THE LOST CITY.

A RICK BRANT ELECTRONIC ADVENTURE.

By JOHN BLAINE.

CHAPTER I.

Good-bye, Spindrift!

RICK BRANT put down his fork and refused a second helping of roast beef. It was good, but tonight he just wasn't hungry.

He looked at the faces around the big table and thought: "It'll be a long time before we're all together again."

He had been away from home before, but never for almost a whole year, and never without his father. Hartson Brant had to stay at Spindrift Island this time, to handle the home end of the experiment.

Rick's troubled eyes went from face to face. Next to him was Dr. Wisecarver, who would remain at home with Hartson Brant. On the doctor's other side was Professor Gordon. He would stay at home, too.

At the end of the table was his mother. She was smiling as she poured coffee for Professor Weiss, but Rick knew that she wasn't very happy about the coming expedition. His mother was a good sport, though. She hadn't made a single objection.

Julius Weiss, a meek-looking little man with just a fringe of hair on his head, was going along. Professor Weiss, Rick thought, looked more like a clerk or a bookkeeper than a noted mathematician. He seemed frail compared with good-natured Hobart Zircon, who sat next to him.

Professor Zircon was a huge barrel of a man, over six feet tall, with a bushy shock of hair and a voice that shook the walls. He was one of the country's foremost electronic scientists, and almost as famous as Rick's father.

"It will be fun," Rick thought, "having Zircon along." Where little Julius Weiss was inclined to be a worry-bird and tart in his speech, Zircon was easygoing, and with a keen sense of humor.

Next to the big professor sat a tall, husky boy with black hair and a merry face. Rick told himself: "I wouldn't want to go if Scotty weren't going to be along."

Don Scott, called Scotty, was about Rick's own age, but he had three years of Marine Corps experience behind him. He had talked a recruiting sergeant into believing that he was of enlistment age, and had fought through the South Pacific and Central Pacific campaigns. In the months that Scotty had lived on Spindrift Island, he and Rick had become close friends. Closer than brothers, Rick thought, because brothers fight with each other sometimes, and Scotty and he never did.

The sc.r.a.ppy, humorous ex-marine had lived on Spindrift Island ever since he had rescued Rick from Manfred Wessel's gang before the launching of the moon rocket. Wessel, a renegade scientist, had tried to destroy the Spindrift rocket in order to launch one of his own and thus win the two-million-dollar Stoneridge Grant.

Scotty had been hired as an island guard, and he had helped Rick solve the rocket mystery and trap the Spindrift Island traitor who was helping Wessel. Since then, the Brants had accepted Scotty as one of them, and he was treated like a member of the family and not an employee.

Rick's eyes went to his sister, and he smiled. Barby Brant, a very pretty girl a year younger than Rick, was pecking at her food, a petulant expression on her face. He knew why: Barby had hoped all along that her parents would allow her to go on the expedition. Not until tonight had she accepted defeat.

At the head of table sat Hartson Brant. The famed electronic scientist felt his son's eyes upon him and he looked up and gave Rick a comradely wink.

Rick swallowed hard. He didn't like the idea of going halfway around the world without his father. To him, Hartson Brant was more than a famous scientist; he was a swell guy who could always find time for a fis.h.i.+ng excursion, and who would put aside his own important work for a while, to help his son on some gadget he was working on.

Rick looked down at his plate, almost wis.h.i.+ng that he had not asked to go. When a guy had such a swell family it was kind of dopey to go wandering off like this.

Then Barby spoke up and broke the silence that had hung so heavy over the dinner table.

"Rick, you won't forget to bring me a lama, will you?"

The laughter that followed dispelled the gloom.

"You're a little mixed up, towhead," Rick replied. "You're thinking of llamas-with two l's. They're South American animals. A lama is a Tibetan priest, and I don't think one of them would want to come back with us as a souvenir for a girl."

"Even a pretty girl," Zircon added.

Barby rewarded the big professor with a smile. "Well," she said to Rick, "don't forget to bring me something."

Hartson Brant rose from the table. "Let's take our coffee out to the sun porch," he invited.

The family and the scientists carried their coffee cups out to the big porch, gla.s.sed in now, because it was still early spring. Beyond the porch, the seaward end of Spindrift Island fell away to the surf below. To the right, the long line of the laboratory buildings loomed against the night sky. And from the seaward end, a ma.s.sive frame was silhouetted against a full moon.

