Needle

Chapter XIX. SOLUTION

THOUGH BOB had no share in the turmoil of thoughts that were boiling through the Hunter's mind, he was a long time going to sleep. Hay had still been at Malmstrom's house, and they had chattered at the invalid's bedside until his mother had suggested that Kenneth could use some sleep; but very little of Robert's mind had been on the conversation.

The Hunter claimed to have carried their line of thought further and to be able to work out another line of action from it; Bob couldn't, and was wondering how stupid he must be compared to his guest. It bothered him, and he kept trying to imagine how the other alien's probable course could have been traced any further than the piece of metal on the reef-if Rice and Teroa were to be left out of consideration.

The Hunter felt stupid too. He himself had suggested that line of thought to Bob. True, he had not expected much to come of it, but it had contained possibilities for action on his host's part and should have left him free to work out ideas more in line with his training and practice. These last, however, had failed miserably, as he might have expected so far from the civilization which gave them technical backing; and he was now realizing that he had deliberately ignored the answer to his problem for some days, even with the diverse arguments of Bob and the doctor endlessly before him.

It was fortunate that Bob had been working on his own in the matter of the "trap" in the woods, of course; had he not been, the plan of having the Hunter check Teroa and the other boys individually would have been put to work before the doctor was in the secret. That would have meant that the Hunter was not with Bob for stretches of at least thirty-six hours at a time, and he would, he now realized, have missed clues that had been presented to him practically every day. Most of them meant little or nothing by themselves, but taken together…

He wished his host would go to sleep. There were things to be done, and done soon. Bob's eyes were closed, and the alien's only contact with his surroundings was auditory; but the boy's heartbeat and breathing proved clearly that he was still awake. For the thousandth time the detective wished he were a mind reader. He had the helpless feeling of a movie patron as the hero walks into a dark alley; all he could do was listen.

There was enough sound to give him a picture of his surroundings, of course: the endless dull boom of the breakers a mile away across the hill and even farther over the lagoon; the faint whine and hum of insect life in the forest outside; the less regular rustle of small animals in the undergrowth; and the much more distinct sounds made by Bob's parents as they came upstairs.

They had been talking, but they quieted down as they approached. Either Bob had been the subject of the conversation, or they just didn't want to disturb him. The boy heard them, however; the sudden ceasing of his restless motion and the deliberate relaxation that followed told the Hunter that. Mrs. Kinnaird glanced into her son's room and went on, leaving the door ajar; a moment later the Hunter heard another door open and close.

He was tense and anxious by the tune Bob was definitely asleep, though not nearly enough to impair his judgment on that important matter. Once certain, however, he went instantly into action. His gelatinous flesh began to ooze out from the pores of Bob's skin-openings as large and convenient for the Hunter as the exits of a football stadium. Through sheet and mattress he poured with even greater ease, and in two or three minutes his whole mass was gathered into a single lump beneath the boy's bed.

He paused a moment to listen again, then flowed toward the door and extended an eye-bearing pseudopod through the crack. He was going to make a personal check of his suspect-or certainty, for he was morally certain he was right. He had not forgotten the argument of the doctor in favor of postponing such an examination until he was prepared to take immediate measures in disposing of what he found; but he felt that there was now one serious flaw in those arguments-if the Hunter's belief was correct, Bob must have betrayed himself time and again! There would be no more delay.

There was a light in the hall, but it was not nearly bright enough to bother him. Presently he was extended in the form of a pencil-thick rope of flesh along several yards of the baseboard. Here he waited again, while he analyzed the breathing sounds coming from the room where the elder Kinnairds slept; satisfied that both were actually asleep, he entered. The door of the room was closed, but that meant nothing to him-even had its edge been sealed airtight, there was always the keyhole.

He knew already the difference in rate and depth that served to distinguish the breathing of the two, and he made his way without hesitation to a point beneath the suspect's bed. A thread of jelly groped upward until it touched the mattress and went on through. The rest of the formless body followed and consolidated within the mattress itself; and then, cautiously, the Hunter located the sleeper's feet. His technique was polished by this time, and, if he had cared to do so, he could have entered this body far more rapidly than he had made himself at home in Bob's, for there would be no exploring to be done. However, bodily entry was not in his plans; and most of him remained in the mattress while the exploring tentacle started to penetrate. It did not get far.

