Through the Eye of a Needle Part 5

5. When in Doubt, Ask

Jenny reached the boat at almost the same moment as Bob and the Hunter. She nodded approvingly at his costume, almost exactly like her own-slacks, long-sleeved shirt, coolie hat, and old sneakers as protection against the coral. Unlike the man, she was carrying a mesh bag containing fruit.

"I don't expect much trouble finding what I want," Bob said as he noticed the food. "I wasn't counting on having to stay all day."

"I hope you're right," she answered, "but I'll still be happier if we have it with us. Now, are you going to tell me what we're looking for, or am I just the taxi driver?" She was letting Bob carry the kayak this time and he was silent until it was in the water and they'

had climbed in. His first words were not an answer to her question.

"What did you find out from your father?"

"Nothing. I didn't ask him anything, and there's nothing in your medical record that helps."

"You looked at it, then."

"I told you I would."

"All right, here's the deal. I'll tell you the whole story, taking my chances that you'll decide I'm a fruitcake-only remember your dad can back it all up-if you'll fill me in on this fire-lighting business you started off with yesterday morning. I have to admit I'm wondering about that. All right?"

"Then the question did mean something to you."

"It certainly did. It fits into what I have to tell you, if that helps."

Jenny paddled silently for several strokes, and when she spoke it was not a direct answer.

"I wouldn't have said that was a fair deal for you if you hadn't made that last remark," she said at last. "I never thought the fire question was very important, though I've been wondering about the answer for years. Maybe there's more to it than I thought, though, if it ties into a life-and-death matter for you. Anyway, here's the story from my side.

"I suppose you know the desChenes family-at least, you met Andre yesterday. Their father used to be on a tanker crew, but they gave him a sh.o.r.e job when his wife died seven years ago having a baby. There are two older children-Andre is the first- and a lot of us have taken care of them at one time or another. I'm afraid we haven't done the best job in the world, because Andre, to put it simply, is a-pure pest. He really likes to bother and even hurt people. I know most kids go through that stage, but you expect them to be long past it by the time they're eleven. I think he's over the edge myself, but Dad says he's just had some unfortunately timed shocks and should get over it.

"Anyway, he thinks practical jokes are funny- really practical ones, like hot pennies down the neck trip-strings on stairs, not just water buckets over the door. I've had one badly sprained ankle, at least half a dozen falls that didn't do so much damage, and I've put out three fires in the yard around his house-never inside, to give him credit. About four years ago-I was only fourteen, and it was the first time I'd had the kids all by myself while Mr. desChenes was at work-was the first of the fires, and of course I tried to explain to him why that wasn't such a good idea. He told me very solemnly that he really knew better. He didn't stop, though.

"The third time it happened, maybe a year and a half later, he got burned himself-not seriously, but enough to show him what it felt like. I thought the talking-to would really mean something that time. He was very indignant, not with me but with the fire. He insisted it wasn't fair that one person could play tricks with fire and have fun, while someone else who did it got hurt. It took me a couple of weeks, off and on, to find out what he was talking about.

At last he told me about seeing a big boy pour a lot of oil on the ground and set fire to it, and seeing a car drive into the fire, and the boy jump into the car and drive it out again. Later still, a couple of years ago while you were home, I was with him and we happened to see you. He said you were the big boy who made the fire. I've never been sure what to believe, since his jokes sometimes include pretty fancy lies, and I've been wanting to find out ever since.

"There's one complication. As nearly as I could find out, this all happened the day his younger sister was born and his mother died. Maybe that's why it made such an impression on him, maybe not. Maybe nothing of the sort happened at all, but I'd like to know.

I'm not especially fond of the kid, but it would be nice to unkink him."

"It happened about that way," Bob said thought-fully. "Let's see-he was about four years old then I didn't actually drive into the fire, but he might have had a bad view, or might just not remember." He fell silent; both he and the Hunter were badly jolted. Neither had had the slightest suspicion that there had been a witness to the settling of the earlier problem other than Bob's father. Both were wondering how much of the story, and in what distorted forms, had been spread among the younger fraction of Ell's population.

"Too bad you didn't tell that to your father," Bob said at last. "I don't know what sort of psychologist; he is, but at least you might have known the facts be hind the story."

"Dad knows about it? He never-"

"He wouldn't. How could he? Yes, he knows."

"There's nothing about it in the folder he keeps on you."

"I know, Miss Secretary. I'll have to read that some time and find out what you do know about me. The fire-lighting was not a medical activity, and he has reasons for not writing down even all of my medical problems."

