guidance system.
    Any one of a thousand causes could wipe out the entire effort. The only reliable defense was perfection. And man had not yet been able to acquire such perfection.
    So Steve stood with his fists clenched - trying to diagnose the reason for it.
    "Take it easy, Steve," Doris Bancroft said, stepping over beside him. "And don't bite a hole through your lip. I've never seen you quite this way. Let's go over by Karl so we can watch through the window." She fairly led him across the room.
    "Zero minus one minute!"
    Karl moved over to one side of the window as they approached. His face glistened with perspiration, although the blockhouse was well air-conditioned. "She's all buttoned up and ready to go," Karl whispered. "Someone just went out and threw the safety switch."
    "Zero minus thirty seconds!"
    "Here's hoping, Steve!" Karl reached over and gripped his arm firmly.
    Steve nodded. He glanced over toward another periscope window behind which the firing officer sat. Steve saw the technician's right hand move over and lift the metal guard from over the firing switch. Glancing back into the room, Steve saw the firing safety observer's hand poised over the destruct button. Other than the blinking lights and crackling electronics, all sound and motion inside the control center seemed suspended in time and space.
    "Zero minus fifteen seconds!"
    As he turned back toward the window, Steve caught sight of his father standing at the far side of the blockhouse. Mr. Kenton usually stationed himself where he could get a panoramic view of the room, as well as a sidelong glance out through one of the periscope windows which revealed the activity on the launch pad. The project superintendent could also watch and try to interpret in his mind the meanings of the signals that would soon be flashing across the panels of instruments in front of him. In this manner he would get the general picture - the skilled technicians were responsible for the finer and more specialized phases of gathering and interpreting data.
    Steve's father glanced up. Their eyes met for a moment. They smiled at each other, although Steve had the feeling they both had to work at it a little. Steve lifted his hand up, touching the tips of his thumb and forefinger together, in a silent wish for success.
    His father certainly hadn't deserved all the failures that had plagued Project Argus during the past few weeks. Indeed, no one could have deserved them.
    It was high time for success.
    "Zero minus ten seconds - nine - eight - seven - six - five - four - three - two - one - FIRE!"
    At the command, the firing officer jammed the switch closed. Instantly, yellowish-orange flame stabbed downward from the base of Argus 7. A torrent of earth-shaking sound shattered the stillness inside the insulated blockhouse.
    For a moment the satellite vehicle stood unmoving as gravity held firm against the opposing push of rocket thrust. Then the monstrous satellite vehicle began to totter uncertainly as gravity's sticky fingers started losing their grip.
    "Up!" Steve coaxed, completely unaware of uttering a sound. "Up!"
    Almost as though influenced by the fervent plea, Argus 7 rose slowly upon its unsteady legs of flaming thrust that blasted downward from the multiple barrels of the enormous rocket motors. Once free of the launch pad, the satellite vehicle gained momentum rapidly. Quickly it climbed out of the restricted viewing range of the periscope window through which Steve, Doris, and Karl were watching.
    "There she goes!" Karl exclaimed, pivoting to pick up the rocket's flight on the projection screen hanging high on the north wall of the blockhouse. Everyone whose immediate duties had terminated with the successful blastoff turned his attention to that screen.
    Atop the blockhouse a special telescopic-camera sighting device automatically tracked the vehicle. The image picked up by its finely ground magnifying lenses was electrically projected onto the screen inside the control center. This made it possible for representative engineers and scientists to follow visually the first fifty miles or so of the rocket's flight. Even more important, a high-speed camera, shooting pictures at the rate of five hundred frames per second, furnished a permanent and invaluable film record of the early and most critical part of the vehicle's flight.
    "Look at 'er go!" Steve exclaimed. Even the high-powered telescopic lenses were unable to hide the impression of speed as Argus 7 steadily shrank smaller on the screen.
    "Looks right on course," Karl said. Yet there was really no way of knowing, unless you were one of the specialists who knew how to read the radio telemetered data being transmitted steadily back from the missile itself.
    In roughly similar fashion to a cannon projectile, the satellite vehicle received its initial guidance by being shot through a "gun barrel." Only, in the case of the satellite vehicles, the gun barrel was an invisible electronic tube stretching over two hundred miles into the sky.
    The purpose of the rocket's guidance system was to keep the vehicle within the electronic bore while the essential velocity was being built up. When the proper directional trajectory was established, it would eventually put the satellite, riding in the nose cone, into its planned orbit.
    "It's almost out of sight already," Doris said.
    Scant seconds had passed since the satellite vehicle had blasted away from the launch pad. Steve guessed by past records that its speed already had built up to five or six thousand miles per hour, and would be increasing rapidly due to the ever-thinning atmosphere at high altitude.
    Now it was little more than an acorn-sized speck in the middle of the projection screen. Soon it would be completely out of sight. Steve was about to turn his attention from the screen when his eye seemed to detect a momentary fluctuation in the direction of the rocket's trajectory. But it was such a slight change, the error could be in his vision and not in the rocket's course. After all, Argus 7 had definitely not reached the point in the electronic gun barrel where its course was scheduled to start bending gently toward the horizontal. That point wasn't attained until the vehicle had reached an altitude of nearly two hundred miles, far beyond range of the telescopic tracking cameras.
    Then, as the image of the rocket vehicle surged toward the edge of the gridded screen, there was no longer doubt that it was straying off course.
    "Steve!" Karl gasped. "It - it's -"
    Sudden action and guttural exclamations broke the comparative stillness that had filled the large room ever since the thunder of the rocket's motors had faded into the sky.
    "Something's gone wrong!" Steve exclaimed. It was an obvious remark. It served only as a release valve for sudden pent-up emotion, not as a profound statement of fact.
    He stared at the screen as though hypnotized by the oblique movement of the small dark shape toward the edge of the white rectangle of the screen. Then, even as he tried to adjust his mind to the failure of the seventh Project Argus vehicle, outside a tiny flash of red flared brilliantly against the deep-blue background of the sky.
    Red - and then nothing!
    There were brief seconds, which seemed hours, during which a suffocating stillness once again filled the room. Steve had a strange feeling akin to falling through space - of reaching out but being unable to grab hold of anything to steady himself. It was like a nightmare. He found himself wishing desperately that it was a nightmare.
    But it wasn't. He became acutely aware that several of the technicians were reaching for switches and turning off the complicated electronic instruments that were only of use during a rocket's flight. There was no rocket now. Instead, there would be only small pieces of metal chaff drifting down toward the Atlantic waters.
    "She blew up!" Steve said. It was a simple statement; like saying water is wet, or fire is hot. Yet, if the words were simple, the tone in which they were said was not so simple. It was a tone filled with exhaustion and despair. It was a tone filled with almost hopeless futility.
    Steve felt a tender grip on his arm. He turned slowly and looked into Karl's eyes. The tall boy was trying hard to smile.
    "Come on, Steve," he said calmly. "Let's get out of here."
    "Le -let's find out what went wrong first," Steve said.
    "They won't know that for quite some time," Karl said. "They're going to have to decode and evaluate an awful lot of data first."
    Steve knew his friend was right.
    "Besides," Karl added," knowing what went wrong isn't going to make things right now, is it?"
    "I - I guess not," Steve admitted dismally.
    He realized it was almost too late for anything to change now.
    
    
     Chapter 3
    
    There was little eating and less conversation at the Kentons' dinner table that evening. Steve's father had arrived home late. He had shown some surprise over the fact that neither Steve nor his mother had gone ahead and eaten. It was a drastic variation of the usual procedure, in which, at the stroke of sunset, Steve usually started his "when do we eat" campaign until his mother gave in - father home or not.
    In the light of that morning's scientific disaster, it was understandable that Steve's appetite would be poor. It was now equally understandable, with dinner nearly finished, and Mrs. Kenton already starting to clear the table, that Steve could no longer respect his father's silence, nor contain his curiosity.
    "What was it, Dad?" he blurted out.
    "What was what?" his father said absently. "Oh, you mean this morning?"
    "That's right. Why did Argus 7 blow up like that?"
    "We don't know, Steve."
    "Don't know? But, Dad, the instruments. Everything a rocket does during each foot of its flight leaves a permanent record on one of the instruments in the control center, doesn't it?"
    John Kenton smiled tolerantly."Well, you're not too far off, Steve," he said. "Not much happens that we don't have some record of. Every surge of power, every wobble, every temperature change - generated by friction heat as a rocket speeds through the atmosphere - stamps some kind of message on our receiving apparatus. You're familiar with all the radio telemetering equipment that goes into the satellite rockets. It tells us data that we would never be able to find otherwise."
    "Then why don't you know why the Argus 7 blew up this morning, Dad?" Steve insisted. "Or am I not supposed to be told?"
    "It's not a case of whether you're supposed to be told or not, Steve," his father said with a trace of impatience. "It's simply that telemetering does not tell us everything we want to know. It did tell us several important things of interest, though. Among these items was the one rather startling fact that this morning's vehicle began to lose guidance control at an altitude of almost exactly forty-two miles."
    "What's startling about that, Dad?" Steve wondered. "It figured to be roughly around there, as you could still see it fairly well on the screen. If it had been any higher, it would have been fading fast out of range of the telescopic cameras. I can't quite see why having it happen at an altitude of forty-two miles should have any -" He stopped suddenly.
    "Have any what, Son?" John Kenton said, watching him closely.
    "Dad, the - the Argus 6! The instruments indicated that it went out of control too and at an altitude of exactly forty-two miles!"
    "It is a rather strange coincidence, isn't it, Steve?" his father said. "I've been in the rocket business for many years, and I must confess I have never run across such a coincidence, or anything even close to it."
    "Then you don't think it was a coincidence, Dad?"
    "Steve, as you know, those rockets travel at speeds of thousands of miles per hour." His father leaned back and talked in a half-absent manner, as though he were striving to organize his own thoughts. "As a matter of fact, our instruments indicate that this morning's vehicle was approaching a velocity of nearly six thousand miles per hour when its guidance system went haywire. It is also wise to remember that the failure of any one of thousands of small parts working in series is sufficient to cause a drastic malfunction in operation of the rocket. Now, my scientific training and experience, if you will allow the boast, simply refuse to accept as coincidence that on two successive firings the failure of separate hypersonic rockets would occur at precisely the same altitude."
    "But, Dad," Steve said, "the cases weren't really identical. The Argus 6 didn't blow up in flames."
    "That's true, Steve," John Kenton said. "We can only guess at what happened to Argus 6 after its guidance system failed at the forty-two-mile altitude. We do know that it kept coasting upward on its own momentum."
    "Something over two hundred miles, wasn't it?" Steve said.
    "At least that, I'd say," his father agreed. "As you know, coasting distances are tremendous up in the non-resisting vacuum of space. Gravity is the only hindrance left. Anyway, when gravity turned Argus 6 back toward earth, it fell with such velocity that, in true meteor fashion, it was consumed by flame, generated by the friction heat of its re-entry into the atmosphere."
    "Then why didn't Argus 7 do the same thing this morning?" Steve wanted to know.
    "You're asking quite a few sixty-four-thousand-dollar questions, Steve," Mr. Kenton said. "But what happens to the rocket after the guidance system suddenly goes haywire is of little importance to us. The damage is already done. In this morning's case, the sudden uncontrolled pitch and yaw of the rocket probably ruptured the fuel and oxidizer tanks. There's no surer way to blow up a rocket than through such an uncontrolled mixing of its propellents. Its blowing up is rather simple to understand. But I still can't swallow the seemingly amazing coincidence of both Argus 6 and 7 meeting critical trouble and failing at an identical altitude of forty-two miles, and on widely separate dates."
    "Different dates, maybe, Dad, but they were following the same route."
    "Of course," his father said. "All the satellite vehicles are launched at the same angle and in the same easterly direction in order to take advantage of the one-thousand-mile-per-hour speed of the earth's rotation. So the route is pretty well stabilized. All Argus rockets follow the same path."
    "Then there must be a rock or something lying in the path at the forty-two-mile mark," Steve said.
    His father glanced up at him quickly. "You may have come closer to the truth than you realize, Steve," he said cryptically.
    All during the conversation there had been a strange question gnawing persistently at the back of Steve's mind. His father's final statement, noncommital as it may have been intended, left Steve little choice but to ask the question.
    "Dad," he said, "you - you make it sound as though something might have been done on purpose to cause those last two satellite rockets to go out of control right at the same place."
    "You aren't trying to put words in my mouth, are you, Steve?" John Kenton said, smiling thinly. "Of course, if you want to make a mystery out of it - which is not so rare a thing with you - you might toy around with the idea that there are certain countries and certain fanatical groups who might frown upon any country's placing a man-made satellite into operation." 
    "I don't know why they should," Steve insisted. "It's strictly a civilian project. There's no military angle to it, is there, Dad?"
    "None whatsoever. There's not a Government dollar invested in Project Argus, as you know," John Kenton said. Then he added with a shrug: " But everyone may not be convinced of this. Regardless of what you and I might like to believe, Steve, there are still certain jealousies between nations, and between certain opposing segments of their people." 
    "You sound like my civics teacher, Dad," Steve said, smiling.
    "Yes, I guess you're right," his father said. "But I'm about finished with my lecture. With Project Argus we weren't obligated to go to all the trouble of doing it, but we've tried to make it plain to all the world that our planned communications system satellites can in no way affect international neighborliness, other than to improve it. I'm afraid, though, that everyone might not understand it that way. Besides -" John Kenton cut himself short. "Forget it. I was thinking out loud. Lecture ended."
    But Steve wasn't exactly ready to forget it. The old adage of there very likely being some fire where there was smoke could certainly apply to the present situation. And his father's talk had stirred up more than a few vaporish wisps in Steve's mind.
    "Dad," he blurted," I don't think you're giving me the whole scoop on this business."
    Even as he said it, Steve knew he really had no right to. After all, he was little more than a bystander in Project Argus. But for years his father had shared confidences with him. Steve had never failed to keep a secret. Now, somehow, he felt closed out.
    It seemed that small flecks of anger sparked in his father's eyes. Steve's mother turned from the sink, where she had been concentrating on her dishes, although Steve was pretty sure she had missed none of the conversation. Apparently she too noticed the flash of anger that hardened the muscles in her husband's cheeks.
    "Now, John," she said defensively," Steve didn't mean . . ."
    But the anger was gone, even before it had gotten set on his father's face. John Kent on reached over and rubbed his knuckles playfully in the short bristles of Steve's crew cut.
    "You're right, Steve," he said, "I haven't given you the whole scoop. I guess it has been quite a while since I have been completely frank with you. I should remember that you're pretty well grown up, and that you're no blabber mouth. The truth is that, as of now, there's nothing anyone could blabber about with any authority, anyway."
    "Dad," Steve said, "I didn't mean it the way it must have sounded. I - I shouldn't be pestering you to talk. Not after all you've gone through today."
    "Son," his father said, "you have every right. This rocket business is in your blood the way it is in mine. I'm like every father, I suppose. I hope when the day comes, you'll be able to take over in this business where I leave off. Then I can take your mother on a leisurely cruise around the country in a trailer equipped with a variety of fishing poles. So you won't need to pester me for information. Whenever I can, I'll give it to you willingly."
    Hearing his father talk like that made Steve feel ten feet tall.
    "But right now, Son," the elder Kenton went on," we have nothing but a few unfounded suspicions. In time we may have something to back them up."
    "Suspicions about what, Dad?" Steve asked, quickly forgetting his apology for pestering.
    "Cut the innocent act," his father scolded good-naturedly. "You know what I'm thinking about. You did everything but say the right word yourself."
    "Sabotage?"
    "That's the general idea, I guess."
    "You - you think it was sabotage, Dad?" Steve said, trying to hide the excitement building inside of him. "But, Dad, how -"
    "Hold on!" his father interrupted. "You're getting ready to ask me a bunch of questions that I have no way of answering. Anyway, it's time we knocked this off. I've got a few coded tapes I want to mull over before bedtime. You'll have to excuse me." John Kenton pushed his chair back from the table, got up, and started for the living room.
    "Sabotage!" Steve muttered to himself. Yet it apparently was loud enough for his father to hear.
    "I didn't say that's what it was, Steve," he reminded over his shoulder. "So let's not get careless with words - or opinions."
    "But you said it could be," Steve persisted.
    "Perhaps I did," his father agreed with some impatience. "So let's leave it there." He went on into the living room.
    But one thought kept crowding into Steve's mind as he left the table and started down the hallway toward his bedroom.
     Where there is smoke, there is apt to be some fire!
    
    
     Chapter 4
    
    "Hey, Steve!"
    Steve rolled over in bed, opened his eyes, and peeked out from under the corner of a sheet. A blond head was framed in the bedroom window.
    "Hey, Steve!"
    "I hear you. I hear you," Steve said. "What're you doing outside there in the middle of the night?"
    "Are you nuts?" Karl answered through the screen. "The sun's been up for two hours. You figuring to stay in bed all day?"
    "I didn't sleep very well last night."
    "Who did?"
    Steve raised himself on one elbow, and blinked the sleep out of his eyes.
    "What are you doing outside my window, anyway, friend?" he asked. "Why not come in?"
    "Unhook the screen, and I will."
    "Screen? This house happens to have doors, you know."
    "Don't want to wake your folks."
    Steve glanced at the electric alarm clock on his bedside stand."At twenty minutes to nine?" he said."Dad's probably put in a good half day's work by now. What day's today?"
    "When I got up it was Wednesday," Karl said. "Why?"
    "Then Mother's gone to Red Cross. Guess I'm alone. Come on in and keep me company."
    "Unhook the screen."
    "Use the door," Steve insisted. "It's that thing with hinges on one edge and a kind of round knob on the other. You'll know it when you see it."
    "If it's anything I hate, it's stuffy people," Karl complained. Turning away from the window, he disappeared around the house.
    Steve rolled out of bed, shucked out of his pajamas, jumped into his shorts, and went to wash up.
    "Boy, your mother doesn't let you go hungry," Karl called from the kitchen. "Strawberries even."
    "How many?" Steve called back as he waited for the water to start running hot in the washbasin.
    "Oh, a couple dozen. Why?"
    "Then there'd better be a couple dozen when I get out there."
    Secretly Steve hoped there would be less than a dozen. Sharing with Karl had become a pleasant habit. It was particularly satisfying when it came to food, since Karl had no mother to keep him acquainted with home cooking. Karl was always more than welcome at the Kenton table - it was a long-standing privilege which he often accepted to the mutual enjoyment of all. Professor Hoffman also carried a verbal guest card to the Kenton table. But the professor was a small man physically, and a sporadic eater. He ordered most of his meals from the Project Argus commissary, and ate them right in his lab, with one eye on the potatoes and one eye in the microscope, as it were, which probably accounted, in part, for his having a nervous stomach.
    Steve dug a light T shirt out of his dresser drawer, for it was already turning into a hot day. He jerked on a pair of jeans, slipped his feet into a pair of loafers, and joined Karl in the kitchen.
    "Steve," Karl said, "did I tell you there were two dozen strawberries?"
    "Exactly."
    "Sorry. I made a grievous mistake. I meant a dozen - almost." One of Karl's hands was out of sight under the breakfast table.
    "Here," Steve said, handing him a carton of breakfast food. "You might as well have some cereal under them."
    Grinning, Karl brought the bowl of berries out from under the table. "You're a real pal," he said.
    "Pal, my eye!" Steve feigned gruffness. "Strawberries give me hives."
    "Then I'd better do you a favor and eat them all," Karl offered.
    "They never give me hives on Wednesday," Steve amended. He sat down. "Well, besides filching my breakfast, what brings you over here this morning, ex-friend?"
    "Thought you might want to wander down to the plant and see if anyone's found out anything more about yesterday."
    "Good idea," Steve agreed. "Only we've got to be careful. I don't believe anyone's going to be in too good a mood today."
    "Yeah. You got any ideas, Steve?"
    "About what?"
    "Well, about what might have caused yesterday's blowup of Argus 7?"
    "Me? Ideas on that? Holy smoke, Karl, even my dad doesn't know what caused it! And if the project superintendent doesn't know, who am I to make guesses?"
    "I didn't mean it that way," Karl said. "I meant about the sabotage angle."
    Steve glanced up quickly. In his talk with his father last night, the elder Kenton had indicated that the subject of sabotage was one that shouldn't be kicked around carelessly. After all, it was a nebulous idea - an idea that had sprung up only because there was no other apparent explanation for the failure of Argus 7.
    "Don't look so surprised," Karl said. "There's plenty of talk going around. Couldn't help but be."
    "It's only talk then," Steve insisted.
    "Sure, it's only talk. Probably there's not a bit of fact behind it. But it doesn't hurt any to consider every possible angle, does it? Do you know that yesterday's rocket went out of control at exactly the same altitude that Argus 6 did three weeks ago, and -"
    "Yeah, I know," Steve said. "Forty-two miles. So what?" Even he recognized the " so what?" as an obvious bluff to cover up for a total lack of a better explanation for the odd coincidence.
    "So nothing," Karl said, lifting the cereal bowl and gulping down the last of the milk. "What say we head out?"
    "I've got to do the dishes first," Steve said. "Mom doesn't go for coming home to a dirty sink. I'll wash; you dry." He pitched a towel at Karl, nearly knocking off the tall boy's glasses.
    Soon they were walking toward the edge of the rather flimsily built executive housing facilities, sometimes laughingly called "Argus Gardens." The name was a charitable one, as the only soil was beach sand capable of growing nothing but Bermuda grass, ice plant, and spiny palmetto. Most of the Project Argus employees lived in Victorville, a medium-sized beach town nine miles away. The thirty or so houses of Argus Gardens were occupied by the families of the supervisory and key personnel. Their responsibility in part was to be readily available at any time of day or night.
    "Hey, where are you fellows going?" Doris Bancroft called, coming out of her front door.
    "We're taking a walk," Steve answered.
    "On a hot day like this?" Doris said. "That makes a lot of sense. You going swimming?"
    "Hadn't thought of it. Why?"
    "Well, if you think of it, let me know."
    "Might do it this evening," Karl said. "We'll drop by for you if we do."
    "Thanks, Karl," Doris said, smiling. "It's nice to know one gentleman. Hey, wait a second. I just remembered something." She walked across the sandy front yard toward them.
    Doris was dressed in lemon-yellow shorts and a green print blouse, which made her reddish hair seem much more fiery than usual. Doris was an attractive girl, all right. But that was something Steve couldn't say out loud. Doris was a lot of fun, but she didn't seem so very concerned nor too well versed on the kind of history that was being made at Point Victor. Nothing to be bothered about, really, as girls weren't supposed to get all wrapped up in such technical things. But as far as Steve was concerned, that was reason enough not to encourage her to come along when he and Karl were making their frequent rounds of the labs and shops. It got pretty tiresome answering questions. Other than that Steve had no complaint.
    "I got a call from the Victorville Curio Shop yesterday evening," Doris was saying. "Mr. Tate said he could use fifty or so conch shells from us if we could get them. He said the tourists really went for that last batch."
    "Those were the ones we got out on Beacon Island, weren't they?" Karl said.
    "That's right," Doris verified. "They were bigger than the others, you'll remember. More colorful, too."
    "Did he say when he had to have them?" Steve asked. It wasn't a bad deal they had worked up with the owner of the Victorville Curio Shop. The larger varieties of the gracefully spiraled shells were almost sure-fire tourist items. For that reason they had become rather scarce along the more accessible parts of the Florida coast. But Steve and Doris and Karl had located several nice hunting spots on a few of the nearby islands and keys.
    Their latest find had been on Beacon Island, which lay out in the ocean three miles from Point Victor. It was an easy journey in either the dinghy or the sloop that the company furnished for the recreation of Project Argus employees. It could also be a profitable journey, since Mr. Tate was willing to pay them thirty-five cents for each shell in good condition. The fact that the curio-shop owner sold them for a dollar or a dollar and a half apiece, with no more effort than lining them up on the shelves, didn't concern the three young people. To them, fifty shells was seventeen-fifty, and a hundred shells was thirty-five dollars. Split three ways, it still added up to pocket money.
    "He wants them as soon as he can get them," Doris said. "And we've got to allow time to clean and glaze them, of course."
    "Can't go today," Steve said. "Got something else on."
    "How about tomorrow then?"
    "Tomorrow's O.K. with me," Karl said."How about you, Steve?"
    "I think so."
    "Then let's figure tomorrow," Doris suggested. "Be here by seven, huh? And let me know by tonight if you can't make it."
    "It's a deal," Karl said.
    "See you," Steve added.
    The two boys turned and went on toward the Project Argus facilities.
    There was the usual activity going on in the shops and the labs. If anything, though, there seemed to be a little more than ordinary urgency in the proceedings. Steve recalled that there always had seemed to be that feeling directly following each unsuccessful attempt to get one of the Project Argus satellites into its space orbit. Steve supposed working extra hard was one way to help hide disappointment.
    Eventually he and Karl found themselves in the small reception room outside John Kenton's office.
    "Oh, hi, boys," Miss Durward greeted, looking up from her desk. "Warm, isn't it?"
    "Sure is," Steve agreed with his father's secretary. "Is Dad in?"
    "He's in. But he's busy." Miss Durward lowered her voice mysteriously and beckoned them closer. "In fact, he's more than busy. Two executives from American Communications Company flew in last night. They're inside with him now."
    "Poor Dad," Steve said. "More board of directors members on his neck about yesterday's firing."
    "It's not that black and white, Steve," Miss Durward said patiently. "After all, it's quite reasonable for American Communications to be concerned. They have millions of dollars tied up in this program."
    "So do some other companies," Steve said.
    "I know, I know," Miss Durward agreed. "And look at this batch of telegrams. There'll be representatives around here from all these companies within the next few days. It's standard procedure, you know. But give them credit. They'd be down here too if yesterday's firing had been successful."
    *I only wish that had happened," Steve said.
    At that moment the telephone on Miss Durward's desk rang. Steve's mind wandered during the early part of the conversation between the secretary and the unidentified caller on the other end of the line. Whoever it was, he was long on persistence, and loud of voice, as Miss Durward had to hold the receiver several inches from her ear.
    Then she cupped her hand over the mouthpiece. "Newspaperman from upstate," she said. "He's not going to give up, apparently. Drove all night."
    "Tell him Dad's busy," Steve said. "Everybody's busy."
    "She told him that," Karl put in. "Weren't you listening?"
    The voice in the telephone crackled on. A somewhat resigned expression appeared on Miss Durward's face.
    "All right," she said finally. "I will check. Please hold the line a minute." She lowered the telephone, holding the palm of her hand over the mouthpiece. "I may get fired for this," she said aside to Steve and Karl. "But this fellow isn't exactly ready to give up." She reached to the corner of her desk, paused a second or two, then flipped a toggle switch on the intercom box.
    "Yes?" Steve's father's voice came sharply from the box.
    "Mr. Kenton, there - there's a newsman here and he's quite persistent."
    "A newsman? Miss Durward, you know I'm busy, and - you say he's here?"
    "At the front gate, Mr. Kenton."
    "What paper does he represent?"
    "The Times-Journal."
    Steve heard a murmur of voices over the intercom. The Times-Journal was one of the state's biggest dailies. And although they had given the Government's International Geophysical Year Project Vanguard enormous news coverage, they had pretty well ignored Project Argus up to this time.
    "Did he mention any particular story he was after, Miss Durward?"
    "I believe he wants general background coverage, Mr. Kenton," the secretary said. "He didn't even mention yesterday's firing."
    "I see. Well, I don't like to turn him down, but everyone's so busy - But, say, if it's only general information he wants, call my house and see if Steve's there."
    Miss Durward glanced up quickly and smiled. "Mr. Kenton," she said, "Steve and Karl Hoffman are both out here with me right now."
    "They are? Good. Hold them. I'll be right out. And hold that reporter on the phone, too."
    Steve and Karl shot puzzled glances at each other. Where did they figure in this? Steve's father came out of his office, closing the door behind him.
    "Hello, fellows," he greeted. "Believe I've got a job for you."
    "You - you don't mean the reporter from the Times-Journal, Dad?" Steve said.
    "Look, we simply can't spare anyone to brief a reporter right now," his father said. "Besides, I doubt if there's anyone around who knows the general background of this operation any better than you two."
    "But what's the reporter going to think, Mr. Kenton?" Karl wondered. "I doubt if he's going to like the idea of traveling several hundred miles to interview a couple of high school -"
    "I can't help that," the project superintendent insisted. "And don't sell yourselves short, Karl. If I didn't feel you boys were fully capable, I wouldn't let you do it."
    "But, Dad-"
    "Don't take my word for it," Steve's father cut in. "Ask Miss Durward whether or not she thinks you could handle it all right."
    "I'll agree on one thing, anyway, Mr. Kenton," Miss Durward spoke frankly. "Steve and Karl probably know as much, if not more, about this project in general than ninety per cent of the people working on it."
    "There. You see?" Mr. Kenton said. "O.K., boys, what about it? Give him basic material. No technical stuff. Newspaper readers don't care about that, anyway. Deal?"
    Once again Steve and Karl exchanged glances. Karl smiled his approval. The idea began to have increasing appeal to Steve.
    "It's a deal," he said, then added," Glad to do it, Dad."
    "Good," Mr. Kenton said. "Oh, yes - and one other thing. If you can possibly avoid it, make absolutely no mention of any suspicion that yesterday's loss of Argus 7 might have resulted from some form of sabotage."
    Steve tried not to show surprise at his father's final warning. Sabotage! Why, he wondered, did that word keep cropping up?
    
