Barby, Jan, and Scotty were kind to Rick, which annoyed him considerably. If they had scolded him for bad judgment, called him a chucklehead, or even ignored him, it would have been all right. But they all had to reassure him and tell him it could have happened to anyone, and so on, and on. All of which made it unbearable. He was more sure than ever that the houseboaters and barber were connected, but he still had no clear evidence. Of course he had made a report of the day's activities to Steve, who at least hadn't tried to be nice about it. "An agent can't always think of everything," was Steve's comment. "But he can try. Sometimes, when he fails to take a factor into consideration, he gets away with it. Sometimes he fails. Sometimes he ends up dead, because of his poor judgment. Be glad your lives weren't hanging in the balance." Rick took the lesson to heart. He wouldn't make the same mistake twice. On the evening of the cereal fiasco, Parnell Winston returned to Spindrift after another visit to Dr. Chavez. He called Steve Ames and spent a long time talking to the JANIG agent. Then he called the project team and the boys into the library. "We're on the track of something," he reported. "At least we think we are. It's so incredible that I simply can't believe it. If true, it means some unfriendly nation is so far ahead of us scientifically that we should all be trembling in our boots." Rick had realized that only agents of a hostile country could be involved in the actions against the project team. Everyone present had known as much, without a word being spoken. Only another country could gain from disruption of the project. "Chavez and I have run a series of EEG's on Marks. We now have the records of EEG's on the other two team members, and Steve has managed to turn up a pre-project EEG on one which gives us a basis of comparison. Now, to comprehend our tentative hypothesis, you must understand something of what is known about the brain." Rick prepared to listen without much understanding. The field in which Parnell Winston worked was new and strange to him, and while he understood some of the basic theories, he got lost when Winston got highly technical. "Our understanding of the human brain is fairly recent," Winston began, "and we're still only on the threshold of knowledge. In a way, we've just discovered the tools of research. The principal tool, of course, is electricity. Through it we can explore the electrochemical nature of brain processes." Rick was with him so far. He concentrated hard, not wanting to miss a word. "There's no point in reviewing the entire history of brain physiology. You all know of Pavlov's work on conditioned reflexes. And you all know that Fritsch and Hitzig demonstrated that, when electrically stimulated, certain portions of the brain show a response. You also know that Caton discovered many years ago that the brain itself produces electric currents."