The Scarlet Lake Mystery: A Rick Brant Science-Adventure Story

"Those are the areas where you're allowed to go. Area One is the blockhouse. Area Two is the main base and firing pads. Area Three is the machine shop and maintenance depot. You can go anywhere. Scott can go anywhere but inside the blockhouse. Sign these, please." He handed them forms in which they agreed to be bound by all security regulations, under penalty of the Espionage Act. They signed, and returned the forms.

"Go through the gate," the guard directed, "and report to the reception desk in Building Five. That's personnel. They'll take it from there."

They returned to the jeep and drove to the gate. The guard inspected their badges, compared the pictures with their faces, then waved them on.

"Taking no chances," Rick remarked. "There's Building Five."

The personnel office gave them another map, showing installations and buildings on the base itself, and assigned them to bunks nine and ten in Barracks Seven. Rick was told to report at eight in the morning to Dr. Gould in Building Twelve, while Scotty was told to report to Mr. Rhodes in Maintenance Building Twenty-three. They received a leaflet marked: "Read This."

They followed the map for another three miles, leaving the gate buildings out of sight behind a ridge of rock. Their map showed that the main cluster of buildings was three miles from the gate and nine miles from the blockhouse and the firing pads on the dry lake bed. Again, Rick began to appreciate Western distances.

The boys found their barracks without difficulty, and moved into a room containing four bunks. It wasn't elaborate, but it was adequate for a camp of this kind. It was clear that the other bunks were occupied, but at the moment their bunkmates were apparently out.

Rick stowed his gear in the locker with his bed number on it, then sat down to read the leaflet. It was a directory of camp facilities, plus a written lecture on security. He was allowed to say what kind of work he did, and that was about all.

"Let's look the place over," he suggested.

They located the mess halls, the base movie house, post exchange, and post office. There was also a laundry and a snack bar. Set off by itself was a recreation hall, equipped with TV sets, comfortable chairs, card tables, and pool tables.

Rick followed the map to the laboratory buildings, and was surprised to find that they were enormous sheds, like hangars. Most of the doors were wide open, and he caught glimpses of shapes that could only have been rocket sections. His pulse quickened. There was an atmosphere of excitement, of big jobs being performed. At least his quick imagination told him there was.

Then, in one shed he saw the broken remains of a rocket. From its size he concluded that it must be the Viking that had crashed. The sight brought sharp realization of the real job he and Scotty were here to do.

Rick checked his map. "Our barracks has space for eighty bunks. And, according to this, there are twenty-eight barracks."

"Interesting facts about Scarlet Lake," Scotty declaimed. "What about it?"

"That's over two thousand men."

"A lot of men," Scotty agreed. "What are you getting at?"

"Needles in haystacks. Out of more than two thousand we're supposed to pick one – the Earthman!"

CHAPTER V

Project Pegasus

Dr. Gerald Gould, known to the staff as "Gee-Gee," looked more like a high school football coach than a scientist. His blond hair was cropped short, and his face was boyish except for a beautifully waxed military-style mustache. His speech was a remarkable combination of slang and rocket jargon.

He asked, "Do you know vector analysis?"

Rick shook his head. "No, sir."

"Hmmm. Well, boy-oh, we'll plant you with the electronic cooks in the spaghetti department. It says in your job application that you've had plenty of experience in circuit wiring. Roger?"

"Yes, sir." Rick understood that he was to join the technicians in the wiring department. His eyes kept wandering into the huge shed that housed the project on which he was to work. He identified rocket sections, and pretty big ones at that. The rocket was not assembled, but apparently it would tower several stories into the air when assembly was complete. One thing puzzled, him, however. One section obviously had wings. They couldn't be anything else, even though they were tiny and thin as knives. He hadn't heard anything about rockets with wings.

Dr. Gould saw that he was staring with interest at the activity in the shed and grinned sympathetically. "Ever see a big rocket before?"

"Only in pictures," Rick replied.

"Well, you'll see plenty of them before we're through here."

Rick hesitated. "Sir, is it okay to ask what this is all about?"

