Hartson Brant had chosen Hobart Zircon and Julius Weiss to work with him, then he had persuaded an old friend, Dr. Jeffrey Williams, to drop his work for a short time and join the party. Dr. Williams was a noted seismologist. From the U. S. Geological Survey, Hartson Brant had borrowed Dr. David Riddle, a geologist with considerable experience in volcanology.
The scientific team departed at once for San Luz, leaving Rick and Scotty to bring up the rear. The boys loaded scientific equipment into the Sky Wagon and took off for San Luz. It took three days for the little plane to make the trip, the longest flight of Rick's flying career. Only once before had he flown so far over water, and then only to the Virgin Islands. The plane had made it easily, but he and Scotty had sweated it out.
Ordinarily, Hartson Brant would have taken the boys by commercial air, but he wanted Rick's plane on hand. Since the senior scientist did not know what difficulties the scientists might encounter, he wanted a way of making aerial surveys and photographs, plus ready communication with the mainland and nearby islands.
The boys had arrived early the evening before, only to be whisked to the Executive Mansion where the governor of San Luz, the Honorable Luis Montoya, was holding a reception for the visiting scientists.
The governor, a charming little man who looked like Rick's idea of a Spanish grandee, knew why the scientists were there, of course. But the secret was confined to the governor himself and to Balgos. Even Jaime Guevara, the lieutenant governor, did not know.
The agreement was that the scientific group would seem to be interested only in the hot springs. The purpose of their visit, the governor had announced to the local press and radio, was to investigate the change in the springs that had ruined a principal San Luz resort hotel.
By ten o'clock, when the reception ended, the boys were exhausted. But the end was not yet. They were riding in Zircon's jeep—five jeeps had been assigned to the party by the governor—and Zircon had to meet the last member of the party, Bradley Connel, a geologist borrowed from an oil company in Caracas, Venezuela, by Dr. Balgos.
It was nearly midnight before the boys got to sleep, after nearly three days with minimum rest. So, both were tired. In the middle of thinking how tired he was, Rick dropped off to sleep again.
He awoke with Scotty's voice in his ears. "Come on, old buddy. Dad's calling a staff meeting in fifteen minutes."
Rick sat up. "How do you know?"