Needle

Chapter XI. SLIP!

BOB REMEMBERED after he got home that he had forgotten to ask Hay about the doctor's book, but reflected that there was plenty of time tomorrow. There probably would not be much of actual help in it anyway. He spent the evening in the house for a change, reading and talking to his parents; and the Hunter perforce did nothing but listen and think. The next forenoon was little better, from the detective's point of view; Bob worked around the house in the morning while his friends were in school, and neither of them thought of any means of getting Teroa long enough for a test. Bob, it is true, suggested leaving the Hunter near the other's home in the evening and coming back the next day, but the alien refused under any and all circumstances to place himself in a situation where Bob could see him either going or coming. He was sure what the emotional effect would be. Bob couldn't see it, but was convinced when the Hunter pointed out that there was no way for him to be sure that the mass of jelly which would return to him after the test was actually the detective. The boy had no desire whatever to let their quarry get at his own body.

The afternoon was distinctly better. Bob met the others as usual, and they repaired immediately to the boat. There was no time problem on this occasion, and they set out northwest, paralleling the shore at a distance of a few rods, with Hay and Colby rowing. The new plank had swelled, and there was very little leakage this time.

They had well over a mile to go, and they had rowed most of it before the Hunter fully understood the geography which he had been picking up in snatches from the conversation. The islet on which Hay had made his aquarium was, as he had intimated, close to the beach; it was the first section of the reef which curved away to the north and east from the end of the sand strip where the boys usually swam. It was separated from the beach itself by a stretch of water not twenty yards wide, a narrow channel which was protected from the breakers by other ridges of coral a little farther out which barely appeared above water. This channel, the Hunter judged, must be the one in which the dog was supposed to have been taken by a shark; and remembering the monster he had ridden ashore and seeing the seething currents among the ridges on its seaward side he shared Rice's doubts about that theory.

The islet itself was composed of coral, which had accumulated enough soil to support some bushes. It was not more than thirty or forty yards long and ten yards wide. The pool was at its widest part, almost circular, and about twenty feet across. It appeared to have no connection with the sea that raged a few yards away; Norman said he had blocked up two or three submarine passages with cement and that waves broke high enough and often enough at high tide to keep it full. As he had said, it was not doing well: a dead butterfly fish was floating near one side, and the coral that composed its walls showed no sign of living polyps.

"I thought it must be some sort of disease," he said, "but I never heard of one that attacks everything alike. Have you?"

Bob shook his head. "No. Was that why you borrowed that book of the doc's?"

Norman looked up sharply. "Why, yes. Who told you about that?"

"The doc. I wanted to find out something about viruses, and he said you had the best of his books on the subject Are you still using it?"

"I guess not. What got you interested in viruses? I read what it had to say about 'em and couldn't get much out of it."

"Oh, I don't know. It was something about nobody being able to decide whether they were really alive or not I guess. That sounded pretty queer. If they eat and grow, they must be alive."

"I remember something about that-" At this point the conversation was interrupted, sparing Bob the need for further invention.

"For gosh sakes, Norm, give him the book when you get home, but let's not get lost in the upper atmosphere now! Exercise your brains on this pool of yours if you like, or else let's go along the reef and see what we can find." It was Malmstrom who had cut in, and Rice supported him vocally. Colby, as usual, remained silent in the background.

"I suppose you're right" Hay turned back to the pool. "I don't know, though, what I'm likely to think of right now that I couldn't in the last three or four months. I was hoping Bob might have a new idea."

"I don't know much biology-just the school course," Robert replied. "Have you gone down in it to see if you could find anything? Have you brought up anything like a piece of coral, to see what's happened to the polyps?"

"No, I've never been swimming in it. At first I didn't want to disturb the fish I had collected, and later I thought that whatever disease affected so many different things might get me too."

"That's a thought. Still, you must have touched the water a lot before things got really bad, and nothing happened to you. I'll go in if you like." Once again the Hunter came close to losing his temper. "What would you like me to bring up?"

Norman stared at him for a moment. "You really think it's safe? All right, I'll go in if you will."

That gave Bob a jolt; he had, almost without thought, been assuming himself safe from any disease germ that might be around, but Hay, as far as anyone could tell, had no symbiote to protect him.

That thought gave rise to another-did he? Would that explain his courage? Bob thought not, since it seemed most unlikely that their quarry's host would have any idea of the alien's presence but it was something to be considered when there was more tune. For the moment the question was whether he should make good his offer of entering the questionable water if Hay were going to follow him.

He decided that he would; after all, the argument he had used against the trouble's being a disease seemed sound; and anyway there was a doctor on the island.

"All right," he said, starting to strip.

"Wait a minute! Are you fellows crazy?" Malmstrom and Rice yelled almost together. "If that water's been killing the fish, you're foolish to go in."

"It's safe enough," said Bob. "We're not fish." He was aware of the weakness of this argument but could not think of a better one on the spur of the moment. The two Kenneths were still expostulating as he slipped feet first into the pool, with Norman beside him-both knew better than to dive into a coral pool, however clear it might be. Colby, who had not contributed to the argument, walked over to the boat, got an oar, came back, and stood watching.

