Needle

Chapter XVII. ARGUMENT

WEDNESDAY MORNING Bob left for school early and got another drug tested before appearing at that institution. He did not know just when Teroa was to appear for his shots and did not particularly want to meet him, so he wasted as little time as possible at the doctor's office. The school day went much as usual; afterward the boys decided to omit boat work for the afternoon and visit the new tank once more. Malmstrom was an exception to this; he vanished by himself without being very specific as to his plans, and Bob watched him go with considerable curiosity. He was tempted to follow, but he had no legitimate excuse for doing so, and anyway Rice and Hay rated higher on the suspect list.

Construction, it appeared, was not going quite so rapidly. The walls for which molds were now being set up were not only not backed on one side by the hill for the greater part of their length, but started from a floor which was itself some fifteen feet from the ground at its northern extremity. This involved the setting of diagonal braces considerably longer than had previously been necessary; and since none of the two-by-fours or two-by-sixes was long enough, piecing was required. The slope of the hill meant, further, that no two braces were of identical length; and Mr. Kinnaird was hustling from hillside to power saw with a slide rule in his hand and a steel tape popping in and out of his pocket.

Heavy boards were making rapid trips from lumber pile to saw to wall: and Bob, more or less indifferent to splinters, and Colby, who had borrowed a pair of work gloves, helped with these for some time. Hay and Rice equipped themselves with wrenches, and the persuasive redhead managed to get permission for them to tighten bolts on the conveyor troughs leading from the mixers up the hill down to the molds. These troughs ran on scaffolding, and much of their length was well off the ground, since some of the spouts delivered their contents at the end of the wall farthest from the mixers. Neither of the boys minded the height particularly, but some of the men did and were quite willing to have more active individuals take care of those sections. The scaffolding was solid enough to reduce risk of falling to a minimum.

The coating of the completed south wall was still under way and the boys were not allowed near this activity; but Bob was permitted once to drive down to the dock to refill the drum of fluor varnish. This material could not be kept for any length of time near the scene of the work, since it tended to polymerize at ordinary temperatures even with the inhibitor present. The reserve was stored in a refrigerated chamber near the diminutive cracking plant. The drive took only two or three minutes, but he had to wait nearly half an hour while the drum was cleaned and refilled; to leave any of the former contents in it was asking for trouble. There was literally no solvent known that could clean it out, once it hardened, without dissolving the metal of the drum first.

When he got back to the tank Bob found Rice no longer aloft; instead, he was about as low as he could get, driving stakes to butt the diagonal braces. Asked what had caused the change of occupation, he seemed more amused than otherwise.

"I dropped a bolt and nearly beaned Dad, and he told me to get down before I killed somebody. He's been lecturing me most of the time you were gone. He told me either to work down here or get away altogether; he said if I could drop anything on anyone from here he'd give up. I've been wondering what he'd say if the head came off this sledge on the upswing, which it seems to want to do."

"If he's in the way, he won't say a word. You'd better tighten it-that's a little too risky to be funny."

"I suppose you're right." Rice stopped swinging and busied himself with the wedges, while Bob looked around for something else to interest him. He held an end of the steel tape for his father for a while, was sternly forbidden to carry hundred-pound bags of cement to the stock pile near the mixers, and finally settled down at the top of a light ladder checking with a spirit level the true-ness of each section of form before its braces were finally set. The work was important enough to make him satisfied with himself, easy enough so he could keep it up, and safe enough to keep his father from interfering.

He had been at this task for some time when he suddenly remembered that he should have seen the doctor immediately after school for another test. Now he was stuck here; as to most conspirators, however good their motives, it did not occur to him that there was no need for him to account for his movements. He stayed at the job therefore, trying to devise an excuse that would let him leave without arousing question in anyone's mind. The men might not notice, but there were his friends; and even if they didn't, there was a horde of smaller fry around who would be sure to want to know where he was going. Bob thought they would, anyway.

His reverie on these matters was interrupted by Colby, who was still working on the trough sections and happened to be nearly overhead.

"Say, there comes Charlie all by himself. I thought Shorty had probably gone to see him."

Bob looked down the hill toward the road extension and saw that Hugh was right. Teroa was coming slowly up toward the tank; his facial expression was hard to make out at that distance, but Bob was pretty sure from the aimless way he walked and his generally listless air that he had seen the doctor. Bob's own face tightened, and a pang of conscience went through him; for a moment he considered "going up his ladder and out of sight over the forms. He managed to restrain the impulse and held his position, watching.

Teroa was now close enough to be seen clearly. His face was nearly expressionless, which in itself was something of a contrast to his usual good humor; he barely answered the greetings flung at him by the envious youngsters he passed. Two or three of the men, seeing that something must be wrong, tactfully said nothing; but tact was a word missing from the vocabulary of Kenneth Rice.

