Through the Eye of a Needle Part 9

The Hunter spent a night which would have been fascinating to a marine biologist specializing in Crustacea. He did not come dangerously close to being eaten, as the pipe provided more than enough physical protection, but he himself had to do a certain amount of eating, largely in self-defense. He observed interesting details of structure and physiology in the creatures he digested. It was the relatively coa.r.s.e features, down to about optical microscope limits, which proved most deserving of attention; at the molecular level the things were essentially the same as Bob and his father and, presumably, the rest of Earth's metazoan life.

A marine biologist might have been annoyed to see a boat coming, but the Hunter was vastly relieved. Even when it was close enough for him to see that it was not the same boat, he had no doubt that it was coming for him. He was very concerned about his host's condition. They now had been apart for nearly fifteen hours. This would have been unimportant a few years ago, but it might very well be crucial by now. He watched anxiously.

He could see the outrigger, and could see that the craft was driven by three paddles. These slowed their motion as it approached; one was withdrawn, and the; canoe came to a near halt ten or twelve yards from -directly overhead. It held position very well for a minute or so. Then something splashed into the water. For a moment the Hunter thought it was a diver; then he realized that it was a rock or a lump of coral. Presumably it was serving as an anchor, though his improvised eye was not good enough to see any line attached to it.

Then a second object splashed through the ripply surface. This one was smaller still, and it took much longer for him to realize that it was simply a buoy, in the form of a short, brightly painted stick connected to another piece of rock by an even thinner cord. Before he had fully worked this out, a third object had entered the water.

This one made much less splash than either of the others. The Hunter was able to recognize a human figure, but not to identify it.

This time the diver displayed no difficulty in reaching the bottom, and swam in widening circles for fully half a minute before shooting to the surface for air. At one point, she was close enough to the Hunter to let him see her clearly, and he was pleased to recognize the Teroa girl. He remembered what had been said about her skill in the water, and felt that he was as good as rescued.

On her second dive he was not so sure. She stayed down almost as long, and covered almost as large an area of sea bottom, but she was obviously working away from his location.

Presumably she would come back sooner or later, but there was no way of guessing which. There was also so way of guessing Bob's condition, and the Hunter was once again coming as close to panic as his species could.

He wondered how far the girl could see things clearly; he himself could not tell whether she was wearing goggles, though it seemed likely. He hoped so, since human eyes focused so poorly under water. There was nothing he could do about her eyesight, but could he improve the visibility of the tank, or the pipe, or the rope? Failing that, could he do anything to shift the search pattern in his direction?

The lump of coral anchoring the marker buoy was probably movable, but was over ten yards away. Leaving the pipe and traveling to it through the mud would be unpleasant and perhaps risky, but that was irrelevant; the only question was whether he could move the anchor when he got there.

He knew that with this idea formulated, he would' probably not be able to come up with another until he had at least tried it. This was a characteristic he had also noted in human beings. There was nothing to do, therefore, but try it He had covered three quarters of the distance when another idea did strike him, but by then it seemed better to go on. He finally reached the rock.

It turned out to be one of those annoying in-between things, light enough so that he could lift it, heavy enough to make actual transportation a major project. He spent some time at it, moved it a foot or so, and finally decided that this would take too long. He went back to his pipe and began to implement the second idea.

The hardest part of this was to get the trapped air out of the concrete box, and hold onto it afterward. He could ooze through the s.p.a.ce between lid and boy easily enough, though it was supposed to be watertight. Since the gasket had indeed held, the pressure was lower inside, and forcing microscopic bubbles of air against the gradient involved more work-in the literal sense in which the physicist uses the word-than he had counted on. Also, when the volume of gas he had collected began to grow large, he could no longer keep both it and himself inside the pipe. Outside, he had to devote some of his attention to the Hunter-eating zooplankton.

At the same time, he was slowly drawing the broken rope toward himself, until he had the end in reach.

He stopped taking air when the water, which he had had to allow into the box to bring the pressure difference down to something he could handle, came close to the electrical equipment. Wetting this would probably cause even further delay, and the bubble seemed big enough.