    
     Chapter 5
    
    Steve was both surprised and pleased to discover that the Times-Journal reporter was young and pleasant to deal with. His name was Ted Raymond. He was a bit taller than average. He had the slim waist and broad shoulders of an athlete. A slightly flattened and bent nose, plus a couple of gold-capped front teeth, seemed to lend credence to Steve's guess that Ted Raymond knew his way around a football field or a hockey rink. Steve figured the reporter couldn't be more than twenty-two or twenty-three years old. Outwardly, he had a casual manner about him. But a deep sharpness in his brown eyes seemed to belie any indication that his thinking was haphazard. And Steve remembered the persistence the reporter had displayed to Miss Durward over the telephone.
    If there was any disappointment on his part when John Kenton introduced him to Steve and Karl and explained the reasons, Ted Raymond gave no indication of it.
    "As long as I can show my managing editor a couple good stories, I don't care if they come out of cereal boxes."
    Steve figured it was something of a left-handed vote of confidence, but he let it go.
    "I can assure you, Mr. Raymond," his father put in by way of rather firm defense,"if I didn't think the boys were fully capable of the responsibility, I wouldn't be assigning it to them."
    "Mine wasn't a very clever remark, sir," Ted Raymond apologized. "Please check it off to inexperience. O.K., fellows, where do we begin?"
    "I'd suggest you give Mr. Raymond a quick tour of the premises," Mr. Kenton said to the boys. "You'll have to stay away from the propulsion lab and the instrumentation test buildings, though." He turned then, and spoke to the reporter: "It's not that this is a secret or classified project, in the strict sense of the word, Mr. Raymond. It's simply that the work going on at those two places is so touchy and delicate that we simply cannot allow visitors."
    "I understand, Mr. Kenton. I'll try to make the best of whatever the boys are allowed to show."
    "Fine."
    Outside, Steve suggested they go first to the assembly hangar. "You see," he explained," we don't actually manufacture any of the parts here. Most of them are flown in from various factories around the country. We put the parts together. Actually, we wouldn't even do that if so many of the assemblies weren't too big to transport conveniently by plane or train. The shell of the first stage, for instance, is as tall as a five-story building, and fifteen feet in diameter at the base."
    The reporter whistled softly.
    "Aside from assembly and check out, this is really a launch site, as you know," Karl offered. "The prime function here is to fire the vehicle in an attempt to put its satellite into the scheduled orbit one thousand miles above the earth. But I suppose you know all that, too."
    "I've got a confession to make to you fellows," Ted Raymond said. "And I might as well get it over with. I'm new to the Times-Journal. It's my first newspaper job, in fact. I graduated last June. I'm also green as grass on this Project Argus business. I've heard about it, of course - as who hasn't. But it seems to have been somewhat overshadowed by the Russians getting in first with their Sputnik. I figured it was wide open to some - er, enterprising reporter who needs to get on the good side of his managing editor. That's me. So, presto, I sold my boss on the idea, and here I am. And there had better be a story, or I'm liable to find myself writing obituaries for the Podunk Horned-Toad Weekly or something."
    "We don't know exactly what kind of story you're after, Mr. Raymond," Karl said, "but we'll do our best."
    "I don't know myself," the reporter said. "But I'll recognize it when I see it. In the meantime, why not fill me in on what this is all about - from A to Z? And call me Ted, if you will. That Mr. Raymond stuff makes me uneasy."
    "O.K., Ted," Steve said. "Why don't we pick a shady spot and Karl and I will try to give you the general rundown? How about under that palmetto over there?"
    "Good. Let's take some Cokes with us," Ted Raymond suggested. He dug some change out of his pocket and walked toward the bright-red vending machine standing outside the commissary.
    Steve was surprised at how much there was to tell. Between himself and Karl passing the verbal ball back and forth, the Times-Journal reporter was kept busy scribbling in his spiral notebook.
    They told of how Project Argus was conceived and organized. "It's an idea that several of the big broadcasting and TV networks have been toying around with for quite some time," Steve explained. "As you know, the country is crosshatched with communications relay stations, telegraph wires, coaxial cables, and a bunch of other gadgets designed and used to spread communications of one kind or another. Television requires more relay equipment than any of the others, since TV waves travel in a straight line, and it can't follow the curvature of the earth. Unless there is some kind of relay station within direct view, you can't have living room movies. And you'd be surprised how much of the country isn't reached by TV."
    "Makes it tough on cigarette commercials, huh?" Ted said. "Don't mind my bum jokes. Go ahead. I'm following."
    "Well," Karl took over for Steve," if there were one central relay station to replace all the others, the country's communications system would be a lot less complicated, wouldn't it?"
    "Sounds sensible. But it would have to be a pretty high tower, wouldn't it? Anyway, go on."
    "You don't use a tower," Karl explained. "You use a station in space. Fill it with the right kind of receiving and transmitting instruments, plus a good power unit, and you've got a relay station that can reach the entire continent. One relay station, Mr. - er, Ted, doing the work of thousands of the present transmitting and relay systems. Get the idea?"
    "Hey, that would be something, all right!" the newsman exclaimed. "But can it be done?"
    "American Communications Company and most of the other big radio and TV outfits think so. They've been willing to invest millions of dollars in an attempt."
    "Plus what the Government has put in?" the reporter asked.
    "The Government hasn't put in a dime," Karl said. "This is strictly a civilian project, as it should be. And I think your readers might like to know that not a single tax dollar goes into it. There's absolutely no military angle to it, either."
    "Maybe that accounts for the lack of barbed wire around this place," Ted Raymond said. "So it's strictly a private enterprise?"
    "Right," Steve said. "And it's no more secret than General Motors building a new automobile. Less secret, in fact, because G.M. doesn't usually tell Mr. Ford what it's experimenting on. Here there's no competition, since all the big communications companies are in this together. After all, it would revolutionize the entire field, and they would all share in the benefits. It would also mean billions of dollars in savings, my dad says."
    "Boy, this is some deal," Ted Raymond said, shaking his head thoughtfully. "I can see only one fly in the ointment, in fact."
    "What's that?"
    "Will it work? And, if so, how? Guess that's two flies, though, isn't it?"
    "As Karl said, "Steve explained," it's simply a case of getting a space satellite located overhead. Once in its orbit it will say there indefinitely, maybe forever. You see, up above the earth's atmosphere, in space, there are no molecules of matter to brush against the speeding satellite and slow it down. Scientists aren't sure yet whether meteor dust is any hazard, or even what kinds of unknown cosmic energies might be encountered. But the belief is that, once free of the atmosphere, there's nothing to slow down a space satellite."
    "Sounds reasonable - I guess," Ted Raymond said, smiling.
    "By carrying the right kind and amount of electronic gear, the satellite will pick up radio impulses, television waves, or other stuff transmitted toward it," Karl added. "It will then spread them back over the entire country - or the world, for that matter."
    "Kind of like sowing wheat," Ted Raymond said. "You take a small handful, and -"
    "It's a rough comparison, I guess," Karl put in. "You might remember the myth about Argus, the monster with a hundred eyes. That's how Project Argus got its code name. Only they'll be electronic eyes, and more of them."
    "Yeah, I get it," the reporter said. "But go ahead, let's get to the science-fiction part. To do all you say, you've got to get a satellite up there and, more important still, keep it up there. That hardly sounds like a high school science-club project. You want to break it down for me?"
    "Well," Steve said, "you know about orbital velocity?"
    "I know it's something about the speed anything has to travel around the earth in order that its outward centrifugal force exactly counterbalances the inward pull of gravity. Right?"
    "Bravo," Karl said. "You couldn't have said it better."
    "Thanks. But I remember reading it someplace in an article on Project Vanguard. Sounded kind of poetic. Anyway, how fast is this orbital velocity?"
    "It varies," Steve said. "The closer to the earth, the faster the orbital speed has to be in order to resist gravity's pull. It's like twirling a ball on the end of a string. If it's a short string, you have to twirl the ball faster than if it's a long string in order to keep it circling, or orbiting, around your head. For instance, Russia's Sputnik, which orbited at an approximate altitude of 550 miles, whizzed along at some 18,000 miles per hour in order to maintain an outward balance against the inward pull of gravity."
    "That's on the fast side, all right," Ted Raymond admitted.
    "The Argus satellite is being aimed to arrive in its orbit at an altitude of 1,000 miles," Karl said."The speed needed at that higher altitude is less than the Vanguard's; our satellite would orbit around 16,000 miles per hour."
    "Hardly getting out of second gear," the newsman said. "Now, let me get this straight. They figure to put such a satellite up there carrying the proper instruments. Then from that one point the various types of communications can be relayed all over the country at once. Right?"
    "That's the general idea."
    "But you just got through saying that the satellite had to travel some 16,000 miles per hour in order to stay in its orbit," the Times-Journal reporter said. "Now, I have no gold-plated trophies for intelligence over and above the line of duty, but it seems to me that at such a speed the satellite isn't going to be over the country very long at a time. You mean to tell me that when it's crossing over China it will still be relaying TV programs to Roundshoulders, Utah?"
    "Definitely not," Karl said. "Fact is, the satellite will circle the globe once every two hours. Let's see, the circumference of the earth is something close to 25,000 miles. So it should take the satellite only about fifteen minutes, I suppose, to cross the United States. That's long enough to make the necessary tests as to whether the equipment works or not. After enough tests have proved the thing workable, they'll build the big one."
    "The big one?" Ted Raymond asked. "What do you mean, the big one?"
    Steve took over. "These Project Argus satellites are what they sometimes call test beds. At an altitude of 1,000 miles you're definitely in space. Anything that will work at that altitude will work at ten times, or twenty-two times, that altitude. You were right when you wondered how a space satellite could do its job of relaying electronic impulses to one place if it were spinning around the globe once every two hours. As Karl said, it couldn't. What you really need is a stable space platform of some kind."
    "That figures," the reporter said. "But we're back where we started. As I see it, in order to keep an object up there over the earth, it has to orbit fast enough to escape the grip of gravity. Like the moon. Right?"
    Somehow, Steve felt that Ted Raymond wasn't exactly as green on the subject as he had professed to be. "Right," he admitted.
    "So there goes our stable platform, as you call it. Steve, are you two guys pulling my leg, or something?"
    "Not us," Steve said, smiling. "Besides, the idea's not so complicated if you remember that there's a different orbital velocity for every altitude. As we said, the closer the satellite is to the earth, the faster it must go to maintain its orbit. And, of course, the quicker it makes its revolution. The Sputnik satellite circled the globe in ninety-six minutes traveling generally at a 500-mile altitude. It would take our Argus satellite, if we could get one up there, something less than two hours at an altitude of 1,000 miles. At 10,000 miles it would take eight hours, although that's only a rough guess."
    "Hey, you're getting farther away all the time," Ted Raymond said. "And that reminds me. You said something a few minutes ago about ten or twenty-two times the altitude of your Argus satellites. Why the twenty-two? Or did you take that figure off the top of your head?"
    "Absolutely not," Steve said. "Fact is, that's the secret of the whole thing."
    "Sounds interesting," the newsman said. "But let's take it in simple steps. This doesn't come easy to a guy" with two heads."
    "It isn't easy for anyone, Ted," Karl said."Although it's not so complicated, either, when you stop to think."
    "You're asking an awful lot of a reporter. But go ahead, let's get back to that twenty-two figure. That's thousands of miles, I suppose."
    "Right. To be exact, 22,300 miles," Karl said.
    "Now you're splitting hairs."
    "It's necessary. You see, at an altitude of 22,300 miles there's a definite established orbital velocity, as there would be at any other altitude."
    "It still figures."
    "But at 22,300 miles the velocity is somewhat slower than at 1,000 miles," Karl went on. "Also, at that altitude an orbiting object would have to travel quite a long distance to circle the earth completely. As a matter of fact, the orbital speed at that altitude takes exactly twenty-four hours for a satellite to make one complete revolution around the earth."
    "Interesting, but I don't get the point," Ted Raymond said.
    Steve took over: "You've got to remember that it also takes the earth, which rotates on its axis at a speed of about 1,000 miles per hour, the same twenty-four hours to make one revolution. So, you have the earth revolving during the same time the satellite is making its revolution overhead. To all intents and purposes, the satellite would appear to be standing still. It's like a spot on the rim of a wheel always remaining in the same position to a spot on the hub of the wheel. To a bug perched on the hub, it would look as though the spot on the rim was standing still."
    "Hey, you know something?" the news reporter said, scribbling rapidly in his notebook. "You make sense! I like that bug on the hub part, too. Mind if I quote you?"
    "Steve left out one item," Karl said. "The earth rotates in an easterly direction. So, naturally, the satellite will have to orbit in a matching easterly direction. And the figures Steve uses are for an orbit following the Equator. Of course, other orbits could be worked out too, so that one of the satellites could remain hovering over, say, Des Moines, Iowa. In that way, a single instrumented satellite would just about take care of the entire Western hemisphere."
    "And three satellites forming the corners of a space triangle could relay radio, television, or what have you, to all parts of the globe," Steve added triumphantly.
    "So that's what this whole business is aiming at," Ted Raymond said.
    "That's about it," Steve said.
    "Boy, oh, boy, oh, boy," the newsman said. "These people have cut themselves a real job!"
    "It's no can of tomatoes, that's for sure," Steve said. "It's going to take plenty of time and work and money."
    "Fact is," Karl added," we're having plenty of trouble even getting one of the thousand-mile satellites into an orbit."
    Steve shot the tall boy a quick warning glance to make certain that Karl didn't make any slips of the tongue.
    "Yeah, so I've gathered," Ted Raymond said, slipping his pencil back into his shirt pocket. "How many tries have been made so far?"
    "Yesterday was No. 7." Steve said.
    "And what happened?"
    "Why, they're - they're not sure yet," Karl said. "They still have to decode an awful lot of telemetered data."
    "Then it did get off the ground?"
    "Oh, yes," Steve said quickly. "All except No. 2 got well clear of the launch pad. The one we launched yesterday didn't go out of control until it reached an altitude of forty-two miles."
    "That's kind of high, at that," Ted Raymond said. "By earthman's figures, of course. And what about No. 6? How high did it go?"
    "Forty-two miles," Karl said, failing to note Steve's warning scowl.
    "Forty-two?" the newsman said. "I'm talking about No. 6 now. How high? You mean they both went kaplooey at forty-two miles?"
    Neither boy answered.
    "Well, that's a mighty odd coincidence, I must say." The Times-Journal man looked closely from Steve to Karl. "You know, I'd hate to think you fellows were holding something out on me."
    "Why - why would we do that?" Steve did his best to sound casual.
    "Well, no matter," Ted Raymond said. "You've given me a pretty good story already. Think I'll get back to my motel room and write it up. In case you should want to reach me about anything, I'm staying at the Shady Palm Motel in Victorville. Cottage 8."
    "We'll remember," Steve said.
    "Oh, yes," the newsman said, "one more question. You said there have been seven unsuccessful attempts to get an Argus satellite into its thousand-mile orbit. How many of the satellites are there all told?"
    "Well," Karl said, "the budget for the entire program calls for eight Project Argus satellites to be built and launched."
    "Eight?" the Times-Journal reporter said with obvious surprise. "Then common arithmetic tells me there's only one more to go. Right?"
    "That's right," Steve said dismally, as it had been a thought he had tried not to dwell upon. "Argus 8 is our last chance."
     