"Which you are about to tell me, I take it."

"If you like. If you think you can believe him more easily than you can me, go to your father and tell him I said he can tell you all about the Hunter. Which do you want?"

"Start talking. I'll check your version against Dad's when I see him."

The account took the rest of the journey to the small islet to satisfy the girl's need for detail, though the basic story went quickly enough. Her questions convinced the Hunter of what he had strongly suspected earlier, Jenny was quicker-minded than his own host. Naturally, she had trouble believing at first, and the alien rather expected her to demand the sort of proof her father had wanted years before. Instead, she made do with some very penetrating and well-thought-out questions. Some of these, about the alien's physical nature, Bob himself had never asked in the nearly eight years of their a.s.sociation. Most of them reflected the medical work she had been doing for her father, incidentally showing that she had been reading much more than his case records.. This surprised Bob, who was freshly enough out of college to be inclined to look down on those who had not enjoyed the ad-vantages of higher education.

"I didn't think she had all that," he muttered to his symbiont at one point. "There was never any talk that I heard about her using the college offer, or even going away from Ell for school." He was tactful enough not to let his surprise get into his words, but the Hunter could often detect it from his host's more subtle internal reactions. It pleased the alien; his friend, he felt, was getting more education, which was clearly needed.

The kayak was carried ash.o.r.e and set well away from the water, though they were on the lee side of Apu and there were no waves to speak of from the la goon side. Apu was one of the largest of the islets scattered along the Ell reef, and had collected enough soil over the years to support not only underbrush, but several palms. Very little of the peculiar vegetation from the engineering laboratories, which covered so much of the long northwest arm of the main island, had escaped this far.

There was a beach on the lagoon side, but the outer face merged directly into the irregular, murderous coral of the reef itself, dangerous for a swimmer on the quietest days and suicidal with the slightest swell. The reef, defined as the region where coral grew close enough to the surface to influence wave patterns, ex tended hundreds of yards out to sea. It broke much of the violence of incoming waves, but complicated their pattern so as to make it impossible to tell when a particular spot along Apu's outer face would be under water the next moment. The Hunter and Bob both remembered vividly the time years before when Ken Rice had gone down into one of the coral-rimmed bays to pick something up, and nearly been drowned. The "something" had not been recovered, but the Hunter had seen it clearly enough to identify a generator shield which must have come from his quarry's ship, and which had provided the first certainty that the other alien had come ash.o.r.e at all.

It was this object they were seeking, in the hope that it would provide information which would narrow the search area for the missing ship of the fugitive. It was this vessel which promised more to the plan; the Hunter knew that his own vessel had been crushed almost flat, and might have been too completely corroded for detection even by the time the searchers might have come.

The shield, on the other hand, had appeared intact, giving some promise that the ship it had come from had escaped such complete destruction.

The search was not easy. Coral grows, and waves destroy; the outer side of Apu had changed much. Bob and the Hunter remembered roughly where the near-drowning had occurred, but it took them more than fifteen minutes to narrow down to four the possibilities among the endless bays and coves. Even then they were far from sure; very close examination would be necessary.

They approached the first of these with caution; it was hurling spray far above their heads at irregular intervals as waves focused into it Neither Bob nor the Hunter could identify its interior details with any certainty in the moments they could look. They had hoped that the gleam of metal might be visible, but that was not really reasonable after all these years. If this were the same notch, conditions had changed. Then, the boys had gone into it without hesitation; now, not even the most foolhardy of teen-agers would have taken the chance. They stayed with it as long as they did only because Jenny, who had only verbal description to go by kept pointing at different features and asking whether this, or that, or the other thing might possibly be what they wanted. Unfortunately, while all were possibilities, none was encouraging enough to merit close investigation in that welter of foam and sharp coral.

The second of the possible spots was much quieter and less dangerous, but they spent even more time there. Several of the coral ma.s.ses might, as far as appearance was concerned, be concealing the object of their search. Bob and Jenny had swimming suits under their outer clothes, and both went into the water to check these possibilities more closely. Bob of course could see much better under water than the girl, since the alien could extrude tissue to reshape his cornea for focusing in the different medium, but even with this help no sign of metal was detected. At the third bay, Bob's fatigue caught up with him gain, and Jenny had to help him out of the water. On the theory that food would provide energy, she insisted on his eating one of the fruits she had brought, and this triggered the nausea of the day before.

Jenny had not really accepted the fact that the situation was really a life-and-death one as far as Bob was concerned. She felt slightly superior about his need-for her help in the water, and was even somewhat amused at the spectacle he made trying to eat.