Maeta had stopped twice to rest during all this, but was now working far enough away to cause the Hunter to worry whether even this idea would be good enough. There seemed nothing else to do, however, so when she started down the next time, he released his hold on pipe and box and let his air bubble carry him and the rope upward.

The lifting power of the air proved sufficient for the whole length of the rope, so he came to rest about half way to the surface. The sun was not yet very high-the outrigger had arrived very shortly after sunrise-but the waves were high enough to refract its beams downward at regular and frequent intervals-probably better, the Hunter felt, than uninterrupted light. He kept the walls of his bubble as thin as tactical necessity permitted, and waited. He also wondered whether Bob remembered the item about total internal reflection which they had both read in an elementary physics course.

The flashing reflection from the bubble naturally caught Maeta's eye, though she was more than twenty yards away. She swam over to investigate, since it hadn't been there before and was certainly something unusual. The Hunter saw with satisfaction that she was wearing goggles, and it was obvious that she saw the rope, though what she made of him and his bubble he could not guess. She followed the rope to the bottom, and saw and recognized the equipment.

She returned to the surface for air, then came down again and walked the marker buoy over to the site. While she took her next rest, the Hunter released his air and settled to the bottom; and before the new line was bent he was safely back in his pipe.

9. Joke Two

Rather to the Hunter's surprise, neither Jenny nor Maeta showed any revulsion at the sight of his greenish jelly soaking into the hand Bob dipped into the open top of the pipe. They watched only briefly, not because of their own feelings but because the alien could not stand the sun for long.

Maeta offered to stay with them for the day and continue the regular search, but the Hunter wanted to stay with Bob long enough to make a complete check for all the things which might have gone wrong in his absence. This meant that a diver would have to spend most of her time keeping the instrument out of the coral, and this seemed impractical until the Cousteau equipment arrived; and no one yet knew when that would be. Seever, the third paddler, also had a point to make.

"You've been more in the water than out of it for the last hour and more, Mae. I know you don't feel either cold or tired, but take care of yourself. Get some rest before you go in again." The girl laughed. "I could stay in all day. I have, sometimes," she pointed out, looking back at the doctor without interrupting the rhythm of her paddle. "I not only don't feel tired; I'm really not."

"Ordinarily I'd agree with you, young lady," Seever answered, "but this time you've spent a lot of time under water. I know you've trained for that, too, and are probably in better condition than anyone else on Ell for such things-yes, I know all about your reputation; who doesn't? Still, there are things no human body can put up with indefinitely. You take care of that one."

Maeta laughed. "Aren't you going to tell me to put something on to keep the sun off, over this bathing suit?"

"No. I'm a professional trying to do his job, not an old fogey asking to look ridiculous. If my daughter or Bob were dressed as you are, I'd have jumped on them already. I know as well as you do that you don't

1.

need it. Are you trying to get compliments out of a middle-aged man? There must be better directions to shoot."

Maeta said nothing, nor did Jenny, but the latter looked at her father as teen-agers have been looking at their parents for generations. Bob paid no attention; he was listening to the Hunter's generally favorable report on his own condition, and promising himself that a very careful check of ropes, wires, and other equipment would precede any future operations.

The rope which had failed had been examined closely by everyone. Jenny had suggested openly that Malmstrom had done something to it. Bob had countered with the suggestion that it was the "pest" Andre desChenes. The rope itself failed to support either contention; it had not been cut, quite certainly. There was no obvious, reason why it had failed, and the rather futile argument was still going on when they reached North Beach.

"When the Hunter finishes his checkup, I'd like very much to go back out," Maeta said when the outrigger had bees pulled up. "I like being on the water, and this is as good an excuse as anyone could have- not that anyone needs an excuse. I wouldn't have to do enough diving to bother you, Doctor, judging by the number of times they've found large pieces of metal. There's room for me in your kayak if you'd rather use that; I admit it's a lot lighter."

Jenny's feelings were mixed. The search itself was getting boring, except when she remembered what it meant to Bob. Even then it was beginning to be duty rather than pleasure. Also, she was beginning, to change her mind, for reasons she couldn't have given even to herself, about the wisdom of having Maeta in the group.