The trouble with the pool manifested itself with remarkable speed. Bob swam out to the middle and did a surface dive, a maneuver which should have taken him without effort to the bottom eight feet down. It did nothing of the sort; his momentum barely got his feet under water. He took a couple of strokes, reached the bottom, broke a sea fan loose, and bobbed back to the surface with remarkable speed. As was his custom, he started blowing out air just before his head broke water, and managed to get some of the liquid into his mouth in the process. That was enough.

"Norm! Taste this water!" he yelled. "No wonder your fish died." Hay obeyed hesitantly, and grimaced.

"Where did all the salt come from?" he asked. Bob swam to the edge of the pool, clambered out, and started to dress before answering.

"We should have guessed," he said. Sea water comes in when the waves are high, enough, but the only way it leaves is by evaporation. The salt stays behind. You shouldn't have blocked off all the passages to the sea. We'll have to chip out one of your plugs and find some wire netting, if you still want to take those pictures."

"My gosh," exclaimed Hay, "and I wrote a school report on Great Salt Lake only last year." He started to dress, indifferent as Bob to the fact that he was still wet. "What'll we do? Go back for a crowbar or something, or poke around the reef for a while now that we're here?"

A brief discussion resulted in the adoption of the second plan, and the group returned to the boat On the way Norman pulled a large, battered bucket out of the bushes, laughing as he did so. "I used to fill up the pool with this sometimes, when I thought it was getting low," he said.

"I guess we can find some other use for Mr. Bucket now." He tossed it into the bow of the boat after the others, entered, and shoved off.

For an hour they rowed along inside the reef, occasionally disembarking on one of the larger islets, more often coasting alongside the ridges and lumps of coral while using poles to keep them off the more dangerous sections. They had worked some distance along the reef away from the island itself and had reached another fairly large islet-this one actually supported half-a-dozen coconut palms-where they disembarked and pulled the boat well up on the gritty soil. Their loot up to this time had not been very impressive, consisting mainly of a few cowries and a weirdly colored fragment of coral for which Malmstrom had gone overboard in twelve feet of water. The Hunter's profit from the expedition had been even less so far, which annoyed him, since the exploration of the reef for clues had been largely his idea.

He made the utmost use of Bob's eyes, however. They were nearing his arbitrary one-mile limit north of the beach, which meant that about half of the region in which he expected to find clues of his quarry's landing had been covered. There was still not very much to see, however. On one side of the irregular islet the breakers thundered; on the other was the relatively calm water of the lagoon, with the bulk of one of the great culture tanks a few hundred yards away. The scavenger barge was beside the tank at the moment, and the small figures of its crew were visible on the catwalks that crossed the paneled roof; beyond, and dwarfed by a distance of fully three miles, the houses of the island dwellers were barely visible.

These, however, could hardly be considered clues, it seemed to the Hunter, and he brought his attention back to the immediate surroundings. The present bit of land was similar to that on which Hay's pool was located, and like it, had very irregular edges-clefts, walled with living coral, in which the water gurgled down almost out of sight and then spurted upward into the watchers' faces as another breaker came thundering against the barrier. Some of the openings were narrow at the outer edge and broadened farther in, so that the water in them was quieter, though there was always the endless up-and-down wash started by the waves.

It was in these larger openings that the boys did most of their searching-it would have been impossible to get anything out of the others, reckless as some of the youngsters tended to be.

Rice, the first one out of the boat, had run to one of the largest while the others were still pulling the little craft up and making it fast; and dropping into a prone position with his head over the edge, he shaded his eyes and looked down into the clear water. By the tune the others came up he was already pulling off his shirt.

"My chance first," he said quickly as the others peered down to see what he had sighted. Before anyone was sure what he was looking at, Rice had slipped into the water, disturbing the surface so that nothing was clearly visible. He stayed down for some time, and finally reappeared asking for one of the poles that were carried in the boat. "I can't work it loose," he said. "It seems to be jammed in place."

"What is it?" several voices asked at once.

"I'm not sure; I've never seen anything like it. That's why I want to get it up." He received the pole which Colby handed down to him and slid under water once more. The object at which he was prying was about five feet below the surface-that is, it varied from about four to six feet as the water level rose and fell in response to the urge of the breakers.

Several times Kenneth came up for breath, without having dislodged the mysterious object; and finally Bob went down to help. He had one advantage over the other boy, thanks to the Hunter's prompt supplementing of the curvature of his eye lenses with some of his alien body material Bob could see much better under water than usual. He could make out easily the shape of the object on which Kenneth was working but did not recognize it. It was a hollow hemisphere of dull metal eight or nine inches in diameter and half an inch thick, with the flat side protected over half its area by a plate of similar material. It was hung on a stubby branch of coral only a few inches from the bottom, rather like a cap on a peg; and another lump of the stuff had either fallen or grown so as to wedge it in place. Rice was prying at the upper lump with a pole.