The human skin is made of several distinct layers, but the cells which make up these are all of strictly ordinary size and pattern, whether they be dead and cornified like those in the outer layer or living and growing like those below. There is not, normally, a layer—or even a discontinuous network—of cells far more minute, sensitive, and mobile than the others. Bob had such a layer, of course— the Hunter had provided it for his own purpose; and the detective was not in the least surprised to encounter a similar net just beneath the epidermis of Mr. Arthur Kinnaird. He had expected it.

The cells he encountered felt and recognized his own tentacle. For an instant there was a disorganized motion, as though the web of alien flesh were trying to avoid the Hunter's touch; then, as though the creature of which it formed a part realized the futility of further concealment, it relaxed again.

The Hunter's flesh touched and closed over a portion of that net, bringing many of his own cells into contact with it; and along those cells, which could act equally well as nerves or muscles, sense organs or digestive glands, a message passed. It was not speech; neither sound nor vision nor any other normal human sense was employed. Neither was it telepathy; no word exists in the English language to describe accurately that form of communication. It was as though the nervous systems of the two beings had fused, for the time being, sufficiently to permit at least some of the sensation felt by one to be appreciated by the other-nerve currents bridging the gap between individuals as normally they bridged that between body cells.

The message was wordless, but it carried meaning as well and feeling much better than words could have done.

"I am glad to meet you, Killer. I apologize for wasting so much time in the search."

"I know you, Hunter. You need not apologize-particularly when you conceal a boast by it. That you have found me at all is of minor importance; that it took you half a year of this planet's time to do so amuses me exceedingly. I did not know just what had become of you; I can now picture you sneaking about this island for month after month, entering houses one after another -for no purpose, since you can do nothing to me now. I thank you for giving me information of such amusing character."

"I trust you will be equally amused to know that I have been on the island searching for seven days, and that this man is the first I have tested physically. I might have been faster if you had carried a sign, but not much." The Hunter was human enough to possess vanity and even to let it override normal caution. It did not occur to him until afterward that the other's speech had shown that it had not suspected Bob, and that his own answer had furnished far too much information for safety.

"I do not believe you. There are no tests you could have used on a human being from a distance; and this host has suffered no serious injuries or diseases since my coming. Had he done so, I should have found another rather than betray myself by helping."

"That I believe." The Hunter's nerves carried clearly the contempt and revulsion he felt at the other's attitude. "I did not say anything about serious injuries."

"The only ones I have worked on were those too minor to be noticed-if another human being was in a position to see the injury acquired, I left it alone. I even let parasitic insects take blood unobstructed while others were around."

"I know that. And you boast of it." The disgust was deeper, if possible.

"You know? You certainly don't like to admit you were ' beaten, do you, Hunter? But do you expect to fool me with your boasts?"

"You have been fooling yourself. I knew you had been letting mosquitoes bite your host when he had company, and not at other times; I knew you were in the habit of repairing unnoticeably small injuries which he received. I suppose you might be given credit for it, although you probably did it to save yourself from complete boredom. It was that, or attempt to control this host as you did with your last; and that would certainly betray you. No intelligent creature can spend its time doing nothing whatever without going mad.

"You were bright, in a way, to handle only inconspicuous injuries. However, there was one being who was bound to notice your activities, whether he attributed them to the true cause or not, and that was your host himself!

"I heard conversation-by the way, did you bother to learn English?-that described this man as a cautious individual who would take few chances himself and permit members of his family even fewer. Those words were spoken by men who have known him for years-two different men, my friend. Yet I have seen him running blindly in a container of sharp-edged tools for something he wanted; I have seen him climb down an inclined piece of wood full of splinters, and carry similar pieces in his hands and under his arm next to unprotected skin; I have seen him cut a piece of woven-wire mesh which could easily have taken the skin off his bare hand had it slipped at the pressure he was using; I have seen him carrying a sharp, toothed blade by the edge when even an adolescent, notoriously careless in matters pertaining to personal safety, held it at the center. You may have been concealing yourself from most of the human race, my friend, but your host knew you were there-whether he was aware that he knew it or not! He must have noticed subconsciously that nothing was apparently happening when he made minor slips in such matters and grew progressively more careless. I have evidence enough that human beings tend to act that way. I also heard your host mention on one occasion something to the effect that other people kept trained insects around to bother him; apparently he noticed that he was not bothered when he was alone.

"Really, you see, you never had a chance of staying hidden. You must either try to dominate and betray yourself, do a minimum of your duty and betray yourself, or do nothing at all except think for the rest of your life, and in that case you might as well surrender. Even on earth, without skilled assistance, experience, or natives to help me, you were bound to be caught if only I came to the right neighborhood. You were foolish to run in the first place; at home you would simply have been restricted; here, I have no alternative but to destroy you."