Bob thought the idea was excellent, however, and the Hunter also voted in favor of it; so the group headed for the kayak, with Seever and Maeta carrying the concrete-and-pipe a.s.sembly. The remains of the other coil of rope, which had failed the day before, still lay on one of the duckboards in the kayak's bottom, and Jenny picked this up and tossed it out on the sand. Then she gave an exclamation. "Hey! Look at this!"

The others, gathering beside her, had no trouble seeing what she meant. At the side of the duckboard, where it came closest to the canvas but had been hidden by the rope, both the wood and the canvas were deeply stained. Jenny touched the canvas, and cried out again as the brown-tinted portion, nearly three inches across, crumbled away.

Her father bent over and sniffed.

"Nothing I can tell now," he said, "but it looks like acid-battery acid, for a guess."

"That punk Shorty!" snapped Jenny.

"Or Andre?" queried Bob.

"Why him?" asked the redhead. "He's asked me if he could come out with us, and I said yes, in a few days."

"Maybe the few days got too many. I can't see Shorty doing anything as serious as this; he's more the chalk-in-the-blackboard-eraser type."

"I suppose the acid was poured on the rope, and the bit that got on the canvas was accidental," Seever said slowly. "I can't see why it was done at all, though I'm afraid I agree with Bob that it's something Andre might do."

"It's certainly a serious question," Maeta agreed, "but there's another. Are you going to let this hold up the real project? Isn't it still important to find those ships if we can? Or do you want to wait until the diving equipment gets here, if it ever does?"

"Things will go so much faster with it that I'd al most just as soon wait," Bob admitted. "We're spending an awful lot of time and effort to cover an awful tiny patch of map. Maybe I'll last until the breathing stuff gets here-"

"And maybe you won't," snapped Jenny. "Mae's right. We've got to keep this going."

"We can use my rigger until your kayak is fixed," Maeta added.

"After that, too, if you want. The rest-of my family won't mind-and I don't have to tell them what we're doing, Bob." The Hunter was impressed; he hadn't known that the small girl had been so aware of Bob's feelings. Had she been reading his host's expression that well, or had Jenny told her? Maeta was continuing with her ideas.

"Look, I don't work at the library every day. Jen, you and I can do some of the job while Bob is working at the refinery-"

Bob cut in with the Hunter's objection to being so far separated from his host. Maeta waved it away.

"He won't have to be," she said. "We won't need the Hunter. I can go down to check how far off the bottom the box is every few minutes, and we can make position work easier by using a lot of those marker buoys. We can make more of them easily. We'll fill that map three or four times as fast as you're doing it now. Come on, we'll start right now. I suppose you don't want to come, Doctor; Bob's all right now, and you don't like to spend too much time away from your office. But come along if you like, of course; there's plenty of room in the rigger."

The Hunter, who had seen comparatively little of human females during Bob's college career, was beginning to wonder whether the tendency to take control of things was universal among them, or merely half-universal among human beings. Many of Bob's male friends at college had been pretty bossy, too, the alien reflected.

"Thanks, I'll go back to the office," Seever answered, "but you take care of yourself out there, Mae. You're probably safe from sunburn and coronary, but there are other things under the water, and you'll be alone." Maeta's face lost its expression of rather pixyish humor, and she looked Seever soberly in the eye.

"I know, Doctor.

Ill be careful-really."

She turned to the others. "Let's go."

The next day or two went well, except for Bob's condition; joint and muscle pains were growing much worse, and neither Seever nor the Hunter was able to do anything about them. The neostigmine Seever had sent for seemed to palliate the weakness, which had not been experienced for some time, and the nausea attacks also seemed to have vanished. Both the human and nonhuman experimenters would have liked to take credit for the latter, but neither dared to; neither was sure it wouldn't come back.

The weather permitted the girls to work outside the reef, and a very encouraging amount of area was added to the Hunter's map from their reports.

The Hunter himself was shocked to find that he had mixed feelings about this. He would have been happier to be on the spot himself.

Now he found that he was spending much of his host's sleeping time wondering what they would do when the entire planned area had been covered without success. Should they expand the area, or go over the whole thing again? Which would give the better chance? There had been little more than guesswork available to establish the area in the first place, but it had seemed such reasonable guesswork!

