by Hal Clement
By this time, however, he had reached a point where tenth-grade English had some meaning to him, and the opportunities to judge word meanings from context became very frequent indeed, ignorant as the Hunter was of human customs.
About the beginning of December, when the strange little being had almost forgotten everything in the pleasure of learning, an interruption occurred in his education. It occurred, the Hunter felt, through his own negligence and restored him to a better sense of duty. Robert Kinnaird had been a member of the school football team during the fall. The Hunter, with his intense interest in the health of his host, somewhat disapproved of this, though he understood the need of any muscled animal for exercise. The final game of the school season was played on Thanksgiving Day, and when the Hunter realized it was the final one, no one gave more thanks than he. However, he rejoiced too soon.
Bob, reconstructing one of the more exciting moments of the game to prove his point in an argument, slipped and twisted an ankle severely enough to put him to bed for several days. The Hunter felt guilty about it because, had he realized the danger even two or three seconds in advance, he would have "tightened up" the net of his tissue that existed around the boy's joints and tendons. Of course his physical strength being what it was, this would not actually have been much help, but he regretted not trying. Now that the damage had actually been done, there was nothing whatever he could do-the danger of infection was already nil without his help, since the skin had not been broken.
The incident, at any rate, recalled him not only to his duties to his host but also those he had as a police agent; and once again he started thinking over what he had learned that could bear on his police problem. To his astonishment and chagrin this turned out to be nothing at all; he did not even know where the boy had been at the time of his own arrival.
He did learn, from a chance remark passed between Bob and one of his friends, that the place was an island, which was one of the few bright spots in the picture- his quarry, if it had landed at the same place, must either still be there or have left by some traceable means. The Hunter remembered too vividly his own experience with the shark to believe that the other could escape successfully in a fish, and he had never heard of a warm-blooded air-breather that lived in the water. Seals and whales had not come up in Bob's conversation or reading, at least not since the Hunter had been able to understand it.
If the other were in a human being, that person could leave the island only in some sort of craft, and that should mean that his movements would be traceable. It was a comforting thought, and one of the few the Hunter was to have for some time to come.
It remained to learn the location of the island, as a preliminary step to getting back to it Bob received frequent letters from his parents, but for some time the Hunter did not recognize these as clues, partly because he had a good deal of trouble reading script and partly because he did not know the relationship of the boy to the senders of the letters. He had no particular scruples about reading the boy's mail, of course; he simply found it difficult. Robert did write to his parents as well, at somewhat irregular intervals, but they were not his only correspondents, and it was not until nearly the end of January that the Hunter found that by far the greater number of the boy's letters were going to and coming from one particular address.
The discovery was helped by the youngster's receipt of a typewriter as a Christmas present Whether his parents meant this as a gentle hint is hard to say, but at least it greatly facilitated the Hunter's reading of the outgoing mail, and he quickly learned that most letters went to Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Kinnaird. He already knew, from his reading, the custom of family names descending from father to offspring, and the salutations removed any doubt there might have been about their identity. The deduction seemed defensible that the boy would spend the summer with his parents, and if that were the case, then the Hunter had the name of the island from the address on the letters.
He still did not know where it was, or how to get there; he could only be sure, from the duration of his airplane ride, that it was a long way from his present location. Bob would presumably be going back at the time of the next vacation, but that gave the fugitive another five months to get under cover-as if the five he had already enjoyed were not enough.
There was a large globular map of the planet in the school library and almost a plethora of flat maps and charts on the walls and in the various books in the school. Robert's persistent failure to bestow more than a passing glance at any of them promised quickly to drive the Hunter mad; and the alien, as time went on, was tempted more and more strongly to attempt to overcome the comparatively tiny muscles controlling the direction of his host's eyes. It was a bad and dangerous idea, but being intelligent does not mean that one's emotions are any the less powerful, as many men have demonstrated.
He controlled himself, therefore-partially. At least he controlled his actions; but as his patience wore ever thinner he began to look more and more favorably on what had at first seemed a mad notion-that of actually getting into communication with his host and enlisting the human being's aid. After all, the Hunter told himself, he might ride around seeing the world from Bob's eyes for the rest of the boy's life, which would probably be a long one with the alien to fight disease, without either getting a clue to his quarry's whereabouts or a chance to do anything even if the other were located. As things now stood, the other could appear in public and perform the amoeboid equivalent of thumbing his nose at the Hunter without any risk to itself. What could the little detective do about it?
With the beings who normally served the Hunter's kind as hosts, communication eventually reached a high level of speed and comprehensiveness. The union took place with the host's full knowledge and consent; it was understood that the larger being furnished food, mobility, and muscular strength, while the other protected him from disease and injury as far as possible. Both brought highly intelligent minds into the partnership, and the relationship was one of extreme friendliness and close companionship in nearly all cases. With this understood by both parties, literally anything the symbiote did to affect his host's sensory organs could be utilized as a means of speech; and as a rule, over a period of years, multitudes of signals imperceptible to anyone else but perfectly clear to the two companions would develop to bring their speed of conversation to almost telepathic levels. The symbiote could administer twinges to any and all muscles, build shadow images directly on the retina of his host's eye, move the fur with which the other race was thickly covered-there was no limit to the various means of signaling.
