Ken Holt Comes Through
Somewhere in the oak trees across the creek a cardinal sang his lovely
evening song. An osprey, etched in black against the dark blue of the
sky, whirled in lazy circles watching the water below. A muskrat
appeared briefly, his sleek head making a V of ripples in the calm
water.
Rick and Scotty, sprawled comfortably in beach chairs on the lawn in
front of Steve's house, sipped the last of their iced tea, and watched
the movements and listened to the sounds in companionable silence. Both
boys, admitting that, for the immediate present, they were slightly
overdosed with rich food, had agreed to settle for a sandwich and iced
tea. A brief stop at a store en route back from the post office had
provided the necessities.
Rick was physically relaxed, but mentally active. It was characteristic
of 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 a
long way from defeat at the moment. The case of the flying stingaree was
just 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 are
not."
"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 legal
boys say."
"Uh-huh. And why are they not flying saucers?"
"For the same reason they're not aircraft. If you recall all the talks
with people who've seen them, they don't maneuver, and they don't travel
very fast. They appear--or they're noticed, let's say--and they just get
smaller and smaller until they vanish. They move, but not much."
Rick nodded. "The circle we drew around all the sightings doesn't cover
a very large territory. All the sightings have been within that circle.
People had to look toward Swamp Creek to see the objects. Yet, they did
something interesting. They grew smaller. What makes things seem to grow
smaller?"
"Apparent size decreases with distance," Scotty replied promptly.
"Sure. And how do you get distance, when the sightings are all within a
circle 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 the
circle of sightings is so small. Above a certain altitude, the objects
are no longer visible. Or they're not so visible that they attract
attention. I suppose we could work out some calculations. How large an
object can be seen readily at what distance? Then we could apply a
little trigonometry and figure their size."
"We could," Scotty agreed, "but do we need to? Let's assume the object
you saw was typical. How big was it?"
Rick thought it over. He had had only a quick glimpse, and the
background had been the gray of the storm. His vision had been obscured
because 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 the
objects are fairly small. When people see them, they're relatively
close, and fairly low. Even the small planes that fly from the airfield
are much bigger than the flying stingarees, but when the planes go over
at about five thousand feet, they seem tiny. At that altitude the flying
stingarees must be at the limit of really good visibility."
"I read you loud and clear. So the objects are sent from Calvert's
Favor, and they climb. They don't climb straight up, though. The wind
carries them. The reason I think so is that the one I saw must have been
driven by the wind, right down the creek toward me. It didn't climb
until it got away from the funneling effect of the creek and into the
river, then it went up pretty fast. At least it seemed to have risen
fast when I looked over the top of the boat at it."
Scotty crunched an ice cube. "We're getting somewhere. There's only one
kind 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 the
shape."
Rick asked, "What's a balloon? It's just a gas-tight container. We're
used to thinking of balloons as spheres, because it's the most efficient
shape for internal pressure. But a balloon can be any shape. Another
thing--balloons for high altitudes aren't fully inflated on the ground.
Maybe the flying stingarees have a different shape when they get higher
and in less dense atmosphere where the gas distends them."
"An odd shape could be used as camouflage, too, if you didn't want
people to recognize the balloon. But why would a strange assortment of
characters like Merlin and company send up balloons?" Scotty wondered.
Rick smiled. "I've been wondering that myself. Would they send up a
balloon 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 it
since then, but I think there was a splash when it went by. Something
sort 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 something
bounce off the rail, then a splash, I'd say there might be a pretty good
chance that's what happened. I couldn't see any marks on the rail when
we 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 like
when he went down the catwalk to the bow. His mind drew a picture, and
he saw himself bent forward into the wind. In his memory he felt the
slashing rain, the slipperiness of the wet anchor line. He could
visualize the water whipped into dimpled wavelets by wind and rain. He
saw the flying stingaree loom, and saw himself dropping flat. There had
been 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 forgotten
or which had only registered vaguely at the time. He studied the shape
and texture of the object he had seen so briefly. He saw its red eyes
open 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! I
didn'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 it
in comfort. Let's go to the boat and go to bed."
Rick dreamed no more of the flying stingarees. In the morning he
couldn't have said what his dreams had been about, except that they had
been pleasant.
In the bright glare of morning, the whole thing seemed dreamlike. It was
preposterous to imagine that flying objects, probably balloons shaped
like stingarees, were launched from a famous mansion that dated back to
the days of the early Maryland colony. But the sighting data couldn't be
ignored. Dreamlike or not, something strange was going on at Calvert's
Favor.
The boys breakfasted in the farmhouse, reducing Steve's supply of eggs
substantially and wiping out the bacon reserve. "We'll have to shop
sometime today," Rick observed. "Steve has plenty of food here, but we
don'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 after
Steve. 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 the
latest, they should hear before noon--unless the job turned out to be
very difficult. That would leave four hours before they would have to
leave the house to pick up Steve. Four hours was time enough for the
investigation Rick had in mind.
After breakfast they settled down with the data sheets and notebook to
review them once more. But only one additional fact emerged. Two people
thought, but weren't absolutely sure, that they had seen a spurt of fire
from the flying stingarees. Rick wondered if they had seen a sudden
flare 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? The
envelope arrived three minutes ago, and I was just taking the picture
out when Sandy walked in. He took one look and asked what I was doing
with a snapshot of Lefty Camillion. The hair is white and the mustache
is gone, but it's Lefty."
Rick gasped. "My sainted aunt! Of course! I should have known it
myself."
"There's more. Sandy recognized Lefty's small friend too. This is an odd
one, Rick. The man is Dr. Elbert K. Drews. He was fired six months ago
by Space Electronics Industries. It was a big story for us, because the
plant is located in the next town. The reason he was fired came out
during the monopoly investigations. Turned out he had been selling the
firm's industrial secrets to its competitors. It was a shock, because he
had such a big reputation as an electronics wizard. He got some kind of
national prize a year ago for developing a new high-speed system for
something. Let's see--here's my note. It says, 'Dr. Drews was the
originator of a new and unusual system for the rapid telemetry of data
from space. The system is considered remarkable for its compactness and
speed of operation. The ground installation is scarcely larger than a
console-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 know
the phone number."
"We'll call if anything comes up. Thanks again, Ken."
Rick hung up and stared at the phone thoughtfully, trying to fit this
new information into the scheme of things. Scotty had been sitting on
the edge of his chair since the conversation started. He said, with some
exasperation, "Well? Out with it!"
"Mr. Merlin is Lefty Camillion. His pal is an electronics wizard who was
fired by Space Electronics Industries for selling industrial secrets to
the firm's competitors." Rick rapidly sketched in the rest of the
conversation.
Scotty sank back into his chair. "His hair was black, and now it's
white. He must have been keeping it dyed, and decided to go natural. And
he shaved off that mustache. Probably that was dyed black, too."
"You're right." Rick shook his head in dismay. Lefty Camillion, whose
first name was Thomas, was a notorious crime syndicate leader who had
come into prominence about two years ago during Senate investigations of
racketeering. In three days Camillion had become a television
personality, of sorts, when it became clear that he apparently was
responsible for a number of murders and a thousand lesser crimes,
although he himself had not done the actual killings. There was
insufficient evidence to jail him, but enough to deport him. He dropped
out of sight while his lawyers were fighting the deportation
proceedings. Now he had shown up again, on the Eastern Shore.
"A crime syndicate chief, a crooked scientist, flying stingarees, an old
mansion, a peculiar antenna, and a missing crabber. What does it add up
to?" Rick demanded.
Scotty shrugged. He didn't answer. There was no answer--yet.