He sometimes asked these questions of Bob, but had little profit from it. The young man was either in one of his philosophical moods, and merely answered that they could face those difficulties when and if they arose, or was irritated and would threaten to calm them both with alcohol if the Hunter didn't stop bothering him. The alien did not really believe the threat, but had learned to be uneasy about human beings who had talked themselves too loudly into a corner.

The real, major hitch in the general operation occurred five days after the Hunter was fished from the bottom. It was not only a Sunday but also a major holiday-the Fourth of July--which made some difference in the regular work pattern. The refinery operated, of course, but Bob did not have to report until midmorning. His father had left the house quite early, Daphne and her mother went a little later to join most of Ell's holidaying population on the beach and dock, and Bob had remained late in bed. He got his own breakfast with little time to spare, and headed down toward the road on his bicycle. His joints were a little less bothersome than usual, but still made motion uncomfortable.

The Kinnaird house was slightly more than two hundred feet from the main road. This end of the island was heavily overgrown with the th.o.r.n.y byproducts of PFI's early efforts to breed fast- growing material for the culture tanks. The driveway was not perfectly straight, so it was impossible for Bob to see far ahead. It was also, fortunately, impossible for him to ride very fast.

The machine was almost to the final turn, ten or fifteen yards from the main road, when it stopped. Bob didn't. He "gave a startled yell as he went over the handlebars, but that was all his reflexes accomplished. The Hunter provided the usual tightening up around joints to help in sprain defense. Neither response proved really useful.

The driveway was not paved-it was really little more than a path, though a jeep could negotiate it. On the other hand, it was far from soft. It was met first by Bob's left hand, followed closely by shoulder and head on the same side. Both forearm bones snapped, the flesh on the left side of his cheek was badly torn, and his left ear was almost removed. The Hunter had plenty to do, but this did not include anesthesia; his host was thoroughly knocked out.

At first the alien was not aware of anyone else in the neighborhood, and could do his normal job with-out worrying about the need for camouflage. He promptly blocked the opened capillaries, and the larger vessels where bone had come through the skin; practically no blood escaped. He was working the displaced face and head tissue back to its approximately correct place when he heard something.

At first he could not decide its nature; then it began to resemble a fairly large body making its way through the underbrush.

Presently this ceased and very faint footsteps sounded on the drive. The Hunter was relieved at first; getting Bob to the doctor's place was obviously necessary, and obviously more than the symbiont could manage unaided. Whoever was combing should be able either to give help or go for it Bob's eyes were closed, so his partner could see nothing even though they had come to rest lying flat on his back.

The alien tried to force one lid open to see who was standing over them, but had not succeeded when a thin sliver of metal went through his host's chest, nailing him neatly to the ground. The Hunter forgot all about seeing, and barely noticed the fleeing footsteps. He was suddenly very busy.

The metal had entered Bob's body at the base of the breastbone and slanted a trifle upward, going through the right ventricle of his heart and emerging just to the right of his spine.

The heart continued to beat on its own, but the symbiont had to surround it with his own tissue to prevent blood from escaping through the two holes and filling the pericardium, which would seriously hamper heart action. The metal helped plug the holes, but was doing no good otherwise. For the moment, all the Hunter could do was maintain blood pressure and circulation until help showed up. There was no. immediate likelihood that it would.

Bob came back to consciousness in fifteen minutes or so. The Hunter recognized the fact before his host started to move, and told him slowly and carefully s what was wrong, to prevent his doing so incautiously. Bob listened, and finally understood.

"What can we do?" he asked. "I know you can keep me alive, but I'd hate to have the family find me this way."

"I agree, though probably not for the same reasons," the Hunter answered, "The average human being who saw you might react by pulling out this piece of metal, and that's something I want done only under my guidance or Dr. Seever's. Do you think you're strong enough yet? Don't worry about shock; I'll handle your blood pressure."

"I guess so." Bob reached carefully toward his chest, and felt the projecting end of the weapon. "I'd say this was one of those picnic skewers we cooked with the other night."