Of course Bob did not have this background, but it was still possible to affect his senses. The Hunter dimly realized that there might be some emotional disturbance when the boy first learned of his presence, but he was sure he could minimize that. His own race had practiced symbiosis for so long that they had practically forgotten the problems incident to establishing the relationship with a being not accustomed to the idea. All that the Hunter really thought about, once he had made up his mind to communicate, was the apparent fact that circumstances were playing into his hands.
There was the "protective" net he had constructed over Bob's muscles; and there was the typewriter. The net could be contracted, like the muscles it covered, though with far less power. If a time arrived when Bob was sitting at the typewriter without particular plans of his own, it might be possible for the Hunter to strike a few keys in his own interest. The chances of success for the experiment depended largely on the boy's reaction when he found his fingers moving without orders; the Hunter managed to make himself feel optimistic about that.
Chapter IV. SIGNAL
Two nights after the Hunter made his decision to act the opportunity occurred. It was a Saturday evening, and the school had won a hockey game that afternoon. Bob had come through it without injury, to the Hunter's surprise and relief, and had managed to cover himself with a certain amount of glory, and the combination of institutional and personal triumph proved sufficient
stimulus to cause the boy to write to his parents. He went to his room immediately after supper-the other occupant was not in at the time-and pounded off a description of the day's events with very fair speed and accuracy. At no tune did he relax sufficiently to give an opportunity for control, in the alien's opinion; but with the letter finished and sealed, Robert suddenly remembered a composition which his English teacher had decreed should be turned in the following Monday. It was as foreign to his nature as to that of most other schoolboys to get his work done so early, but the typewriter was out, and the hockey game offered itself as a subject which he could treat with some enthusiasm. He inserted a fresh piece of paper in the machine, typed the standard heading of title, pupil's name, and date, and then paused to think.
The alien wasted no time whatever. He had long since decided on the wording of the first message. Its first letter lay directly under the boy's left middle finger, and the net of unhuman flesh about the appropriate muscle promptly tugged as hard as it could on the tendon controlling that finger. The finger bent downward obediently and contacted the desired key, which descended-halfway. The pull was not powerful enough to lift the type bar from its felt rest. The Hunter knew he was weak compared to human muscles but had not realized he was that weak; Bob's manipulation of the keys had seemed so completely effortless. He sent more of his flesh flowing into the net which was trying to do the work of a small muscle and tried again-and again and again. The result was the same: the key descended far enough to take up the slack in its linkage, and stopped.
All this had attracted Bob's attention. He had, of course, experienced the quivering of muscles abruptly released from a heavy load, but there had been no load here. He pulled the offending hand away from the keyboard, and the suddenly frantic Hunter promptly transferred his attention to the other. As with a human being his control, poor enough in the beginning, grew worse with haste and strain, and the fingers of Robert's right hand twitched in a most unnerving fashion. The boy stared at them, literally terrified. He was more or less hardened to the prospect of physical injury at any time, as anyone who plays hockey and football must be, but there was something about nervous disorder that undermined his morale.
He clenched both fists tightly, and the quivering stopped, to his intense relief; the Hunter knew he could never overcome muscles opposed to his own attempts. However, when the fists cautiously relaxed after a few moments, the detective made another try-this time on the arm and chest muscles-in an effort to bring the hands back to the typewriter. Bob, with a gasp of dismay, leaped to his feet, knocking the chair back against his roommate's bed. The Hunter was able to deposit a much heavier net of his flesh about these larger muscles, and the unwilled tug had been quite perceptible to the boy. He stood motionless, now badly frightened, and tried to decide between two courses of action.
There was, of course, a stringent rule that all injuries and illnesses must be reported promptly to the school infirmary. Had Bob suffered damage such as a cut or bruise he would have had no hesitation in complying with this order, but somehow the idea of owning to a nervous disorder seemed rather shameful, and the thought of reporting his trouble was repugnant. He finally decided tentatively to put it off, in the hope that matters would be improved by morning. He put the typewriter away, took out a book, and settled down to read. At first he felt decidedly uneasy, but as the minutes passed without further misbehavior on the part of his muscular system he gradually calmed down and became more absorbed in the reading matter. The increasing peace of mind was not, however, shared by his unsuspected companion.
The Hunter had relaxed in disgust as soon as the writing machine had been put away, but he had no intention of giving up. The knowledge that he could impress himself on the boy's awareness without doing him physical damage was something gained; and even though interference with the youngster's muscles produced such a marked disturbance, there were other methods which suggested themselves to the alien. Perhaps they would prove less disconcerting, and he knew they could be equally effective as means of communication. The Hunter may have had a smattering of the psychology peculiar to the races he knew, but he was certainly failing to analyze properly the cause of his host's disturbance.
