without blowing down the place.'
'How wide?' Cromwell queried.
'One hundred ten feet side to side,' Indy told him.
'Piece of cake, mate.'
He shut down the engines when they were inside the huge 'barn,' but the only part of the structure that was farmyard was its external appearance. Cromwell looked about him. 'Very neat, Indy. In here we have simply disappeared.'
'That, slave driver, is the idea.' He left the cockpit to return to the cabin.
'How did it go?' Gale asked.
'My ego is flatter than yesterday morning's pancake,'
he told her. 'Jocko, help Gale with our gear. We'll be staying in that farmhouse tonight. And sometime this evening a boat will arrive from Connecticut with the equipment we ordered for you.'
'You got it, Boss.'
'Why do you keep calling me Boss?'
'Sure sounds better than Whitey.'
Gale stifled a laugh. 'You two are going to be lots of fun.'
'Never mind the chuckles,' Indy said. 'We've got work to do.'
'Mind telling me what's on the agenda, Boss?'
'Why not? We've got to find the Martians, or whatever they are. Or, more to the point, we've got to help them find us.'
'You got a death wish, Whitey?'
'Boss, remember?'
Three men and one woman ran the Block Island 'farm,' a rolling expanse on the island isolated by water from the eastern tip of Long Island. None of the four people were farmers; the coveralls they wore provided a loose and comfortable fit for the powerful .44 Magnum revolvers each carried in holsters.
'It doesn't take a physicist,' Gale said slowly to her own group, 'to conclude that as a farm, this place is a bust.'
'Well, it's also a weather station,' Indy noted, pointing to equipment atop a small building. 'That attends to any questions about towers and antenna for the radio equipment here.'
'And if you try to come here by boat at night you got to be stupid or crazy,'
Jocko said. He'd already studied the angry waters between Long Island and Block Island. 'Now I see why this hayfield is such a great landing strip.'
In the 'farmhouse,' one of the men introduced the others. 'I'm Richard. This is Mike, and the short dumpy character is Ozzie.
The lady is Katy. Please introduce yourselves and use first names only. We don't need to know any more.' When the introductions were complete they helped carry the bags and equipment to rooms on the second floor. 'Indy, you've got two-oh-one.
Someone else will share it with you tonight.'
''Who?'
'I don't know, but you know each other. Will and Rene, two-oh-two is yours.
Gale, twoohthree, and you'll be on your own. Jocko, you're two-oh-four. Several more rooms will be occupied tonight.'
'How are they arriving?' Indy asked.
Richard, if that was his name, pointed a finger at the sky. Answer enough.
'We were asked to have an early meal ready for you,' Richard went on. 'They wish to get right into the meeting after they land.'
'Great,' Cromwell boomed. 'What is the fare, may I ask? Cold bologna sandwiches, no doubt, on this forsaken real estate?'
'Roast duck, spiced apples, choice of wine, candied carrots, kitchen-fried potatoes, French bread, coffee.'
'You're serious?' Cromwell gaped at the man.
'Sir, this is a duck farm. That is the truth. We have six thousand ducks here.
Katy and Ozzie are superb chefs. That is their profession. Mike and I prefer to kill the stinking birds.'
Ten minutes after the table was cleared, they heard the sound of an approaching aircraft. Cromwell went to the front door to open it wide. He cocked his head better to hear the sound. 'Radial engine, single, descending, throttled back, coming in fast,' he announced.
'You can tell all that by just sticking your ear into the night air?' Indy queried.
'Everything but the pilot's name,' Cromwell said confidently. 'In fact, ground lights should be coming on about, um, well, about, now.' As if in response to his last word, a double row of lights came on along the grass strip, and a floodlight illuminated the windsock. Moments later a twoseat fighter—radial engine just as Cromwell had said—
whistled down the runway on a clearing pass. They heard the engine thunder with increased power for the climb, then ease off as the pilot came around in a tight curving descent, rolled onto final approach, and eased the fighter to the grass. As soon as the pilot cleared the runway the lights winked out, the plane was moved into the