     
     Chapter 6
    
    The following morning Steve woke up early. The idea of the planned trip to Beacon Island appealed to him. For one thing, he liked sailing. For another, it would offer a temporary chance, at least, to stop thinking about the troubles that had been plaguing Project Argus.
    Steve was sitting down to breakfast, when Karl arrived.
    "Come in, Karl," Mrs. Kenton invited. "Sit down and have a bowl of cereal and peaches with Steve."
    "I had breakfast already, Mrs. Kenton," the tall boy replied.
    "That's too bad, Karl," Mr. Kenton remarked. "This is pretty good chow."
    "O.K., then, I'll force myself," Karl said, smiling, and pulled a chair up to the table. "After all, I am a growing boy."
    "Steve tells me you fellows got along all right with the Times-Journal reporter yesterday," Mr. Kenton said. "What's his name - Roberts?"
    "Raymond, Mr. Kenton. Ted Raymond. He's a nice guy."
    "Think he got a story?"
    "Well, he seemed to be satisfied. Don't you think so, Steve?"
    "Yeah."
    "Did he say how long he was going to be around?"
    "No, sir. But he may have gone back already. After all, we told him all we knew - practically."
    "I'm glad you added that 'practically,' Karl," John Kenton said. "A newsman could take the slightest scent of sabotage and make a big thing of it. And the Times-Journal isn't exactly a soft-spoken newspaper. Right now I wouldn't like to see any unfavorable publicity. Things are tough enough already. That's why I thought yesterday that we had better give him some leads rather than turn him away. As they say, a newsman spurned makes a poor tennis partner."
    "Who said that, Dad?"
    "Guess I did," Mr. Kenton said, smiling. "Not very good, was it?"
    "Dad," Steve said, "there's only one more Argus rocket on the program, isn't there?"
    "That's right," Mr. Kenton said. "That's the sad, sad truth. The contracts called for enough parts to be fabricated to make up eight satellite vehicles. No more."
    "That's not so good, is it?"
    "Hardly. A year or so ago eight Argus rockets seemed a surplus. But then, a year ago no one on this project would have dreamed we'd have seven consecutive failures. Everything was worked out to the nth degree long before even the first small part was made. Of course, you can't work everything out. Not when you're dealing with unknowns - of which there are plenty in space. We hardly expected success with the first one. But we were confident that we had all the bugs ironed out by the time we fired No. 5. Five was practically in its orbit, you'll recall, when the spring mechanism, which was supposed to separate the satellite from the nose cone, jammed. The closest we can figure was that in passing through the atmosphere the friction heat melted some of the metal of the external hinges. Then the metal hardened and welded the hinges tight. Of course, if that actually was what happened, Dr. Bancroft's revised nose-cone cooling system would have taken care of it on Argus rockets 6 and 7."
    "But something else happened," Steve said thoughtfully.
    "Yes, and we have no idea what. Don't think it didn't make for an awkward situation yesterday, trying to explain the failure to those two American Communications Company executives."
    "Were they tough on you, Dad?"
    "It's not a matter of being tough, Son. It's a case of an enormous and important program facing complete failure. It's not even a matter of the many millions of dollars that will be virtually wasted. It's a case of failing in something that is so vitally important to progress. It's a case also of failing in something that I am positive - even in the face of all our failures - can be done."
    Both Steve and Karl were watching the elder Kenton closely. For one who was nearly always a sincere and confident man, Steve's father seemed strangely discouraged this morning.
    "But the project's still alive, Dad," Steve said with a cheerfulness he didn't exactly feel."We've still got Argus 8."
    "We have, Steve," Mr. Kenton agreed, smiling. "And, after all, one good one is all we need to make Project Argus a success, isn't it?"
    "It will be a success, Mr. Kenton," Karl said fervently.
    "As Steve says, I'm on your side," the project superintendent said. "Well, I had better be heading for the office. I'm expecting more visitors today. Good conch-hunting, fellows." John Kenton excused himself from the table.
    A few minutes later Steve and Karl stopped by for Doris Bancroft.
    "You're late," she scolded.
    "Not much," Steve said. "Besides, we wanted to give you time to make plenty of sandwiches." He pointed meaningfully to the large paper bag on the porch swing. "What's in the jug?"
    "Lemonade. What did you expect, nectar?"
    "Lemonade will do this time," Steve said. "Well, let's be on our way."
    "We'll need a shovel," Doris said. "You boys don't think of anything, do you?"
    "There's a shovel down at the dock," Karl said.
    Due to its being a workday, both the sloop and the dinghy were tied to the dock. Karl got the shovel and a pair of oars from the boathouse.
    "Let's take the dinghy," Steve suggested. "There's a pretty fair breeze, and she rides high."
    The dinghy was an open, undecked and broad-beamed, rowboat-type craft. She was sixteen feet long, equipped with centerboard, and cat-rigged with a single triangular sail.
    In compliance with the company's rules for boat users, Steve signed out on the log hanging on the boathouse wall. With Karl at the oars, they put out from the dock.
    "Ship oars and break out the canvas," Steve said in true nautical fashion as soon as they reached open water.
    "Aye, aye, captain," Karl said, only too willing to rack the oars inside the gunwales.
    "Here, Doris, will you take the tiller while Karl and I get the sail up?" Steve asked.
    Doris eased herself past them to the stern, and took hold of the tiller handle. An onshore breeze made it necessary to do a considerable amount of tacking back and forth.
    History had it that during the days of piracy on the open seas, Beacon Island was frequented by buccaneers. The island, in fact, had received its name from the sight of campfires glowing at night on its beaches. There were, of course, rumors of buried treasures.
    The island was about a half mile long and a third of a mile wide. Considerable vegetation had managed to gain a foothold in the soilless terrain. Palmetto and scrub oak were rampant.
    "Where shall we put in, Steve?" Karl asked an hour later as they approached within several hundred yards of the lee side of the island.
    "Not many places to choose," Steve said. "Let's try the little beach near the south end. We got some pretty good shells near there a couple of months ago, remember?"
    "Aye, aye, sir. Tiller sou'-sou'east, helmsman," Karl called to Doris, although she was barely out of elbow reach. "Get ready to raise the centerboard, Steve."
    Soon they were maneuvering the dinghy toward the beach. Beacon Island was an unpopular spot for pleasure boaters and vacationers, since there were several much more suitable islands in the area. Actually, after people had exhausted all possibilities of finding rumored treasures, Beacon Island had become little more than a low-lying landmark.
    This did much to account for the fact that Steve, Doris, and Karl had discovered it as an almost completely untouched hunting area for conch shells.
    "Easy," Steve warned, reaching for the tiller as Doris guided the dinghy toward the small beach.
    "Let go of the tiller!" Doris commanded. "I'm doing O.K."
    "She's right, skipper," Karl put in. "Don't get panicky. Raise that centerboard."
    With almost embarrassing skill, Doris eased the dinghy gently onto the beach.
    "Not bad," Steve had to admit grudgingly.
    "What do you mean, not bad?" Doris said. "It was perfect."
    After reefing the sail, Steve and Karl dragged the boat up onto the narrow beach.
    "Must be lunchtime," Karl said, glancing at the sun. "Let's eat before we start hunting shells."
    The suggestion met with no argument. A half hour later, Steve and Karl peeled down to their swim trunks and started up the beach. Around the bend they located a plentiful supply of the shells. Some they could reach merely by wading and searching through the clear water. For others they had to dive. They were careful to search for only the biggest ones, as Mr. Tate was rather fussy on that score. It took fully two hours to collect thirty suitable conchs, and four of those might cause a lifting of Mr. Tate's bushy eyebrows. Still, most of the shells averaged a good eight inches from the spiral tip to the lower end of the flanged opening. When they were bleached and glazed, the coloring would be excellent.
    Mr. Tate should have no trouble convincing tourists that the conchs would make excellent doorstops, paperweights, or instruments through which children and guests could listen to the surging drum of distant ocean waves upon the beach. Most of the shells would, of course, start to gather cobwebs on garage shelves by the time tropic tans began to fade. But this was of little concern to Mr. Tate or, indeed, to Doris, Karl, or Steve.
    "Hey, that's enough for today," Karl said finally. "Tide's a little too high for good hunting. I saw quite a few I couldn't reach."
    "Me too," Steve said. "We can check a tide chart, and get them the next time we come out. What say we clean 'em and head back home? As it is, it'll be getting late by the time we make it."
    Their way of ridding the conch shells of their occupants was a rather simple and effective process. They lined the shells up on the beach, standing them in the sand so that the point of the shell's spiral was aimed at the sun.
    It didn't take long for the sun's heat to give the mollusk inside the shell a strong desire to quit the premises. Although it could not detach itself from the shell, it was forced out far enough to make the final cleaning a simple process. This left the shell clean except for a rather strong odor.
    "As long as we're going to come back, anyway," Doris suggested after the shells had been evicted of their tenants," let's just bury them here."
    "Good idea," Karl said. "It's sandy enough. And there's plenty of sun."
    It made good sense to Steve also. It would save several handlings of the smelly cargo.
    "Here's a good place the water never reaches," Karl called from a few yards down the beach. "Bring the shovel, Steve."
    While Steve and Doris carried the shells to the location Karl had chosen, the tall boy scooped out a long trench in the dry sand. The fact that they frequently ran the shovel into rocks made it a slow chore. As they brought up the shells, Steve and Doris laid them in the trench.
    "Dig it deep enough, Karl," Steve said. "They've got to have several inches of sand over them."
    "You want the shovel?"
    "Come to think of it, I guess it's deep enough, at that," Steve said.
    "That's what I thought," Karl said, laughing. "After all, I can't dig too deep. I've got to save some strength to row home."
    The kidding went on until the conch shells were completely buried under several inches of sand.
    "That ought to do it," Steve said."They should be sweetened up in a few days."
    That, in fact, was all there was to it. Leaving the conch shells buried for a few days in the sand would free them of their strong odor. The heat beneath the sand would also give them a bright, colorful glaze. Then, an easy washing and they would be ready for market.
    "Shall we head home?" Karl said, shouldering the shovel.
    "Must be fourish by now," Doris said, checking the sun.
    "Whatish?" Steve asked.
    "Fourish - about four o'clock," Doris explained.
    "Oh, boy!" Steve razzed. "Then I suppose it is about time to be starting homeish, at that."
    "Let's get back to the boatish," Karl said.
    "You two make me sick," Doris scolded, faking exasperation. "Wait until I'm seventeen and almost a senior. You won't talk so big."
    "Big? We won't even talk," Steve said. "We'll be upstate in college. But that's the way it goes, Doris. There's no way you can ever catch up."
    "Don't let him kid you, Doris," Karl defended. "You should hear the nice things Steve says about you behind your back."
    "Hey, Benedict Arnold!" Steve protested.
    "I like Steve too," Doris said, smiling. "But sometimes - hey, hold it! Look here!"
    They had arrived within a couple of steps of the dinghy. Doris stood, pointing at the sand beside the boat.
    "Footprints!" Karl exclaimed.
    "What's so strange about footprints?" Steve said. "I make them all the time. Maybe you do too." But even as he said it, he knew it was a stall while he tried to do some fast thinking.
    The footprints were not his, nor Karl's - and certainly not Doris'. They were large, deep prints - like bootprints would be. And they were obviously freshly made, having been left there in the wet stand just as the tide began to recede.
    "They can't be more than half an hour or so old," Karl said, paying no attention to Steve's weak explanation.
    "It seems we'd have noticed a boat if anyone had come ashore here," Doris said. "Even when we were out of sight of this beach, we still would have noticed a boat."
    "Maybe there wasn't a boat," Steve said.
    "This is a funny spot for hikers," Doris scoffed.
    "Anyway," Karl said, looking into the dinghy, "nothing's been bothered in here. Didn't even touch what's left of the sandwiches, so it couldn't have been Robinson Crusoe. No point in trying to make a big mystery out of it, though. Could have been some skin diver working for lobster in that rocky cove a couple hundred yards north of here. Maybe we didn't notice him when we arrived. He might have been the nosy kind of guy who wanted to see what we were doing."
    "Sure," Steve said. "Skin divers always wear heavy boots - about size twelve, if you ask me. Besides, skin divers don't work alone. Not healthy skin divers."
    "O.K., Steve," Karl said, shrugging. "So it wasn't a skin diver. Maybe it was a man from Mars. But this isn't a private island. Nothing of ours has been bothered. There are a few footprints in the sand. So what?"
    "Karl's right, Steve," Doris said. "Just because we didn't see it, doesn't mean a boat might not have come around the far end of the island. It's only natural that someone would put in to shore to check on another boat being here. You'll have to admit it's not a usual sight to find any craft parked here on Beacon Island. Wouldn't blame anyone for coming ashore to look it over."
    "What makes you think anyone came ashore?" Steve asked. "The tracks point in all kinds of directions. I don't see any gouges in the sand where a boat was dragged up."
    "Steve, you're not talking sense," Karl admonished. "The tide would have erased them. Besides, he could even have waded ashore."
    "I - I guess so," Steve had to admit to the logic. "But if someone were so curious to check to see if we were marooned or in trouble, why didn't he call out to us?"
    "Probably heard our voices around the bend," Doris offered," knew everything was all right, and took off. Frankly, I think we're trying to make a big deal out of nothing."
    "Ghosts of pirates on Beacon Island, and all that stuff," Karl scoffed. "I agree with Doris. Let's shove off. If we don't get docked before dark, we could lose our boating privileges."
    "O.K.," Steve said. "I guess you're right about trying to make a mystery out of it. I've got to quit watching those late shows on TV."
    He made it sound light. But, as Steve followed Doris and Karl into the dinghy, he was far from satisfied with the easy explanation for the footprints. It seemed too easy.
     
     
     Chapter 7
    
    During the next few days activity at Point Victor stepped up its tempo considerably. By inquiring around, it was learned that various subcontractors for Project Argus rocket components had certain extra parts on hand. As Steve's father explained, in order to protect themselves against turning out defective parts, a contractor usually made an extra one or two while he was tooled up. It was simple insurance against rejects.
    After many wires and phone calls, it was learned that there were sufficient extra parts scattered over the country to assemble a complete first stage of the multistage satellite vehicle, including power plant and guidance system.
    Having decoded the large amount of telemetered data which had been transmitted from ill-fated Argus 7, they were still faced with the mystery as to why the guidance system had suddenly failed at the forty-two-mile altitude.
    "So as long as we've got an extra first stage available," Mr. Kenton explained to Steve," we're going to run a test with it. We'll give it enough fuel to carry it to an altitude of a hundred miles or so. If it gets up there all right without mishap, we'll feel fairly satisfied that the strange coincidence of Nos. 6 and 7 failing at forty-two miles was just that - a coincidence. At least it will strengthen our hopes about the possible success of Argus 8. Actually, it will be more a test of the guidance system than anything else. It's rather apparent that the failures occurred there."
    "What's going to happen when it reaches the hundred-mile altitude, Dad?" Steve wondered as he visioned the missile running out of fuel and plunging earthward.
    "It'll carry an explosive charge," his father explained. "We'll simply blow it to smithereens by pressing our destruct button. It'll be out over the ocean, anyway. Even if we didn't destroy it, the chances of its falling on any ships are less than one in a million. But we won't even take that chance. We'll make metal confetti of it."
    The new plan would furnish a kind of buffer to provide additional knowledge before Argus 8, the last chance, was fired aloft.
    So the various shops and laboratories began working on an around-the-clock basis. There was need for urgency. The time schedule for the entire Project Argus program would run out on the last day of August and August was already here.
    When he learned of the new development Ted Raymond was as pleased as anybody. The managing editor of the Times-Journal had been sufficiently satisfied over the reporter's first story sent in from Point Victor, and so he had ordered Ted to stay on and work up a running series to cover the remainder of the program.
    "I'm not sure whether he really liked the story," the reporter said modestly one day," or whether he finds keeping me down here soothing to his nerves. Only trouble is that news hasn't been exactly plentiful around here during the past few days. The test firing of that extra first stage should help some. I hope it serves to iron out the bugs for No. 8. For your father's sake, if nothing else."
    That was a strange remark to make, Steve thought.
    "What do you mean - for my father's sake - Ted?" he asked.
    The reporter seemed to realize he had made something of a slip of the tongue. "Oh, nothing in particular," he said lamely. "Forget it."
    "No," Steve insisted. "You said it. You must have had a reason."
    "We know success in this thing would mean a whole lot to Mr. Kenton," Karl put in. "To my father too. To everyone connected with the project, for that matter. But no one has ever guaranteed success. How can anyone be sure a thing will work, when one's dealing with so many unknowns?"
    "No argument," Ted Raymond said. "But, look, you fellows aren't children. So let's be honest. Steve, this satellite-communications-relay thing has been your father's pet for a long time, hasn't it?"
    "Since I was a pup, anyway," Steve admitted.
    "My father has been in with him on the idea for a long time too," Karl said. He obviously wanted to cast his lot with Steve.
    "Right," the reporter said. "But it was also considered a pretty impossible and crackpot idea by a lot of people, wasn't it? And I mean smart people. People in the know."
    "That's correct," Steve admitted. "And it still is. But splitting an atom was considered impossible and crackpot too. And not so many years ago, either."
    "Right," Ted Raymond said. "And when it was accomplished, those who had worked on it and had said it could be done became heroes, didn't they?"
    "Well, I don't know that there were any parades," Steve said. "But I don't imagine those people were ever called crackpots again."
    "Too true. Too true. But, Steve, what if all that effort and money had been spent, and the atom wouldn't split? Instead of being called heroes, the people who believed in it so strongly might have been called bums. Whoops! Sorry - I didn't mean to put it that way."
    But the picture was quite clear to Steve. Strange it hadn't occurred to him before. When the opportunity had come for his father to try out his theories, he had staked everything on it. He had given up a very good and responsible position with an assured future to pursue a belief - or was it a dream? It was possible that his father might not find many jobs open if he were carrying the stigma of as gigantic a failure as Project Argus might well turn out to be. It would also be a terrible tragedy to a man of his father's energy and creative capacity to be denied the opportunity to pursue his beliefs further.
    Certainly, Dr. Bancroft and Professor Hoffman would be in much the same boat. They, too, had left high positions to join John Kenton's impossible and crackpot scheme.
    Steve and Karl looked at each other. The necessity for success of the project had suddenly taken on added significance.
    Noticing their expressions, Ted Raymond said: "Someday maybe I'll learn not to talk so much. Reporters are supposed to listen, you know."
    "It's O.K., Ted," Steve said, managing a smile. "We should have been grown up enough to have figured it out, anyway."
    "Well, let's drop the subject," the Times-Journal man said. "The reason I'm over here in the first place is that I've got to have some kind of story to send the home office. Any suggestions?"
    "No one knows when they're figuring on firing the first-stage, test vehicle," Karl said.
    "It's a case of getting it ready," Steve added. "They're pushing it as fast as they can. Some things you can't rush."
    "They're making a good imitation of it then," Ted Raymond said. "I've never seen such a busy place."
    Karl explained then how the project terminated on the last day of August. There was no time to waste.
    "But as far as a story goes, Ted," Steve said, "there may not be a thing of interest happening for a while."
    "I gathered that when I was talking to your father earlier this morning," the reporter said. "I don't know whether my boss is going to stand still that long, though. Frankly, I'm not too particular whether the yarn is even about the satellite rockets. Might be able to make something out of a bit of local color, or ... well, anyway, if you hear of some man biting a dog, let me know."
    As it happened, Doris couldn't have made a more opportune appearance. She came along the path which served as a short cut between Argus Gardens and the commissary. She was loaded down with a couple of bulging grocery bags.
    "Hi," she greeted," don't you know it's not smart to be hanging around street corners? Of course, I'm not referring to you, Mr. Raymond," she amended. "You're grown up."
    "Eh, what's that you say, little girl?" Steve said in the tremulous voice of an old man. He cupped one hand to his ear, bent his back, and put the other hand on his hip. "By cracky, you'll have to speak up, little girl."
    "All right, grandpa," Doris said, grinning. "So you're grown up too. Karl, I called your house this morning. Seems to me we should get the rest of our conch shells while things are between firings around here."
    "That's not a bad idea," Karl said. "Those we buried should be ready by now, too." He looked at Steve. "How about it, Steve?"
    "I could use a little spending money, at that," Steve admitted.
    "Hey, I don't mean to butt in," Ted Raymond said. "But, after all, I'm a reporter, so I'm nosy. What's this conch-shell business? They're those big spiral shells you put up to your ear, aren't they?"
    The three young people told the reporter about their little side business of furnishing conch shells to the proprietor of the Victorville Curio Shop. He listened with growing interest as they explained their method of obtaining and preparing the shells.
    "Boy," he exclaimed after hearing the story," you fellows better be something besides newspaper reporters when you grow up. Man bites dog, and you don't even pay any attention to the growl. Why didn't you mention this when I was pleading for a story a few minutes ago?"
    "Guess we never thought of it," Steve admitted, feeling embarrassed under the reporter's mild scolding. "After all, they're only shells."
    "Still could make a good story," Ted insisted. "Don't sell shells short."
    "Don't shell sells short; don't shell shells short," Doris said, laughing. "Hey, that's a tongue twister."
    "We'd be glad to take you out to Beacon Island with us when we go, Ted," Karl offered. "You might be able to get a story out of it, at that. After all, you don't find those big conch shells everywhere."
    "When can we go?" the newsman asked eagerly.
    "When's the best time for you?"
    "Sooner the better."
    "What time is it now?"
    Ted Raymond glanced at his wrist watch. "Ten fifteen."
    "We could make it today," Steve said, "if we got going right away. Oh, oh, something else! Wouldn't be much use if the tide's in. We had some rough going the last time. I can run over to my house and check my tide table, though."
    "Save yourself the trouble," Karl said, digging into a back pocket of his jeans. "I picked one up at the commissary yesterday. Let's see." He opened out the small pamphlet. "Here's today's tide chart. High, 8:27. Low, 1:23."
    "Hey, that sounds about right," Steve said. "We can shove off pretty close to eleven. Shouldn't have any trouble getting there by one. Wind seems pretty favorable, too."
    "What about lunch?" Karl wondered.
    "Look, that's on me," Ted Raymond offered quickly. "While you kids go check with your parents or whatever you've got to do, I'll run over to the commissary and have them toss together a few sandwiches and stuff. O.K.?"
    "Well, sure, I guess so," Steve said. "But that runs into dough. I'll be glad to chip in, but I'll have to give you my I.O.U. until--"
    "Forget it," Ted Raymond interrupted. "It's my pleasure. Besides, if I don't make some use of my expense account, my boss might think I'm not doing anything. How about meeting you at the boathouse in about twenty minutes or so?"
    "Great. You know where it is, don't you?"
    "Down past the propulsion lab about two hundred yards, isn't it?"
    "Right. Take the same road."
    "See you there." Apparently buoyed up over the prospect of a story, Ted Raymond turned and walked jauntily down the path toward the commissary.
    A half hour later they met on the boat landing. They chose the dinghy again. It carried four easily, and was considerably faster and simpler to handle than the sloop.
    They signed out on the boat log and shoved off from the dock. A quartering offshore breeze made the going much faster and easier than had been expected. There was considerable chop, however, and it took some careful handling of tiller and sail to keep from being deluged by the spray. Ted Raymond demonstrated unusual skill in the art of sailing.
    "Used to do quite a bit of this in my college days," he confessed when Steve made the observation that he could scarcely pass as a landlubber. "Mostly fresh water, though. Not much difference, except for the swell. This dinghy handles well, too. Boy, this is livin'!"
    By the time they were within a half mile of the island, the wind had shifted and the water had grown increasingly rough. Judging drift and distance carefully, Ted Raymond made a long reach for the narrow strip of sandy beach on the leeward side of the island. A few minutes later, Karl lifted the centerboard, while the newsman eased the bow up onto the beach with as effortless a skill as Steve had ever seen.
    "Just an accident," Ted Raymond said modestly. "Ordinarily I'd have been lucky to hit the island."
    "Yeah, I bet," Karl said, sharing Steve's admiration.
    "So this is Beacon Island," the newsman switched the conversation, after they had dragged the craft up above the high-water mark on the beach. "Can't say that it's the most beautiful garden spot in the world."
    "Hardly that," Doris agreed.
    "Let's go up around the bend first," Karl suggested. "Tide's low, and we can get those shells we spotted the other day but couldn't reach."
    The next couple of hours were busy ones. Ted Raymond simply wasn't content to be a spectator. Kicking off his shoes, and rolling up his pants, he waded in after the shells. Despite the precaution, he got thoroughly soaked. Since Doris had on her bathing suit, and Steve and Karl their trunks, getting wet was no problem to them.
    "What makes me mad," the Times-Journal man complained mildly as he carried a good-sized conch up onto the beach," is that I have a perfectly good pair of trunks back at the motel. If I'd had any sense, I would have carried them in my car. Oh, well, they'll clean," he added, glancing at his wet gabardines. "Even if they shrink, they were too long, anyway."
    "This has been a good day," Karl said after they had pretty well searched the cove. "How many do we have?"
    Doris began counting the shells they had piled in a small tide pool.
    "Forty-four," she said after a couple of minutes.
    "Plus the thirty we have buried on the beach," Steve said. "That makes seventy-four all told. Hey, that won't divide three ways."
    "Some of those are Ted's, too," Karl said.
    "No, thanks," the reporter declined. "I'm not a shell collector. Come to think of it, I might send one to my boss, though. You know, a little innocent apple polishing."
    "Shows you're not shellfish, anyway," Doris joked.
    "Oh, bro-other!" Steve said. "That girl has got to go. Well, I'll hunt up a couple more. You three can start hauling these around the bend to the beach."
    "Thanks a lot," Doris said.
    By the time Steve had located two sufficiently large conchs, Doris, Karl, and Ted Raymond had transferred the forty-four shells to the beach, and had stood them up with spiral end toward the sun. A few of the mollusks were already beginning to vacate their overheated premises.
    "Come on and have a sandwich, Steve," Doris called from where she and Karl and the newsman sat in the dinghy's shade.
    Steve stood his two conchs up beside the others, washed his hands in the salt water, and joined the trio at the boat.
    For half an hour they sat munching sandwiches and sipping the Cokes Ted had brought along. They also answered various questions, as the story seemed to be shaping up in the reporter's mind.
    Even after the lunch was finished, everyone seemed reluctant to leave the comfortable shade for the midafter-noon heat of the sun. It was during this period of relaxation that Steve's gaze began to wander back away from the shore line and across the dense underbrush that covered the low island. His gaze traveled leisurely along the gentle rise of the island. But the moment it reached midpoint, where the elevation was perhaps thirty feet above sea level, the leisureliness disappeared.
    Steve's muscles stiffened, yet he had sufficient presence of mind not to make any quick giveaway movement.
    Near the island's highest point, the sun reflected on something shining bright in the underbrush. It seemed to be glass or polished metal. Even as he watched, the rays wavered from medium to bright, as though the object were not resting solidly as a discarded bottle or a tin can would be.
    It was as though the object were hand-held. The first thought that came to Steve's mind, and the reason for his not making any quick movement, was that the source of the reflection was the glass eye of a telescope.
    A telescope trained upon them!
    
