The Flying Stingaree: A Rick Brant Science-Adventure Story Read online

  CHAPTER X

  Ken Holt Comes Through

  Somewhere in the oak trees across the creek a cardinal sang his lovelyevening song. An osprey, etched in black against the dark blue of thesky, whirled in lazy circles watching the water below. A muskratappeared briefly, his sleek head making a V of ripples in the calmwater.

  Rick and Scotty, sprawled comfortably in beach chairs on the lawn infront of Steve's house, sipped the last of their iced tea, and watchedthe movements and listened to the sounds in companionable silence. Bothboys, admitting that, for the immediate present, they were slightlyoverdosed with rich food, had agreed to settle for a sandwich and icedtea. A brief stop at a store en route back from the post office hadprovided the necessities.

  Rick was physically relaxed, but mentally active. It was characteristicof him that he never let go of a puzzle until he had found a solution,or had tried all possibilities and been forced to admit defeat. He was along way from defeat at the moment. The case of the flying stingaree wasjust getting interesting.

  "What are the flying stingarees?" he asked quietly.

  Scotty shifted position in his chair and looked at Rick quizzically."You don't expect an answer. But I can tell you a few things they arenot."

  "Tell away," Rick urged.

  "They are not flying saucers, aircraft, kites, sting rays, birds, fish,or good red herrings. Beyond that, deponent sayeth not, as the legalboys say."

  "Uh-huh. And why are they not flying saucers?"

  "For the same reason they're not aircraft. If you recall all the talkswith people who've seen them, they don't maneuver, and they don't travelvery fast. They appear--or they're noticed, let's say--and they just getsmaller and smaller until they vanish. They move, but not much."

  Rick nodded. "The circle we drew around all the sightings doesn't covera very large territory. All the sightings have been within that circle.People had to look toward Swamp Creek to see the objects. Yet, they didsomething interesting. They grew smaller. What makes things seem to growsmaller?"

  "Apparent size decreases with distance," Scotty replied promptly.

  "Sure. And how do you get distance, when the sightings are all within acircle only a few miles in diameter?"

  "Only one way. With altitude. The things had to be going up."

  Rick agreed. "That's how I figure it, too. It also explains why thecircle of sightings is so small. Above a certain altitude, the objectsare no longer visible. Or they're not so visible that they attractattention. I suppose we could work out some calculations. How large anobject can be seen readily at what distance? Then we could apply alittle trigonometry and figure their size."

  "We could," Scotty agreed, "but do we need to? Let's assume the objectyou saw was typical. How big was it?"

  Rick thought it over. He had had only a quick glimpse, and thebackground had been the gray of the storm. His vision had been obscuredbecause of the rain. "Maximum of ten feet across and maybe eight tall.It was probably less."

  "Okay. So the reason sightings are confined to this area is because theobjects are fairly small. When people see them, they're relativelyclose, and fairly low. Even the small planes that fly from the airfieldare much bigger than the flying stingarees, but when the planes go overat about five thousand feet, they seem tiny. At that altitude the flyingstingarees must be at the limit of really good visibility."

  "I read you loud and clear. So the objects are sent from Calvert'sFavor, and they climb. They don't climb straight up, though. The windcarries them. The reason I think so is that the one I saw must have beendriven by the wind, right down the creek toward me. It didn't climbuntil it got away from the funneling effect of the creek and into theriver, then it went up pretty fast. At least it seemed to have risenfast when I looked over the top of the boat at it."

  Scotty crunched an ice cube. "We're getting somewhere. There's only onekind of unpowered, vertical rising thing I know of. Are you with me?"

  Rick finished his drink. "Balloon," he said crisply.

  "On the beam," Scotty approved. "The only thing that doesn't fit is theshape."

  Rick asked, "What's a balloon? It's just a gas-tight container. We'reused to thinking of balloons as spheres, because it's the most efficientshape for internal pressure. But a balloon can be any shape. Anotherthing--balloons for high altitudes aren't fully inflated on the ground.Maybe the flying stingarees have a different shape when they get higherand in less dense atmosphere where the gas distends them."

  "An odd shape could be used as camouflage, too, if you didn't wantpeople to recognize the balloon. But why would a strange assortment ofcharacters like Merlin and company send up balloons?" Scotty wondered.

  Rick smiled. "I've been wondering that myself. Would they send up aballoon that didn't carry something?"

  "I don't know. Was the one you saw carrying anything?"

  Rick sat upright. "Maybe it was! You know, I haven't even thought of itsince then, but I think there was a splash when it went by. Somethingsort of clanged off the rail over me, even if it didn't dent the rail.Do you suppose the thing dropped its payload right next to us?"

  "You'll have to decide that," Scotty said. "If you heard somethingbounce off the rail, then a splash, I'd say there might be a pretty goodchance that's what happened. I couldn't see any marks on the rail whenwe looked." They had checked the rail during the first day at Steve's.

  Rick closed his eyes and made himself remember what it had been likewhen he went down the catwalk to the bow. His mind drew a picture, andhe saw himself bent forward into the wind. In his memory he felt theslashing rain, the slipperiness of the wet anchor line. He couldvisualize the water whipped into dimpled wavelets by wind and rain. Hesaw the flying stingaree loom, and saw himself dropping flat. There hadbeen a clang as something hard hit the rail! There _had_ been a splash!

