  A lot of trouble might have been saved if things had worked out as Eddie had planned. And, yet, if they had, the mystery of the missing blueprints and the stolen radioisotope might never have been cleared up. Hurrying home through the darkness, Eddie went over in his mind the story he would tell his father. Perhaps it didn’t mean a thing. Perhaps his imagination simply was running wild, as his father had hinted. He had to admit to himself that he was prone to build rather normal incidents into deep mysteries. He had always been that way. Even allowing for that, however, Eddie still believed there was a strong possibility that the events of the past weeks might tie in with the stolen radioisotope; perhaps even with the missing blueprints from Acme Aviation. Right in the middle of those events the figures of the two men—Simms and Roy Benton—kept looming up in his mind. Anyway, he thought he should tell his father about it and let him decide whether there could be any possible connection. It was not, however, to be that way. Upon arriving home well after dark, Eddie found his mother both irked and worried over his late return. “You didn’t even ask me if you could go,” she scolded. “And you know better than to be getting home at this late hour.” “I—I’m sorry, Mom,” Eddie said meekly. “I didn’t know I would be gone so long.” Mrs. Taylor turned from the stove where she was warming his dinner. “After you eat,” she said firmly, “I want you to go right to bed. No television.” It was a mild enough punishment, Eddie thought, and didn’t argue. His father would not have been so lenient. He looked around. “Where’s Dad?” he asked. “Your father phoned a while ago,” his mother explained. “He’ll be home late. Feed Sandy now; then wash up for dinner.” Eddie opened a can of dog food, went outside, and spooned half of it into Sandy’s dish. Capping the can with a plastic cover, he put it in the refrigerator, then went to wash. After dinner he kissed his mother good night and went straight to his room. He lay in bed, going over in his mind the recent events. He listened for his father’s arrival. He had hoped somehow to evade his early-bedtime punishment long enough to tell his story to his father. But he hadn’t counted on his tiredness. He fell fast asleep long before his father came home. The sound of the car backing out of the driveway awakened Eddie the following morning. He washed and dressed quickly. Perhaps his mother had gone to do a bit of early shopping. It was Saturday. Probably his father would be home for the day. Now might be Eddie’s best chance to tell him what had been running through his mind. Hurrying into the kitchen, he found his mother at the dinette table having a cup of coffee. “Hi, Mom. Where’s Dad?” Eddie asked. “He just drove out, Eddie,” his mother said. “He had to get over to school early.” “But it’s Saturday.” “Saturdays haven’t been very restful for your father lately, have they?” his mother said. “He has an appointment with some people from Washington D.C. this morning.” “About the stolen radioisotope?” Eddie wondered aloud. “Might be,” his mother said. “He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.” “Didn’t ask?” “Eddie,” his mother said firmly, “the theft of that isotope is pretty serious business. Your father is handling it the best he can. He’ll tell us what he wants us to know. It is not our part to be asking questions. You try to remember that, dear.” Eddie didn’t say anything. He knew his mother was right. He was greatly disappointed, though, that he hadn’t had the chance to talk to his father. Eddie was finishing breakfast when Teena telephoned. “We’re going to Cedar Point today, aren’t we?” she asked. “I—I guess so,” Eddie said. “You guess so? But Mr. Anderson is holding a boat for us. This is Saturday, you know.” “I know.” “Well, we should get started,” Teena insisted. “It’s some row out to Cedar Point.” “Hold on a minute,” Eddie said. “I’ve got to ask Mom.” He turned and explained their plans to his mother. “It’s all right, Eddie,” Mrs. Taylor said. “But no getting home late like yesterday, understand?” “Don’t worry, Mom,” Eddie promised. “We’ll start early, and get back early.” Then he spoke to Teena. “I’ll be right over,” Teena replied, “soon as I make us a little picnic lunch.” Eddie got the Geiger counter out of the closet. He told his mother how he had been wanting to try it out on Cedar Point. He told her about the dream he had had. “Well, I guess you never can tell,” Mrs. Taylor said. “According to your father, uranium ore often shows up in most unlikely places.” “Cedar Point isn’t so unlikely, Mom,” Eddie said. “There are lots of rock formations out there. Uranium ore is usually located where there are plenty of rocks.” When Teena arrived Eddie was all set to leave. He wore swimming trunks under his blue jeans. Teena said she also had her bathing suit on in case they had to swim home. “Well, you children be careful,” Eddie’s mother cautioned. “The bay’s usually nice and smooth, but it can get pretty choppy. If it does, you head straight for shore, understand?” “We will, Mrs. Taylor,” Teena