    
     Chapter 8
    
    In order not to arouse any suspicions in whoever was watching them, Steve casually turned his head away, yet not so far that he was unable to continue catching the bright reflection out of the corner of his eye.
    Karl, Doris, and Ted Raymond were toying with the idea that it was time to leave the comfort of the shade and get back to the conch shells. Apparently they had taken no particular notice that Steve had suddenly dropped out of the conversation.
    But Steve got back into it now. Abandoning the reflection, he turned toward them.
    "Listen," he said in a low and tense voice," and above all don't turn around and look. Just act natural. We're - we're being watched!"
    "Here we go again," Karl said. "Last time it was footprints. Look, Steve -"
    "Knock it off, Karl!"
    Ted Raymond turned his head far enough to get a good look at Steve. "Steve's serious," he said, "or he wouldn't be so pale. O.K., Steve, it's your show. What's up?"
    "I - I think someone's got a telescope trained on us," Steve said.
    "A telescope?" Karl exclaimed with apparent disbelief.
    "Don't look now," Steve warned again. "Not yet. But it's on that rise near the middle of the island."
    "That's quite a distance to see a telescope, Steve," Ted said, still heeding Steve's warning about not looking. "At least a small telescope."
    "It's a small one, if it's a telescope," Steve admitted.
    "If it's a telescope?" Doris said.
    "I think it is. What I saw was the sun's reflection on something glass or metal."
    "Aw, Steve," Karl said, "lots of things reflect the sun."
    "I tell you-"
    "Whoah, now," Ted Raymond cut in. "Whether there's a telescope or a seven-legged zebra over there, I don't follow all this mystery. Let's have a look. If it's a marooned seaman, maybe he's trying to get a ride home. So, Steve, what's all this don't-look-now business?"
    Even Steve realized that he might have been a little jumpy about it. But ever since he had seen the strange footprints around their boat a week ago, he had been unable to accept completely what he had considered the rather weak logic from Karl and Doris - the supposition that they were left by some curious yachtsman merely bent on inspecting the dinghy.
    He certainly wasn't ready to accept Ted Raymond's obviously facetious shipwrecked-seaman idea. But for all that, he realized he still might be going overboard on the Sherlock Holmes bit.
    "O.K., have a look," he agreed. "But don't make it too obvious."
    "One at a time. I'll look first," the reporter said, rising casually and walking around the dinghy as though he were checking its contents. However, he turned his head at a sufficient angle to give him a sidelong view to the center of the island. "You say it's along the rise, Steve?"
    "Yeah. Right straight off the bow of the dinghy, and near the top of the slope."
    "I don't see anything," the newsman said, sitting back down beside them. "Just a lot of scrub oak and palmetto. Your turn, Karl."
    Karl simply rolled over on the sand, and stopped with his eyes directed inland. "Nothing," he said. "Nothing but brush, just as you say. Let's go get at those conch shells. It's getting late."
    Abandoning caution, Steve looked. It was true. There was nothing showing where the reflection had been before.
    "You still see it, Steve?" Doris asked, standing beside him and following his gaze.
    "It's gone," Steve admitted.
    "You said you were going to quit watching those late TV shows, remember?"
    Doris meant no harm. It was innocent kidding. It also was the proverbial straw that broke the overladen camel's back. Quickly, Steve stepped into his sandals, pulled his shirt and trousers on over his still-damp trunks, and started across the beach toward the underbrush.
    "Where are you going, Steve?" Doris called.
    "Look, you three work on those shells, will you?" Steve said over his shoulder. "I'll be back in less than a half hour."
    "Steve, I was kidding about the TV shows," Doris apologized quickly. "I'm sorry. Come on."
    "It's not that," Steve assured. "I want to find out something. I'll make up for the work. I'll unload the dinghy all by myself when we get back home."
    "Let him go, Doris," Karl called. "Be worth the extra work to let him ease his mind - and ours. Don't be too long, Steve. Water's pretty rough. We want to give ourselves plenty of time to get home."
    "I won't be long," Steve promised.
    It was tougher going than he had figured. As he progressed inland, it became increasingly difficult to pick a path through the thick underbrush. It tore at his clothing and scratched his hands and arms. Worse still was the constant lookout to avoid the sharp spears of the palmetto which seemed to sprout from every cranny.
    If that was someone I saw with a telescope, Steve thought, he's got a better reason for being here than simply hiking around on this island.
    He glanced back. The thick growth of brush cut off his view to the beach. The dinghy and his friends were no longer in sight. Perhaps by the time he got halfway up the gentle slope he would be able to find a clearing from which he could get a view back to the beach.
    As it turned out, he didn't reach the halfway mark. He had been dodging past and pushing through the underbrush for about fifteen minutes, when he decided to take a short breather. He found a shady spot beneath a large clump of scrub oak and sat down.
    A couple of minutes later he got up and was preparing to go on, when the dry underbrush rattled and a man stepped out and stood facing him.
    Startled, Steve jerked back, nearly stumbling over a root. He recovered slowly from his surprise.
    "Phew!" he managed, making an effort at lighthearted-ness. "You should honk your horn, mister. You can scare a guy out of a year's growth that way."
    The man was tall, burly, and somewhat stoop-shouldered, although standing slightly above Steve and bending toward him might have exaggerated the effect. He appeared to be approximately the age of Steve's father, although his hair was considerably grayer. His head seemed abnormally big, with a jutting chin that could definitely be classified as lantern-jawed. He was dressed in rather plain lightweight clothes, not unlike what service-station attendants wear, yet darker in color. He wore a black, medium-brimmed, flat-crowned hat.
    And he wore boots - heavy-heeled leather boots, although not of the cowboy variety. But that was only a slight concession. For, all in all, the stranger looked much more as though he belonged out west on an Arizona ranch than on a small island off the coast of Florida.
    The man carried a telescope under his arm.
    "I was watching you," the stranger said, patting the telescope.
    "Yeah, I know," Steve said, meeting candor with candor. "Why?"
    "Why?" the man seemed a little taken aback by the blunt query. "Why, just to pass the time, I guess."
    "Pass the time until when?"
    "Why - er, I was waiting for some friends to come and pick me up."
    Steve couldn't suppress a laugh. "Boy, what a place to be hitching a ride."
    "Hitching a ride?" the man said, not seeming to get the humor. "Oh, yes, sure."
    "What I wonder is - if these people are friends, what's their idea of dropping you off on this forsaken island, anyway? There are a lot of better islands around here."
    "I like this one," the man said.
    "Do you live on the mainland?"
    "Yeah."
    "Whereabouts?"
    "Oh, not far," the man said noncommittally.
    "I see," Steve said, thinking it might be a good time for him to stop asking questions.
    "What are you people doing down there on the beach?" the man asked.
    "Hunting conchs," Steve said.
    "Hunting what?"
    "Conchs."
    "Oh, I see."
    "Ever caught any of them, mister?"
    "Conchs? No. Never had any luck."
    "Probably used the wrong kind of bait."
    "I guess so," the man said. "Well, I'd better be getting back to the other side of the island. My friends should be arriving to pick me up."
    "On the other side of the island?" Steve said in surprise, then immediately wished he had held his tongue.
    "Why not?" the man said quickly. The pleasantness slipped from his face as though the string had broken on a mask.
    "N-no real reason," Steve managed. "I've always used the leeward side, I guess."
    "Well, good conch-hunting," the man said, apparently relieved. "And I may take your advice about going to one of the other more pleasant islands next time. This one's too rough. But we live and learn, don't we?"
    "Yes, sir," Steve answered. "Well, pleasant cruise, mister."
    But the stranger had already turned and walked out of sight. Steve stood for a few minutes going back in his mind over the unexpected meeting with the man. He tried to recall anything about the man's appearance or conversation that might give him a clue to the one question he had been afraid to ask. Why was the man there on Beacon Island?
    Even if he had pried more deeply, Steve was quite certain he wouldn't have received a satisfactory answer. It might also have aroused considerable suspicion on the stranger's part.
    Besides, Steve had found out a few things. Perhaps they didn't mean a whole lot, but they helped to add to his suspicions that everything was not quite right on Beacon Island. That it bothered him could have no more significance than the fact that things he couldn't explain usually bothered him. Like the man's answer to that wrong-kind-of-conch-bait business which Steve had planted on the spur of the moment. But one of the main things that bothered him was the impression the man had given that this was his first time on Beacon Island. The mention of taking Steve's advice and going to a more pleasant island next time simply hadn't rung true.
    On top of that there was absolutely no doubt in Steve's mind that the boots the man was wearing were the same that had made the footprints in the sand around the dinghy a week ago.
    Why, therefore, had the stranger wanted to leave the impression that he was a one-time casual visitor to Beacon Island?
    Oh, there were plenty of things to think about, all right. But, then . . . Steve stopped, and smiled to himself. He certainly was glad neither Karl nor Doris was with him now. They would be razzing the daylights out of him for all the suspicions he was building up over a chance meeting with a stranger. And they very well could be justified in doing it.
    Stepping gingerly through the brush, Steve made his way back toward the beach.
    "Well, boy, it's about time," Karl scolded some fifteen minutes later as Steve came up to them. "We've got the new batch all buried. The ones we dug up are washed and in the boat. Is there anything we might have left undone, sire?"
    "Look, fellows and girls," Ted Raymond said, "it has been a swell day, and I think you've furnished me with a lulu of a story. Only wish I'd had a photographer along."
    "You need pictures?" Steve said. "I've got a bunch of snaps we took last spring when we discovered this island was good conch ground. You're welcome to use any of them you want. I think there are some clear ones, too."
    "Great. Wonderful!" the Times-Journal man said eagerly. "Boy, you folks furnish everything but the typewriter."
    "I've got one of those at home," Doris offered.
    "What I was going to say, though," the young newsman continued seriously," is that we'd better be heading for the mainland. It's getting late and the sea is considerably heavier than it was. But there's an onshore breeze. We'll be running pretty well before it. By sticking to the lee of the islands, we should be able to avoid most of the roughness and make good time."
    "We're with you, skipper," Steve said, glad to turn the responsibility over to the reporter. After all, he could use the time to do a bit of thinking on his own.
    "Hey, we forgot to ask," Karl said, shipping oars as they got out of the cove and as wind caught the sail," did you find anybody?"
    "Why?" Steve said. "Was I supposed to?"
    
     
     Chapter 9
    
    Although preparation for the launching of the experimental first-stage rocket had been going on for days, no one had any definite idea when the firing would take place. Then, one Thursday evening, after checking all day to determine that the work was properly completed, John Kenton sprang the surprise.
    As the key personnel left their jobs that evening, the project superintendent told them the firing would take place first thing the next morning, and to be there by four a.m.
    Then Mr. Kenton locked up the rocket-assembly building, placed guards at the doors, and went on home.
    Steve heard about it from one of the neighborhood boys whose father was an electronics man. That night at the dinner table, Steve eased cautiously into the subject.
    Mr. Kenton smiled. "My idea was to hold off on the announcement until the last minute," he said. "A kind of extra precaution, you could call it."
    "A precaution against what, Dad?" Steve wondered, knowing, however, pretty much what the answer would be.
    "It's that same old bugaboo of mystery concerning what happened to the sixth and seventh Argus rockets, Steve," his father said. "Although we have practically nothing to back up any suspicions about dirty work at the crossroads, we can't ignore any possibility. It obviously takes time and planning to prepare sabotage. So it seemed like a good idea to just up and spring the firing time. It's probably quite unimportant. But it's no great effort to do it this way, and it may eliminate the possibility of sabotage entirely."
    The mention of sabotage sent that prickling sensation coursing along Steve's spine again.
    "Is it all right if I go to the launching, Dad?" he wondered.
    "I've never kept you away from one yet, have I, Steve?"
    "What about Karl?"
    "No restrictions on Karl that I know of," his father said. "Doris will probably be there too, since you three are usually in on things together. But right now you had better be hitting the hay. Three o'clock's a bit early to be getting up."
    "Sure, Dad," Steve said, starting for his room. "Good night, Mom."
    "Good night, dear."
    Three o'clock was early, all right. It seemed to Steve that he had barely gotten to sleep - and no simple job at that - when his father was shaking him awake.
    "Of course, if you'd rather wait until the sun comes up, Steve - " his father began, smiling.
    Steve's feet hit the floor with a thud.
    It was still dark when they arrived at the assembly hangar. Professor Hoffman, Karl, and Dr. Bancroft already were there. A few others began to arrive. Some of them were still shaking off drowsiness.
    "I'm not sure whether Doris will make it or not," Dr. Bancroft replied to Karl's query. "I woke her. At least, she seemed awake. Then I guess she tried resting her eyes a moment, and - well, I couldn't wait."
    It was soon apparent that only key personnel had been given the early call. Most of them still seemed puzzled over the reason for being brought out before dawn. There were the blockhouse technicians who operated the various complicated data machines. There were the final inspection and firing crews. There were, in fact, only those people necessary to fire the vehicle and gather data on its performance.
    John Kenton called them all together in the hangar. The first-stage section stood ready to be wheeled out to the launch pad. A special nose cone had been fabricated to provide the necessary streamlining which ordinarily would have been attained by the tapering second and third stages pyramided on top of it.
    "Gentlemen," Steve's father said, "it's not essential to go into the reasons for this early morning get-together. As far as I know, the first stage is ready to be fueled and fired. I would like it to be on the pad and ready to blast off by six o'clock. Does anyone have any reason to believe it can't be ready?"
    "What about range clearance, Mr. Kenton?" Tom Sempers, chief of the communications section, asked.
    "We'll check on that in a few minutes, Tom," John Kenton said. "Any other questions?"
    There were none. An air of puzzled excitement circulated through the men assembled. It was quite understandable, Steve realized. Certainly it was an unusual procedure to spring an unscheduled firing like this. Ordinarily, those concerned would know at least a day or two ahead.
    Yet the more Steve thought about it, the more sense his father's plan made. On the other hand, if sabotage had been the cause of any of the mishaps, it was unlikely that the saboteurs would bother to risk discovery by wasting their efforts on a first-stage test vehicle. After all, this particular test firing had nothing to do with getting a satellite into its orbit.
    After the others had gone to their various jobs, John Kenton took Tom Sempers aside.
    "Tom," he said, "clear all communications from the area from a quarter to seven until a quarter after. O.K.?"
    "But I thought the firing was for six, Mr. Kenton."
    "It's for seven, Tom," Steve's father explained. "But I'd like the others to have things ready at six. And, incidentally, I'd rather you didn't mention the actual firing time to anyone."
    "Sure, Mr. Kenton," the communications man looked puzzled over the strange, mysterious handling the operation seemed to be getting."
    "That goes for you too, Steve," his father said, seeming to notice for the first time that Steve was still within hearing range.
    "Right, Dad," Steve said. He had a pretty good idea why his father was changing the time of the launching. It was one more way of throwing off any last-minute attempt to gear an effort at sabotage toward the previously announced six o'clock time.
    Evidently, Steve thought, the suspicions of sabotage were not quite so casual as his father had made them sound.
    Steve watched the men wheel the large first stage out onto the launch pad. He waited until they started rolling up the fuel trucks, then turned and walked toward the blockhouse.
    By that time dawn was well on its way, with the first pink banners of sunrise stretching along the horizon beyond Beacon Island.
    Karl Hoffman already had taken up a spot near one of the periscope windows. Steve glanced at the main clock on the wall - 5:35. Karl, of course, was expecting the firing at six o'clock. Steve remembered his father's instructions about not mentioning to anyone the change in time, and said nothing to Karl about it.
    Tom Sempers was busy at the communications controls. Steve knew he was contacting all radio and TV outlets in the surrounding area, asking them to go off the air at 6:45. He was also notifying airlines to route planes to an established detour. Project Argus had that prearranged priority over the sky during a firing. It was a temporary silence willingly subscribed to. After all, the success of the Project Argus mission would be of greatest advantage to communications systems of all sorts.
    Doris hurried into the blockhouse. She looked flushed and breathless, as though she had been running.
    "Wait until I get my father alone," she said. "He - he let me oversleep."
    "You mean go back to sleep," Steve corrected.
    At ten minutes to six, the countdown still hadn't begun. The various technicians were wondering what had gone wrong, when John Kenton came into the blockhouse. He checked first with Tom Sempers, nodded his satisfaction, and picked up the microphone.
    "The blast-off," he announced simply," will be at seven o'clock. Please set all instruments and gear all activity to zero moment at seven o'clock."
    That was all there was to it. At six o'clock sharp, the countdown began with the first loud-speaker warning of "zero minus sixty minutes!"
    Karl left the window and spoke to Steve. "How come seven o'clock?" he wondered. "I thought it was six."
    "A last-minute change," Steve said. And since there was no longer reason for secrecy between himself and Karl, he explained how it had been done in order to throw off schedule any type of planned interference.
    "Good idea," Karl admitted, smiling. "Boy, Steve, they must really think there are spies around here." Karl kept his voice to a whisper.
    "Oh, I don't know," Steve said. "But you can't take any chances with something like this."
    "I guess it all ties in with the fact that they haven't found any real explanation for rockets 6 or 7 both going haywire at the same spot."
    "Something like that, I think," Steve agreed, glancing around.
    "You don't think anyone working here on the project could be a - a spy, do you?" Karl asked incredulously. "After all, Steve, this isn't a secret military project."
    "No, but it would give the United States a mighty big advantage over all communications systems," Steve said. "And there might be some people who wouldn't go for that. Also they might not believe it is strictly a civilian thing. Know what I mean?"
    Karl nodded. He looked unhappy about it. Karl had been a small boy when he lived in Germany during Hitler's war. But he had been old enough to have a memory and thus had a great aversion to anything that suggested distrust between peoples or nations. He had expressed his thoughts to Steve on more than one occasion.
    The time passed slowly, but the countdown progressed to " zero minus fifteen minutes!" Steve saw Tom Sempers give the sign that the air channels had been cleared of all radio, television, and aircraft. Herman Foster, the firing safety officer, manned his instrument panel in preparation for the blast-off.
    Steve found himself glancing from one to the other of the various technicians who were working at different instruments, computers, and data gatherers. If he had expected to find anyone doing anything that seemed the least suspicious, he was wrong. Everything was progressing exactly according to the usual procedure.
    By the five-minute mark a quiet tension had filled the room. Concentration on the instruments and the variety of functions that went with a successful launch eliminated all nonessential activity. Steve, Doris, and Karl remained well out of the way, and cut out all conversation in order not to draw any attention to their presence. The hum and clack of electronic activity intensified as life and power flowed into the instrumentation.
    "Zero minus one minute!"
    The first-stage rocket stood alone on the launch pad. The last technician had armed the firing device and retreated from the pad. Without the second and third stages attached, the single stage looked stubby and ungraceful. Yet Steve knew that it was by far the most powerful of the three, and its guidance system should keep it well within the invisible electronic path stretching nearly two hundred miles into the sky.
    "Zero minus ten seconds - five - four - three - two - one -  ZERO!"
    The familiar crash of sound vibrated into the blockhouse. Superheated flame spewed from the rocket barrels of the vehicle. Without the added weight of the other two tages, the rocket surged away from the pad almost immediately. Trailing smoke and flame, it streaked quickly out of visible range of the periscope windows.
    Automatically Steve, Doris, and Karl swung their attention to the projection screen on the wall. Steve saw that his father, Professor Hoffman, and Dr. Bancroft already were looking at the screen. The rocket's image, relayed from the telescopic tracker on the blockhouse roof, showed bright on the screen, but quickly diminished in size.
    Karl sucked in his breath noisily. "Must be doing close to five thousand per already!" he said incredulously.
    It could be only a rough guess, Steve knew, but he agreed. Of all the launchings he had witnessed, no missile had faded into the distance so quickly. At that speed, within a few seconds it would be completely out of sight even for the telescopic camera.
    But within those few seconds disaster struck. It was almost identical to what had happened twice before. The dark speck on the screen was receding into nothing, when, suddenly, it twisted away from its course, and flared into a bright red speck. Then there was only a blob of smoke remaining against the dark blue of the sky to mark where the rocket had died.
    Several of the technicians monitoring the instruments shot quick glances toward John Kenton. The project superintendent made a sign for them to switch off their instruments, for they could be of little use now. Steve wanted to go to his f ather. He wanted to say something that might add hope and encouragement in the face of this immense failure. He wanted to say something that might help remove the strange, almost resigned look that had appeared on his father's face.
    Yet, what was there a seventeen-year-old boy could say in a situation such as this?
    "All right, men," John Kenton said firmly, with an obvious effort to hide his discouragement. "Let's get some readings out of those instruments and see what happened."
    "It looked very much like the other two, Mr. Kenton," one of the engineers said. "And our telemetery equipment didn't give us a very good answer on them."
    "It might do better this time," Professor Hoffman spoke up. "Get me all the data on fuel consumption. It can't possibly have run out of fuel at that altitude, but something else might have gone wrong in the lines or pumps."
    Dr. Bancroft turned to the group of technicians who worked on the guidance-system data. "Try to locate what part of the system went out of kilter first," he instructed. "It should show up on one of your tapes."
    Within a few minutes, it seemed to Steve, there was as much activity taking place in the effort to discover the cause of the malfunction as there had been during the most critical moments of the blast-off.
    Various wires and tapes were run on recorders and decoded. Many different types of data which had been transmitted from the rocket vehicle during every moment of its flight were interpreted and studied. The procedure which might have taken a couple of days to complete under ordinary circumstances was being crowded into a few urgent hours. The intense, almost desperate curiosity on everyone's part to get to the bottom of the mysterious series of misfires was apparent in all the hurried activity.
    Around ten o'clock Steve, Doris, and Karl went down to the commissary for Cokes. They didn't dawdle long over them, however, as they wanted to be back at the blockhouse in case any announcement was made.
    The announcement came at eleven thirty. It was spoken calmly and thoughtfully. Yet the impact upon the gathering was one of explosive bewilderment.
    "Gentlemen," John Kenton said, facing the group of engineers, scientists, and technicians," there is something here which will not be easy to face - but which we must all face and solve." He held up the sheaf of papers containing the various items of data that were included in the quick evaluation.
    "This morning's test rocket followed a flight pattern which became familiar to us on the flights of Argus vehicles nos. 6 and 7."
    Steve figured that the workers must have suspected it. But his father's announcement caused a stir among the employees.
    "The test section," John Kenton continued," went out of control and blew up at an altitude of forty-two miles!"
    "Forty-two miles!"
    An excited murmur filled the room. Steve saw the hollow look of worry in his father's eyes.
    "I believe," Mr. Kenton went on," that this third instance completely eliminates the element of coincidence in these three - er, accidents. I regret this decision, but I am sure that under the circumstances it can come as no surprise. What remains of Project Argus will be conducted under a cloak of rigid security."
    Steve knew suddenly how serious the situation had become. His father took great pride in the fact that Project Argus, strictly the civilian program that it was, had been conducted free from restrictions.
    But now the puzzling little questions that had been building up in the course of the accidents had welded themselves into a solid lump of suspicion. The object of the suspicion was no longer in doubt. The word kept running through Steve's mind.
    Sabotage!
    
