by Hal Clement
"I'm sorry I didn't realize the trend of your thoughts," he concluded. "I remember telling you that I didn't think the dog had been killed by our friend, but perhaps I did not mention the fact that your 'booby trap* also seemed to be entirely natural. I should say that the branch was driven into the ground that way when the tree fell. Is this why you have been ignoring the matter of Charles Teroa?"
"I guess so," Bob replied. He gave a brief summary of the Hunter's silent speech to the doctor.
"Young Teroa?" asked Seever. "He should be coming to me for shots tomorrow. Have you reason to suspect him?"
"At first it was simply the fact that he was to leave the island," replied the Hunter. "We wanted to be sure before he was out of reach. However, we learned later that he had slept at least once in a boat moored at the reef, which gives definite opportunity for our quarry to get at him. He was also present when we nearly went through the drain on the dock, but that hardly involves him alone."
"That's right," mused the doctor. "We have quite a list of what you might call first-class possibles, with the whole island following right behind as slightly less probables. Bob, did nothing happen last night to give you ideas, one way or the other, about any of your friends?"
"Just one," replied the boy. "When Shorty Malmstrom pulled Tip's skull out of the thicket he got several gashes from the thorns; they bled like nobody's business. I kind of thought we needn't worry too much about him."
Seever frowned slightly, and addressed his next remark
to the detective. "Hunter, just what sort of conscience has this friend of yours anyway? Could he or would he, for example, let an injury of that sort bleed just to make someone reach Bob's conclusion-that there was no one of your race there?"
"His conscience is non-existent," returned the alien. "However, the sealing of such minor injuries is so much a habit with us that he might have done it anyway if he were there. Certainly if he had any reason to believe his host were under suspicion, and if he thought of it, he would refrain from helping him regardless of the seriousness of the injury-he is looking out for just one creature's health. Bob's point is no positive proof either way, but we can list it as a minor point in Malmstrom's favor."
The doctor nodded. "That's about what I thought from your earlier story," he said. "Well, we seem to be left with the immediate problem of testing young Teroa. It would be nice to know what yellow-fever vaccine does to your people, Hunter. He's getting a dose of it tomorrow."
"I would gladly let you find out if the stuff will not harm Bob. However, I can guarantee that our friend will simply withdraw from the limb in which you inject the stuff and wait till it attenuates. Besides, the chances of its being harmful to us are very remote. I still think I had better examine him myself. Once we locate our quarry, we can find something that will damage him."
"Once you locate your quarry, you'd better be ready with something that will damage him," retorted the doctor. "All I can offer that may do it without harming his host are a few antibiotics and vaccines; and we can't test them all at once on Bob. We should have started this business days ago." He thought tensely for a moment. "I'll tell you. Suppose we start now, one substance at a time, with the things I know will not harm Bob. You can tell us the effect they have on you-we'll arrange things so you can leave his body in a hurry until he eliminates the particular substance you couldn't stand. We'll leave testing Teroa until we find one of them that works. If none of them do, we're no worse off anyway."
"But, as you say, that will take days, and Teroa leaves this island in less than forty-eight hours."
"Not necessarily. I don't like to do it, because I know how eager the fellow is to get going, but I can hold him on the island for observation until the next visit of the boat if necessary.
"That will give us ten days, with two drugs a day, and should give us a fair chance of finding something. We'll start with antibiotics, since vaccines are usually pretty specific in their likes and dislikes."
"Very good indeed, if you are willing, Bob," was the reply. "It is a pity we did not get you into the fight before, Doctor. Shall we make one test now?"
"Sure," replied Bob. He seated himself, and the doctor draped a cloth over his legs.
"I don't know whether it's worth the trouble to take your shoes off," he said as he was swabbing the boy's arm with antiseptic. "From what I gather about your friend, he can get out if-he has to without their bothering him. All set?" Bob nodded, and Seever held the hypo syringe against his arm and pressed the plunger. The boy kept his eyes on the wall and waited for the Hunter's report.
