Rick asked, still chuckling, "Hassan, do camels always complain like that?"
"Is true. They nasty and plenty noisy. They hate work. Driver makes them carry tourists and they holler plenty."
The camel quieted down to a low-voiced grumble. He was letting the world know that the arrangement was not pleasing and that he didn't intend to suffer in silence. Cameras began to snap, recording for the folks back home the undignified ride of the lady tourist on the ungainly camel before the ancient, majestic pyramids and the changeless, unsmiling Sphinx.
The three got back into the little car and Hassan took a road that curved gradually around a hill, past a hotel that he identified as the Mena House, and up to the largest pyramid, once the tomb of Khufu and still the greatest monument in all the world.
On a line into the desert were the slightly smaller pyramids of Kefren and Mankara. These, with the Sphinx, were among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Later, Rick promised Scotty, they would explore Giza and its wonders inch by inch. But now they were due at Sahara Wells. Hassan sped around the Khufu pyramid and pointed. There, on the horizon, was a strange contrast to the monuments of the Pharaohs. The steel-and-aluminum shape of the great, steerable dish antenna, designed for modern astronomy, was silhouetted against the sky.
Rick was excited. He enjoyed new sights and experiences more than most people, and here, within sight of each other, were unique objects of almost equal interest, but entirely different.
The way led past a single large building surrounded by shabby tents, and a sign in English and Arabic that proclaimed that this was Sahara Wells. Then the blacktop road curved out into the desert to the great radio telescope.
Hassan drove into a parking lot before the main project building in the shadow of the antenna and Dr. Hakim Farid came out to greet the boys.
"Welcome to Sahara Wells," he said cordially. "How do you like our baby?"
Rick looked up at the huge dish. "It's a good mate for the pyramids," he said.
"We hope its performance will be impressive, too, once we get this bug ironed out. Come on in. Winston and Kerama are hard at work."
The boys followed him into the building, while Hassan squatted in the sun next to his car. The door opened directly into the main control room, a bewildering confusion of panels, instruments, and controls. There were several scientists and technicians clustered around Winston and Kerama. The group was studying Sanborn tracings, continuous graphs showing the lines traced by the incoming signals.