    
     Chapter 10
    
    During the following week Steve kept away from the maintenance shops and the other rocket-servicing installations. His father hadn't made an issue of it, but Steve felt that the newly imposed security was meant to keep all but key personnel out of the way. Yet he was well aware that preparation for the firing of the last satellite vehicle, Argus 8, was being pushed as fast as care and safety allowed. August thirty-first was frighteningly near.
    Apparently, Karl felt much the same way. He dropped in to see Steve several times, but made no mention of going down to the shops, although neither had been included in the restrictions placed on the project as a whole.
    Their discussions concerning the failure of the recent first-stage test section were held to a minimum. Although the feeling remained strong that the three failures occurring at the altitude of forty-two miles could not be chalked up simply as coincidence, there were still no clues by which the problem could be approached from the sabotage angle. In the absence of knowledge, it was a subject best not discussed at all.
    The new web of silence surrounding Project Argus was particularly hard on Ted Raymond, the Times-Journal reporter. The morning he brought them the clippings of his local-color article highlighting their conch-shell hunt, he seemed particularly mixed up. The article had been accepted for use in the Sunday supplement. Steve's photographs were prominently displayed.
    "The editor liked this one a lot," Ted told them. "But he told me that since I had laid the scene, I should get back on the actual satellite stuff. And now I find everyone around here making like clams."
    "They had to do it, Ted," Steve explained."Doesn't matter whether it's military or civilian. Indications are that there may have been some sabotage."
    "I've heard as much," the newsman said. "But believe me, I didn't have anything to do with it."
    "We don't doubt that," Karl said, smiling. "But the only thing Mr. Kenton could do was to clamp down so only those who are really connected with the project know what's going on."
    "O.K. I'll buy that. But, Steve, when your dad delayed that test firing a full hour in order to throw off any possible plan of a timed sabotage attempt, the vehicle still went out of control and blew up. How does that figure in?"
    "I don't know," Steve admitted quickly. "And if anybody knows, you and I aren't apt to hear about it."
    "In other words," the newsman said, "I'd better not get so nosy?"
    "Steve didn't say that," Karl put in. "We know your job is to furnish your boss with good stories."
    "I'm glad someone around here realizes that," Ted Raymond said.
    "But if I were you," Karl went on, "I don't think I would, as you put it - nose around a whole lot. It's not a very healthy hobby around here right now."
    "I know," the Times-Journal man said. "But with the firing deadline just a little over a week off, I don't want to pack and head back. There should be a big story that day."
    "Should be, all right," Steve admitted.
    "But in the meantime, what can I do to fill in? You kids got any other yarns like the conch-shell business that I could work up? Won't make my boss too happy, I'm afraid. But it might stall him off a while from calling me home."
    "There's nothing I can think of," Steve said, "unless you'd like to go out to Beacon Island with us again. Mr. Tate of the Curio Shop called Doris yesterday. That last bunch of conch shells has been selling like crazy. He wants another fifty or so if we can get them. We thought we might go out this afternoon or tomorrow."
    "Well, I don't think there's much more I could do with that subject," the newsman said. "Wouldn't mind the boat ride, but I guess I'd better scout around for something fresh. Thanks, though, for the invitation. Think I'll go down and talk to your dad, Steve. He may not have all the doors closed against me."
    Steve didn't say anything, but he doubted that the reporter would get much satisfaction from his father. Mr. Kenton was known for firmness in backing up his decisions. The decision to close down the project operations to practically all nonessential personnel could in no way be interpreted as a casual ruling.
    After the newsman had departed, Steve and Karl walked to Doris' house to see whether she wanted to sail over to Beacon Island.
    "If you need me," Doris said, not seeming very enthusiastic over a trip to the island that day," I suppose I can make it soon as I finish the dishes."
    "You don't have to go," Steve assured. "After all, it's easier to split things two ways than three."
    "Mr. Tate phoned the order to me," Doris said firmly. "You talk like that and I'll fill it by myself. It's even easier not to split things at all."
    "I can see you trying to dive for those conchs," Steve scoffed. "That's strictly a man's job."
    "It's not that tough," Karl said in Doris' behalf. "I'm not so keen to make the trip myself today. But my share of fifty or sixty shells will help me get some school things I need. So what do you say, if we're going, let's go and get it done with?"
    It was agreed. They waited a few minutes while Doris finished her kitchen chores. Then they hiked down to the boat dock, rigged the dinghy, and set sail for Beacon Island. With the freshening breeze, they made good time.
    "Now, Steve," Doris said, as they made their final port tack and came up on the lee side of the island, "let's not start seeing things this trip."
    Funny she would mention it right at the moment, Steve thought. For, while Karl had been handling the tiller, he had been sitting on the centerboard trunk recalling his meeting with the stranger. He had never bothered to say anything about it to Karl or Doris. Actually, it had been a rather innocent occasion. With the exception of a few items that didn't seem to add up, the stranger's presence on the island appeared valid enough. After the way in which Doris and the others had razzed him that day, Steve simply didn't feel like giving them any more fuel for scoffing.
    Yet he had never been quite able to dismiss the meeting from his mind.
    "Hey, Steve," Karl's words snapped him out of his thoughts. "How about lifting that centerboard? We don't want to shear it off going up onto the beach."
    Steve unpegged the centerboard, raised it up into the trunk amidbeam, and secured it. Then he hauled in the canvas, as Karl jockeyed the dinghy up onto the sand.
    After dragging the craft up beyond the high-water mark, Karl took the shovel, and Steve picked up the gunny sack which they had thought to bring this time in order to carry the conch shells.
    "Let's try to get sixty," Doris suggested. "Makes it easy to divide them three ways."
    They decided to go in the opposite direction from their other two excursions. Subconsciously Steve lagged behind. Every once in a while he let his gaze wander inland across the brush-covered island. But if he expected to see anything unusual, he was disappointed. Other than the normal agitation of the underbrush by the breeze, no movement met his eyes.
    Suddenly he stopped as something did attract his attention. Then he realized Karl had turned and was looking back at him.
    "More telescopes, pal?" Karl asked simply.
    "Just enjoying the scenery," Steve said casually. It was an innocuous statement, he knew. But it helped hide the real thought in his mind.
    For, while he had been looking inland, a thin wisp of white smoke had drifted up over the tops of a distant clump of scrub oak. At least, it could have been smoke. It also could have been mist, or a small puff of fog which might have settled during the night and was now being drawn out by the sun to dissipate itself quickly in the breeze. Anyway, it was a small thing. Certainly it was not worth mentioning and it might invite more good-humored razzing from Doris or Karl.
    "Some scenery," Karl said, grinning. "I've seen lots better on rusty tin-can labels."
    Steve shrugged, content with having made no mention of smoke - or fog - and followed.
    Decent-sized conch shells proved particularly scarce and difficult to reach in the new area they had chosen.
    "We should have gone to our same old place," Doris said when they reached the northern point of the island and had only about a dozen shells in the gunny sack.
    "We might as well keep going," Steve said. "I've never seen the windward side of the island, anyway. Who knows, might be some real good pickings there."
    If there were good conch shells on the windward side of the island, they were not likely to be disturbed, Steve soon decided. Even though the day was quite calm, and the ocean only mildly choppy, the waves broke loud and white against the narrow, water-eroded shore line.
    "Boy, I had no idea the water on this side of the island was so rough," Karl said. "We might as well go back. Besides, with that heavy underbrush growing right down to the water's edge there's no place to walk."
    "It's a cinch no one could land a boat there," Steve said thoughtfully, looking along the rugged shore line.
    "What did you say, Steve?" Doris asked. "I don't see any boats."
    "Don't know of anyone who would want to land a boat there, anyway," Karl said. "What are you talking about?"
    "Forget it," Steve said. "I was only thinking." Again, there was no object in saying what was actually in his mind. More than likely he was merely letting his imagination run a little wild again, anyway.
    "We'd better backtrack to our regular hunting grounds," Karl suggested. "And we've got to speed things up if we want to get sixty of those shells. It's midafternoon already."
    They made their way carefully back around the island. They stopped by the dinghy long enough to stand the dozen conchs they had managed to collect upright in the sand. Then they went on toward the southern part of the island. The tide was particularly low, enabling Steve and Karl to locate the conchs quite easily. In a little over two hours, they had filled their requirement. They hauled their catch back up the beach as the rising tide was just beginning to lap at the dinghy's stern.
    "It's getting late," Karl said, glancing at the sun, which already was slanting fast toward the western horizon. "We'd better leave these things on the sand for tomorrow's sun to clean out. We can come back in a day or so and get them."
    "Might as well take them with us," Doris suggested. "We can clean them and bury them at home. Save a return trip."
    Steve sided with Karl's suggestion. Although he was not at all sure that the wisp of white he had seen was smoke, various thoughts which had been prodding his mind made him welcome some excuse to return to the island.
    So they left the conchs standing spiral end up in the sand.
    Soon they were sailing the dinghy back toward Point Victor.
    "I guess no one but your father knows when the firing of Argus 8 will come off," Karl ventured as they came about for the final approach to the dock.
    "Has to be pretty soon," Doris said meaningfully. "The contract runs out in a short while, doesn't it, Steve?"
    "Maybe it has been extended," Steve said evasively. He didn't really know, and his father had been particularly quiet on the subject. He knew, however, that an extension of the contract was quite unlikely.
    "Wonder if we'll get to watch the firing?" Karl asked.
    It was a question that also had been in Steve's mind. Although he knew Karl wasn't merely snooping, Steve didn't feel it his place to hazard a guess. He knew how much he wished they would be allowed to witness the launching of the Project Argus' final satellite vehicle. However, he hadn't dared bring up the subject with his father for fear that his show of curiosity might tend to influence an adverse decision.
    "We'll know in time," Steve said simply.
    Before long they were pulling into the dock. As the dinghy's bow brushed the pilings, Steve wound the painter around a dock cleat, scrambled to the planking, and helped Doris out of the boat.
    After stowing the canvas and oars in the boathouse, they cleaned up the dinghy and started home. As they walked down the street, it was easy to sense the air of urgent activity that surrounded the area. Although it was after five o'clock, the usual time for work shifts to change, the number of automobiles still in the parking lot indicated that almost everyone was working overtime. Even the few people they saw going between buildings were walking with more haste than was normal.
    "What do you make of it, Steve?" Karl wondered. "You don't suppose the firing is scheduled for tomorrow?"
    "I doubt it," Steve said. "But if it's like the last time, we won't know for sure, anyway."
    "Well, I wish we knew," Doris said with mild exasperation. "I have to go into Victorville to shop for school clothes sometime this week, and I'd hate to miss the firing."
    "Maybe that's a chance you'll have to take," Steve said, as he turned off on the path toward his home. "See you around."
    By the time Steve's father arrived home that night, Steve's curiosity concerning whether or not he would be allowed to witness the next and final firing had grown to the point where he could no longer simply wait to know. As Mr. Kenton was finishing his late dinner, Steve eased into the dinette and casually sat down at the table.
    "I thought you had already eaten," his father said, as Steve reached for a slice of bread.
    "I did. But that was for my stomach," Steve said. "This is for my hollow leg."
    "That figures."
    They sat for a few minutes, while Steve made a pretense at being hungry. His father looked tired. He didn't seem prone to talk at all. Once or twice Steve was tempted to abandon his original reason for joining his father at the table and make his retreat. Yet he also considered the fact that this might be his last opportunity to broach the subject before the firing actually took place.
    "Dad," he said, "I don't suppose you're figuring to announce when Argus 8 will be launched?"
    "'Fraid not, Son," John Kenton said, glancing up. "But it's really no great secret. You know it has to be done by the end of the month which leaves us mighty little time, doesn't it?"
    "Still no clue to that forty-two-mile barrier, Dad?" Steve asked.
    "Forty-two-mile barrier?" his father mused. "You know, that's putting it rather accurately, at that. Forty-two-mile barrier. That seems about it. Two completed vehicles and that one test section all failed at that altitude. It's as though there was a big invisible rock right smack in the center of the electronic path those rockets follow. It has me stumped, Steve. Has all of us stumped, for that matter. Even after my little scheme of delaying the last firing in order to throw off any scheduled sabotage, it still happened. But you asked about clues, didn't you? Steve, I can tell you, although there's no point in spreading it around, we've found nothing that we can really put our fingers on. It could, of course, be some recurring flaw in the guidance system. Yet, before each firing everything is checked and double-checked, as you know. Could also be in improper feeding of the fuel mixtures into the combustion chambers. But it would be mighty difficult to explain how this could cause three consecutive failures at a forty-two-mile altitude. It also could be some type of electrical interference. Here, again, it seems unlikely, since we clear all channels and frequencies during a firing. So you tell me, Steve. What's wrong?"
    "I wish I knew, Dad," Steve said fervently. "But I think Argus 8 is going to do the trick," he added with forced cheerfulness. "At least, we'll see pretty quick."
    Mr. Kenton looked at him and smiled. Then he dipped his spoon into his pudding, and the smile dropped from his face.
    "Steve," he said, "I know you're not going to like this. Neither is Karl nor Doris. But - well, for this firing we're not allowing anyone around except the engineers and technicians who have definite duties to perform."
    Steve swallowed uncomfortably. It was exactly what he had feared. For nearly two years now he had felt he was a part of Project Argus. Perhaps his contributions were not tangible like those of this father, or Dr. Bancroft, or Professor Hoffman. Perhaps he was no master of the welding torch, nor an electronics technician. Yet the feeling of a son toward the success or failure of his father's lifework certainly was a tangible thing to him.
    And now, for the first time, the door was being closed. The chill feeling of being left outside in the dampness swept over him.
    "I hope you'll understand, Steve," his father said, reaching over and squeezing his shoulder.
    "Su - sure, Dad," Steve said, having a hard time getting the words out through the tightness in his throat. "I - I guess I understand."
    
    
     Chapter 11
    
    Maybe his subconscious had worked it out while he was asleep. Perhaps it was simply that he had been trying to avoid the issue all along. Perhaps it was the plain everyday affinity most people have to build a mystery out of anything that's difficult to explain.
    Whatever it was, Steve's mind was made up when he awakened Thursday morning. There had been no indication whether or not the firing would take place that day. Even if it did, his father had served no notice that plans had been changed concerning the project being closed down to all unauthorized and nonessential personnel. So there was nothing Steve could see or do to help at Point Victor, anyway.
    The thing that had been bothering him was a strange compulsion to go out to Beacon Island once more. There was, of course, the last batch of conch shells - to be buried and left a few days to lose their strong odor, and then glazed with the sheen that helped make them so eye-appealing to the tourist trade.
    But there was something else, although he hadn't the slightest idea what it might be. It had been born simply of persistent puzzling thoughts that had been running through his mind for days, even weeks - thoughts needing some kind of explanation. Although this was an awkward time to pursue answers to a mystery he was unable to define, this morning seemed as opportune a time as any.
    It would also help relieve his mind and soothe the growing disappointment of not being able to witness the most critical firing of Argus Satellite Vehicle 8.
    After eating breakfast and completing the few chores he had to do, he went over to Karl's house. Having neither mother nor sister to do the housework, Karl was busy at the sink cleaning up the breakfast dishes.
    "Towel's hanging behind the door," he said as Steve knocked once, and stepped inside the kitchen. During the past few weeks, Professor Hoffman had been practically eating and sleeping at the propulsion laboratory.
    "I've got to go out to Beacon Island today," Steve announced. "Wondered if you wanted to go with me."
    "Why today, Steve?" Karl wondered. "Those shells can wait until the first of the week all right."
    "I'm not going out for the shells," Steve said. "Well, not only the shells, anyway."
    "I don't get you," Karl said, turning to look closely at him. "Besides, this seems like a particularly bum day to be going. What if they should suddenly decide to shoot off Argus 8?"
    "What difference would it make?" Steve reminded. "We're not allowed on the range, anyway."
    "No, but we could see it blast off from here," Karl said. "Be a quick glimpse, I'll admit, but better than nothing."
    "I don't think they're going to fire today," Steve said. "If they were, the warning flag should be going up about now." He glanced out of the kitchen window at the unadorned flagpole barely visible sticking up from the roof of the distant blockhouse.
    "You might be right," Karl admitted. "Then, again, if they don't do it today, there's just tomorrow left. That's the end of August. It all figures by simple deduction, doesn't it?"
    "There's no real mystery, Karl," Steve admitted. "At least, not about the day. The time, maybe - but not the day. Anyway, that's not why I came over. I came to see if you wanted to go out to Beacon Island with me. Remember?"
    "Sure, I remember," Karl answered. "You also said something about the shells not being the only reason for wanting to go out. Maybe I'm not awake yet. I didn't hear what you said the other reasons were."
    This was the touchy part which Steve knew had to come up. Even now he had the feeling that it might sound ridiculous to his friend. Perhaps even to himself.
    "Karl," he said, "I never told you about meeting a man that day we were out on Beacon Island. You know, the day Ted Raymond went with us."
    "The day you thought you saw someone watching us with a telescope?" Karl said, seeming both surprised and amused that Steve had brought up the subject.
    "I didn't think I saw someone," Steve insisted. "I saw him. In fact, I met him that day. And he was carrying a telescope under his arm." Steve paused and looked at his friend, waiting for the reaction.
    "Go on," Karl invited calmly.
    "You don't believe me?"
    "Who said I don't believe you? But go ahead. Let's have the whole thing."
    Steve took it step by step, starting with the footprints they had found near the dinghy that first day. He reassured Karl that they had been watched through a telescope on the subsequent trip with Ted Raymond. He related in detail his meeting with the burly stranger. Then, of more recent date, he told about the wisp of what he believed was smoke drifting up over the trees.
    Karl said finally: " O.K., Steve, I'll buy alt that. Don't know why you've been keeping most of it such a secret,, though."
    "The rest of you thought I was having hallucinations, or something," Steve said. "A guy gets tired of sticking his neck out."
    "Sure. But - well, you do sound like Sherlock Holmes sometimes, Steve," his friend said, smiling. "As a matter of fact, let's be honest. What's so mysterious about a few footprints and meeting a guy on Beacon Island - even if he is carrying a small telescope? Besides that, what's so important about seeing a little smoke - if it was smoke? In, short, what's the big mystery about it all, Steve?"
    "I didn't say there was a mystery," Steve insisted.
    "You wouldn't be over here with that puzzled look on your face if there wasn't," Karl said. "Don't forget, I know you from 'way back. Let's have the whole thing, pal.. There is more, isn't there?"
    "Yeah, there's more," Steve said, running fingers through his crew cut. "Number one - when I was talking to the - guy, he told me he lived on the mainland."
    "You didn't figure he lived on the island, did you?"
    "Of course not. But, Karl, have you ever heard of any^ one living anywhere around here who didn't know what a conch shell was?"
    Karl smiled. "Hardly," he said. "That would be like an. Iowa farmer not recognizing an ear of corn."
    "Exactly," Steve said. "But that guy gave me a blank look when I mentioned we were on the island to hunt conchs. Then when he tried to cover it up as though he had hunted conchs, but hadn't had any luck, I told him maybe he had used the wrong kind of bait. He admitted' that maybe he had."
    "Bait?" Karl said in a way that made Steve realize the other boy was giving little significance to the item. "And since you don't use bait to catch conchs, you had him trapped, huh? Da-de-dum-dum!"
    "On top of that," Steve continued, holding on to his patience," the guy said he was waiting for some friends to pick him up."
    "That makes good sense," Karl said. "Even explains why there was no other boat around on either day. Someone dropped him off for the day, and planned to pick him up later. Steve, maybe the guy was collecting bird eggs."
    "Yeah. But the only thing wrong was that he said they were picking him up on the far side of the island," Steve added.
    "So?"
    "That's the windward side, fellow," Steve said, somewhat exasperated that Karl didn't seem to grasp the significance of certain items that stood out plain in his own mind. "We were on that side the other day. Remember how it was? Do you think a boat could have landed there to pick anyone up?"
    "You've got a point," Karl admitted. "It's rough, all right."
    "You bet it's rough," Steve said. "Any boat trying to land there would be smashed up in a hurry, believe me. If you remember, the day we were out there with Ted Raymond, there was a pretty heavy chop. Not a chance of anyone being picked up on the windward side of that island."
    "Then why would the guy say so?" Karl wondered. '" Maybe you misunderstood him."
    "My eye," Steve said. "The guy didn't know anything .about conch shells or seamanship, that's all."
    "Which makes him one of several million, Steve."
    "Sure, but he didn't need to lie, did he?"
    "Could be he was trying to be sociable, and happened to put his foot in his mouth."
    "Come off it, Karl," Steve scolded.
    "O.K., Steve, have it your way," his friend said, shrugging. "So there are a couple of little things which don't quite add up in your mind. It can happen to anyone. Where does that leave us, though?"
    "As far as I'm concerned," Steve said, "the guy acted suspicious."
    "About what, Steve?"
    "Well, I'm not sure," Steve admitted. "I don't think he had any business out there, that's all."
    "Maybe I'm being dense, but I'm still 'way behind you, Steve. Draw me a better picture.''
    "Beacon Island is quite close to Point Victor, isn't it?" Steve said. "Couldn't there be some connection between that fellow being out there and - and the trouble that's been going on with Project Argus?"
    Karl stared at him. "Steve, are you off your rocker?"
    "Sure," Steve said hotly. "Maybe I am. Maybe my big mistake was coming over here in the first place. Forget it." He started to turn away.
    "Hey, hold on," Karl said. "You don't need to get sore. You've really got yourself worked up over this. You really believe it, don't you?"
    "Maybe I'm stupid," Steve said. "But I don't like it - the way things don't add up."
    "Have you told your dad about it?" Karl asked.
    "No," Steve said. "As you put it so bluntly, there's not much to go on, is there?"
    "That's right," Karl said, squeezing out the dishcloth and hanging it over the faucet. "At least, you're admitting it now. Your dad's got plenty of troubles already. I don't think he'd worry a lot about some fellow you met wandering around on Beacon Island. It's not too unusual, you know. I still think you've been making mountains out of-"
    "O.K., O.K.," Steve cut in quickly, turning away again. "You've made that point before."
    "There you go, getting sore again," Karl accused. "All right. Everything you say is so. That guy was a suspicious character. Maybe he's got a high-powered BB gun and he's shooting down those rockets. Where does that leave us?"
    "I thought we might take a little trip out to the island today and snoop around a bit," Steve said.
    "Sure. But what if the firing is scheduled for later this morning?" Karl asked. "I wouldn't want to miss it, even if we have to watch from 'way back here."
    "Still no flag up," Steve reminded. "Besides, we'd be hearing some noise from the public-address system if they were getting set up for a firing. You know as well as I do that if the countdown hasn't started yet, it's not likely to this late."
    "Besides," Steve went on," we've got to go back for those conch shells sooner or later."
    "What about Doris?"
    "She went shopping in Victorville today with her mother," Steve said. "Well, what do you say? Want to go?"
    Karl shrugged. "Might as well, I guess."
    
