"You haven't said why he'd do that," Indy said critically. "I don't want this to be a guessing game about engine problems or fuel or whatever. Why did the pilot start down?"
"The crewman—"
"Wait a moment," Pencroft interrupted. "You said one survivor. How'd you get this bloke?"
"A French airliner, flying low over the sea to stay beneath clouds at night, saw a fire beneath them. They didn't know what it was. It could have been a crashed airplane or a ship of some kind. They fired off a radio distress call right away. We were fortunate enough in having a British vessel nearby, and it went promptly to where the French had reported the fire. They found some wreckage in the water, and their searchlights picked out one man clinging to a section of wood. He was injured rather badly. Broken bones, burns, shock. The moment they had attended to him as best they could, the purser asked him if there might be any other survivors, lifeboats; anything. He said no."
"Go on. What did he say?" Indy demanded.
Treadwell took a deep breath. "He said they were forced down by some huge vessel in the sky, gleaming, silvery. That it was perhaps a thousand yards in length, very fast—"
"That couldn't be a dirigible," Pencroft murmured. "Nothing of that size—"
Indy gestured to Pencroft to let Treadwell continue.
"A lot of what he Said seemed to be babbling, and of course he was suffering from his pain and his injuries. But the purser said he was quite adamant about this vessel and its size, that it was very fast, and that several of the crew were amazed to notice that it didn't have any engines."
"That's one hell of a sausage balloon you're describing," Indy said, openly disbelieving.
"I'm not describing. I am telling you what we heard from this one man.
There's more."
"Go on, go on," Pencroft prodded.
"A number of silvery, or golden, the man wasn't sure, craft separated from the huge ship. They were shaped like scimitars, he said. Or perhaps crescents, or boomerangs. Whatever they were they moved with tremendous speed, whirling about the Rohrbach like it was stuck in mud." Treadwell paused. "And those didn't have any engines, either."
"Why did the airliner land?" Indy asked.
"Apparently there was a radio message from the larger ship telling them to land, or be destroyed. Then the scimitar ships took up close formation with the Rohrbach. They landed on the sea, the bigger vessel came down very low, and what appeared to be humanlike figures lowered from the vessel to the flying boat. They shot up the wings, first, then opened fire on the crew. The two pilots were killed immediately. That's all this man knew. He was hit, and tumbled from the Rohrbach into the water. He had on an inflatable vest, but didn't use it right away. Moments later, he said, the flying boat was burning and then it exploded. He was burned in the explosion, and just managed to get his vest inflated before he passed out."
"What happened with this great machine and the scimitars that fly about without engines?"
"We don't know."
"You're certain this isn't all a fairy tale?" Indy jabbed at Treadwell.
"Professor Jones, there are thirtytwo dead men in South Africa, two destroyed trains, and a railway trestle blown to smithereens. The South Africans are frantic with the loss of what they say was a billion dollars worth of gems. A Rohrbach flying boat is destroyed, or if not destroyed, most certainly it and its crew are missing. We have an eyewitness with incredible stories of what he claims to have seen, and you have not heard the hysteria within Germany about the entire affair.
And your rumor from South Africa did reach the Vatican; the Pope and his inner circle are in a dither about the artifact."
"Can I talk with this survivor?" Indy asked aloud.
"I'd like to talk to him as well," Treadwell answered, his tone showing clear disappointment. "Unfortunately, he did not live very long. Right now our people in Germany are using their special contacts to determine his identification, if that's still possible. You may imagine the tight security the Germans have thrown up about all this. They're fairly frothing at the mouth."
"There's a point you haven't gone into," Indy said.
"Which is, sir?"
"Who were the people in that flying whatchamacallit, or whatever it was?
And in those scimitarshaped machines as well?"
"We don't have the first clue, Professor Jones."
"You realize," Pencroft broke in, "that the machines you have described to us don't exist? That nothing of those descriptions exists, or has been made, by any country known to us?"
"Yes, sir."
An uneasy silence fell between them. Pencroft used the moment to have more tea and brandy brought in by his secretary. Then it was time to get to what Indiana would call the nittygritty.
"A few questions, please," Pencroft said abruptly, to bring events back to the fore.
"Of course," Treadwell acknowledged.
"You didn't come to this institution by accident."
"No, sir."
"I suggest you came here specifically to seek out and in some manner enlist the services of Professor Jones?"
"Yes, sir."
"Who sent you?"
Treadwell took a deep breath. "M.I. Two."
Pencraft's brows rose with confirmation of so high a level in the British government. He exchanged glances with Indy, then turned back to Treadwell.
"So now," Pencraft said slowly, "you pursue the services of our good archeology professor."
"Yes, sir."
"That," Indy interjected, "makes as much sense as your sky devils, or sky pirates, or whatever they are—if they even exist. People who've been blasted, burned, shocked, and dumped into the sea are capable of seeing anything.
But we'll let that go for the moment. Mr. Treadwell, I'm on sabbatical leave from Princeton University—"
"Where you are a professor of Medieval Literature and Studies," Treadwell finished for him.
"You're up on your homework," Indy said with a nod. "Which means your office at least knows how to look up people's names and titles in a university staff telephone book. But to continue. I am now teaching Celtic Archeology.
This isn't my first relationship here."
"We threw him out once before," Pencroft chuckled. "He'll tell you he became fed up with overstuffed, overbearing academic versions of our everlasting Colonel Blimp and left here of his own volition. Frankly, he's really quite insufferable, he breaks rules, he dashes off on wild goose chases, but," Pencroft said seriously, "he often manages to return with the golden eggs laid by the geese. Like bringing us the Omphalos of Delphi, for which we had searched for decades, believing it was always linked
somehow with Stonehenge. We were right, but getting nowhere. Our misfit colonist here," he nodded at Indy, "did the impossible, broke all the rules, but succeeded in what we thought was really quite impossible."
Treadwell didn't miss a beat. "And Professor Jones has a pattern."
"Oh?" Indy said.
"Yes, sir. He's subject to a disease the Americans call cabin fever. He can take just so much of academia and then he fairly bursts with the urge to get out in the field and rummage about antiquities, whether in deserts or mountain regions or jungles. I apologize, sir," he said to Indy directly, "if there is any seeming lack of consideration for the loss of your wife some years ago. None was intended."