That young man was working perhaps thirty yards downhill from the foot of Bob's ladder. He was still driving stakes, using the sledge which he had repaired; it looked ridiculously large beside its wielder, for Rice was rather small for his age. He looked up from his work as Teroa approached, and hailed him., "Hi, Charlie. All set for your trip?" Charles did not change his expression, and answered in a voice almost devoid of inflection. "I'm not going."

"Weren't there beds enough on board?" It was a cruel remark, and Rice regretted it the instant it passed his lips, for he was a friendly and kind-hearted, if sometimes thoughtless, youngster; but he did not apologize. He was given no opportunity.

Teroa, as Bob had judged, had just seen Dr. Seever. For months the boy had been wanting the job; for nearly a week he had been planning his departure; and, what was worse, he had been announcing it to all and sundry. The doctor's statement that he must wait at least one more trip had been a major shock. He could not see the reason for the delay, which was not too surprising. He had been walking aimlessly for more than an hour since leaving the doctor's office before his feet had carried him to the construction site. Probably, if he had been giving any thought to his destination, he would have avoided the spot with its inevitable crowd of workers and children. Certainly he was in no fit mood to meet company; the more he thought, the less just the doctor's action seemed and the angrier the young man grew. Kenny Rice's raillery, quite apart from considerations of tact or courtesy, was extremely ill-advised.

Charles did not even pause to think. He was within a yard or two of Rice when the latter spoke, and he reacted instantly-he leaped and swung.

The smaller boy had quick reactions, and they were all that saved him from serious injury by that first blow. Teroa had put all his strength into it. Rice ducked backward, dropping his sledge and raising his arms in defense. Teroa, losing whatever shreds of temper that might have remained to him as his blow expended itself in empty air, recovered himself and sprang again with both fists flailing; and the other, with the molds forming an effective barrier to further retreat, fought back in self-defense.

The man whom Rice had been assisting was far too startled to interfere at first; Bob was too far away, as were all the other workers on that side of the tank; Colby had no ready means of descending from the scaffold. The fight, therefore, progressed for some moments with all the violence of which the combatants were capable. Rice stayed on the defensive at first, but he lost his own temper when the first of Teroa's blows got past his guard and thudded solidly against his ribs, and from then on he pulled no punches.

The fact that the other boy was three years older, a full head taller, and correspondingly heavier had considerable bearing on his success, of course. Neither belligerent was a scientific fighter, but some effective blows landed in spite of that. Most of them were Teroa's, who found his adversary's face on a very convenient level; but his own ribs sustained a heavy assault, and at least once the elder boy was staggered by a blow that landed fairly in the solar plexus.

Quite involuntarily he stepped back and dropped his guard over the afflicted region. For Rice, the fight reached a climax at that instant. He was not thinking and was not an experienced boxer, but he could not have reacted more rapidly or correctly if he had trained for years in the ring. As Teroa's arms went down momentarily, Rice's left fist jabbed forward, backed by the swimming-and-rowing-muscles of his shoulders, waist, and legs, and connected squarely with his opponent's nose. It was a nice blow, and Rice, who had little to be pleased or proud about in connection with the fight, always remembered it with satisfaction. It was all the satisfaction he got. Teroa recovered his wind, his guard, and his poise, and responded with a blow so nearly identical in placement that it formed an excellent measure of the true effectiveness of Rice's guard. It was the last of the fight. The man with the other sledge had recovered his wits, and he flung his arms about Teroa from behind. Bob, who had had time to leap from his ladder and dash to the scene, did the same to Rice. Neither combatant made any serious effort to escape; the sharp action had winded them, the pause gave them a chance to evaluate the situation, and both presented rather shame-faced expressions-or what could be seen of their expressions-to the crowd which was still gathering.

The children, who formed the greater part of the group, were cheering both parties indiscriminately; but the men who appeared and shouldered their way through the smaller spectators showed no such enthusiasm. Mr. Rice, who was among them, bore a look on his face that would have removed any lingering trace of self-righteousness from his son's manner.

The son himself was not much to look at. Bruises were already starting to take on a rich purple color, which contrasted nicely with his red hair, and his nose was bleeding copiously. The bruises his adversary had collected were mostly concealed by his shirt, but he, too, had a nosebleed that said something for Rice's ability. The elder Rice, stationing himself in front of his off-spring, looked him over for some time in silence, while the chatter of the crowd died down expectantly. He had no intention of saving what he had in mind where anyone but the intended recipient could hear it, however, and after a minute or so be simply said:

"Kenneth, you'd better get your face washed and the worst of the stains out of that shirt before your mother sees you. I'll talk to you later." He turned around. "Charles, if you'd go with him, and perhaps take the same advice, I'd appreciate it. I should like very much to hear exactly what caused this nonsense."

The boys made no answer, but started down toward the lagoon. now very much ashamed of themselves. Bob, Norman, and Hugh followed them. Bob and Hugh had heard the start of the trouble but had no intention of telling anyone until the principals of the affair had decided what should be told.

Mr. Kinnaird knew his son and the latter's friends well enough to guess this, and it was only that knowledge which enabled him to keep quiet as he rounded the lower end of the tank and came face to face with the party.

