Part 14 (1/2)

She had gradually been heading more to the north as they drew away from Ell. Now, sure of her clear ance, she bore around to the northeast and put the wind directly behind them. Andre was allowed to stop paddling, and Maeta herself eased off her efforts to what was necessary to hold their heading. They pa.s.sed the northwest fringe of Ell's reef with two or three hundred yards to spare, though the breakers looked un-comfortably close to Bob.

Then there was empty sea before them. Maeta had estimated their speed, from the time it took to pa.s.s familiar objects along the northern reef, at about six knots-the wind, of course, was much higher, but had much less grip on the outrigger than the water did.

This meant that the best part of six hours would be needed to reach Island Eight.

There was no danger of anyone's going to sleep. The canoe pitched violently enough to make it necessary to hold on most of the time, and spray blown from the tops of the waves made it necessary to bail fairly often. It was not, except for the first few minutes of doubt, a frightening trip even for the boy. None of them was really comfortable in the wind and spray, of course; Maeta put her slacks and s.h.i.+rt back on, soaked as they were, and Andre, who was clad only in shorts, forgot his independence and indifference enough to snuggle close to Bob for warmth. The Hunter thought of making a direct check for the presence of his not-certainly-dead quarry in the youngster's body, but could not be sure that it would be safe. If the boy moved very much, especially if he pulled away, while the alien was partly in one body and partly in the other, the results would be extremely unfortunate. The detective could of course afford to lose a few tiny tendrils, as he had at the s.h.i.+p, but such appendages might not be enough to find the other being. If the fugitive were actually there, he was aware of the Hunter's presence in Bob's body from the latter's recovery from the heart wound, and would be hiding-withdrawn into a single ma.s.s, or a few small ma.s.ses, in body cavities, rather than spread out through the boy's system in a network ready for protective duty.

The Hunter mentioned all this to his host, and Bob agreed that unless the boy fell asleep the direct search would be unwise.

Andre did not fall asleep.

By mid-afternoon, the tank of Island Eight was visible directly ahead. It was of experimental design, more than twice the usual twelve-to-fifteen-foot height of PFI's culture tanks, and visible from a much greater distance.

Unfortunately, the experiment had not been very successful, and at the moment the unit was unused and the small atoll it occupied was uninhabited.

Half an hour after the first sighting, the breakers marking the reef became visible. At first, they stretched an equal distance to each side of the bow, with no sign of a break. Even Maeta was getting tense -it would soon be impossible to clear either side of the white water-when they finally sighted the pas sage, a little to their left. The girl altered their course slightly, and presently told Andre to start paddling again. Bob and the Hunter, neither able to do any thing constructive, could only watch with increasing tension as the breakers drew closer. An occasional glance back at Maeta's face was somewhat rea.s.suring, but not entirely; one could interpret her expression as one either of concentration or of worry.

The pa.s.sage might, as Maeta's brother had said, be wide enough for a small tanker, but it looked awkwardly narrow at the moment. It was straight, the girl knew-it would have been made so for the tankers if it had not been that way naturally-but unfortunately it was not quite in the wind's direction. Once into it, they would have to paddle hard to the right to avoid being blown into the left side of the channel. Maeta, to give them as much room as possible for leeway, cut as closely as she dared to the breakers on the right as they entered.

The reef was low, and gave no protection at all from the wind. It broke the waves, but this was worse than useless; instead of coming harmlessly under their stern and lifting the canoe for a moment, the water now was hurled skyward by the coral and shredded into spray by the wind. As the outrigger made its turn into the pa.s.sage, everyone aboard was blinded, and the canoe itself began to fill rapidly.

”Both of you bail!” cried Maeta. ”I'll do the paddling!”

She could not see where they were going, and her only way to maintain heading was to keep the impact of the spray on the right side of her back. No one with only human senses and muscles could have done much better.

They emerged from the worst of the spray to find themselves almost on the coral that rimmed the left side of the pa.s.sage. Maeta made a frantic effort to sweep them still more to the right, but simply wasn't strong enough. They very nearly made it, but struck unyielding coral only a yard or two from the relative safety of the lagoon.

