Rick grinned. Once things started to move with Steve Ames, they moved strictly jet-propelled.
"What are we supposed to do?" Scotty asked.
"Find Bradley. If you can. But don't spend too much time searching. Getting all the dope—and I mean all—on that heavy water is the reason for your going out there. If you find Bradley, he can help. Maybe Chahda can help, too. But never forget for a minute that tracking down that heavy water is your mission."
"If we don't find Bradley, we won't know how to get started," Rick pointed out.
Steve grunted. "No? If I believed that, I'd have gone somewhere else for help. I came here because I knew Spindrift could give me ingenuity as well as scientific knowledge. And you hadn't better let me down!"
"We won't let you down," Scotty assured him.
Barby chimed in indignantly, "Of course they won't."
Steve smiled. "Don't worry. I'm not afraid of their falling down on the job. But it's a big one. I'll tell Zircon this when he comes, but you can be thinking it over in the meantime. You're to find out who is bringing heavy water to the Asia coast and what they're doing with it. You're to find out where it comes from, and why it is being made. You're to get samples and send them back here. And most important of all, you're to locate and pinpoint for us any industrial plants you find."
Scotty scratched his head. "Fine. Only let's get back to the beginning. What is heavy water? And why are you so excited about it?"
"I don't know, either," Barby added.