Luis shook his head. "It was a brave thing. You might also have been caught by the fuel, and you did not even have a suit such as I wore.
When I and my family light candles to thank G.o.d and to ask His blessing for you, we will want to give Him your names."
They told him their names, and his lips moved as he repeated them. Then he waved them to chairs. "Please sit down and talk with me for a few minutes. This is not a place where one can extend the hospitality of his house, but I can at least offer you chairs."
Keen brown eyes surveyed them. "You are both very young, eh? What are you doing here?"
"Working," Scotty answered. "I"m in vehicle maintenance and Rick is in Pegasus electronics."
"So? It is an exciting place in which to work. Even I, a fireman, feel this excitement. Tell me, do you think this _hombre de terra_, this Earthman, was the cause of the tragedy this morning? I call it a tragedy, because it was so. So much work, so much love went into that rocket! _Sangre de Cristo!_ It was a terrible thing."
"No one seems to know for sure," Rick replied. "The project officer couldn"t say. But there was no Earthman picture."
The bandaged hands spread expressively. "A picture could have been burned. Now perhaps we will never know. You understand, I have thought much about this thing. Once I believed this Earthman made the rockets go bad because he must think such things are against the will of G.o.d. But when I heard of the thefts, I no longer thought so. I thought about how a thief could take his stolen wealth from this guarded place."
"We"ve wondered about that, too," Scotty said.
"You decided something?"
Rick leaned forward on his chair. Luis Hermosa had started him thinking again.
"The thief couldn"t get his stolen goods from the base if he went through a gate in his own car, could he?"
"He would not dare," Luis replied, "because he knows the guards check the trunks of cars, and sometimes even look under seats. He might be unlucky. He would know this."
"Spot check," Scotty nodded.
Rick hadn"t known about the spot check, but it made sense. He continued, "So there"s only one way. The thief has to take the stolen supplies from the base in an official vehicle."
"Such vehicles are not checked," Luis agreed excitedly. "But also, such vehicles are not taken far from this camp. If a truck, say, were gone too long, would it not be noticed?"
"It certainly would," Scotty stated.
"There must be only a few places where the thief could go," Rick said thoughtfully. "When he reaches one, he must hide his stolen goods and leave them. Later, by traveling a long way to reach the spot from the main road, he could get the stolen stuff with his own car. Or, maybe someone from outside who doesn"t work on the base at all could go to the hiding place and pick them up. Can you think of any other way?"
Luis and Scotty couldn"t, and said so.
Rick asked, "What are the possible places?"
"What would such a place need to be like?" Luis asked, then answered his own question, "It would need to be on a road, not only leading from the base, but to the outside. Also, it would need to be a lonely place, would it not? And it would need to be a place where the things could be hidden and not be seen, but where a helper from outside could find them easily. You see, I follow your reasoning. Where is such a place?"
The boys waited. Luis knew the area. He might have a good idea.
"There is one which is perfect. It is called Steamboat."
"But that"s a town," Rick objected. "People would notice a truck from the base."
Luis chuckled. "People, yes. Ghosts, no. An evil man like this Earthman would not care what a ghost saw, would he? Ah, but you are new here, and you do not know. Steamboat is a town without people. No one has lived there for forty years."
"A ghost town," Scotty said in surprise. "But don"t tourists go to ghost towns?"
"They do," Luis agreed. "They go to Searchlight, and to Rhyolite, and to Calico, and other ghost towns near here. But they do not go to Steamboat. It is on bad roads, many miles from the nearest good highway.
Besides, who has heard of Steamboat? No newspaper writes about it, and no one advertises it. You cannot even buy a souvenir at Steamboat. There is no one to sell them. Ghosts do not peddle souvenirs."
Luis chuckled at his own joke. "You have a good head, Mr. Brant. I will think about this. Perhaps you will think some more, too, and we will compare notes later. Will you come to visit me again?"
"We"ll come," they promised.
Outside in the brilliant sunlight, Rick said to Scotty, "You bet we"ll go to see him again! How did you like his idea about the ghost town?"
"It can be reached from Careless Mesa," Scotty pointed out. "I wish we"d known it was a ghost town. We could have explored it some afternoon."
Rick said what had been on his mind since Luis made his suggestion. "I think we"d better pay it a visit."
"When?"
"What"s the matter with right now?"
"Nothing, I guess. But why the rush?"
Rick wasn"t sure himself. "Maybe there isn"t any rush. But on the other hand, maybe there is. Look, we"ve kind of a.s.sumed Mac and Pancho are in on this, haven"t we? Well, their movements must be pretty well known, at least while they"re at work."
"They have to check their truck in and out. Why?"
"Let"s talk about it over a c.o.ke. It"s hot."
They hiked to the recreation hall and got c.o.kes from the automatic dispenser. Rick set his thoughts in order.
"I"m not so sure about Mac and Pancho. They were at Careless Mesa this morning. At least I"m certain Mac was, because I heard his voice when he checked in by radio. And probably Pancho was, too, because it takes two men to handle a radar unit. One of them might have been able to sabotage a rocket, although I doubt it, but how could they take advantage of the confusion to steal the transistors when they"re not even on the base?"
Scotty finished his c.o.ke and banged the bottle on the table for emphasis. "Okay. They couldn"t. But why are you so sure they couldn"t sabotage a rocket?"
"I"m not sure," Rick replied. "But now that I"ve seen how the base works, it seems to me that only someone who works on the rockets could sabotage one."
"Careful," Scotty said with a groan. "You"re dumping the only suspects we have."
Rick grinned ruefully. "I know it. Anyway, we have to keep moving, even if it means starting all over again. So let"s start at Steamboat."
"Okay. And just for the fun of it, I"ll check the vehicle board. It won"t hurt to know how much time Mac and Pancho have spent off the base in their truck. Suppose I gas up the jeep and meet you at the barracks?"
"I"ll check out with Pegasus. Will you have any trouble?"
"No. Everything just about closes down the day of a shoot. I"ll be there in ten minutes."
The boys parted at the door of the recreation hall and Rick started back to the barracks. As he pa.s.sed the main administrative building, John Gordon fell in step.
"If I knew you two, I"d be mighty proud of both of you," the scientist said whimsically. "You for the job you did with Gee-Gee last night, and Scotty for pulling that fireman out this morning."
Rick smiled his thanks. "Anything new?"