"Sure it's okay. We have three projects underway at present. In the shed on the left is Orion, which is a two-stage rocket for deep penetration into the exosphere. It's about ready to shoot. In the shed on the right is Cetus, a sounding rocket for ionospheric measurements."

Dr. Gould paused. "If you don't get me, speak up and I'll scoop you the answers. Roger so far?"

Rick nodded. "I'm with you." He understood from the scientist's explanation that Orion was to travel far into the exosphere, actually beyond the atmosphere, while Cetus was a smaller, single-stage rocket for research in the ionosphere, the ionized layer of atmosphere just beyond the stratosphere. The projects, he realized, were named for constellations.

"In this shed we have Pegasus."

"Pegasus was a winged horse," Rick commented, "And aren't those airfoils on that rocket section near the back of the shed? Is that the connection?"

Dr. Gould chuckled. "Sharp-oh! Those are indeed airfoils. Wings for Pegasus. Now make with the reason, if you can."

Rick pondered. He knew rockets achieved stability through fins, or steerable motors, and that wings were no help. Furthermore, there wasn't enough air for wings to be of use beyond the atmosphere where the big rockets traveled. He could see no reason for wings, and said so.

"You're not looking far enough ahead," Dr. Gould said severely. "Put on your spaceman's helmet. Connect up and think. You're on Space Platform Number One and you want to come home to Terra. What are the wings for?"

Light dawned. Rick's chin dropped on his chest and stayed there. Finally he gasped, "You mean the wings are to turn the upper section into a glider in order to land it again?"

Dr. Gould put a hand on his shoulder and nodded gravely. "Ole Gee-Gee is pleased with you. You have demonstrated something between the ears besides strawberry Jello. You have just described the objective of Project Pegasus. We intend to shoot the beast into space and bring the top stage home again by drone control."

The scientist grew serious. "It's not an easy thing, young Brant. No one has yet succeeded in getting a big rocket down in one piece. If we can do it, we'll be one step through the biggest barrier to manned space flight.

"You will work on wiring in the drone control section. Just remember that every touch of your soldering iron is critical. Take no chances at all; everything must be perfect. Do your job and do it well, and someday you'll be able to say that you made the big horse's wings work when it really counted. Now come on, and I'll introduce you to Dick Earle and you can get started."

Dick Earle turned out to be a bigger and darker copy of Gee-Gee. He had the same crew cut and mustache, but his hair was jet black.

Rick also met Dr. Carleton Bond, a tall, slender man of advanced years who was a consultant on drone controls, and Frank Miller, a studious, rather curt young man who was an electronics design engineer.

He began to make some order out of the organization. Gee-Gee Gould was electronics chief for all three projects. Dick Earle was electronics chief for Pegasus, under Gould, and there were also electronics chiefs for Orion and Cetus. Similarly, the projects had air-frame departments, propulsion departments, instrumentation departments, and administrative departments.

Each project also had a technical director, who was a sort of co-ordinator, trouble shooter, and general expert. The technical directors reported to Dr. John Gordon, on loan from Spindrift, who had the title of Senior Project Engineer.

Later, Rick explained it to Scotty. "Each project has its own staff, but there's a top staff that is responsible for all projects. I'm making a little sense out of it, but people keep showing up that I can't fit into the organization."

"They're probably support people," Scotty explained. "Seems the base is divided into two groups; the scientific gang and the support gang. I'm in support, in the vehicle maintenance section. Lomac runs the whole support group. Besides transportation, there's the tracking and monitoring gang – that's what Big Mac and Pancho are in – the machine-shop gang, and all the housekeeping facilities like the fire department, the security force, housing and feeding, and so on."

The boys' roommates turned out to be a security officer named Hank Leeming and one of the janitors, an elderly man of Mexican descent named Maximilian Rodriguez.

On the second day of work Rick met another interesting character, although a nonhuman one, and got an additional duty imposed on him.

He was at work installing a tiny servomotor in the drone control unit when something landed on his head and gripped his hair firmly. Instinctively he started to swing at it, but Dr. Bond's voice stopped him in time.

"Easy, Rick! He won't hurt you."