"I have some salt-water soap in the jeep," he remarked. "I'll get it, if one of you will take this blade up to Mr. Meredith at the saw." He moved as though to scale the disk-shaped object, which the boys had not noticed he was carrying, at Colby, who automatically slipped to one side. Recovering himself, Colby hooked a finger through the center hole of the blade and turned back uphill with it, while Mr. Kinnaird headed around the corner of his vehicle. The boys accepted the soap gratefully-Rice, in particular, had been worrying about his mother's reaction to the sight of his bloodstained shirt.

Half an hour later, the stains gone, he was worrying about her reaction to a pair of beautifully blacked eyes. He had kept his teeth by some miracle, but Bob and Norman, who were administering first aid, admitted that it would be some time before casual observers would quit asking him about his fight. Teroa was considerably better off in that respect; his face had been reached just once, and the swelling should go down in a day or two.

All animosity had vanished by this time; both combatants had spent much of the time apologizing to each other while their injuries were being worked on. Even Bob and Norman were amused to see them walking side by side back up the hill to face Mr. Rice.

"Well," Hay remarked at last, "we told Red he was asking for it. I hope he doesn't get into too much trouble, though; Charlie gave him enough. Those peepers are going to take a long time to forget, I'd say."

Bob nodded in agreement. "He certainly picked a bad time for his wisecracks-right after Charlie said he wasn't going. He must have been feeling pretty bad."

"I didn't hear that. Did he say why he wasn't going? It's news to me."

"No." Bob remembered in time that he was not supposed to know, either. "No, there wasn't time for explanations after that; things happened too fast. I don't suppose it would be smart to ask now, either, though he may have told Red by this time. Shall we go back up and see?"

"I don't think it would do much good. Besides, I still haven't put the grating in that pool of mine-we've been spending so much time fixing the boat and working up here. What say we go out and do that? We don't need the boat; the stuff is out there, and we can swim across from the beach."

Bob hesitated. This seemed a good opportunity of seeing the doctor and getting another drug written off the list- he was not very optimistic on this point, as may be seen -but he was still not quite sure how to get away from his friend; he still had an exaggerated fear of betraying his real motives.

"What about Hugh?" he asked. "He hasn't come down from delivering that saw blade yet. Maybe he'd like to go."

"He's probably found something else to do up there. I think I'll go back myself, if you don't want to work on the pool. You coming, or have you something else to do?"

"I did think of something," Bob replied. "I think I'll look after it now."

"O.K. I'll see you later." Hay went back up the hill after the still-visible fighters without a backward glance, while Bob, wondering how much the other suspected, turned along the shore toward the big dock. He walked slowly, since he had much to think about; but he said nothing, and the Hunter forbore to disturb him. The alien had thoughts of his own, in any case.

At the shoreward end of the dock they turned up the road past the Teroa house, turned right there, and presently reached the home of the doctor. Here his plans, such as they were, were interrupted by the sight of a sign on the door which said the doctor was out on professional business, time of return uncertain.

The door was never locked, as Bob well knew. After a moment's consideration he opened it and went into the office. He could wait, and the doctor was bound to be back before too long. Besides, there were other books there, books which he had not read and which might prove interesting or useful. He investigated the shelves, helped himself to several promising titles, and sat down to deal with them.

He made heavy weather of the job: they were technical works, intended for professional readers, and they pulled no punches when it came to medical terms. Bob was far from stupid, but he simply did not have the knowledge needed to interpret very much of what they said. In consequence, his mind wandered frequently and far from the printed matter.

Naturally much of his thinking was about the afternoon's rather unusual events. More of it dealt with his problem. He had even asked the Hunter point-blank what he thought about the conclusions reached the night before-the strong suspicions Bob and Seever had developed toward Hay and Rice. He did so now.

"I have avoided criticizing your efforts," replied the Hunter, "since it seems to me that, however wrong your conclusions appear, you still have reason for them. I prefer not to tell you my opinions about Rice and Hay, or even about the other boys, for if I were to discourage your ideas on the grounds that they disagreed with mine, I might as well be working alone."

It was an indirect speech, but Bob suspected that the alien disagreed with their ideas. He could not see why- the logic used by the doctor and himself seemed sound -but he realized that the Hunter must have more knowledge about the creature they were seeking than he could impart in a lifetime.

Still, what could be wrong? Strictly speaking, they had reached no actual conclusions-they knew their limitations and had spoken only of probabilities. If the Hunter objected to that, then he should have a certainty!

"I have nothing certain," was the answer, however, when this line of reasoning was expounded to the detective, and Bob settled back to think some more. He got results, but this time he had no chance to discuss them with the Hunter, for just as the idea struck him, he heard the doctor's step on the front porch. Bob sprang to his feet, concentrating tensely; then, as the door opened, he turned to the entering figure.

"I've got some news," he said. "You can let Charlie go tomorrow, after all, and we can forget about Red too!"