    
     Chapter 12
    
    It was shortly after noon by the time they signed out the dinghy and put off for Beacon Island. By then they were positive that the firing of Argus 8 wouldn't be taking place that day. It seemed to make Karl more content with the trip, although the tall boy still didn't appear to share Steve's desire to go hunting for mysteries.
    It was a rough trip out. By the time they were a quarter of a mile from Point Victor, a low bank of clouds began pushing in from the southeast, and the wind strengthened.
    "Looks like a squall, Steve," Karl said, working hard at the tiller. "Think we should head back?"
    "No," Steve said. Sudden squalls were not infrequent in that area. "It's probably only a little one. We'll get to the island well ahead of it. Little rain won't hurt us any. Even if it hits here, it'll pass in a hurry. They always do."
    "I guess you're right, at that," Karl admitted. "But remember one thing: as far as I'm concerned we're after those conch shells, and that's all. O.K.?"
    Steve didn't argue. He had said all he could, and his friend obviously wasn't convinced. "You can do what you want," he said simply. "I'm going to scout around some when we get there."
    Soon they were beaching their craft. The wind had abated, giving way to a warm calm which Steve recognized as a familiar and temporary vanguard to a tropic squall. Still, the sky didn't look particularly threatening close by. There was a fair chance the squall would miss the island entirely.
    As Steve vaulted out onto the sand, no unusual sight met his gaze. Chances were, he realized, that Karl was right about the suspicions that had been building up in his mind. Steve had hoped, in fact, that his friend was right. After all, he had no desire to get involved in any trouble.
    "Before you head out someplace," Karl suggested, "let's see how the conch shells are coming along." He pointed along the beach. The shells glistened in the sun where they had left them pointed spiral up in the sand.
    Steve turned and followed his friend. It took only a glance to see that the shells were all there. But the same glance revealed something else.
    "Karl," Steve said urgently," someone's been here. Someone has tampered with those shells."
    "Yeah," Karl agreed at once. "And whoever did it tried not to leave any traces."
    "Exactly," Steve said excitedly. "If it had been just anyone, he wouldn't have bothered to try erasing his tracks around here." Steve indicated the smoothed-over sand. "And he sure wouldn't have taken the trouble to put the shells back in the same places."
    "You're right, Steve," Karl said with much more concern than he had shown all morning. "But whoever did it didn't know enough about cleaning conch shells to put all of them back spiral end pointed up the way we left them."
    "That's it," Steve said. Although most of the shells were still sticking spiral up in the sand, and probably hadn't even been disturbed, there were three shells that had been returned to their original places - but had been set with flanged end up instead of the spiral end.
    "Steve," Karl said, "it - it ties in with that fellow you met. You said he didn't seem to know anything about conchs."
    "That's what I'm thinking," Steve said, looking around quickly as though he expected to see the man standing right there on the beach beside them. "And if it's the same guy who did this, he's more than an occasional visitor out here. This would be the fourth time we've seen him or signs of someone, anyway, on our last four trips out here. I tell you, it doesn't add up."
    "He could be a hermit," Karl said. "There are such things."
    "Karl, let's not get in another argument," Steve said.
    "Yeah, you're right," his friend agreed, removing his glasses and wiping the sea spray from the lenses. "This still doesn't prove the guy is up to anything wrong. But if we're going to be hunting conchs out here any more, we'd better find out what cooks. After all, we don't want someone to start stealing them. Of course, we could always haul them back with us and cure them on the mainland. That would keep anyone from -"
    "Look," Steve interrupted," let's forget the conchs for a while. I'm going to have a look around in the scrub. Might be something worth seeing. Coming?"
    "Yeah, I think so," Karl said. "But wait a second while I get the canteen. We're likely to get thirsty in there."
    Steve glanced at his wrist watch. "It's past two," he said."We've got to make it snappy. Wouldn't want to get caught after dark."
    "That's for sure," Karl agreed, coming back with the canteen. "Fact is, we probably would be better off if we let it go, maybe until next week. Then we could get an early start, and explore the place right. I don't like the looks of that squall, either," he added, pointing to the approaching bank of black clouds.
    "I'm going to explore it now," Steve insisted.
    "O.K.," Karl said, shrugging. "You're the boss this time."
    It was slow traveling as they picked their way through "the underbrush. The sun still slanted in from the west, adding heat to the mugginess. Every once in a while they -stopped to rest and sip at the water in the canteen.
    "Didn't realize it was so far to the middle of the island," Karl said. "At least we ought to get a fair view. Must be at least thirty feet above sea level at the center."
    "Not any higher than that," Steve said. "But come on. We had better keep going." He stood up and screwed the •cap back on the canteen.
    They continued on slowly, with Steve leading the way. There was no sign of a path, and the going became steadily tougher the farther in they got. The thick underbrush scratched their arms and jabbed at them through the legs of their trousers. The sweat rolled down their faces and smarted their eyes.
    "How much farther?" Karl gasped after they had been clawing through the brush without rest for a good fifteen minutes. "I'm about done in, pal. Too many Cokes in my youth."
    "I can see the place now," Steve said over his shoulder. "Only about a hundred yards more."
    It was not an easy hundred yards. In fact, it stretched into several hundred, as they were forced to detour around enormous, and increasingly dense, patches of underbrush. But finally they reached what they considered to be the center and highest point on Beacon Island.
    "This is it," Steve said. "But, look, we seem to be on the edge of a basin."
    From a distance the island always had looked as though it was quite flat all over, rising only gently from the sea. But now Steve saw the proof of the rumors he had heard that the island had a hollowed-out basin at its center. Indeed, it was a large basin, although quite shallow. Its lowest point was probably only twenty feet below the elevation on which they stood.
    "Looks almost like a volcanic crater, doesn't it?" Steve said.
    "No volcanic islands in this part of the country," Karl said. "Probably it's a settling of the island's center dating back a few geological eons."
    The shallow, craterlike bowl was a good city block in diameter and almost circular. At one time the inner walls must have been precipitous. But centuries of weather had eroded the hard coral-like formation until the slanting inner walls of the basin itself afforded numerous routes which could be taken to the bottom. Ages of rain and wind had crumbled and pulverized much of the rocky deposit into a sort of soil. Open to the sun, yet somewhat protected from the ravages of storms, vegetation had gained a good foothold inside of the circular depression, particularly on the level bottom. There the brush grew high, and quite a few scrubby trees had managed to thrive in the rocky soil.
    It was while he was looking into the thick growth that a glint of light, like sun on dull metal, caught Steve's eye. It took a moment or two for him to connect any significance to it. Then, as his gaze focused, he was able to discern the dim broken outlines of what appeared to be a low shelter or building of some kind nestled in the thickest part of the foliage.
    "Karl!" he said quickly, dropping flat to the ground. "Get down!"
    Seeming to catch the urgency in Steve's words, the tall boy heeded the warning and fell down beside him. "What's the matter?" he asked.
    "I - I think there's some kind of building over there," Steve said.
    "A building? Steve, after the way we've been fighting our way through that underbrush, we're both so fagged that a small pine tree might look like the Empire State Building."
    "Take a look yourself," Steve said. "Right in the thickest part of those trees. Go on, have a look. But stay down low."
    "Don't worry," the other boy said. "And, believe me, if there is a building there, something's mighty haywire."
    "That's what I've been trying to tell you," Steve reminded.
    Karl crawled slowly forward to get a less-obstructed view. Anxious to get a better look himself, Steve eased up beside him.
    "See it?" Steve asked. Now that Karl knew what he was looking for, he picked it out quickly. There was no longer any doubt of there being a building ahead and slightly below the level of their eyes.
    "I - I sure do see it, Steve," Karl said. "And you know what? That thing's been camouflaged with paint and stuff to blend it into the trees and underbrush around it. Boy, you've got good eyes. If you hadn't told me where to look - Hey, Steve, what's the matter?"
    Karl's question was prompted by a gasp that had suddenly escaped from his companion.
    "Look!" Steve pointed to a spot about fifty yards from the camouflaged building where a flash of motion had caught his eye.
    Quite effectively hidden from any casual view, several antennas speared up beside the trees. The object that had caught Steve's attention was a dish-shaped gridwork contraption. It too was carefully hidden and camouflaged to blend in with the surrounding foliage. Steve was sure he would never have seen it except for the fact that it was pivoting back and forth.
    "A - a radar antenna!" Karl said in disbelief. "Steve, it seems aimed to sweep the sky over the north end of the island. What's a radar antenna doing here?"
    It didn't take any second guess to know that the entire layout had no business being here. Its purpose was something else - something far beyond Steve's understanding. The fact that kept crowding into his mind as he lay there on the edge of the large shallow basin was that somehow, the answer to the recent failures of the Project Argus satellite vehicles was located here.
    "We'd better get out of here," Steve said. "And fast! Let's get back and tell my dad about this. I - I'm sure this ties in with all the trouble they've been having back at Point Victor."
    "Has to," Karl agreed readily. "But how?"
    "That's for someone else to find out," Steve said. "All I know is that we've got to get back and warn them about it."
    "Right," Karl said.
    "Let's go!"
    "I wouldn't try it!"
    The terse warning came from behind them. It came as a simple unemotional statement. But it was heavy with undertones that were unmistakably serious - undeniably deadly.
    Steve heard Karl's breath catch in his throat. His own skin prickled with fright. Too weak even to try rising from his prone position, Steve managed to twist around enough to look back over his shoulder.
    The man stood directly behind them, boldly outlined against the lowering sun. It took only one glance for Steve to recognize him as the boot-wearing stranger he had met a couple of weeks ago. But this time the man was not carrying a telescope tucked under his arm.
    Instead, he was carrying a rifle - carrying it firmly and aiming it deliberately - right at Steve!
    
    
     Chapter 13
    
    The man stood there keeping his gun pointed at Steve and Karl, apparently wanting to impress them with the fact that they were at a complete disadvantage - something Steve had known from the first moment.
    Karl rose on his right elbow in order to turn and look back. He was the first to find words, and his voice was strangely calm as he spoke.
    "Why the gun, mister?" he asked. "Can't a couple of guys go on a little hike without having one of those things pointed at them? We're not doing anything wrong."
    It was a good bluff, but a very ineffective one. No change of expression came across the man's face. The steady gun barrel remained firmly pointed at them. Steve wondered how long the man had been following them; how long he had been standing there behind them; how much he had heard. No doubt he had seen them even before they had landed. Probably he had been fairly close during their entire walk, and chances were he had heard about everything they had said.
    "Get up!" he commanded. "And don't turn around. Do exactly as I say, and you may not get hurt."
    "Now, see here, mister - " Karl began.
    "Shut up!" the burly, hunch-shouldered stranger interrupted. "If you kids think I'm fooling, go ahead and try something funny!"
    "I - I think he means it," Steve warned Karl.
    "I know it," his friend agreed. "Guess we'd better go along with what he says."
    They got up slowly, and brushed themselves off. Steve struggled to keep his nerves calm, but he had only partial success. His legs kept shaking under him so violently that he wasn't sure he'd even be able to walk.
    "All right," the man instructed behind them," start moving. And dcn't forget what I said. You won't get two chances."
    They started down into the shallow basin. The man followed a few paces behind, keeping his rifle in firing position all the time.
    When they reached the bottom, where there were some trees and where the underbrush grew thicker, Steve saw Karl dart sharp glances around as though he was trying to figure out some quick avenue of escape.
    "Don't try anything, Karl," he whispered. "We'd never make it. Besides, this may not be as serious as it seems."
    "Hope you're right," his companion said. "But I don't think you are. Anyway, don't worry, I'm not going to try anything."
    "Quit the talking," the man demanded. "Now, go through the trees there to your left."
    They had to duck low and push their way through the thick growth. Any temptation to make a sudden break for freedom was quickly suppressed by the sound of their captor following close behind them.
    The camouflaged building they had spotted from the edge of the basin was so carefully hidden in the brush and trees that they nearly walked right into a side of it before they saw it.
    "Around to the end," the man behind them prompted, prodding the rifle muzzle into Steve's back.
    They turned a corner and came to a door. It was open. A squat, balding man with thick glasses stood to one side and motioned them in with the automatic pistol in his hand.
    "Good work, Simms," he said to the man who had taken them hostage.
    Once inside, Steve and Karl drew up short, staring in disbelief at the surroundings. The building was about fifteen feet wide and twenty or twenty-five feet long - about the size of a large living room. But the resemblance ended right there. More than anything else, the place looked like a miniature edition of the blockhouse instrumentation at Point Victor. There were the mazes of wiring which went with complicated radio and radar devices. There were the usual flickering lights and glowing vacuum tubes. The obvious difference was that most of the equipment was in skeleton form. Little effort had been made in the interest of neat arrangment or casing. There was no doubt in Steve's mind that the entire affair was designed for temporary use only.
    There were two other men in the room - making four in all. They were all about the same age - a couple of years one way or another from forty, Steve thought. All looked considerably disturbed, which didn't surprise Steve in the least. This was no amateur layout. He was equally certain that it was no innocent layout. If he needed any convincing other than the obvious attempt of hiding and camouflaging the outside, the foreign look of the equipment furnished it.
    "Why did you boys come out here?" the man with the pistol demanded. He squinted through his thick-lensed glasses.
    "We came to get our conch shells," Karl was again the first to find words.
    "You weren't likely to find any shells here at the middle of the island," the man reminded. Steve noticed that he spoke English with no foreign accent.
    "Someone had been monkeying around with our shells," Karl answered. "And we thought we'd look around a bit to see who it was."
    "Well, it's too bad you did," the balding man said. Steve figured, simply by the fact that the man had taken over the questioning, that he was the leader of the quartet. No doubt Simms, the fellow with the rifle, was primarily a lookout. The other two would be electronic technicians of some sort.
    "What have you guys got going here?" Karl spoke up again. Steve couldn't tell whether his friend was as frightened as he or not. If so, Karl certainly wasn't showing it. Still, Karl was the kind of quick thinker who might well be trying to cover up fright with outward bluff.
    "You'd like to know, wouldn't you?" the leader said. "Even if we told you, you wouldn't understand. And the information wouldn't do you any good. But we have no intention of telling you, anyway."
    "What are we going to do with them, Grogan?" Simms asked. "They've seen a lot more than's good for them."
    "You're right there," the man called Grogan agreed. "First we'd better tie them up. We can decide what to do with them later."
    "Tie us up?" Steve said explosively, trying to match courage for courage with Karl. "What do you mean, tie us up? What have we done? Who are you fellows, anyway?" It was quite a speech, considering the situation. And Steve felt good for having been able to say as much. It helped work his fright farther into the background of his mind.
    "The safest thing for you to do," Grogan said, "is not ask questions. We don't want to hurt you kids - unless we have to."
    "Karl," Steve said, although there had been little doubt in his mind from the beginning," this is it, all right."
    "This is what?" Grogan demanded.
    "The reason for the trouble with the Project Argus rockets, that's what," Steve said hotly.
    The tip of the rifle suddenly prodded into his ribs.
    "What do you know about Project Argus?" Grogan demanded.
    "He's just talking," Karl put in quickly. "It's shooting rockets or something, isn't it? What would shell collectors know about rockets?"
    Karl said it straight; yet Steve didn't miss the warning that was in the words. Karl was telling him to play it dumb.
    "Get some rope, Mike," Grogan instructed one of the other men, who sat with a headset which was plugged into one of the instruments. "There's not a chance of the firing taking place this late. Shut down the equipment. That means they'll have to fire tomorrow. You kids will have to be our guests for a while. Simms," he turned to the guard with the rifle," you go back and set their boat adrift. But first raise the sail, then break the mast, scuttle it, and shove it out into the current. In case there's any search party, it will throw them off for a while. All we need is another twelve to twenty hours, and our job will be done."
    "It's starting to rain, Grogan," Simms protested. "I'll do it later."
    "You'll do it now," Grogan demanded. "The rain and wind will help. It'll make the whole thing look as though they got swamped by the squall. Get going."
    Grumbling, Simms left. He had scarcely closed the door before the rain began drumming loudly on the metal roof of the shack. Steve could imagine that the squall's fury was raging hard on the more exposed parts of Beacon Island.
    "Where you kids from?" Grogan said.
    "We're from around Victorville," Karl answered.
    "Anyone know you came out here?"
    "What?" Steve said, snapping out of his thoughts.
    "You tell anyone you were coming out here?"
    "We-we didn't tell anyone," Steve said. "Why?" It was true. They hadn't bothered to tell anyone when they left Point Victor, although they had signed out on the log at the boathouse. But Steve didn't feel it necessary to mention the log. In fact, he quickly wished he hadn't mentioned not telling anyone where they had gone.
    Mike had removed his headset and flicked some switches; then he went to a corner of the room and got a coil of rope. In the same corner Steve saw four life jackets hanging on the wall. One other item caught his attention. It was a carefully folded inflatable rubber boat, easily recognizable to anyone who had been around military bases as much as Steve and Karl.
    As Mike approached with the rope, Steve gathered himself tautly. Simms had gone. The door was still unlocked behind him. Steve was fast and the underbrush outside was thick. If he could make a quick break . . .
    "Steve," Karl said softly, apparently sensing what was going through his friend's mind," don't try anything. They've got us cold."
    "That's a wise warning," Grogan said. "And, you, Steve, listen to your friend here. It may save your life. You be good like he says, and we may not even have to do anything drastic to you so we can get our work done in peace."
    The way Grogan said it erased all doubt from Steve's mind that he would carry out the threat with very little provocation. Although he protested verbally, Steve didn't struggle too hard against the ropes as Mike skillfully trussed him hand and foot. Karl was next.
    "We could put gags on you," Grogan said. "But it's going to be a long night. You promise you won't start yelling around and disturbing us, and we'll leave the gags off?"
    "We won't yell," Karl said. "What good would it do here, anyway?"
    Mike dragged them across the dirt floor, and propped them up against the wall to the right of the door. As uncomfortable as it was, with their hands tied behind their backs and their legs bound securely up to the knees, they at least had a good view of the room and the activity of the men.
    Steve looked around the floorless shack. Obviously it was a temporary structure, put up primarily to protect the variety of electronic equipment. The walls and roof were of thin corrugated aluminum. Everything was put together with metal brackets, and with little effort at neatness. Daylight filtered through cracks where the walls and roof came together.
    "What do you make of this place, Karl?" Steve asked softly. The men had gone back to various chores, and were ignoring them.
    "It looks prefab," Karl said. "Been hauled in here and set up."
    "Hauled in how?"
    "Boat. How else?"
    "The waters around here are patrolled," Steve said. "How could anyone bring in a big layout like this without being discovered? Even if it was done at night, the Coast Guard planes would have spotted their boat with surface radar. They couldn't get in and out that fast."
    "Steve," Karl said, "did you notice that rubber boat rolled up over there in the corner?"
    "Yeah. And the life jackets too."
    "They could have shuttled the stuff in from a - a submarine."
    "A sub?"
    "Shh-h-h."
    "Then they'd be foreigners," Steve said, lowering his voice.
    "That's foreign equipment if I ever saw any," Karl said, supporting Steve's earlier belief.
    "But they all speak English. And they don't look foreign."
    "That doesn't mean a thing, Steve," Karl said, shaking his head. "Lots of foreigners speak English."
    "Where - where do you think they're from?" Steve asked.
    "Hard to tell," Karl said. "Could be from most any country that doesn't like the idea of us getting large satellites into space."
    Steve remembered how his father had said much the same thing: that, although Project Argus was entirely a peaceful scientific program, and was aimed at eventually revolutionizing the entire realm of electronic communications, there might well be some nations or fanatical groups unsympathetic to such an American advancement.
    It made sense, too, that, after sufficient scouting and certain espionage concerning Project Argus, Beacon Island could be chosen as a good point of observation. Isolated and rarely visited, the island made an ideal spot from which to keep tabs on the progress of the program - or even, perhaps, to interfere with it.
    Karl's mention of the submarine gained logic the more Steve thought of it. A submarine could approach under the cover of darkness. After having studied the time pattern of patrol vessels and aircraft, it could surface off the island at the opportune moment. Men and equipment could easily be transported ashore in inflatable boats.
    A lot of things began to add up.
    "This has got to be it, hasn't it, Karl?"
    "You mean the trouble?"
    "Yeah."
    "Can t miss."
    "But how, Karl? How does it work?"
    "Wish I knew," his companion said. "I've been trying to make some head or tail out of all that equipment. I don't know so much about electronic stuff, but I can recognize some of it; radio receivers and transmitters, and things like that. But, boy, most of the stuff has got me stumped. Even that radar antenna outside. It's different, but I'm not sure how. One thing is certain, though. The way it's mounted, it can sweep only a small part of the sky over the north end of this island. Anyway, that's how it looks to me. Radar and most electronic beams have to travel a straight line, you know. Only thing I can figure is that they've got some way of jamming the guidance system of the rockets. This might explain it always happening at forty-two miles. Whatever kind of beam they're using could be set to intersect the line of flight at that particular altitude."
    "That's it!" Steve said. "Karl, that's got to be it!"
    "It's not quite that simple, though," Karl said. "Remember, before every firing there is a complete electronic blackout in the area. If anyone started shooting out signals, the Point Victor monitors would pick them up right away. The firing would be canceled, and it wouldn't take long to triangulate and pinpoint the source of the signals. The persons would be traced in a few minutes if they went on the air with any kind of deal like that."
    Steve remembered that on the morning of the firing of Argus 7, Tom Sempers had told his father about the quick signal that had been picked up on the monitor. He remembered that his father had assumed it was probably from an airplane that had wandered in - and immediately back out - of the electronic blackout area.
    But before he had a chance to mention it to Karl, a new thought sprang into his mind.
    "Karl!" he said. "Tomorrow's firing! It has to be tomorrow. It - it's the last day. These guys must know it."
    "They seem to know plenty, all right," the other boy admitted. "I - I forgot all about tomorrow, Steve! What a spot to be in!"
    "It's all my fault," Steve berated himself. "I should have gone to Dad."
    "With what, Steve?" Karl consoled. "You didn't even know what you were suspicious about."
    Karl was right, of course. Yet it scarcely made Steve feel better.
    "All I know," Steve said, "is that we've got to do something before morning. We might not know how they do it, but one thing's certain. If these fellows ruin tomorrow's firing, Project Argus is finished - a complete washout. It would be a mighty long time, if ever, before any private business concerns would back such a program again." Steve didn't feel like mentioning what it would mean to his father, or to Karl's, for that matter. But surely Karl was well aware of that himself.
    "You name it, Steve," Karl said. "Whatever you want to do, I'm with you."
    But trussed tightly, hand and foot, tied with even more care than was necessary, Steve was well aware that the chance of their doing anything was remote, if not impossible.
    