"Just another kind of protein molecule to me," was the sentence that finally appeared. "You might ask the doctor if I should consume the stuff or if it's all right to leave loose in your system."
Bob relayed the message.
"It doesn't matter, as far as anyone knows," replied the doctor. "In fact, he would be doing me a favor if he let it go and reported any effect on your tissues to me. We believe it's harmless. Well, it's probably best not to try another today; you might as well get back to your friends. Keep your eyes open; Teroa isn't our only suspect, even if your own idea wasn't so good."
The boys were still at the construction site-Bob had kept an eye on the road to be sure of that. His leg gave a twinge as he mounted his bicycle. He realized with amusement that the doctor had forgotten the injury entirely. He wished he could himself. The ride did not take long, and he noted with satisfaction that there was already a fair-sized stack of loot at the point where the other machines had been left. He parked his own at the same point and sought his friends.
The four boys, it turned out, had called a temporary halt in the search for materials. They were on the hillside at the top of the wall which Bob had seen poured. The concrete had set and the forms were now being placed in preparation for the side walls; the boys were leaning over and looking down the smooth expanse of concrete. Bob, joining them, saw that the attraction was a crew of men busy with some peculiar apparatus at the bottom. They all wore breathing masks, but the man in charge was recognizable as Malmstrom's father. They seemed to have a pressure pump connected by flexible tubing to a drum of some liquid, which, in turn, was fed to a nozzle. One of the men was spraying the liquid on the concrete and the others were following with blowtorches. The boys had a rough idea of what was going onmany of the bacteria used in the tanks produced extremely corrosive substances, either as intermediate or final waste products. The glaze being applied to the wall was meant as protection from these. It consisted, actually, of one of the fluorine-bearing "plastics" developed a few years previously as a by-product of uranium isotope separation research; it was stored in the drum with one of the standard inhibitors and polymerized into a glassy varnish almost at once when this was boiled out. The fumes of the inhibitor were rather unhealthful, which was why the men were masked.
The boys, thirty feet above the scene of action, got an occasional whiff of the fumes. Not even the Hunter recognized the danger, but others did, and did something about it.
"First a sunburn that nearly toasts you alive and now this. You don't care much what happens to you any more, do you?" The group turned and looked up in surprise, to see the tall form of Bob's father looming over them. They had last noticed him well out on the floor of the tank, apparently busy, and none of them had seen him head their way. "Why do you suppose Mr. Malmstrom and his crew are wearing masks? You'd better come along with me. You may be safe enough at this distance, but there's no sense taking a chance on it" He turned and led the way along the wall, and the boys followed silently.
At the end of the finished section Mr. Kinnaird waved a hand at the far section of mold. "I'll meet you down there in a couple of minutes. I have to drive home to pick up something, and if you'd care to load up your loot in the jeep I'll drive it down to the creek with you." He watched the youngsters head downhill at top speed and descended to the floor himself via one of the diagonal braces.
He picked up the T-shirt he had remov
ed for comfort • and stowed by one of the power saws, donned it, and walked down to the point he had indicated, where the jeep was parked. Only his son awaited him there, the others had gone on to the pile of material they had collected. Mr. Kinnaird sent the jeep along their trail, coasting most of the way.
The loading was quickly accomplished; the boys already had their hands full of the smaller scraps, and Mr. Kinnaird himself managed the longer stuff in a single armload. Then he headed on down the road, the five bicycles following. The boys, of course, made a race of it; the distance being short, they were not very far apart at the end, and even the jeep had not had to wait long for them.
Mr. Kinnaird, seeing the boys doff shoes and roll up their trouser legs, followed suit, and, with the same load of lumber under his arm, splashed behind them down the creek to the scene of operations. He looked over the skeleton of the boat, made a few constructive suggestions, and returned the way he had come, slapping as he went. "I think you kids keep trained bugs around, to discourage company," he said. The boys answered in the same vein, and finally got to work.