Hobart Zircon pointed to it. "Symbolic," he boomed. "A full moon and the radar antenna."

"A good cmen," Hartson Brant agreed. "I think we vjan take it as such."

Rick looked at the big antenna, or "bedspring," as it had been dubbed by Scotty. A long time from now that intricate frame would send radar impulses hurtling toward the moon, to be reflected back to the other side of the earth, where he, Scotty, Zircon, and Weiss would be waiting.

Barby spoke up. "I don't see why they have to go all the way to Tibet! Why can't you bounce your old message back to ... to Whiteside?"

Whiteside was the little town nearest them on the New Jersey mainland. The scientists smiled, and Hartson Brant explained: "It wouldn't quite suit our purpose, Barby." He pointed to the moon. "That piece of green cheese up there is the top of a triangle. Spindrift Island is another corner. We've chosen a plateau in Tibet for the third corner because it's just about the most distant point we could find."

"And for a good many other sound, scientific reasons," Julius Weiss added. "No, my dear, I'm afraid Whiteside just wouldn't do."

"If it were Whiteside," said Barby, "I could go, too. Why did I have to be a girl?" she mourned.

"You wouldn't like Tibet," Scotty said. "Nothing but rocks, and mountains and snow."

"I doubt that well see a great deal of snow," Hobart Zircon remarked. "We've chosen the time of year when travel in Tibet is easiest. Well see snow, of course, on the mountaintops. But I don't think we'll have to wade through any."

Rick sat back quietly, listening to the conversation. He didn't feel much like talking. He didn't want to acknowledge that the gnawing feeling inside of him was homesickness, but he knew it was. Homesick already? The feeling would leave, once they were under way.

Scotty was saying: "... I'm dense, I guess, but I still don't know just what it'll prove even if we do bounce a message off the moon from here to Tibet and back."

"Just another attempt to make the world smaller, Scotty," Hartson Brant said. "At present, world-wide communications are very poor, at least in remote places. Telegraph wires aren't practical over too great distances, and radio depends too much on local atmospheric conditions. If we can use the moon for a relay point and bounce messages from place to place without interference, we may solve the communications problem."

"At least, the International Communications a.s.sociation thinks so," Dr. Wisecarver said. "They're backing the experiment by setting up listening points all over the world. It's a pretty important thing, son."

"I guess it is," Scotty acknowledged.

Mrs. Brant rose. "It's getting late. Hadn't you all better finish your packing? I'll have a snack ready when you're through."

The gathering broke up, and Rick and Scotty went upstairs to their rooms.

"Not talking much tonight, Rick," Scotty commented.

"I don't feel like it," he admitted. "With you it's different. You saw the world when you were in the Marines, but I've never been so far from home before."

"I feel the same way," Scotty answered. "It didn't matter much, before, because I didn't have any folks.

But now ..." His voice trailed off and he went into his own room.

Nothing remained but their personal gear. All the equipment for the experiment had been crated and sent to New York, all their trail stuff was packed, including army-type rations, sleeping bags, and anything else they might need.

The workbench Rick had built into one wall of his room was open, and he went to it, picking up the compact little gadget that lay there. He hefted it in his hand. "Might as well take it along. If things get dull I can do a little work on it," he mused.

Around the walls were other gadgets. He disconnected them sadly, wondering when they would be used again. There was his automatic window closer and heat control, his electric snack bar for making sandwiches when the rest of the family was asleep, the old leather armchair he had wired up for reading.

People meeting Rick Brant for the first time found it hard to believe that he already had an excellent grasp of the electronic sciences. He looked as though he might have a better acquaintance with a football field or a tennis court than with an electrical laboratory, because he was tall for his age, and huskily built. He had brown hair and brown eyes, and his face was always tanned, even in winter, since he was out of doors so much. His personal experiments and the work he did, as an apprentice to his famous father, had never interfered with his love of sports.

While he was at work with his screw driver, Barby O came in and sat on the bed, her pert face thoughtful. Rick looked up and smiled at her.

"What's the matter, towhead? Still sulking because you can't go with us?"

"Pooh, who wants to go to Tibet?" retorted Barby. But she was in no mood for teasing tonight. "Rick, you and Scotty will be careful, won't you?" she asked soberly.