    
     Chapter 14
    
    The rain had stopped drumming on the roof. The squall had passed. Before long the cracks near the ceiling were puttied in with darkness. During the past hour or so the men had paid little attention to Steve and Karl, other than to check to be sure they were making no progress toward freeing themselves from their bonds.
    The aches and pains of being bound in one position began to give way to an almost soothing numbness. Whenever the opportunity occurred, Steve had tried to saw, or squeeze, or attempt somehow to work free of the ropes. He had been forced to resign the efforts as useless. He and Karl had been placed a few feet apart and slightly facing each other. Maneuvering back to back in order to get at one another's knots - a procedure so simple in television westerns - was completely out of the question here.
    Shortly after dark Simms returned to the shack. He was sopping-wet from the rain.
    "Get rid of the boat?" Grogan asked.
    "Just like you said, "Simms replied, apparently pleased with having done a good job. "If they find that boat adrift, they'll think the kids were swamped in the squall. It was a real storm, too."
    "That's good," Grogan said. "Long as the boat's not on the beach, it doesn't matter much whether they find it or not. They'll know the kids aren't here. So, either way, we'll gain what time we need. When we're finished with tomorrow's job, we can start dismantling this stuff for tomorrow night's pickup."
    "There's your submarine, Steve," Karl whispered. Yet, in a sudden lull of conversation, the whisper carried. The leader spun around.
    "You've got it all figured out, haven't you?" he said. "Didn't think you boys were so smart. Guess you know more about Project Argus than you let on about, too."
    "I sure do," Steve said hotly. There didn't seem to be any reason whatsoever for trying to hide anything now. "My father's boss of the whole program. And Karl's father is the best rocket-propulsion man in the country."
    It made its impression, all right. All four of the men looked at them with renewed interest.
    "That makes your name Kenton, doesn't it?" Grogan said, apparently surprised, but not bothered, by Steve's candid outburst. "And you," he spoke to Karl," must be Hoffman."
    Karl didn't answer. Steve wondered if his friend was silently censuring him for talking up. He glanced at Karl. The other boy's face was placid.
    "Interesting," Grogan went on. "But it wouldn't make any difference, no matter who you are. What makes the difference is that you know too much."
    "What are you going to do with us?" Steve wanted to know.
    "I haven't decided that," the leader said. "But there are two possible answers. Either we take you with us when our job is finished - or we don't."
    "You mean you'd turn us loose here on the island?" Karl asked hopefully.
    "That would be the easy way, wouldn't it?" Grogan said. "For you, at least. But it wouldn't work into our plans. Not at all. You see, when we pull out we aren't leaving any traces of our ever being here. No traces at all. I guess you know what that means."
    Steve jerked his eyes toward Karl. His friend looked squarely at him. It took no exchange of words for them to arrive at the true and sinister meaning behind the calm threat.
    "Where - where would you take us?" Karl was the first to find his voice.
    Grogan smiled thinly. "You'll have to find out," he said. "If it comes to that."
    One of the men had been cooking on a small portable stove in the far corner. "You be careful of smoke," Grogan warned him.
    "Nobody going to see smoke at night," the man defended. He was a short, thick-necked person. He had scarcely spoken a word all evening. Steve noticed now that there was a slight accent in his guttural speech. Not enough to identify it geographically, but there all the same. He spooned generous helpings of a stewlike mixture onto tin plates. The men seated themselves around on empty metal cases and began to eat.
    No food was offered to Steve or Karl. Nor was it missed. A constricting grip of fear over the implication of what the man Grogan had said squeezed all appetite from Steve. He could read a similar fear in the silent thoughtfulness that had come over Karl.
    With the coarse meal finished, Grogan got up and made a tour of the dimly lighted room, checking various items of equipment. He spent considerable time over a cluster of black containers grouped near the center of the room. From the number of electrical cables winding away from the dark boxlike objects, Steve knew they were some type of batteries. He was correct, for the leader straightened up and turned to the man called Mike.
    "It's good that we finish this up tomorrow," Grogan said. "We have only enough power left to carry us through."
    "At least we'll have help carrying those heavy things out of here tomorrow night," Mike said. "Might as well dump them in the ocean, though, with a lot of other stuff."
    "I expect to," Grogan said. "That sub's not very roomy. Besides, when this job's done, there'll be little further use for most of this equipment. Forbish," he turned to the short man who had finished the kitchen cleanup," you'd better stand guard."
    "Stand guard?" Forbish protested. "Need no guard. Dark night. No moon."
    "You got ears," Grogan said. "If anyone lands on that beach, you can hear him. Or you can see his flashlight. I don't think anyone's going to be coming out here. But I don't want to take any chances, either. It's your turn. Mike will relieve you at midnight."
    Grumbling, Forbish picked up the rifle and a battery lantern and went out into the darkness.
    In a few minutes Grogan stepped over to Steve and Karl. He reached down and pulled each of them away from the wall in order to inspect the bindings. Then, as though he was dragging a sack of potatoes, he hauled Karl a few feet farther away from Steve.
    "Simms," he said to the biggest of the four," you throw your bedroll in between these two tonight. Want to be sure they don't get too close together. Don't think they could do anything if they did, but I'm not taking any chances. We'd all better turn in. Want to be at those instruments by three o'clock."
    "Three o'clock?" Simms protested. "Nothing's going to happen that early."
    "I said I'm not taking any chances," Grogan insisted.
    "Kenton is likely to call the firing at any time, particularly if he has any suspicions."
    "Don't worry, he's got suspicions," Steve spoke up. "And you'll be hearing about them before morning."
    Grogan smiled. "I'm sure we won't," he said. "Because if we were, you wouldn't be mentioning it now."
    Steve knew the leader was right, and silently berated himself for popping off. If anything, it merely gave Grogan and his men more reason to feel confident and relaxed. "I'm sorry, Karl," he apologized.
    Karl laughed softly - a strange, tight laugh. "Forget it, Steve," he said. "Things couldn't be much worse, anyway, could they?"
    "Don't you kids forget this was your doings," Grogan said. "You didn't come up here accidentally. Not you two. We've been keeping close tabs on you every time you came out to this island. We never were very comfortable about it. Not the way young Kenton was nosing around. Fact is, if we'd known who you were, we might have stopped you before this - even though there were more of you other trips."
    For the first time, Steve thought of Doris. Thank goodness, he thought, Doris wasn't in on this!
    "I don't like this kind of thing," Grogan went on. "It wasn't called for in our job. Still, I guess you could say it was included. As you've guessed, our job is to see that none of those Argus satellites arrive in their orbits. You know, of course, that we've been quite successful in carrying out our mission thus far."
    "We know that, all right," Karl admitted soberly. "What we don't know is how you do it."
    "And you're not going to know," Grogan said. "Not that it's going to matter, but you wouldn't understand it, anyway. One of those electronic complexes, you know." He shrugged it off, but was obviously pleased with himself.
    "Karl knows something about electronics," Steve said.
    "Oh? It might have been a good field to go into," the leader said meaningfully in the past tense. "Might pay us to take you along with us, at that. I'd prefer it that way, believe me. But I'm not the big boss."
    Simms came over and rolled his sleeping bag out in the space between Steve and Karl. "If we're going to get any sleep," he said, "let's be at it."
    Grogan straightened up. "That's right," he said, then added to Steve and Karl," You kids aren't going to be very comfortable, but it's the best we can do."
    "The least you could do is loosen these ropes a little," Steve complained. "They're cutting off my circulation."
    Co-operatively, Grogan reached down, pulled him away from the wall, and looked at the rope binding Steve's arms behind him.
    "Not a thing wrong with that rope," the leader said. "Nice try, anyway." He chuckled humorously, then leaned over and checked Karl. Apparently satisfied, he turned and went to his own bedroll.
    Only one small, shaded light bulb had been left burning. It cast a dim glow over the room. The three men had settled into their bedrolls. Soon their deep breathing left Steve and Karl alone with their thoughts.
    "What do you think they're going to do with us, Karl?" Steve asked, keeping his voice low in order not to awaken the man stretched out in his bedroll between them.
    "It's anybody's guess, Steve," his companion answered. "It might be a good idea, though, to kind of prepare for the - the worst."
    "I don't think they'd dare," Steve insisted.
    "Don't kid yourself, pal," Karl said. "These fellows are playing for mighty big stakes. They're not going to let anybody get in their way."
    "We're not in their way," Steve said. "Not really. What can we do, all tied up like this?"
    "It's what we've seen, Steve. You heard Grogan say that they weren't going to leave any traces of what's been going on here. Something like that could be pinned down, and the blame placed on whatever nation or group or whatever it is that's responsible for this. They don't want that. Which means they can't turn us loose when it's all over. As Grogan said, we know 'way too much for their good health. We might as well face it, Steve. We stumbled into a mighty dangerous setup."
    "It was my fault," Steve insisted. "I'm sorry, Karl. I should have gone to my dad."
    "You already said that," Karl replied. "But what would you have gone to him with? A few footprints, and a stranger with a telescope. He could have been a bird watcher. Quit blaming yourself. We've shared a lot of good things together. If anything happens, I'm glad we're together in it, Steve."
    "Me too," Steve said sincerely.
    Simms grunted, rolled over, and rose on one elbow. "You punks keep quiet," he commanded. "How do you expect me to sleep? One more peep and I'll clamp gags on both of you."
    Steve had little desire to sleep, but he did keep quiet. He tried to squirm free of some of the stiffness and hurt that lay heavy in his body. Bound as he was, comfort was impossible; yet the readjusting of aches helped some.
    He retraced the day's steps in his mind, trying to think of some incident that might lend hope to their situation. The only clue they had left of their whereabouts was the signing out on the boat log. Even then it had merely been a case of mentioning the boat and the time. No destination. No one would bother to check the boat log until well after dark.
    Doris might guess that they had gone out to Beacon Island. Yet, if a search party didn't find the dinghy on the beach, it would be assumed they had gone elsewhere, or had been caught out in an adverse wind or tide.
    On the other hand, if anyone discovered the capsized dinghy with the broken mast and swamped sail, only the worst could be assumed.
    The thought pounded dully through Steve's mind. Compounding the anguish was the realization of the firing deadline for Argus 8. What an enormous burden it would place upon his father, and upon Professor Hoffman! Despite everything, the firing would have to proceed on schedule, for there was even more at stake than his and Karl's safety.
    Steve had no way of knowing how long he had been sitting painfully propped against the wall when he heard the dull and distant throb of an airplane engine. Then, as it drew closer, he recognized the chopping sound of helicopter rotors. He glanced quickly at Karl.
    "The company 'copter!" the other boy whispered. "Not much they could see, though, in the darkness. Sounds as though they're about over the beach, doesn't it?"
    From the surging loudness and dimness of the distant sound, Steve drew a mental picture of the helicopter shuttling back and forth across the water, sweeping the area with its single light. There was no way of knowing whether they had discovered the capsized dinghy.
    Then the dull hum began to fade in the distance, and was quickly erased by the night. At no time had it become loud enough to awaken the three sleeping men.
    "Guess that's that," Steve whispered. "At least, they've missed us, huh?"
    "They've missed us, all right," Karl replied softly. "In more ways than one."
    
    
     Chapter 15
    
    Steve had no idea when the combination of stiffness, •exhaustion, and disappointment must have taken its toll upon the senses and dropped him into a deep slumber. The first thing he knew, Grogan was shaking Simms awake beside him. Forbish already had climbed out of his sleeping bag. Steve hadn't been awake when Forbish had come in from guard duty to be replaced by Mike.
    "Get up, Simms," Grogan commanded. "It's already •past three. Grab a quick breakfast and get on your instruments. I've already got the receiver on."
    Grumbling, Simms slipped out of his bedroll and began pulling on his boots. He had slept in his clothes, as had the others.
    Grogan turned to Steve. "Forbish tells me there was a helicopter buzzing around here last night. Didn't find anything, though," he went on confidently."We're mighty proud of our camouflage."
    "We spotted it," Karl said simply.
    "Pure accident," Grogan dismissed the subject lightly. "O.K., you kids behave yourselves. We've got work to do."
    Through the small cracks in the shack's construction, Steve saw that it was still dark outside. Shouldn't be long until dawn, he figured.
    After the three men had finished a quick breakfast, they turned their attention to the electronic equipment.
    "Be sure everything is set right," Grogan warned firmly. "Can't have anything go wrong."
    "Nothing's gone wrong yet," Simms defended. "Soon's we intercept their signal, they're our pigeons. Just like the other times."
    "Yeah. Well, you just be sure you intercept it," Grogan said. "I look for something to start around six. But it could be earlier. So keep sharp."
    Steve looked over at Karl. "You got any of it worked out yet, Karl?" he asked.
    His friend didn't answer for a few moments. He seemed intent upon watching every movement the men made around the equipment. Even when he did answer, his eyes remained on the proceedings taking place in front of them. "It's hard to say, Steve. But that business about intercepting signals seems simple enough. It would be easy for them to pick up Tom Sempers' broadcast requesting electronic clearance of the area. Anyone with a decent receiver could do that."
    "But what good would it be to them?"
    "It'd give them a warning that the firing was scheduled to take place shortly," Karl explained. "Then, when all radio and TV interference shut down, they'd know the blast-off was about fifteen minutes away. That's the way it always has been scheduled."
    That part of it made complete sense to Steve. Simply by monitoring the air waves, Grogan and his crew could keep tabs on what was taking place at Point Victor! It was frightening in its simplicity. It also eliminated any need for a collaborator being located at Point Victor. All the information they needed was available merely by eavesdropping on Tom Sempers' radio calls.
    "Even so," Steve wondered, "what then, Karl?"
    "I - I don't know," his friend said, still keeping his attention directed to the men's action around the equipment. "But there's enough electronic stuff stacked in here to do about anything they might want. It must have something to do with jamming the rocket's guidance system. We - we may never know, Steve."
    The last statement hit Steve hard. Karl was not a corn-plainer. Nor was he one to accept defeat easily. Yet, trussed securely as they were, and looking on at what certainly must soon spell complete failure for Project Argus, resignation seemed almost a logical conclusion.
    "They don't seem to be working much of the equipment," he said.
    "They would probably use only the receiver now," Karl explained. "If they turned on any kind of transmitter, it would be picked up at Point Victor. So if it's a case of transmitting - whether radio, television, or radar impulses - they wouldn't do it until the last possible moment. By doing it that way their signals would probably be lost in all the electronic activity going out from Point Victor to guide the rocket. I'm only guessing, of course, Steve. I could be all wrong."
    It seemed a bit late to be of much importance, anyway, Steve thought. Respecting Karl's profound interest in the men's activity, he didn't ask further questions.
    An hour passed, by which time the first gray of dawn had seeped through the cracks of the building. With each passing minute the tension inside of Steve increased. He could only guess at the activity taking place at Point Victor. Added to the great zero-moment effort aimed at getting the Argus 8 satellite into its orbit, there would now be the emergency situation of his and Karl's disappearance. Unlike the conditions that existed during the previous firings - when time was not so important - today's launching could not be delayed while the search for the two missing boys continued.
    Steve's one big hope was that the capsized dinghy had not been found. In that case, the conclusion might well be drawn that he and Karl had simply been weathered in on one of the many islands in the area. It was not so unusual a situation to be caught in a squall, and run to one of the islands for cover.
    "Where's Mike?" Grogan spoke up, bringing Steve out of his thoughts. "He should be reporting in here."
    "Probably wants to make a final check to see if any boats are headed this way in the daylight," Simms said.
    "Boats? The water will be cleared for the firing," Grogan said. "Always is."
    "All the more reason for him to take a final look," Simms insisted. "I'd do it if I were out there. That way, if there were any boats in the water, we could be almost sure the firing had been postponed."
    "Postponed to when?" Grogan said. "Today's their last chance. You know that."
    "Sure. But with these kids missing, there might be a change in plans."
    "I don't think so," Grogan said. "You'd better go get Mike. We need him in here. And snap it up."
    Simms was turning to leave when Forbish called over his shoulder. "Grogan! Everything's gone dead in the area!"
    "It can't be!" Grogan said, spinning around. "You haven't even heard them requesting the blackout, have you?"
    "No, but-"
    "Check your receiver," Grogan commanded tersely. "Maybe something's burned out, or -"
    "The receiver's working," Forbish insisted. "They might have set the time when we weren't tuned in last night."
    "They've never done it that way before."
    Karl looked over at Steve. "Maybe your dad crossed them up, Steve," he said hopefully. "You suppose he knew?"
    "I don't think so," Steve said. "But he would try anything he could to eliminate any possibility of sabotage if he could. The way he delayed the firing that day - even though it didn't work."
    "Simms," Grogan said, "never mind Mike. We can operate without him. But set things up quick. We've probably got less than fifteen minutes now. Start the power boosters. Set them at maximum output. Doesn't matter if it ruins the generator. Won't need it any more after this one shot. Let's go!"
    One shot! Steve wondered what Grogan had meant by that. Certainly, none of this equipment had anything to do with any kind of normal weapon. And there was no weapon in existence that Steve had ever heard of that could fire a shot successfully at a rocket speeding at several thousand miles per hour at an altitude of forty-two miles.
    "Did you hear that, Karl?" he spoke to his companion.
    "I heard."
    "What kind of shot?"
    "Who knows?" the other boy said. "Not a bullet. That's for sure."
    What had seemed like a temporary panic a moment ago now settled down to an apparently well-rehearsed procedure as the three men made quick, but sure-fingered adjustments on the various instruments. Within five minutes even the speed of their movements had settled down to a normal pace.
    "We're all set now," Grogan said. He glanced at his watch. "Got your automatic tracker and computer synchronized, Simms?"
    "Everything's in order," Simms said. "If they tried to throw us off, they've got a big surprise coming."
    "Yeah," Grogan said, obviously pleased."But Mike's going to have some real explaining to do. He could have ruined this whole thing."
    "You think Mike could be in trouble?" Forbish said, turning momentarily from his instruments.
    "Trouble?" Grogan said. "What kind of trouble? If anything was wrong, Mike would have fired a warning shot, or -"
    But the question of whether Mike was in trouble or not quickly lost all importance. The inside of the shack was suddenly filled with violent sound and motion as the metal door crashed inward. Startled, Steve jerked his head around.
    Ted Raymond's husky frame all but filled the doorway. The lower part of his trousers were wet. His shirt was torn at the shoulder. His entire appearance was disheveled, as though he had been through a tough fight. But the rifle he carried - the same rifle the men had been using to stand watch - was gripped firmly in the newsman's hands. It was pointed straight at Grogan; yet it was held so it could be shifted easily to either of the other men nearby.
    "One move from any of you," the Times-Journal reporter ordered," and you've had it!"
    Big Simms made the mistake of doubting it, and went for the pistol at his hip. The rifle filled the shack with roaring thunder. The bullet spun Simms half around, and he fell, clutching his shoulder.
    "Next?" Ted Raymond invited, swinging the barrel back toward the two remaining men. There were no further moves.
    "Ted!" Steve called. "We - we're here!"
    "I know you're there. Saw you right at the beginning. First I've got to take care of these fellows. Turn around. Both of you," he commanded. "Get over to that wall. Face it. Three feet out."
    Grogan and Forbish seemed to think better than to argue. They shuffled to the wall, standing three feet back from it.
    "Now," the newsman instructed," lean forward and catch yourselves with your hands. Keep those arms spread wide."
    They followed instructions. Steve had seen pictures of this type of thing. He knew it was police procedure for searching criminals, or for simply keeping them under full control. To make any move, they would have to push away from the wall first. It would telegraph their intention - a very dangerous message.
    "Make one move and you'll borrow more trouble than you can handle," Ted Raymond warned, slipping the two men's side arms from their holsters. Then he backed toward Steve and Karl.
    "Ted," Karl said, "there's another one outside!"
    "Only one?"
     "Yes."
    "Then don't worry. We've met, and he's well taken care of." The newsman picked up a pair of large cutting pliers from the top of a cabinet. He snipped quickly through several thicknesses of the rope binding Steve's wrists. "Make it now?" he asked, returning his attention to the two men against the wall.
    "Sure," Steve said, wriggling out of his coils. But as soon as his arms were loose, it took several seconds to work enough painful stiffness out of them to reach for the ropes around his legs. He found it simpler to use the snippers than to try untying the knots.
    "Come on, Steve," Karl prompted. "Cut me loose!"
    With some difficulty Steve managed to cut his friend free.
    "Oo-oo - Ouch!" Karl exclaimed, struggling to his feet. "I feel like a million years - Hey! Time! We haven't got much time!"
    "Time for what?" Steve wondered.
    "Time to warn Point Victor about this. Ted, they're firing Argus 8 this morning, aren't they?"
    "I'm not sure, but I think so," the newsman said. "After all, it is the last day on the contract, isn't it? But Doris and I headed out here before dawn."
    "Doris? Where's Doris?"
    "She's waiting at the boat. After spotting their guard, I thought she'd better stay back at the boat. Didn't want -"
    "Ted," Karl interrupted," according to the radio blackout they'll be firing Argus 8 in a couple of minutes."
    "Let 'em fire," Steve said. "Long as these fellows stay against the wall, nothing much is going to happen, is it?"
    "But what if the thing has already been set?" Karl said, pointing to the illuminated instruments.
    "I'm not following you two," Ted Raymond said. "And maybe there's no time to explain. But which of those contraptions are you worrying about?"
    "I think the big one in the center there is the main tracker and computer," Karl said.
    "O.K., take that shovel there, and fix it," Ted Raymond instructed immediately. He gestured toward a long-handled spade leaning against the wall.
    The suggestion made Grogan's shoulders wince. Steve noticed the apparent sign of resignation.
    Karl needed no further prompting. Grabbing the shovel, he raised it high over his head; then he brought it down with all his strength. The shattering crash of breaking glass and wrenching of metal made Steve duck away instinctively. Karl followed it up with two more lusty swings.
    "That should take care of that," Ted Raymond said simply. "Now let's take care of these fellows. Karl, that one with the lead in his shoulder might come out of his shock any moment. Get his hands tied behind him before he does. And wrap something over that bullet wound to stop the bleeding. Steve and I will take care of these two. Looks as though we're going to have quite a boatload."
    With the newsman still holding the rifle, Steve quickly bound the two men's hands behind their backs.
    "Make 'em plenty tight, without cutting," Ted cautioned, stepping up and inspecting the knots. "Good. Karl, how are you -"
    He didn't finish the question. For at that moment, the low, unmistakable roar of a distant rocket engine seeped into the metal shack. It grew steadily in volume until the very building seemed to vibrate under its intensity.
    "The blast-off!" Karl shouted. "Argus 8!"
    Steve was tempted to run outside and look up. But he realized that it would be a senseless move. The satellite vehicle would be far out of sight before he could reach the door. Even as he considered it, the sound of the raging thrust dwindled off into silence. Somewhere far overhead Argus 8 would already be bending gently in its trajectory, which, within a matter of minutes, would place the test satellite into its orbit at an altitude of one thousand miles - providing, of course, that everything went according to plan.
    "It's got to work," Steve muttered to himself, although loud enough that all heard. "It's just got to!"
    