  He went over it again, searching his memory for details he had forgottenor which had only registered vaguely at the time. He studied the shapeand texture of the object he had seen so briefly. He saw its red eyesopen and glare at him, saw the extended claws reaching....

  He came out of his chair with a yell, arms extended to defend himself.

  Scotty stood next to him in the darkness. "Hey, take it easy, Rick! Ididn't think I'd startle you so when I shook you."

  Rick stared. "Did I fall asleep? I must have. I was trying to remember,and suddenly I was dreaming about red eyes and claws--"

  Scotty laughed softly. "If you've got to have nightmares, at least do itin comfort. Let's go to the boat and go to bed."

  Rick dreamed no more of the flying stingarees. In the morning hecouldn't have said what his dreams had been about, except that they hadbeen pleasant.

  In the bright glare of morning, the whole thing seemed dreamlike. It waspreposterous to imagine that flying objects, probably balloons shapedlike stingarees, were launched from a famous mansion that dated back tothe days of the early Maryland colony. But the sighting data couldn't beignored. Dreamlike or not, something strange was going on at Calvert'sFavor.

  The boys breakfasted in the farmhouse, reducing Steve's supply of eggssubstantially and wiping out the bacon reserve. "We'll have to shopsometime today," Rick observed. "Steve has plenty of food here, but wedon't want to use it when there's a store so close."

  "Sure," Scotty agreed. "But when? It may have to wait until we go afterSteve. We can't very well leave the house, or at least both of us can't.Ken Holt might call."

  Rick nodded and poured himself a cup of coffee. He had thought of that.They had to give Ken time to get the picture and check it out. By thelatest, they should hear before noon--unless the job turned out to bevery difficult. That would leave four hours before they would have toleave the house to pick up Steve. Four hours was time enough for theinvestigation Rick had in mind.

  After breakfast they settled down with the data sheets and notebook toreview them once more. But only one additional fact emerged. Two peoplethought, but weren't absolutely sure, that they had seen a spurt of firefrom the flying stin
garees. Rick wondered if they had seen a suddenflare of sunlight from some highly reflective part of the object.

  It was two minutes before nine when the phone rang. Both boys jumped,but Rick got there first. "Hello?"

  "Rick? ... This is Ken. Why don't you give us something hard to do? Theenvelope arrived three minutes ago, and I was just taking the pictureout when Sandy walked in. He took one look and asked what I was doingwith a snapshot of Lefty Camillion. The hair is white and the mustacheis gone, but it's Lefty."

  Rick gasped. "My sainted aunt! Of course! I should have known itmyself."

  "There's more. Sandy recognized Lefty's small friend too. This is an oddone, Rick. The man is Dr. Elbert K. Drews. He was fired six months agoby Space Electronics Industries. It was a big story for us, because theplant is located in the next town. The reason he was fired came outduring the monopoly investigations. Turned out he had been selling thefirm's industrial secrets to its competitors. It was a shock, because hehad such a big reputation as an electronics wizard. He got some kind ofnational prize a year ago for developing a new high-speed system forsomething. Let's see--here's my note. It says, 'Dr. Drews was theoriginator of a new and unusual system for the rapid telemetry of datafrom space. The system is considered remarkable for its compactness andspeed of operation. The ground installation is scarcely larger than aconsole-model television set.' Hope that means something to you, Rick."

  "Thanks a million, Ken. It seems to fit, but I'm not sure how."

  "Let us know if you find out. And if we can do anything else, you knowthe phone number."

  "We'll call if anything comes up. Thanks again, Ken."

  Rick hung up and stared at the phone thoughtfully, trying to fit thisnew information into the scheme of things. Scotty had been sitting onthe edge of his chair since the conversation started. He said, with someexasperation, "Well? Out with it!"

  "Mr. Merlin is Lefty Camillion. His pal is an electronics wizard who wasfired by Space Electronics Industries for selling industrial secrets tothe firm's competitors." Rick rapidly sketched in the rest of theconversation.

  Scotty sank back into his chair. "His hair was black, and now it'swhite. He must have been keeping it dyed, and decided to go natural. Andhe shaved off that mustache. Probably that was dyed black, too."

  "You're right." Rick shook his head in dismay. Lefty Camillion, whosefirst name was Thomas, was a notorious crime syndicate leader who hadcome into prominence about two years ago during Senate investigations ofracketeering. In three days Camillion had become a televisionpersonality, of sorts, when it became clear that he apparently wasresponsible for a number of murders and a thousand lesser crimes,although he himself had not done the actual killings. There wasinsufficient evidence to jail him, but enough to deport him. He droppedout of sight while his lawyers were fighting the deportationproceedings. Now he had shown up again, on the Eastern Shore.

  "A crime syndicate chief, a crooked scientist, flying stingarees, an oldmansion, a peculiar antenna, and a missing crabber. What does it add upto?" Rick demanded.

  Scotty shrugged. He didn't answer. There was no answer--yet.