His race had lived with others for so many hundreds of generations that the problems of starting the relationship had been forgotten much as man has forgotten the details surrounding his mastery of fire. Nowadays children of the other race grew up expecting to find a companion of the Hunter's kind before they passed adolescence, and the Hunter failed completely to realize how a person not brought up with that conditioning might be expected to react.
He put down Bob's disturbance to the particular method he had employed, rather than to the very fact that he had interfered. He did, in consequence, the worst thing he could possibly do: he waited until his host seemed to be over the shock of the first attempt, and then promptly tried again.
This time he worked on Bob's vocal cords. These were similar in structure to those he had known, and the Hunter could alter their tension mechanically in the same way he had pulled at muscles. He did not, of course, expect to form words; that would have required control of diaphragm, tongue, jaw, and lips, as well as the vocal cords, and the symbiote was perfectly aware of the fact; but if he did his pulling while the host was exhaling air, he could at least produce sound. He could control it only in an off-and-on fashion, so he could hardly send an articulate message that way; but he had an idea in mind for proving that the disturbance was being produced deliberately.
He could use bursts of sound to represent numbers and transmit series-one and its square, two and its square, and so on. No one, surely, hearing such a pattern of sound, could suppose it originated naturally. And now the boy was calmed down again, reading, fully absorbed, and breathing slowly and evenly.
The alien got further than any human being, knowing the facts, would have believed possible, principally because Bob was just finishing a yawn as the interruption started and was not able to control his own breathing right away. The Hunter was busily engaged in producing a set of four rather sickly croaks, having completed two and paused, when the boy caught his breath and an expression of undiluted terror spread across his face. He tried to let out his breath slowly and carefully, but the Hunter, completely absorbed in his work, continued his unnerving operation regardless of the fact that he had been interrupted. It took him some seconds to realize that the emotional disturbance of his host had reappeared in full force.
His own emotional control relaxed at this realization, for, recognizing clearly that he had failed again, knowing perfectly that his young host was almost frantic with terror that robbed him of most of his control, the alien nevertheless not only failed to desist from his attempts but started still another system of "communication." His third method involved cutting off the light from his host's retinas in patterns corresponding to letters of the English alphabet-in utter disregard of the fact that by this time Robert Kinnaird was rushing down the hallway outside his room, bound for the dispensary, and that a rather poorly lighted stairway lay ahead.
The inevitable results of interference with his host's eyesight under such circumstances did not impress themselves upon the Hunter's mind until Bob actually missed a step and lunged forward, grasping futilely for the rail.
The alien recovered his sense of duty rapidly enough. Before the hurtling body touched a single obstacle he had tightened around every joint and tendon with his utmost strength to save Robert a serious sprain. Moreover, as a sharp, upturned comer of one of the metal cleats which held the rubber treads on the stairs opened the boy's arms from wrist to elbow, the Hunter was on the job so fast that practically no blood escaped. Bob felt the pain, looked at the injury which was being held closed under an almost invisible film of unhuman flesh, and actually thought it was a scratch that had barely penetrated the skin. He turned the corner of the cleat down with his heel and proceeded to the dispensary at a more moderate pace. He was calmer when he got there, since the Hunter
had been sobered into discontinuing his efforts to make himself known.
The school did not have a resident doctor, but did keep a nurse on constant duty at the dispensary. She could make little of Robert's description of his nervous troubles, and advised him to return the next day at the hour when one of the local doctors normally visited the school. She did examine the cut on his arm, however.
"It's clotted over now," she told the boy. "You should have come here with it sooner, though I probably wouldn't have done much to it"
"It happened less than five minutes ago," was the answer. "I fell on the stairs coming down to see you about the other business; I couldn't have brought it to you any faster. If it's already closed, though, I guess it doesn't matter."
Miss Rand raised her eyebrows a trifle. She had been a school nurse for fifteen years and was pretty sure she had encountered all the more common tales of malingerers. What puzzled her now was that there seemed no reason for the boy to prevaricate; she decided, against her professional knowledge, that he was probably telling the truth.
Of course some people's blood does clot with remarkable speed, she knew. She looked at the forearm again, more closely. Yes, the clot was extremely fresh-the shiny, dark red of newly congealed blood. She brushed it lightly with a fingertip, and felt, not the dry, smooth surface she had expected, or even the faint stickiness or nearly dry blood, but a definite and unpleasant sliminess.
The Hunter was not a mind reader and had not foreseen such a move. Even if he had, he could not have withdrawn his flesh from the surface of Robert's skin; it would be many hours, more probably a day or two, before the edges of that gash could be trusted to hold themselves together under normal usage of the arm. He had to stay, whether he betrayed himself or not.