    
     Chapter 16
    
    Simms was on his feet beside the others. He looked pale and sick from the loss of blood, and from the shock of his wound. Besides binding their arms behind them, Ted Raymond had taken the extra precaution of tying the three men together. This was a final safeguard against any temptation to try escaping during the hike to the beach.
    "Think you can make it, Simms?" Ted Raymond asked. "If not, we can tie you up and leave you here. You'll have plenty of company as soon as we get the word back to Point Victor."
    "Ted," Karl said suddenly," there's an idea. Maybe we could reach them with the transmitter, and -"
    The newsman smiled. "You mean the one with the shovel handle sticking out of it, Karl?"
    Karl looked happily sheepish. "Forgot I had done such a good job on it," he said, looking at the tangle of mangled electronic parts. "Wasn't taking any chances, was I?"
    "If you hadn't done such a good job, I would have finished it," Steve said emphatically.
    "Too bad we couldn't have left it intact, at that," Ted Raymond said thoughtfully. "Dr. Bancroft will be particularly interested to see what was taking place out here."
    "If I know Dr. Bancroft," Karl said, "he won't have much trouble working it out, even with half the parts smashed."
    "Well, how about it, Simms?" the newsman said, getting back to his question. "You think you can make the hike with us?"
    "I'll make it," the big man replied gruffly.
    "Good. Then let's go. We've got a friend to pick up along the way."
    They soon came across the missing member of the foursome. Mike was bound hand and foot by two belts - his own and Ted Raymond's. He was still somewhat woozy from a blow that had left a good-sized knob on his head.
    "All right, mister," the reporter said, untying his legs. "Fall in with your buddies."
    Muttering venomously, the man got up and joined the others.
    When they reached the beach Steve looked around. "Hey!" he exclaimed. "Your boat's gone."
    "No, it isn't," the Times-Journal reporter said. "But where's your dinghy?"
    "You mean they didn't find it?" Karl said.
    "Find it?" the newsman said. "Did you lose it?"
    Quickly, Steve told how Simms had been sent down to break the mast, capsize the boat, and set it adrift in order to furnish all the earmarks of having been swamped during yesterday's squall.
    "Well, far as I know, it's still drifting," Ted Raymond said. "A few search parties went out, and the chopper did some scouting around last night."
    "We heard it," Steve said.
    "But there was nothing too urgent," the newsman went on. "Most people thought you had put in on the leeward side of some island to ride out the squall. Then, since you two aren't exactly experienced nighttime navigators, most everyone concluded you'd probably bed down on some sandy beach and wait for morning."
    "Thank goodness they didn't find the dinghy," Steve said. "Mother and Dad would really have been worried. Karl's father too."
    "Well, they're not exactly delighted with your absence," the young reporter said. "But it's nothing to what it would be if they really knew where you were."
    "But what about you?" Karl asked. "It must have been dark when you came out here."
    "That was the idea," Ted said. "But, then, that's another story. We'd better get going. I told Doris if I wasn't back about nine to head for the mainland and get help. Come on."
    The journey to the north end of the island went fast for Steve for the simple reason that his mind was so busy trying to untangle the unseen and unexplained events that had led up to his and Karl's rescue. As they rounded a bend, they saw the sloop's tall bare mast swaying gently in the soft morning swell. Soon they saw the boat in a small hidden cove. Steve had forgotten all about that cove. He and Karl and Doris had laid to in it once, months ago. But it had been poor conch-hunting ground, and they hadn't even bothered to drop anchor.
    Doris was standing on the beach. She saw them and waved. Even from the distance, Steve could see the surprise on her face when she noted the large group coming toward her.
    Doris' delight at seeing them safe was quite unbounded, considering her usual calm manner. Steve and Karl stood somewhat abashed as she ran to meet them and threw her arms around each in a quick hug.
    "Aw, cut it out," Steve protested, yet not really minding it.
    Then Doris began firing questions.
    "Let's get started home first," Ted Raymond suggested. "Plenty of time for talk later."
    Indeed, Steve had many questions of his own which he had been holding back with considerable difficulty.
    They herded the men into the shallow water, picking their way carefully across the submerged rocks to the sloop. One by one they helped the men aboard. Climbing in with their hands tied behind them was no simple task.
    "You men lie down in the bottom of the boat," Ted Raymond instructed. "Up under the foredeck. We're going to be crowded as it is. Simms, you can sit up on top of the foredeck. Be a little easier on your shoulder that way."
    The big man seemed to appreciate the consideration, and he squirmed up onto the varnished deck.
    Soon they upped anchor, Karl raised the mainsail, while Steve busied himself with the jib. Then, as the soft breeze filled the canvas, the newsman and the three young people settled back in the open cockpit.
    "We're riding low in the water," Karl said, looking over the gunwale.
    "We should be," Steve said. "We've got a big load."
    "A mighty important load, too, I'd say," Ted Raymond added. "We won't break any speed records to the mainland, but there's no particular hurry, anyway, I suppose. By now, Argus 8 either is in its orbit safely - or it isn't. Seems to me it's that simple."
    Steve knew he was right; yet it didn't lessen his anxiety to know for sure.
    "Now you two tell me what you've been up to," the newsman went on. "From what I blundered into in the dark, I'd say you've been having something of an adventure."
    Steve laughed. "Something like that, all right," he admitted. Then, between himself and Karl, they related everything that had happened since leaving Point Victor the previous day. It didn't particularly surprise them when the Times-Journal reporter pulled a notebook from his shirt pocket and began writing rapidly. A good half hour passed before Steve and Karl finished their story, and answered the various questions popped at them by Doris and the reporter.
    "But," Steve wound up," we blundered into things, I guess. Didn't have anything really definite to go on - until we spotted the camouflaged shack."
    "And then it was too late to do anything," Karl added. "That Simms was right there with a gun at our backs. Boy, it sure looked like curtains for us."
    "It still would be," Steve said, "except for you two. I don't get it. What were you doing sailing before dawn? What made you think we were even out here?"
    "It was Doris' idea," the newsman said. "She - well, you tell them, Doris."
    Doris' attempt at modesty was submerged beneath her grinning pleasure at the way things had turned out.
    "I didn't think you two would let yourselves get caught by a squall," she said. "I've sailed with you too often. You could have run before it and got back to Point Victor in plenty of time."
    "We'd thought of it first," Steve admitted. "Then we thought we'd sit it out if it hit the island. But we didn't realize that we might get caught by darkness. As it turned out, it really didn't matter, I guess."
    "I think what convinced me to come out, though," Ted Raymond said, "was that Doris brought up that business about you thinking you saw someone watching us through a telescope that day. Guess maybe she believed you all the time. Then she mentioned the footprints too. The way things added up, it seemed worth the trip to find out."
    "In the middle of the night?" Karl said.
    "Oh, it was dark all right," Doris said. "But it was morning. I hadn't been getting any sleep, anyway."
    "Doris remembered the cove," the newsman went on. "It seemed like a good idea to put in there. Even though it was still dark, if anyone had been watching the beach, he probably could have made out the white sail."
    "That was a good guess," Steve said.
    "Then we saw the light," Doris added.
    "Light? What light?"
    "This Mike fellow switched his flashlight on for a second or so," Ted explained. "Maybe he thought he heard something in the brush."
    There was a disgusted grunt from up forward under the deck.
    "I knew you didn't have a flashlight," Doris said. "Boy, was I scared."
    "But you didn't even know we had come out here," Steve said.
    "No," the newsman explained," but after all, we hadn't gotten close enough to the beach to see whether the dinghy was there or not. Anyway, that light was worth investigating. I thought I could do it better alone. Doris stayed at the boat."
    Then Ted Raymond went on to tell how he had stalked Mike, the guard. At first he had relied upon the sound of the man's movements. Having no suspicions or reason for caution, Mike had walked noisily and used his flashlight often.
    With the first light of dawn, Ted had been able to keep the guard in sight as he made his way back toward the shack.
    "Then I saw the building," the reporter continued.
    "Guess I wouldn't have, though, if it hadn't been for last night's squall."
    "Squall?" Karl said. "How would that help you see the shack?"
    "Everything was wet. And the wetness glistened more from the camouflage paint on the roof than from the surrounding brush. Made the place stand out. Of course, by that time I was close, anyway. At first I thought I'd wait until Mike went inside. But then I wouldn't have had the rifle. So - " Ted Raymond shrugged and smiled. "Guess you know the rest of it."
    "I don't," Doris complained. "What happened?"
    "Plenty," Steve said. "I mean plenty. If you're a good girl, we might tell you sometime."
    "Now, see here, Steve," Doris protested," if it wasn't for-"
    "Hey, look!" Karl cut in gleefully. "Point Victor ahoy! And look at the people on the dock!"
    "Get ready to reef sails," Steve called. And he swung the tiller sharply to bring the sloop in toward the dock.
    As they approached, there were a lot of questions being shouted from the crowd waiting on the dock. But there would be time for answers. Plenty of time. With mixed motions of joy over their accomplishment and intense curiosity over the success or failure of that morning's firing, Steve turned the tiller over to Karl. He worked forward onto the canvas-covered deck, and tossed the bowline to eagerly waiting hands.
    
    
     Chapter 17
    
    The rest of the day was one kaleidoscope of feverish activity. No sooner had the trussed men been hauled ashore than they were whisked off to the jail at Victorville, accompanied by a few of the project supervisors and guards.
    Within a short time, a Coast Guard motor launch hove into sight. Tom Sempers and Dr. Bancroft jumped aboard, and the launch immediately put out toward Beacon Island.
    "Dad," Steve asked anxiously, "what about Argus 8? We heard the blast-off."
    John Kenton smiled. "Last I knew, it was nicely in its orbit, Steve," he said. "We'll check at the control center later. All the instruments are being carefully monitored. If it has slipped out of its orbit, there is nothing we can do about it now. But I'll bet you kids are starved. We can do something about that."
    "Sounds good to me, Mr. Kenton," Karl said.
    At the mention of food, Steve realized it had been nearly twenty hours since they had last eaten. Yet, at the time, hunger had been the least of his worries. Now he became very much aware of his empty stomach. As the crowd slowly dispersed, Steve's parents, Doris' mother, and Professor Hoffman led them all toward the commissary.
    Over what they hoped would be a long, lingering meal, they started to recount the story for the second time. Each took turns while the others ate. At about the halfway mark, a tall slender man dressed in a light tan summer suit hurried into the commissary and approached the table. He pulled a wallet from his pocket, opened it, and held it for Steve's father to see.
    Mr. Kenton smiled. "I'm not too surprised," he said. "I knew the FBI wouldn't leave this area completely uncovered."
    The stranger returned the smile. "Not with a program as important to the American public as Project Argus," the agent admitted. "Of course, I didn't know whether I'd ever have anything to do. But I've been spending a pleasant Florida summer just in case. My boss's idea, of course. Now it looks as though my vacation's over." He pointed to an empty chair. "May I?"
    "Of course, of course," John Kenton said. "This is Mrs. Kenton - Mr. Rolf Egan, Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mrs. Bancroft - Bancroft's wife. You know of Professor Hoffman, of course?"
    "Full portfolio," Rolf Egan admitted, smiling, and offered his hand to the professor. "And these, I assume, are the hardy adventurers?"
    Steve's father proudly completed the introductions.
    "Ordinarily," the FBI man said, speaking to Ted Raymond," I would have to request the press to be absent for the time being. But it appears that your participation during the past few hours has been considerably more than that of a reporter."
    "Perhaps," the Times-Journal man said, "but I won't play cagey. It's a whale of a story!"
    "I don't doubt it," the agent said, apparently appreciating the newsman's frank interest in his profession. "And it will be all yours. I only ask that you don't file it until I give you the O.K. Should be within the next twelve hours or so. Agreed?"
    "Agreed," Ted Raymond said. "It will take me almost that long to write it, anyway. The rest of the time I can spend figuring how big a salary raise to ask for," he added, smiling.
    They started at the beginning again in order to accommodate the Federal agent. By the time they had finished, Steve was toying with a third wedge of cherry pie, which his mind hungered for but which his stomach simply would not hold.
    "I think the children should get some sleep," Mrs. Bancroft suggested. "When Doris asked for permission to go sailing early this morning, I had no idea how early she meant." Her scolding was only mildly implied, Steve knew, for the Bancrofts had never had reason to worry about their daughter.
    "I don't believe I could even close my eyes, Mrs. Bancroft," Karl said. "Not until we find out more about what those fellows really were up to. Besides, we got some sleep last night, didn't we, Steve?"
    "Sure did," Steve said, recalling how they both had dropped off, despite the extreme discomfort of their bound positions. "Not much. But some."
    "Well," Steve's mother said, "that being the case, I think Mrs. Bancroft and I can leave you folks to your own devices. I do have a washing to do."
    "We won't be long, Mom," Steve promised. Although he didn't want to admit it - at least, not yet - bed would feel mighty good.
    Two hours passed. The two hours of questions and answers were aimed at drawing various conclusions related to the strange subversive activities of the four men captured on Beacon Island.
    "Any idea where they would be from?" Mr. Kenton asked the FBI agent.
    "No. But I don't doubt that it will be simple enough to find out when I talk to them, and after we've checked the remains of their equipment carefully. There's no telling what kind of fanatics might violently oppose such a giant step of world progress as Project Argus bids to make."
    "I guess not," Mr. Kenton admitted. "There were those who thought the world was coming to an end when the Wright brothers flew their first airplane. Well, it may take a little time to convince everyone that this is a step toward the betterment of all mankind. But I think we can do it now that we've had some success. As they say, nothing succeeds like success."
    "Always been that way, it seems," Mr. Egan agreed.
    "Isn't that the boat?" Karl said, cocking his ear to the sound of the motor.
    "It is," Mr. Kenton verified. "Let's go see if Doris' father came back with it."
    As they stepped outside the commissary, Dr. Bancroft hurried along the narrow street toward them. He was obviously excited over what he had found on Beacon Island. He waited, however, for Steve's father to introduce him to the Federal agent. Only then did he feel free to talk.
    "It's an amazing thing," he said. "Amazing. I will have to make a closer study before I'm absolutely certain. In simple language, it was a case of firing an electric bolt. By intricate and mostly automatic computation, they were able to track each rocket's flight. At exactly the right instant, they would literally shoot the highly charged electronic bolt - or bullet, if you will - to intercept the rocket's flight path. The shack is filled with high-voltage batteries and assorted power boosters. Due to the fact that the high charge was an instantaneous thing, our monitors never had a chance to pick it up. Besides, by that time we already had filled the air with assorted electrical impulses necessary to guide the rocket."
    "You mean it was something like firing a gun?" Mr. Kenton asked.
    "That's right. Exactly," Dr. Bancroft said. "Only it used invisible ammunition. Very powerful ammunition, indeed."
    "But at forty-two miles?" Steve said.
    "What's distance to electricity, Steve?" Dr. Bancroft asked. "The forty-two-mile altitude apparently was pure coincidence. It just happened to be the altitude at which their instrumentation was set to intersect the Argus rocket's line of flight. Actually, it's not too complicated, all things considered. A mere matter of jamming the rocket's guidance system with a foreign charge of electrical energy. There are various ways of doing this. It's a pretty standard and essential part of any defense against guided missiles, though I'll admit, theirs was an advanced version. I'm only sorry someone tampered with it - with a shovel, no less."
    "I - I did that, Dr. Bancroft," Karl admitted readily.
    "I asked him to," Ted Raymond spoke up in quick defense. "We didn't know but what the electrical monster had already been preset."
    "And we weren't taking any chances," Steve added.
    "A wise decision," Dr. Bancroft said, smiling. "And I wasn't very serious about that shovel. We won't have much of a job reconstructing the entire contraption."
    "Any idea where it might have been built originally, Adam?" John Kenton asked the electronics expert.
    "Sorry, but I didn't even stop to think about that," Dr. Bancroft admitted. "Didn't notice any labels. But there probably won't be any. We can find out, though, in time. Tom Sempers is still out there. He may run across some good clues. The boat goes back out this evening to pick him up."
    "Speaking of boats," Mr. Egan said, "I've got to get busy and arrange a welcoming party for that submarine when it shows up tonight. So I think that about winds it up for the moment here. I want to get back to town and question those men a bit. Also, I'm expecting a planeload of company down from Washington. You can be pretty sure we'll be back here bothering you again soon."
    "And mighty welcome, I might add," Mr. Kenton said. "We're scientists out here, Mr. Egan, not detectives."
    The agent smiled. "I don't know about that," he said. "I've worked on a lot of cases in my time. But I've never seen a neater job of supersleuthing than these young folks pulled off."
    "They did take it in stride, all right, didn't they?" Professor Hoffman said, putting his arm proudly around Karl's shoulders.
    "And I'm sure they will be able to take their fame in equal stride," the Federal agent said. "Oh, yes, there'll be plenty of that. I think they'll be up to handling it, though. You too, Mr. Raymond."
    "Me?" the reporter said. "I only happened to be along with my notebook."
    "Yeah. Sure," Steve scoffed, pushing the young newsman playfully. "You only happened to save our lives. You should let Doris and Karl and me write the story."
    "And miss my one chance at the Pulitzer prize?" Ted Raymond protested. "You wouldn't dare do that to me!"
    "Oh, yes, about your story," the FBI man said. "Go ahead and write it. I'm staying at the Bayview Hotel. If you want to bring it there, I might be able to give you a clearance on it this evening. Can't promise, but I'll do my best."
    "That's good enough for me," the Times-Journal reporter replied. "I'll be there."
    After the Federal man had left, Steve's father anticipated the question that now surged forward in all their minds.
    "All right," he said, "let's get over to the control building and see what Argus 8 is up to." He led them quickly toward his sedan.
    From the minute they walked into the control room, Steve had the firm, comfortable feeling that everything was all right. The men at the numerous instruments were avidly concentrating on their various tasks. Most of them were concerned with keeping close track on the invisible, orbiting satellite.
    "She's still nicely in her orbit, Mr. Kenton." Herman Foster, the safety officer, hurried over to meet them. "And it's extremely likely that she'll stay there now. All the instrumentation seems to be working well too. We're receiving all kinds of data." He accented the announcement by pointing quickly to the various technicians busy over their mazes of instruments which kept the satellite in constant electronic view. "We've already started to decode some of it."
    "Wonderful!" Mr. Kenton said. "Well, folks," he turned to face the others, "it looks as though, at long last, Project Argus is a success!"
    Steve suppressed a cheer. He didn't want to disturb the technicians who were so profoundly absorbed in their work. Yet, it was not difficult for Steve to vision Argus Satellite 8 streaking high overhead through the black void of space, at some 16,000 miles per hour. On the other hand, it might be passing underfoot - speeding over Tokyo or Manila or Australia.
    Wherever it was, it would be doing its intended job. It would be blazing a trail that would be followed in various ways and be varied, more-advanced vehicles, as man extended his realm of progress deeper and deeper into outer space.
    It was a success worthy of great pride. It was a success that, if properly understood, could not have warranted the temporary and almost totally destructive interference that had originated from the shack in the crater on Beacon Island.
    "You're not listening," Doris scolded, snapping Steve out of his thoughts.
    "I'm sorry," he apologized. "What did you say?"
    "I didn't say anything. Karl did."
    "Wasn't important," Karl said. "I thought we might head for home. Believe it or not, I'm getting sleepy."
    "You folks do what you want," Ted Raymond said. "I've got one mighty big job to do if I want to get my story finished by tonight. And, believe me, I do. When will I see you again?"
    "The sooner the better," Steve said sincerely. "I hope you get assigned down here permanently."
    "That's rather unlikely," the newsman said. "But thanks, anyway. I consider that a big compliment."
    "Steve meant it as one," Doris said. "And you can count Karl and me in on it, too."
    "The feeling's more than mutual," Ted Raymond said.
    "How about tomorrow morning?" Karl asked. "Think you could go for a little sail with us? Have to use the sloop, I guess, unless somebody locates the dinghy. It may have drifted halfway to Cuba by now."
    "Yeah. But who said we were going sailing?" Steve asked.
    "I don't like to leave a job half done," Karl said.
    "What job?"
    "Boy, what a memory, Steve," Karl scolded. "We forgot to get those conch shells. And Mr. Tate's likely to cancel our order."
    "I think you've got something there, pal," Steve said. "What time shall we leave?"
    Then they began to laugh - all four of them. It was carefully suppressed laughter, however. The kind that made them ache inside, yet wouldn't disturb the men concentrating so intently on the electronic mazes surrounding them. Electronics which tracked a small man-made body - whizzing along far out in space, and promising a fabulous future for all mankind.
    
    THE END
    
    
    
    
     Biography of Charles Coombs
    Charles Coombs is a six-foot-three redhead who subscribes to the old bromide that he would rather write than eat - a fact that came in rather handy during his first years of much writing and little eating.
    An English major and a graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles, Mr. Coombs says that his class papers were often too straightforwardly adventurous in style and content to appeal to the more astute minds of his professors of literature. Yet he managed to squeak through UCLA, receiving his bachelor of arts degree in 1939. With the ink scarcely dry on the sheepskin, he married a pretty classmate named Eleanor and settled down to the new duty of breadwinner.
    Store-clerking, carpentering, aircraft-building, and various odd jobs furnished meat for the table. But each job only strengthened his lifelong ambition to become a writer. He set up a card table in a closet. Sitting in the doorway, he pecked away at the typewriter early mornings and late nights. In 1940 he came through with a five-dollar sale to the back pages of a western magazine. The sale coincided with the birth of his first son, Lee.
    Having somewhat of a background in school athletics, Mr. Coombs began writing sports stories. He enjoyed moderate success in this field until World War II created a great shortage of pulp paper. Scouting a new outlet he tried the field of juvenile fiction.
    "I made no great changes in style or content," he said. "Editors of youth publications seemed fed up with the wishy-washy juvenile stories of yesteryear. Both publishers and readers welcomed tales of high adventure, as long as they stayed within the limits of wholesome good taste. A straightforward style was particularly welcome."
    By the end of World War II a second son, Dan, and about a hundred fiction sales were to the credit of the Coombs family. A conference was held, resulting in a family agreement that the author would give up his job and try a year of full-time writing to determine whether or not he could support his family in the highly competitive field of writing. By this time nearly 90 per cent of his typewriter's output was aimed at the juvenile field.
    The trial year resulted in around 120 consecutive fiction sales, plus an unexpected but welcome plum of becoming a Hollywood studio press correspondent, which gave him "open sesame" to movie and television facilities. He now conducts motion picture and television review columns for several youth and adult magazines.
    In 1946 a third child, a daughter, Lynn, made it feasible to install a larger breadbox in the Coombs kitchen. Mr. Coombs added photography to his interests. Armed with camera and tripod, he began covering soaring contests, mountain-climbing expeditions, anything and everything of an adventuresome nature. These jaunts resulted in pictures, articles, and much interesting background information on which to hang fiction plots.
    "I try to work from various angles," he said, "since a scattering of effort and an attempt to acquire versatility seem fairly essential to supporting a family on writing alone."
    So with a growing list of books, fiction sales, articles and columns, Mr. Coombs manages to keep a loaf of wholewheat in the breadbox, a pair of shoes on each youngster, and an occasional sparerib on the barbecue grill in the back yard of their Los Angeles home.
    
    Version 1.0 Scanned and proofed June 2003.
    
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