They paused to swim more than occasionally, and it was during one of these swims that the Hunter learned why human beings avoided jellyfish. Bob failed to do so at one point, and his guest became intimately acquainted with the nettle cells of the Coelenterata. He blocked the spread of their poison, not because he felt that his host should be encouraged to ignore the creature, but in a half-sentimental recollection of the mistakes of his first day on earth. He felt that he was paying for knowledge.
In spite of sundry interruptions a good deal of work was accomplished in the first hour or so. Then another boat made its appearance, and Charles Teroa was with them, to the intense interest of the detective and his host.
"Hi, sleepy!" Rice greeted the newcomer boisterously, waving a saw in welcome. "Having a last look around?"
Teroa eyed him in none too friendly a fashion. "It's a pity that built-in danger signal of yours can't be seen by your tongue," he remarked. "You fellows having boat trouble again? Seems to me you got it fixed once." Four eager pairs of lungs vied in giving him the story, Rice suddenly fading into silence. The visitor simply looked at him when they had finished, and the expression on his brown face changed from annoyance to amusement. Nothing he, could have said would have conveyed his thoughts more clearly, or made Rice feel sillier. Relations were a little strained between the two for the half-hour Teroa remained.
There was much talk and little work during that half-hour-Teroa enlarging on his future in great detail, with Hay and occasionally Colby contributing remarks in between times. Bob, whose knowledge of the doctor's intentions made him rather uncomfortable, said little; he spent most of the time reminding himself that it was for Teroa's own good. Rice had had his batteries silenced in the first exchange, and even Malmstrom was less talkative than usual. Bob put it down to the fact that he had always been on closer terms with Teroa than the others, and didn't like the idea of his friend's leaving. Sure enough, when Teroa returned to his boat, Malmstrom went with him, asking Colby to take home the bicycle he had left where the creek and road met.
"Charlie says we're going to meet the barge and get a tow around to the fields. He wants to see the fellows on the barge and then come back over the hill by the new tank and see the folks there. Ill go with him and walk home. I may be late, but what the heck."
Colby nodded, and the two departed, pulling strongly out into the lagoon to intercept the scavenger barge, which was making one of its periodic trips around the tanks. The others watched silently until contact was made.
"It's fun to ride him, but I'm sorry to see him go," remarked Rice at length. "Still, he'll be back every so often. Shall we get back to the boat?"
There was muttered agreement, but enthusiasm for the work seemed to have died out for the time being. They pottered around for a while, went swimming again, sawed a couple of boards to length, and eventually startled their parents by appearing at home well in advance of the eve-rung meal.
Bob, instead of settling down to schoolwork after supper, went out again. To his mother's casual question he replied that he was going "down to the village." It was true enough, and he had no intention of worrying his parents by telling them he wanted to see Dr. Seever. The doctor had said that the next drug would not be tried until tomorrow, and Bob himself had nothing specific to tell or ask; but he was uneasy about something, and could not himself decide just what. The Hunter was a good and trustworthy friend, no doubt, but he was not even at the best of times an easy being to converse with; and Bob simply had to talk.
The doctor welcomed him with some surprise.
"Good evening, Bob. Are you getting impatient for another test, or do you have some news? Or are you just being sociable? Come in, whichever it is." He closed the door behind his young guest and motioned him to a seat.
"Idon't exactly know what it is, sir. At least I do partly: it's this trick we're playing on Charlie. I know we have good reason, and it won't hurt him permanently, but I don't exactly feel right about it."
"I know. I don't pretend to like it myself-I'm going to have to lie, you know, in a way that goes very much against the grain. When I give a wrong diagnosis, I'd like it to be an honest mistake." He smiled wryly. "Still, I see no alternative, and deep down I know we are doing no wrong. You must realize that too. Are you sure there's nothing else on your mind?"
"No, I'm not," was the reply, "but I can't tell you what it is. I just can't seem to relax."
