The boys said farewell to their friends at Scarlet Lake, not forgetting Prince Machiavelli, and returned to Spindrift two days after the successful Cetus shoot.
Back at Spindrift they spent their time instructing the girls in proper sailing technique, but Rick still had to avoid exertion, and he couldn't swim because his arm was still bandaged. Then, one day the Brants' family doctor announced that he was fine, and a bandage was no longer needed.
Barby looked at the scar on Rick's forearm and her eyes opened wide. "Rick! That was a terrible cut! How on earth did you get it?"
He couldn't tell her the real story. He had been instructed by his father not to mention it, even to Barby. "It was pretty exciting," he said. "It happened when they let me fire a rocket."
"You fired a rocket?" Barby gasped.
"Sort of," Rick said. "I lit the fuse. I didn't jump back far enough, though. The tail fin clipped me as it went by."
For a long while Barby wasn't sure whether Rick's story was true or not. She didn't know whether the big rockets had fuses. When she found out by questioning Dr. Zircon, she asked Scotty to remind her not to talk to Rick for twenty-four hours.
But before the day was over, Rick was packing, in company with Scotty and Dr. Zircon, for an emergency trip to the Sulu Sea. Their mission: find two missing Spindrift scientists!
What happened during the search will be told in the next exciting book of Rick's adventures: THE PIRATES OF SHAN.