The main hull of the canoe may have survived briefly, but the three human bodies were hurled for ward. Bob struck Andre a split second before Maeta hurtled into both of them. There was another violent b.u.mp which they deduced later was the boy striking the bow of the canoe. The tangled bodies did a half somersault, found themselves either under water or in spray too dense to let them breathe, and felt one more violent shock. Then they were lying together on hard sand, spray still blowing over them.

Bob was conscious and not too badly hurt. The Hunter had taken care, reflexively, of a number of small cuts from coral, but he had been cus.h.i.+oned to a large extent by the other two bodies. Neither of these was nearly as well off.

13. Reconstruction

Andre was unconscious, but had only minor visible cuts and sc.r.a.pes. Though this would have been a good time to check for the presence of a symbiont, Bob paid little attention to him, because Maeta was in far worse condition. She had been underneath when they hit the coral. Deep cuts covered her back and hips, and much flesh had been torn from her right leg. Arterial blood was spurting over the sand, and being quickly diluted to invisibility by the spray.

Bob and his partner saw and evaluated the situation instantly, and reacted almost as promptly. The human member of the team grasped the injured leg just above the knee, pressed the heel of his hand against the most prominent source of bleeding, and snapped to his partner, ”Get in there and earn your living! I'll hold on long enough to be sure you're there, but give me a twinge, in the palm of the hand ten seconds or so before you're completely out of me.”

The Hunter, just for a moment, thought of objecting on the grounds that Bob was his primary responsibility and was also injured. He even started to mention this, though he had already started the transfer and knew what Bob's answer would be. He was right.

”Stop dithering,” snarled the young man. ”None of these nicks will let me bleed to death even if my clot ting isn't up to par, and she'll be dead in five minutes if you don't take care of her. I can't hold all this bleed ing; I haven't enough hands. I a.s.sume you've already taken care of any infecting organisms that got into me, and even if you haven't you can come back, or partly back, to do it later. And don't waste time going just through my hand-I know what you look like, and it's years too late to shock me. Hurry up!”

The alien obeyed, and within half a minute had the worst of the girl's bleeding stopped. It took four or five more to complete the transfer, partly because he found it difficult to pull himself away from the regions of Bob's injuries. It took a surprising effort to force intelligence to overcome habit; he was somewhat addicted to Bob, in a sense, too.

He was relieved, though quite surprised, to find that Maeta had no fractures, though several fragments of coral had broken off at the impact and were deeply imbedded in the injured leg. Her unconsciousness was due entirely to loss of blood, and he had to take rapid steps to counteract shock.

What she really needed most was replacement ma terial-food.

The easiest way to provide this would have been for the Hunter to catch and digest some thing, and release amino acids into her circulatory system. If there had been a dead fish or crab beside her it would have helped greatly. There wasn't, how ever, and with the wind and spray still las.h.i.+ng the islet on which they were stranded, there would be little chance for Bob to find anything even if he knew of the need.

Bob himself at the moment was more concerned with the small boy. He examined the limp form as carefully as possible, ascertained that at least none of the major limbs was fractured, and straightened him out into a more comfortable position. There was a little bleeding from relatively minor nicks and sc.r.a.pes, but this was already stopping. Bob's was not, but he refused to worry about it yet. His broken arm seemed to be no worse than it bad been.

While he was considering what to do, the shadow of the tank gradually extended across the islet. Even Bob, used to New England temperatures, felt a new chill in his wet clothes, and realized that something would have to be done for the night if the injured ones were not to die of exposure. Tropical Pacific water and tropical Pacific air are not very cold, but they are below human body temperature and can carry heat from a human body faster than that body can replace it. For warmth, all Bob could think of was a hole in the sand. He scooped out one big enough for the three of them and covered them all, fairly completely, with more sand. This was wet with the spray, of course, but water did not move through it very fast; once it was warm, it stayed so. The combined heat loss of the three bodies dropped to a level their combined metabolisms-the Hunter's didn't count significantly-could offset.

The detective took advantage of the situation to send a pseudopod into Bob's ear and tell him about Maeta's real need for food. It was a slightly risky action, but he could have spared the tissue if Bob had moved inopportunely. He could probably, for that matter, have recovered it.

With much less danger he explored the unconscious Andre and established that there was no symbiont in the child's body; the boy was genuinely plump. He also had a broken collar bone which Bob had missed, but there was nothing the Hunter could do about this.