"That's natural enough; you are involved in a tense situation-more so than I, and I can certainly feel it. Still, it is possible that there is something of importance you have seen and can't bring back to mind-something you didn't notice at the time but which has some connection with our problem. Have you thought over carefully everything that has happened since you came home?"
"Not only that, but everything that's happened since last fall."
"Have you just thought, or have you talked it over with your friend?"
"Thought mostly."
"It might be a good idea to talk-it frequently gets one's thoughts in better order. We can at least discuss the cases against your friends, to see whether you've considered all the points. We have covered young Teroa pretty thoroughly, I should say-the fact that he slept near the reef and was present at your accident on the dock seem to be all we have against him. Besides, we already have a plan of action covering him.
"You mentioned a minor point in favor of Malmstrom, when he cut himself on those thorns. Have you anything else that could be given, either for or against him? He has not slept near the reef, for example?"
"All of us were sleeping on the beach the day the Hunter arrived, but come to think of it Shorty wasn't there that day. Anyway, that doesn't matter. I told you about finding that piece of the ship; it was a mile from the beach, and anyway the Hunter says it would have taken a long time for this creature to bring it ashore. He couldn't have landed until later." He paused. "The only other thing I remember noticing about Shorty was that he left us and went off with Charlie this afternoon; and they were always good friends, so there's nothing funny about his wanting to talk to him before he goes." The doctor was able to untangle this mess of pronouns, and nodded.
"Yes, I should say that everything you've dredged up on young Malmstrom is either immaterial or in his favor. How about the redhead-Ken Rice?"
"Pretty much the same as the rest, as far as haunting the reef and being there on the dock. I haven't seen him get injured, so- Wait a minute; he did get his foot pretty badly bruised by that chuck of coral. He had his heavy shoes-the kind we always wear on the reef-on, though, so there's no reason to suppose he got any cuts. I suppose the bruise wouldn't mean any more than Shorty's scratches, though."
"When did all this take place? I don't recall your telling me about it."
"Out on the reef, the same time we found that generator shield-same place, in fact; I should have thought of that." He went on to tell the story in detail
"We've kept quiet about it, of course; after all, he did come pretty close to getting himself drowned."
"That is a very interesting little tale. Hunter, would you mind enlarging once more on your reasons for suspecting people who have slept on the outer reef?"
The alien could see what the doctor was driving at, but answered the question as it was asked.
"He must have come ashore somewhere on the reef; he could not possibly catch a human being who saw him first; and he would be too obsessed with the need for secrecy to waylay an intelligent host and enter his body regardless of objection-which would, of course, be physically possible. He would not mind terrifying his host, but he would not want to have anyone with the desire and ability to report his whereabouts to, say, a medical specialist. I think, Doctor, that if a lump of jelly had swarmed onto any one of these island people and soaked into his skin, you would have heard about it in very short order."
The doctor nodded. "That's what I thought. It occurs to me, however, that young Rice could very easily have been invaded without his own knowledge while his foot was trapped under water. Between the natural fear and excitement of the situation and the pain caused by the weight of the block on his foot any sensations incident to such an attack would have passed unnoticed."
"That is perfectly possible," agreed the Hunter.
Bob transmitted this speech as he had the other, but continued with a remark of his own. "We can't have it both ways. If this creature entered Red's body only that afternoon, he couldn't have had anything to do with the trouble at the dock a few minutes later-first, because it would probably take him days, like the Hunter, before he would be well enough set up to look around; second, because he wouldn't have any reason for it-he could not possibly have begun to suspect that the Hunter was with me."
"That's true enough, Bob; but the dock affair might really have been an accident. After all, all these things that keep happening to you and your friends can't have been planned. I've known you all your lives, and if someone had asked me before you told me about this situation I would have had to admit that I was not the least surprised at the things that had been happening to you. The other kids on the island are pretty much the same. There are falls and cuts and bruises every day, and you know it."