Neither Bob nor his symbiont fully understood her.

Serious or not, however, she insisted on finishing the check-out of the third cove by herself and, judging by the time she spent under water, must have done a fairly thorough job. She tried to make up for deficient underwater eyesight by using her sense of touch, and emerged finally with several cuts on hands and fore arms, inflicted by the coral.

Then she wanted to do the fourth site alone, though it was much like the first in wave action.

"Don't be crazy!" Bob snapped when she made this proposal.

"It's as dangerous as the one we pa.s.sed up, and I'm not in shape to help you when you get in trouble. If we really knew the thing was there it might be different, but we're not sure enough for that sort of risk. Look from up here if you want, and tell us if you think anything looks hopeful, and then we'll decide what to do; but I think we're going to need that metal detector Dad is lining up even for this part of the search. If you go in there, you'll have to stop calling Shorty a nut."

"I suppose that's true," Jenny agreed reluctantly "but I thought you considered this project important."

"I do. It's important enough not to lose any of the help. Get your clothes on; we don't want to lose any-one to sunburn, either." The redhead, in spite of her lifelong residence in the tropics, had skin even paler than Bob's, though she was heavily freckled.

"Maybe the Hunter ought to stay with me for a while, and protect the useful, member of the team," she suggested.

"He can't do anything about sunburn-he can't stand ultraviolet even as well as we can," replied Bob.

"I was thinking about my hands," she retorted, looking at the oozing scratches. "Well, the Hunter might leave me while I'm awake now that I know him so well, but he'd certainly wait until you were asleep before he went to you. He has definite ideas about how people who aren't used to symbiosis are likely to react to a puddle of green jelly flowing toward them; and if they pull him apart trying to get away while he's partly inside, he finds it more than uncomfortable."

"Green jelly? Andre said something about-oh. I didn't-"

Jenny fell silent, her stomach suddenly feeling much like Bob's.

She donned her outer clothes, took a fruit from the bag, but then appeared to change her mind about eating. She put it back, thought for a few more seconds, and then spoke.

"What do you want to do now? Do you think a couple of hours rest will get your muscles going again, as it did yesterday? Should we stay here and look over more places after you're back on your feet, or should I help you into the boat and take you back? Do you really think we can accomplish anything here before we have the metal-finder your father was going to get from Mr. Tavake?"

"We'll stay right here, if it's all right with you. I don't want half the kids on Ell to see me in this state."

"I could take you to the creek mouth near your house."

"I don't want to take the chance. More and more people keep learning about the Hunter, but I don't want it to get to the whole island. I'll keep picking the recruits, and don't want spectators."

"Are you sorry you told me?"

"That's a loaded question, but-no. You know I'm not crazy, and if you're still a little uncertain, your father will straighten you out. I can stand having the word get to people who'll be helpful."

"Then you want to look around Apu some more after you can walk, even if we don't have the detector."

"Right."

"And in the meantime we just wait here and toast." Jenny put no question mark at the end of the sentence, and even the Hunter could see that she had no intention of waiting. He had met numerous human beings who would always be quite willing to sit still and fill a time interval with pointless talk, but he could see that Jenny Seever was not one of them.

She did sit quietly for a little while, thinking, but it was a matter of minutes rather than hours. Then she stood up.

"I'm going to see Mr. Tavake and find out how long it will take him to make that detector. Your father must have talked to him about it by now. Do you want to wait here until I get back, or shall I take you ash.o.r.e near your house, or what?"

Bob sat up with an effort. "How are you going to ask him about the detector without starting him wondering what we want it for?"

"Credit me with basic brains, even if I haven't been to an Ivy League college, or whatever they call those places. Your father must nave told him something; I don't have to know the reason at all. Are you waiting or coming?"

"I'd better come along. Then if I get back in shape before you show up again, I can do something useful."

"You could search out here."

"Don't rub it in." Bob didn't really like having the initiative taken from him, as the Hunter could well see, but he was not so stupid as to show his resentment. "Let's see if I can get to the boat under my own steam. I know I won't be any help getting it into the water."

"No trouble." Jenny also had some basic tact. She made no effort to help Bob to his feet, though it was plain to her that it was a major struggle. Once up, he walked with less difficulty the thirty or forty yards to the boat. The girl didn't wait for him, and had it in the water by the time he arrived. He got in, still without help. Jenny started paddling, heading for the mouth of the creek nearly two miles away.

After a minute or two, Bob made a suggestion which the Hunter was annoyed with himself for not originating.

