Later, the Filipino officer dictated letters of introduction to Rick's sister Barby, a pretty blond girl a year younger than her brother. Barby took the dictation directly on the typewriter. Once the letters were signed and turned over to Dr. Zircon, Hartson Brant escorted the colonel to the mainland, where arrangements had been made for a local taxi service to drive him back to New York. Rojas' parting statement was "This affair worries me. I shall be most interested in developments, and you may hear from me sooner than you think." Later, Scotty and Rick gathered in the latter's room and talked while loading the radio units with fresh batteries. "Wonder how long it will take to hear from Chahda?" Rick asked. "Depends on where he is and how fast Steve Ames can get a message to him. He'll join us if he can. You can bet on it." "I hope so," Rick said thoughtfully. "We'll be in Manila in a couple of days, and we'll need him. We've got a job ahead of us, because Tony and Shannon aren't lost. You can be sure of that. They're not the kind to get lost. And if they had been in an accident of some kind we'd have heard." "Meaning what?" Rick's eyes met Scotty's. "That leaves only one logical answer, doesn't it? They've either been killed or captured!" CHAPTER II The Hindu Merchant Thirty-six hours later, after a grueling transcontinental--trans-Pacific flight with only the briefest of stops to change planes, Rick, Scotty, and Zircon were in Manila. Their stay in Manila only three hours old, they had already visited the American consulate and found that no new information on the missing scientists had been received; they had arranged a luncheon date with Dr. Okola, and had reserved space on Philippine Airlines to Davao on the following morning. Rick paced the floor, sipping a glass of fresh limeade, made with _calamansi_, the tiny, pungent local limes. His time for the past three days had been spent alternately dozing and thinking about the problem of the missing scientists. The more he wondered about their strange disappearance, the more worried he became. "There's simply no reason for it," he said aloud. Scotty looked up from the chair in which he was reading the Manila _Times_. The husky ex-Marine didn't have to be told what his pal was thinking. "No reason we can see," he agreed. "But there has to be a reason." Hobart Zircon spoke from the desk where he was writing a note to Hartson Brant. "You might remember, Rick, that we've been on other expeditions where the reason for certain events was just as puzzling." Rick knew the kind of events the physicist meant. Only a few dozen yards from this very room, in the ancient walled city across the street, he and Scotty had been under rifle fire for a reason they couldn't have guessed at the time.