The other might have been impressed by most of the Hunter's speech, but the last part aroused him to ridicule.

"Just how do you propose to do that? You have no selective drugs to drive me out of this body and no means of making-or at least of testing-any. Being what you are, you will not consider sacrificing this host to get rid of me; and I assure you I will have no such scruples about yours. It seems to me, Hunter, that finding me was a serious mistake on your part. Before, I was not even sure that you were on the planet; now I know you are here and cut off from home and help. I am safe enough, but watch out for yourself!"

"Since there is nothing I could or would say to disabuse you of that impression, I will leave you with it," replied the Hunter. Without further communication he withdrew, and in a few minutes was flowing back toward Bob's room. He expected momentarily to hear Mr. Kinnaird awaken, but the other apparently had decided there was too little chance of his host's doing the right thing even if he were aroused.

The Hunter was furious with himself. He had been sure, once he had decided that Mr. Kinnaird was the host of his quarry, that the accident on the dock had been deliberate-caused by the alien's interference with his host's eyesight and co-ordination. That would mean that Bob's secret was known, and there was no point in the doctor's plan of concealment until they were ready to strike. It had turned out that he was wrong-the fugitive had apparently not even suspected his pursuer's whereabouts; and the Hunter had certainly given enough data in the conversation to tell the other alien pretty accurately where he himself was. He could not even leave Bob now-the criminal would take no chances, and the Hunter must stay with the boy he had endangered, to protect him as far as possible.

The question now, he thought, as he re-established himself in Bob's still-sleeping body, was whether or not the boy should be told of the situation and of his danger. There was much to be said on both sides; knowledge that his father was involved might operate seriously against Bob's efficiency, but, on the other hand, ignorance was even more likely to do so. On the whole, the Hunter was inclined to tell the boy everything; and he relaxed into a state as close to sleep as he could come in that environment, with that intention in mind.

Bob took the information remarkably well, on the whole. He was shocked and worried, naturally, though his anxiety seemed greater for his father's plight than for his own danger. He was quick-minded enough, as the Hunter had long since realized, to perceive the situation in which he and his guest were caught, though he did not blame the Hunter for letting the cat out of the bag. He fully appreciated also the need for rapid action, and perceived one point which the Hunter had not considered-the extreme likelihood of their enemy's shifting his abode at any tune, or at least at night. They would have, Bob pointed out, no assurance on any given day as to which of his parents would be harboring the creature.

"I don't think we need worry about that," the Hunter replied. "In the first place, he seems too sure of his safety to bother shifting; and, in the second, if he does, the fact will quickly become evident. Your father, suddenly deprived of the protection he has been enjoying for some months, is certainly going to provide plenty of notice of the fact, if he stays as careless as he has been."

"Speaking of that 'month's' business, you still haven't told me how you settled on Dad as prime suspect."

"It was the line of reasoning I gave you. Our friend landed on the reef, as we know. The nearest sign of civilization was one of the culture tanks only a few hundred yards away. He would swim to that-at least I certainly would have, in his position. The only people who visit those tanks regularly are the operators of the fertilizer barge.

"He would have no opportunity to invade one of those men, but he would certainly go with the barge. That brings us to the field on the hill where the tank fodder is grown. I had to find someone who slept in that vicinity.

"There was a chance, of course, that he had made his way alone over the hill to the houses; in that case, we had the whole island to search. However, your father made a remark the other evening that showed he must have slept, or at least rested, at the hilltop above the new tanks. He was, therefore, the best suspect yet uncovered, to my way of thinking."

"It certainly seems obvious enough now," said Bob, "but I couldn't work it out. Well, we'll have to do some fast thinking today. With luck, he will stay with Dad until he's sure where you are-Dad is more suitable for research, since he moves around more. The trouble is we don't have any drugs yet. Isn't there anything else that would force one of your people out of a host, Hunter?"

"What would force you to leave home?" countered the detective. "There are probably lots of things, but they will have to be of earthly origin this time. You have at least as good a chance of hitting upon something as I. Certainly if I were our friend, I would stay right there- it's the safest possible place for him."

Bob nodded gloomily and went down to breakfast. He tried to act his normal self, even when his father appeared; he had no means of knowing how well he succeeded. It occurred to him that the other alien might not appreciate the fact that he was consciously aiding the Hunter; that might be one point in their favor, anyway.

He set out for school, still thinking. Actually, though he did not tell the Hunter so, he was trying to solve two: problems at once, and that meant accepting quite a handicap.