After a few minutes of futile effort they stopped, got their breath, and planned a more co-operative method of attack. Bob, it was agreed, would go to the bottom and work the end of the pole behind the object; Kenneth, upon receiving his signal, would brace one foot against the steep side of the pool-they both wore their shoes, as any sane person would in a coral pool-and push outward, to get the thing out from under the heavy fragment that pinned it down. The first time the attempt failed; Bob did not have the pole well enough set and it slipped out. The second, however, succeeded-almost too well. The piece of metal popped free and rolled away from the wall into deeper water; Bob, who was approaching the end of his store of breath, came to the surface. He refilled his lungs and started to speak to Rice, and then realized that the redhead was not visible. For a moment he supposed the other boy had taken a quick breath and gone back down for his prize, but as the water sank abruptly Rice's head appeared.

"Help! My foot-" The words were cut off again as the water surged up, but the situation was crystal-clear. Bob immediately dived again, braced his feet on the bottom, and strove to lift the lump of coral, which had been freed by the removal of the piece of metal and had landed on Kenneth's foot He was no more successful than before, and returned anxiously to the surface just as the water went down again.

"Don't talk! Get air!" Malmstrom yelled superfluously -Rice was too busy to do anything else when the opportunity to gulp air occurred. Bob was looking around for the pole, which had disappeared. He saw it floating a few yards away and went after it. Colby had disappeared toward the boat without saying anything; as Bob came back with the pole and prepared to dive once more, the young boy came back. He was carrying the bucket that Hay had brought from the pool.

Everything had happened so rapidly that Malmstrom and Hay had scarcely realized what was going on. They now looked at Hugh Colby and his bucket in astonishment. Colby wasted no time explaining. He threw himself face downward at the water's edge and reached out and downward to the trapped Rice. As the water receded he placed the inverted bucket over the other's head and spoke his only words during the entire incident.

"Hold it there!"

Rice, for a wonder, got the point, and followed orders; and as the water surged up again over his head he found his face enclosed in a bucket full of air. Bob had not seen this trick, as he was under water again prying at the lump of coral but he came up a moment later, saw, blinked in bewilderment, and then understood.

"Shall we come in?" Hay asked anxiously.

"I think I can get it off this time," Bob replied. "I was worried at first because of his air supply, but hell be all right now. Just a minute till I get my own breath." He rested a moment, while Hay yelled encouragement to his trapped comrade in the intervals that the latter's head was above water. Robert found time to mutter to the Hunter, "This is why I didn't want to come here alone!" Then he took a firmer grip on the pole, and submerged again.

This time he succeeded in finding a better point of leverage, and applied all his strength. The lump of coral started to shift, and he felt that the work was about done, when the pole broke, the splintered end raking down his own chest. For once the Hunter could raise no objection; the injury was clearly "line of duty," and he closed the scratches without resentment Bob popped back to the surface.

"I guess you'd better come inat that. I got it started, and the pole broke. Get the other poles, or maybe an oar or two and everyone who can get at it come in."

"Maybe we'd better go for a crowbar," suggested Malmstrom.

"Maybe we'd better do the work ourselves," retorted Bob. "The tide's coming in, and that bucket will be good just so long as the water gets below his head every few seconds. Come on."

Within a few seconds the four boys, armed with poles and oars, were in the water beside their comrade: Bob at the bottom placing the levers, the others supporting them and ready to lift when he gave the word. They knew nothing about his advantage in seeing under water, of course; they accepted his leadership simply because he had started telling them what to do and no one intended to argue at a time like that.

Heavy as the block was, it yielded to this concentration of effort, though the job nearly cost them an oar. For just a moment the fragment of coral lifted, and Kenneth was able to drag his numbed foot from beneath it With the aid of his friends he scrambled out of the water and sat nursing the foot while the others gathered around.

Rice was remarkably pale, considering his normal tan, and it was some time before his breathing and heartbeat returned to normal and he felt like standing up. The other boys were almost as frightened, and for some time nobody suggested going back into the water for the piece of metal that had started the trouble. After ten minutes or so Rice suggested that it would be a pity if all that work were wasted, and Bob took the hint and went down again; but the thing was not visible among the sea fans and branching corals that covered the pool's bottom, and he stopped groping under things after encountering a sea urchin which believed in passive resistance. Rice had nothing to show for his afternoon's work but fright, which was not the sort of souvenir he had any intention of showing to his parents.

It was now almost half-past four, which left plenty of tune before supper, but somehow the prospect of further search on the reef no longer attracted them. They decided, with very little argument to row the two miles and a fraction that separated them from the big dock. "That ought to be fairly peaceful, with the ship not due for nearly a week," Hay innocently remarked. No one said anything in answer at the time, as all of them probably had some such idea in mind; but he heard a good deal about that remark later.

The Hunter hardly heard the statement, of course; for the past quarter hour his mind had been fully occupied with a generator casing he had just seen and felt and which had definitely not come from the flattened wreckage of his own ship.