Setting it was far beyond his strength. The boy regained consciousness during the night. He was no longer self-possessed; he wept loudly and almost continuously, partly from pain and partly from terror. For the first time since the fire accident which Jenny had tried to use as a lesson, he was realizing that really serious things, not just minor pain that a ”green thing” could take care of, could happen to him. Bob, wide awake because of his own discomfort, sympathized, yet he also hoped that the event would prove educational for Andre.

The night proved long even for the Hunter, who had plenty to keep him from boredom. It took several hours to work the fragments of coral out of Maeta's tissue without doing even more damage. He could do nothing to speed the formation of new blood cells or other tissue until food was available, but he held the torn flesh in, position so that healing need not involve extensive bridges of scar tissue. As long as the young woman remained unconscious, nothing needed to be done about pain, and she was unlikely to wake up for many hours with so much blood gone. The alien was ready for it when it should happen, how ever.

He had some cause to feel useful. Without him she would have been dead in minutes from blood loss; or, failing that, from shock within an hour or two. If he could stay with her for a few days, she would not even be scarred, a factor which the girl herself would certainly appreciate and which, the Hunter had reason to suspect, would also be appreciated by his own host.

That left him free to worry about Bob, who must certainly have picked up more infecting microorganisms from the sand in his unclotted wounds. The Hunter had indeed disposed of the original ones, but recent experience had made it clear that it would not take long to get his partner back into serious trouble. The Hunter hoped he would not have to decide between Bob and Maeta.

There was no question where his responsibility lay, but if he saved Bob and let the girl die, the former would be extremely hard to live with for a time.

The wind was much weaker by sunrise, and an hour later they were no longer being soaked by spray from the reef. Bob removed the sand cover to let the sun warm them, looked over his own scratches with out saying anything to the Hunter, and bent to examine Andre. The boy had been quiet for some time, and the conscious members of the group had hoped that he was asleep, but he answered at once when Bob asked how he felt.

”Terrible,” was the answer. ”My shoulder hurts, and I'm cold and hungry.”

”You'll probably be too warm when the sun gets a little higher.

There's no shade here. We should be able to find some sh.e.l.lfish. I don't know what I can do about your shoulder; let me see.”

The boy sat up, but shrank away the moment he was touched.

”That hurts. Stop it.”

”All right,” Bob said. ”I'm no doctor, anyway, and you didn't give me much chance to feel, but you'd better a.s.sume that something is broken in there, and keep it still.” The Hunter had not reported to Bob on the boy's condition. ”Does it hurt to move your arm?”

”Yes. A lot.”

”Then let's get my s.h.i.+rt off and let me try to make it into a sling for you, so the arm won't move. You'll have to decide whether you want to put up with the pain while I do that, so there'll be less pain later, or not. I'm not going to waste time arguing.”

”Leave it alone. Why can't your green thing help me?”

”He's busy with Maeta, who needs him a lot worse than you do.” The boy looked at Maeta closely for the first time, turned visibly pale, and said nothing for several seconds. Then he looked at his own shoulder, which was by now covered with a single huge area of blue, black, and yellow bruise. He seemed about to say something, looked back at Maeta's torn back and leg, and walked away down the beach.

”Find some sh.e.l.lfis.h.!.+” Bob called after him. There was no answer.

”I'll find something for you and Mae, Hunter,” Bob said, giving up Andre as a minor problem for the moment ”Stand by a couple of minutes. There'll surely be something around, since you're not choosy. I'll have to work fast; these cuts of mine are starting to hurt a lot, and I may have to stay put in a little while and let you work on both of us, if you possibly can.”

The Hunter had no way of answering. He thought intensely as he watched Bob walk off after the boy, through the temporary eye he had improvised. It might have been better for Bob to go in the opposite direction, but there was no opposite direction to go; they were at the end of a small island immediately beside the reef pa.s.sage. The two or three hundred yards of sand to the northwest, merging into coral on the side toward the breakers, were their total re source area. There were other islets around the atoll, and the culture tank occupied most of the tiny la goon, but the canoe was gone. Two of them could not possibly swim, and Bob was not likely to take the risk in his present condition. It might be impossible for him, too, in a few hours.