Rick took the cat. He liked it very much. The design was clean and elegant, stylized after the Egyptian manner. But it wasn't sandstone. It was heavy, but not heavy enough to be sandstone, and the sheen was not that of a mineral. Whatever the material, it had been fashioned in one piece, probably cast in a mold.

"I give up," he said. "What is it?"

"Plastic," Bartouki replied, obviously pleased. "It did not come from Egypt. It was made right here in America. In Chicago, to be exact. It is what you call a prototype."

"But it's Egyptian in design," Barby protested. She took the cat from Rick and examined it.

"Yes, it is clearly an Egyptian cat. The design came from Egypt, but the cat from America. I have been working on this for months with a plastics company. Now I have the model, and the method. We will reproduce these in quant.i.ty in Cairo."

"It's pretty heavy for plastic," Rick commented.

"True. We put a piece of lead in the middle of the casting. You see, it looks like stone, and the buyer will expect it to be heavy. So, for psychological reasons, we give it weight--only not so much that it becomes a problem to carry."

"You certainly have it worked out," Scotty said admiringly. "But why a cat? Why not a ... a camel?"

"We have camels of camel leather, bra.s.s, and wood. But we do not have a good cat. You see, the cat is important in Egyptian history. There was even a cat G.o.ddess of the Upper Nile Kingdom, called Bubaste. In the ancient tombs there are sometimes mummies of cats. Some cat lovers think our land first developed the domestic strain of cat. So we believe tourist cat lovers should have an authentic reproduction of one. This particular cat is a faithful copy of an antique, which I am fortunate to own."

"What will you do with it now?" Barby asked.

"Send it to my a.s.sociate in Cairo, as soon as possible. I would like to airmail it right away, but you Americans overload the mails at Christmas, so it would be safer to wait. Next week I hope to send it with full instructions, hoping to get production started in time for the big tourist season. I wish it could go sooner. It is needed."

Barby said impulsively, "Rick leaves the day after tomorrow. He could take it for you. Couldn't you, Rick?"

There was no reason to refuse. It was certainly a worthy project, and Bartouki had been generous in answering their questions.

"Be glad to," Rick said.

The merchant's eyes lighted. "It would not be an imposition?"

"Of course not. I can put it right in with my clothes. I have plenty of room."

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

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

"Ali Moustafa is a hard man to refuse," Bartouki said. "You should not deprive him of the pleasure of making a gift. But I will not press you.

It will be between you and him. You are quite sure it will be no trouble?"

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

CHAPTER III

Cairo

The jet descended smoothly over the desert on the approach to Cairo International Airport. Rick leaned toward the window to watch for the first sign of a runway. In the distance he could see the valley of the Nile River, a great green swath which cut through the tan desert wastes.

"Excited?" Scotty asked.

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

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

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

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

Winston introduced the two boys. The older of the two Egyptians was Dr.

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

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

The Egyptian scientists made the boys feel at home right away. Dr.

Kerama took Scotty and Winston by the arms, and Dr. Farid fell in step with Rick as the group walked toward the administration building.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"So far."

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

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

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

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

They might not let him on the plane with it."

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

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

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