"Wouldn't it be smarter if you headed for the nearest part of the sh.o.r.e and then followed it along, in water shallow enough so I can get out fast if I have to? If my stomach acts up again, there's no reason I should mess up your boat."

"Cant you lean over the side?"

"Of course, but is it stable enough? I've been very careful about trim."

"Well, you needn't be. It may not be as stable as an outrigger or a cat, but I've gone in and out in deep water often enough. I told you that. If you need convincing-" Jenny set down the double paddle and, without bothering to remove her outer clothes, startled her two pa.s.sengers by going overside. The kayak rocked, but not nearly as much as Bob expected; his reflexive grasp of the coaming around the c.o.c.kpit was superfluous.

A moment later the redhead surfaced. She grasped the floating hat and handed it to Bob, then seized the coaming and drew herself back aboard. This time the tip was greater, taking the side of the little vessel under water; but the waves still failed to reach the coaming, and the only water which entered the c.o.c.kpit dripped from Jenny's clothes. She resumed paddling without comment; her pa.s.sengers also found nothing to say.

She brought the kayak ash.o.r.e at the mouth of the creek which pa.s.sed close to Bob's house, far enough up the little stream to be out of sight except to boats well out on the lagoon. Bob managed to get to his feet and disembark with less trouble than he had experienced three quarters of an hour earlier.

''All right," Jenny said. "It will probably be quickest if I go and borrow your bike-it's still at your house, isn't it? You walked down to the boat this morning? Good-and used that to get to Tavake's phone shack. Do you want to wait here, or get up to the house yourself, or-"

"Hi, Bob! Did you find it?" Daphne's shrill voice cut into Jenny's question, and a moment later the child herself appeared. Bob asked the obvious question.

"What are you doing here, Silly? You don't go swimming alone, especially here away from the beach, and I don't see any of your friends."

"Oh, I saw you coming back long ago in Jenny's boat, and wanted to ask if you'd had any luck. Are you going back out to the little island, or did you find it? If you aren't and still have to look somewhere else, can I go with you? I know Mother won't mind."

Jenny cut in before Bob could answer. "How did you know that Bob was looking for something, Daphne?"

"He said so. That's why Mother said he'd be too busy to have me along."

"Did he tell you what he was looking for?"

"No. It's his secret."

"But still you want to go along? How can you help if you don't know what we're hunting?"

"You're not dressed to go with us," Bob interjected.

"I have my bathing suit on."

"What about the sun, small blonde idiot? We've been looking mostly out on Apu, where there isn't any shade to speak of. That's where you saw us coming from, wasn't it?"

"Then why is Jenny all wet? I can go into the water any time you need, and I don't need sun clothes. I'm tan enough now."

The Hunter was getting impatient. It had been two years since they had been on the island, and even that long ago Bob's sister had been able to hold her own in a verbal duel with anyone but her mother. Bob should have known better than to let this happen; he should simply have said no. Unhuman as he was, the Hunter did have emotions, some of them rather similar to those of his human host. He finally yielded to the impatience.

"Which little finger is she wrapping you around this time?" were the words that resonated in Bob's inner ears. He reacted, as the Hunter should have foreseen, with irritation which was taken out on the unfortunate child rather than on the alien critic. "Look, Silly, Mother told you last night you couldn't come with us, and you can't. We're busy, it's important for us to find this thing, and I can't be distracted looking after you at the same time."

The response did not quite reach the level of tears, perhaps because of the speed with which Jenny cut in. She may have thought Bob was being too harsh, but it is likely that she also wanted to retain some control of the situation.

"Look, Daphne," she said gently and persuasively, "Bob's right about not having you come in the boat with us but maybe you can help us here on sh.o.r.e. I can't tell you what the thing we're looking for really is, because as you said it's a secret-I don't even know myself. Bob couldn't tell even me." The Hunter was startled and rather dismayed at this outright false-hood. "I can tell you what it looks like, though, the way Bob told me. Then you can keep your eyes open for it and tell us if you ever see it. Remember, though, it's a secret; you must promise not to tell any of your friends."

"Sure. How about Mother and Dad?"

"They know already. You can mention it to them if you like,"

Bob a.s.sured her. The Hunter was not he approved of Bob's tacit acceptance of the falsehood, but refrained from saying anything to his host, as the latter went on with the description of the generator case.

It's like half a silver ball, about so big." He held his slightly cupped hands about eight or nine inches apart. "It's not really shiny like a mirror-more like our kitchen knives. The flat side is partly covered by the same silvery stuff, but you can see it's hollow."