"Sure, sis," Rick replied gently. "Don't worry about us."

"I will worry. I'm afraid, Rick."

"About us? Don't be silly," Rick returned affectionately. It wasn't like Barby to worry. She usually had supreme confidence in the ability of Rick and Scotty to take care of themselves.

She bounced off the bed. "Gosh, I almost forgot! I have packages for both of you."

Scotty came in as she left. "What's Barby up to?"

"She forgot something," Rick told him.

In a moment Barby was back with two packages, both wrapped in heavy oiled paper and sealed with tape. Scotty's was about six inches square and eighteen inches long. Rick's was a square about twelve inches on a side.

Handing the packages to the boys, she said, "You're not supposed to open them until the Fourth of July."

Rick held his up to his ear and shook it. It didn't rattle. "Aren't you going to tell us what's in them?"

"No," Barby answered. "You'll open them on the Fourth, and then you'll think of us back here."

"We'll think of you anyway," Scotty a.s.sured her. "Both of us are a little homesick already."

Barby's blue eyes suddenly filled with tears. She swallowed hard and said, "Don't forget to be careful, please!"

Rick was at her side. "Hey, towhead! What is this?"

"I'm afraid. My ... my intuition tells me something awful is going to happen."

Rick's eyes met Scotty's across the top of the girl's golden head.

"We'll be careful," Scotty promised seriously.

"Sure, sis," Rick said, "And thanks for the packages. We'll send you something nice from Bombay."

Barby brightened. "Really, Rick? What?"

"I don't know yet," he replied, grinning. "Maybe a white elephant."

"I guess it'll be more fun if you surprise me," she said gravely. Then, with a smile for both of them, "I better go help Mother."

Rick started checking over his camera case as she went out the door. When her rapid footsteps had retreated down the hall, he looked up at Scotty and shook his head.

"Funny. It isn't like Barby to be afraid. She doesn't usually let her imagination run away with her."

"She did this time," Scotty said.

Rick counted film packs thoughtfully. Barby had a lot of wild ideas, but she had sense, too. She didn't ordinarily jump at shadows. "But maybe her hunch is right," he said. "Maybe this trip isn't going to be as easy as it looks."

Later, as they walked across the orchard, Rick and Scotty looked around at all the old familiar things, each wondering when they would see them again.

Barby held tight to Rick's hand and asked questions, while Dismal, Rick's s.h.a.ggy pup, raced ahead, then back to their sides.

"Rick, why aren't you going on a big s.h.i.+p-like the Queen Mary or something? An old freighter will be awful."

"Not so bad," Rick said. "Well be the only pa.s.sengers. Dad fixed pa.s.sage so we could stay with the equipment. We couldn't have done that on a regular pa.s.senger s.h.i.+p."

"Besides," Scotty added, "this s.h.i.+p goes right to Bombay."

They came out of the orchard onto the gra.s.sy strip at the seaward side of the island. In the moonlight, the slim shape of a little airplane gleamed silver.

A lump came into Rick's throat. One of his true loves was his Piper Cub airplane. It was strange to think that he wouldn't be flying again for almost a year. The Cub would be used, though. Professor Gordon had been a navy pilot before he turned to science, and he would be doing the island's errands.

Rick turned away from the Cub and led the way to the laboratory building. He looked around him, seeing the workbenches, the big racks with their complex amplifiers, the door to the power room, the door to the radiation room. But he didn't stop to examine anything closely. He headed for the stairs that led to the roof.

It was up here that Professor Weiss had watched the moon rocket through his telescope. And now it was up here that the big radar antenna rested.

Rick went over to its shadow, Barby and Scotty walking silently beside him. They looked out over Spindrift Island.

There were lights in the house, and lights in the farmhouse back on the north side, but the rest of the island was dark. Rick saw the gleam of the dismantled rocket launcher in Pirate's Field, and the darkness of the woods beyond. He looked past the house toward the boat landing from which they would leave in the morning, and a lump came up into his throat again.

Dismal brushed against his leg and whined for attention. Rick bent over and patted him, and the s.h.a.ggy pup rolled over and played dead. This was his only trick, and he performed it at every opportunity.

"Let's go back to the house," the boy said gruffly.

CHAPTER II.