Ghost Town Clue
Rick refused point-blank to go to bed. He wasn't tired, he insisted, and
he meant it.
Scotty yielded. "Okay. I see your point. It's hard enough to sleep in
the daytime anyway, but when you're all keyed up, it's impossible.
Didn't lunch make you sleepy at all?"
"A little, but that shower and change of clothes woke me up again.
Scotty, I'll never forget that horrible instant when I realized that
Orion wasn't going to take off. Honest, it was like watching something
beautiful die. It..."
Hank Leeming, their security officer roommate, came into the bunkroom in
time to hear Rick's last comment. Hank was young, usually smiling. He
wasn't smiling now. "I was in the blockhouse when the first one blew. I
know how you feel, Rick. It makes you want to lay violent hands on the
man responsible."
The security officer changed the subject abruptly. "Luis Hermosa wants
to see the boy who saved his life, and the one who helped."
"You mean the fireman who fell in the propellant?" Scotty asked.
"That's the one. He's in the infirmary. Can you both go?"
Scotty shrugged. "Sure. If he wants us to. But he doesn't owe us
anything. Someone else would have dragged him out if we hadn't."
"If _you_ hadn't," Rick corrected. "I didn't move fast enough."
"Neither did anyone else," Hank pointed out. "Don't be overmodest about
it, Scotty. Go and see him."
The infirmary, operated by Lomac, was only a block away. Rick and Scotty
walked over and checked in at the reception desk.
The infirmary clerk directed them to one of the four rooms in the little
base hospital. "Go right in."
Luis Hermosa was awake. Rick knew he must be in pain from his burns,
which were extensive, but his smile gave no evidence of it. It was a
warm smile that demanded a smile in return.
"This morning there was no chance to give you my thanks," he greeted
them. "I asked for you to come so that you may know how I feel."
Scotty put a hand gently on one of the bandaged ones. "No thanks are
necessary."
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 God 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 God. 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 assumed 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 coke. It's hot."
They hiked to the recreation hall and got cokes 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 coke 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 passed 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?"
"Not so far. Tom Preston is having the warehouses checked, just in case.
But it's a terrific job going through an inventory item by item."
"Can you find out if the clerks leave the warehouses during a shoot?"
Rick asked.
"Tom has already gone to work on that. I'll find a way to let you know.
Keep in touch, Rick."
Rick continued on to the barracks, mind churning with confused thoughts.
If only they had a few hard facts to work on! There wasn't a single
definite clue to anyone. And, after last night, how could he suspect any
of the dedicated, hard-working rocketeers? Impossible to imagine that
anyone who had worked so hard on one of the projects could deliberately
sabotage it. Yet, there was no other answer. No one outside the
technical and scientific staff would have the opportunity or knowledge.
"At least," he concluded ruefully, "if we assume it's someone with ready
access to the projects, we've cut down the size of the haystack. We're
looking for one man out of only about five hundred!"