"That was my impression," responded the alien, "though I've only felt the part inside you. Fortunately it's one of the straight ones, not the twisted kind. I'd have missed more of your blood otherwise, there'd have been a lot more damage to your heart, and you'd be having a much tougher job of pulling. Get hold of it- there-and work it very slowly upward. I'll take care of the inside.

That's good-that's right-very slowly, especially when the point comes out of the ground-you don't want it to wiggle any more than we can help-that's the way-"

The Hunter kept talking. Some time Bob was going to become fully aware of what he was doing, but that moment should be postponed if at all possible until the skewer was out of him, or at least out of his heart. If nausea, a very likely result of full realization, were to occur before then, the Hunter would have a distinctly more complex job. He made it a point to hold his host's eyes closed; for even though he was not permitting any blood to emerge with the metal, the sight of the thing protruding from one's own chest was something to be avoided. The Hunter could regard the operation with professional interest; Bob was un-likely to possess quite that much detachment.

It took several minutes, but they managed it with-out doing any more damage. In spite of the fluid pressure and constant motion, the Hunter had no trouble holding the heart punctures closed; he judged they would heal in a few days, barring fallout from the other problems, and told his host so. "But in the mean-time, don't do anything which might raise your blood pressure too much," he finished.

"Does that include standing up and walking?" Bob asked. "It seems to me I should get to the doc without waiting for someone to come home. Now that you're letting me look at things, I get the impression that someone ought to set this arm. Thanks for taking care of the sensation, by the way."

"Well, for once it wasn't your own carelessness," his companion replied. "I'm not strong enough to set your bones. Let's see what caused this fall, and then we'll walk, very slowly, to the doctor's."

The Hunter by this time had checked all his host's injuries. The blow which had knocked him unconscious seemed to have produced no real brain damage. His skull was intact, and while the Hunter never dared intrude in actual brain tissue except within the blood vessels of that organ, none of these seemed damaged and there had been no leakage of blood into the cerebrospinal fluid.

Bob found movement no more painful than before, and made his way to the bicycle. What had happened was fairly clear.

The front tire was cut to the rim; nothing else was visibly wrong.

Bob summarized.

"Someone stretched a wire across the road about hub high. After I went into it, he removed the wire and skewered me, not necessarily in that order. That's clear enough. But I don't see why; it seems a little extreme for one of Andre's practical jokes-not the trip-wire, but the stabbing, wouldn't you say?"

The Hunter had to agree, though he had thought of the same child himself.

They could find no trace of where the wire had been attached, though there was no lack of possible places. The Hunter wondered whether any eleven year-old could have hidden his tracks so well, but kept the thought to himself. He could reach no conclusions except that someone was not very concerned with Bob's health- there was no way of being sure that the offender even had anything particular against the young engineer; he might have been merely a target of opportunity. The alien had not practiced his profession for several years, and began to wonder whether he was losing the touch. He should, he felt, have been sure of something.

Bob insisted, over his partner's objections, on wheeling the bicycle back to its shed before heading toward the Seever home- c.u.m-hospital.

"If the folks come back before I do and find it in that shape, they'll go crazy," he pointed out. "You can just keep my heart plugged up a couple of minutes longer."

"It's not the time, but the pressure," the Hunter pointed out.

"Remember, I wasn't strong enough to pull the skewer out by myself."

"I'll go slow," Bob promised, and with that his companion had to be content.

Actually the princ.i.p.al difficulty with the walk was provided by Bob's joints, which were still painful. They met no one on the way. It seemed likely that everyone on the island-perhaps even the setter of the trip wire, by this time-was out on the beach celebrating. It would be the same ten days later on Bastille Day, since French blood was as strong as American, on the island, and those who felt more Polynesian than anything else were perfectly willing to accept any excuse for a good time.

Unfortunately, there was no one at the Seevers' either, when they got there. Bob used the telephone, first to -notify the refinery of his accident and his whereabouts, then to call a few likely places for the doctor. It seemed rather probable that he and his family might be out on the reef, where people often partied or picnicked, but the store and the library seemed worth trying.

Practically none of the island's private homes had telephones.