The scientist glanced at his Egyptian colleagues. Farid urged, "Tell him what we talked about last night. It may not be subject to any real proof, but I think the boys have a right to know what we've concluded."
"All right," Winston nodded. "To put it as briefly as possible, we agree that the most likely explanation is that we intercepted intelligent signals, sent out for some reason by some beings we can't even imagine. For one thing, the space object is so small that we can't even give it a dimension. Neither can the other telescopes. Mount Palomar can see nothing."
"A spaceship," Rick said soberly. The implications of it were tremendous!
"It's as good a name as any. And now, boys, let's start folding up our part of the operation. We have reservations on tomorrow's flight. That will put us into New York just about suppertime."
"We hate to leave," Scotty told the Egyptian scientists. "Unfortunately, thanks to that Egyptian cat, we didn't get to see much of Cairo."
"At least I saw a piece of the Sahara Desert," Rick said with a grin. "Anyway, let's move. I have some shopping to do for my folks, and for Jan Miller, and especially Barby."
"Going to take her a bouquet of Egyptian poison ivy?" Winston asked with a smile.
"Nope. I'm going to buy her some nice things, but I'm also going to take her the remains of the Egyptian cat. Just as a reminder."
He turned to glance around the control room before leaving. The plaster on the ceiling would need repairing where the Sten gun had chipped it down to the concrete roof slab, but there was little real damage to show the effect of last night's fight. Even the window broken by Youssef had been repaired.
How simple it all had been--once Ismail ben Adhem had taken over. Rick knew why he and Scotty had failed to solve the mystery. There was too much information they did not have, such as the disposal of the Kefren necklace and knowing that the Moustafas were the prime movers in a revolution.
Farid and Kerama had not been surprised. "There are some who do not like the controls on trade and exchange that our government had to impose," Farid explained. "Mostly, they are people who had things pretty much their own way before the Republic was formed. They used to get special treatment from government officials who were in their pay, and they grew rich. Now, that's impossible. So they plot revolution to bring the bad old days back again--bad old days for most Egyptians, that is. The Moustafas and Bartouki used to be pretty powerful. I suppose they wanted that power back."