promised. Eddie’s mother smiled. “Be back no later than four o’clock,” she said to Eddie. “Right.” “But you don’t have a watch, Eddie,” Teena said. “I can tell by the sun,” he said proudly, then added, “pretty close, anyway.” Eddie carried the Geiger counter and Teena the picnic lunch as they started toward Anderson’s Landing. Although it was a nice sunny day for fishing, there were still several rowboats tied up at the landing. Mr. Anderson was in his little office at the foot of the dock. “I’ve been expecting you,” he said. “Saved you a nice light pair of oars, too.” “Swell,” Eddie said. “Thanks, Mr. Anderson.” “Take boat Number Eighteen,” the owner said. “She rides high and is leakproof. What’s that gadget you’ve got there?” “It’s a Geiger counter, Mr. Anderson,” Eddie said. “We hope we’ll find some signs of uranium out on Cedar Point.” “That the stuff you make atom bombs of?” Mr. Anderson said, with a note of disapproval in his voice. “You can make bombs of it,” Eddie admitted, “but nowadays scientists are more interested in running machinery and curing diseases with it.” “That’s the kind of thing I like to hear,” Mr. Anderson said, smiling. “In that case, good luck.” Soon, with Eddie at the oars, they started toward distant Cedar Point. Eddie set the course in a line which cut at an angle across the bay. As they were crossing the submerged sand bar, Teena pointed shoreward. “Eddie, look,” she said. Resting on the oars and following the direction of Teena’s finger, Eddie saw that they were directly offshore from the cove. He also saw the orange-and-white rowboat pulled up onto the beach. Of even more importance, he saw two men making their way carefully down the narrow trail which zigzagged down the face of the bluff. Even from the distance, Eddie saw that one man was tall and thin, the other short and fat. “It’s those two men!” he exclaimed. “Of course. But don’t get so excited,” Teena said. “They’re probably just coming out fishing.” “Coming from where?” Eddie asked. He knew there was only one place to come from—the shack. Then he remembered that Teena didn’t know about his visit to the shack yesterday. “Well, anyway,” Teena said, “let’s get away from here before they come out to fish over this sand bar. They sure would think we were spying on them if they found us out here. I hope they don’t see us now.” “To far away for them to tell who we are,” Eddie assured, sharing Teena’s dislike of meeting the two men again. Eddie started to turn back to rowing, when the flash of sun on metal caught his eye. He knew at once that one of the men was carrying that metal cylinder which he had seen yesterday evening in the shack, and which he had puzzled over so long. He would like to have stayed and gotten another look at it; that is, if the two men were coming out to fish over the sand bar again. Yet Teena’s warning about getting away seemed the wiser move. Eddie bent to the oars. Less than an hour later he guided the boat onto the narrow beach at Cedar Point. “Phew!” he said, mopping the sweat from his forehead. “That’s a lot of rowing.” “It was a swell ride, Eddie,” Teena said. “I’ll row back if you want.” “You’re a girl,” Eddie said importantly, which seemed to close the subject about Teena doing the rowing. But Teena did help him drag the boat up onto the beach beyond the high-water mark. “Now to find some uranium,” Eddie said, picking up the Geiger counter. Before starting inland to explore the point, however, he shaded his eyes and looked back across the bay. In the far distance he could barely make out Anderson’s Landing. Quite a few boats dotted the bay in between. Directly in line between Cedar Point and Anderson’s Landing was the light strip of water marking the submerged sand bar. There was only one boat over the sand bar. “Those two fellows are fishing in that same place again today,” Eddie said. “They don’t seem to learn, do they?” “Let’s not worry about them,” Teena said. “Let’s start prospecting. We promised to be home by four. It’s a long trip back.” The wind-swept point offered difficult hiking. Fallen trees and tangles of underbrush slowed their progress. They had to keep on the lookout for poison ivy. “If leaves there are three, leave it be,” Eddie said, remembering the familiar warning. They gave wide berth to the irritating vine whenever they saw it. Eddie left the Geiger counter switched on much of the time. The way led over the rocks. There was no way of telling, except by the Geiger counter, if any of the rocks were radioactive. The results, however, were quite discouraging. Except for the faint background count, the Geiger counter gave no sign of there being any uranium-bearing ore on Cedar Point. After a tiring hour and a half of hard climbing over and around the outcroppings, Teena suggested they stop and eat their picnic lunch. “Might as well,” Eddie said. “Sure doesn’t look like we’re going to find anything out here. Lot of trouble for nothing, huh?” “Oh, no, Eddie,” Teena disagreed. “We’re having fun aren’t we? After all, you’re supposed to have fun during vacation.” “Be better, though, to have fun and find some uranium, too,” Eddie said. Teena laughed. “You sure do want everything,” she remarked. Eddie switched off the Geiger counter. They found some shade under a wind-twisted oak and ate their lunch. Eddie glanced at the sun. “It must be one o’clock,” he said. “Guess we’d better be starting back. The water will be a little choppier than this morning. Won’t be so easy to row. I don’t want to get home late, or my mom will scalp me.” “Let’s go,” Teena said. “Anyway, we’ve done enough prospecting out here to know there’s no uranium around.” On the way back to the boat Eddie tried out the Geiger counter in a couple of places they had missed. The results were the same—negative. He put the Geiger counter into the bottom of the boat, pushed the boat into the water, and jumped in after Teena. A slight breeze angling in over the bow made rowing difficult. Less than halfway across the bay, Eddie’s arms and shoulders began to ache. “Eddie,” Teena said from her seat in the stern, “why don’t I sit there beside you and row with one of the oars? We’ve done it before. Just give me a little time to get the swing of it.” “O.K.,” Eddie said tiredly. Teena moved up beside him on the wide center seat and took the starboard oar handle in both hands. After a couple minutes of splashing and going in circles, they settled down to pulling together smoothly and evenly. “Hey, this is the best deal,” Eddie admitted. “You see,” Teena said, “even girls can be some help.” Eddie smiled. As they were approaching the near end of the under water sand bar, he craned his neck around. “Good,” he said, “those two men have gone, so we won’t run across them again.” They kept pulling together. The water turned light in color as the sun reflected off the yellowish sand lying a scant ten feet beneath the surface. Suddenly Teena stopped rowing. “Eddie,” she said, “what’s that?” “What’s what?” Eddie asked, resting on his oar. “That clicking.” “Clicking?” He heard it then, almost beneath the seat. He glanced down. “Yipes!” he exclaimed. “I—I forgot to switch off the Geiger counter before I put it in the boat. Boy, if the battery is weak, Dad’ll—” He reached toward the switch. His hand stopped in mid-air. The needle of the radioactivity gauge was quivering far over to the right, and the clicking which had attracted Teena’s attention was much louder and faster than the normal background count. “Teena! There—there’s radioactivity around here!” “In the water?” “No. Maybe underneath the water. Maybe on the sand bar. This is a sensitive Geiger counter. It could pick it up all right.” “Hey, the clicking’s getting weak again,” Teena said. “We must be drifting away from whatever is causing it,” Eddie said. He moved the Geiger counter up onto the seat between them. He put the earphones on. “Now let’s kind of circle around here and try to pick it up again.” With nothing but a broad expanse of water and no marker to guide them, trying to locate the spot where the Geiger counter had sputtered to life was anything but easy. “Eddie, I think we’re getting farther away all the time,” Teena said ten minutes later. “But if we don’t find it now we might never find it again,” Eddie said. “Just a little more. Pull easy on your oar. We’ll circle to the left and—Hey, there it is!” The rapid clicking through the headset filled his ears. “Hold ’er steady,” he said. He crawled quickly to the bow of the boat, lifted the heavy concrete anchor over the gunwale, and eased it down onto the sand bar with the Manila line attached. “There. We won’t lose it now,” he said. “Lose what, Eddie?” “Whatever’s making the Geiger counter act up,” Eddie said. “This would be an awful wet place to have to mine for uranium,” Teena said. “It could be done,” Eddie insisted. “Boy, we must be right over it. Listen to those clicks. And look at that needle jump around.” Teena looked over the side. “It looks to me like plain old yellow sand down there,” she said. “Might be some uranium-bearing rock under it,” Eddie said. He leaned over his side of the boat. Although the sand bar was not far below, the water was somewhat murky, and the ripples on the surface made it difficult to see anything on the bottom. “Might be a tough job getting at it, all right, but—” The rest of the words died in Eddie’s throat, as a glint of metal flashed in his eyes. “Teena, there—there’s something down on the sand bar!” “What do you mean, something?” “Something bright. Like metal.” Eddie put his face as close to the water as he could without falling out of the boat. “I can see it now!” he exclaimed. “It’s about two feet long. Two or three inches thick. It looks round, and—” “Eddie!” Teena said. “The metal tube you saw that day in the rowboat. You know, the day we came across those two men at the cove. Remember?” “I remember,” Eddie said, for the thought already had sprung into his mind. Now two other thoughts crowded in behind it. Both were puzzling thoughts which left his mind reeling. What was the metal tube doing there below on the sand bar? Why, above all things, was it sending out radioactive rays? |
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