Through the Eye of a Needle

3. Complications

"Lighted any more fires lately?"

It was not a standard greeting by any criteria, and to both Bob and the Hunter it was more than disconcerting. The young woman who had given it was not herself surprising; they both had known Jenny Seever for years, and had heard that she was working for her father. As the island population had grown, the company had made additions to the Seever residence, turning it into a small hospital. Seever himself had had to become a little more formal in the matter of keeping records on his patients. The first thought to cross the minds of the two visitors was that Seever had made a record of the earlier project, and his daughter had come across it in the course of her work.

Bob, however, rejected this after a moment's thought. The doctor would not have written anything down, much less left the record where anyone else could find it, without first consulting Bob himself and his symbiont.

Nevertheless, the girl seemed to know something. The police project had indeed ended in a fire, an oil-fed bonfire which had consumed the alien fugitive, and the question could hardly be coincidence. However, Bob had read his share of detective stories, and was not going to be tricked into telling her more than she might already have learned.

"Lots," he answered, after a hesitation which he realized was probably revealing. "It was a good spring in the Northeast, and picnics were quite the thing before finals. Why?"

Jenny made no direct answer; her listeners got the impression that she had not expected the sort of response Bob had given. In this they were quite right. Since she was much quicker-witted than Bob or the Hunter, she knew better than to continue firing blindly after the first shot, had missed. She changed the subject, letting others make what they could of it- not that she thought of the man standing in front of her desk as representing two people, of course.

“I suppose you want to see Dad."

"Sure. I can't start work for PFI without a checkup, and I owe PFI several years of work in return for my chem degree, so obviously PFI wants me to have a checkup. Also, I'd like to see him anyway, just as an old friend. Is anyone with him now?"

"Yes. You'll have to wait." She couldn't resist one more shot "Would you like some matches?"

"No, thanks. I don't smoke."

"Not even fuel oil?"

"Not for fun."

The Hunter rather wished he could take part in the duel, but had to admit to himself that his host was doing well enough. Obviously the girl knew something; any chance of coincidence had vanished with the second question. It would be necessary to learn her status from the doctor before anything revealing could be said, but this seemed as obvious to Bob as it was to his symbiont.

"People have queer ideas of fun," Jenny countered.

"I see. Like being mysterious. Look, Kid, or Miss Seever or whatever you want me to call you, I don't know what you're talking about." The Hunter, with the passion for strict truthfulness which had developed naturally in his long life, was rather disturbed by this remark. Even the reflection that it was not totally false, since Bob could really only guess what she was talking about, did not console him completely. "If someone has burned a house or something like that here on Ell, I don't know anything about it-I've been away for two years, and just got back last night. If you're talking about something else, you'll have to be specific enough to make sense. If you're just being funny, it isn't. If you've been reading mystery stories, change detectives. I'm not falling for the all-is-lost-fly-at-once line."

"Why should you?" she asked. Bob felt for a moment that he had made a slip, but carried on without a break that anyone but the Hunter could have spotted, both hoped.

"I shouldn't and I couldn't. There's nothing to fall for. If you're suggesting that I'm a pyromaniac, check your dad's files-you keep 'em now, don't you?"

"Thanks. That's an idea I hadn't thought of," she returned. I'll do that when I have the time."

Neither spoke again for ten minutes or more. Both sat, thinking of all the things he might have said differently. The Hunter made a few suggestions to him, but got no response. Jenny paid no obvious attention to her visible guest, and appeared to be busy with her normal paper work.

Eventually a door opened and a ten-year-old boy with his arm in a sling came through, followed by the doctor. The latter interrupted an admonishment about tree-climbing as he caught sight of Bob, came over to shake hands warmly, and ushered him into the examination room.

"Heard you were back-I suppose everyone has, by now. For good this time, isn't it? Did you drop over to be sociable, or are they putting you right to work? How are you, Hunter?-I suppose you're still there."

The Hunter almost answered; Seever was the one human being who sometimes made him forget that communication had to be by relay-who habitually spoke to him as though direct conversation were possible. Bob was usually amused by this, but showed no sign of it this time.

"Both, I guess," he answered Seever's last question -first. "Yes, the Hunter is here. Nothing's been said officially to me about showing up for work, but I imagine they're taking it for granted. Unless I'm told otherwise, I'll be over at the main shop on Monday; but there are problems I'll need your help with, first."

"Oh?"

Bob wasted no time in recounting the situation; Seever listened silently. He nodded or raised an eyebrow at times but said nothing until Bob had finished. Then he summarized.

"As I see it, you two want to find one or both of those spaceships, or their remains, as a step toward getting in touch with some of the Hunter's people who may or may not be on Earth, in the hope that they can solve or get hold of someone else who can solve, Bob's medical difficulties, assuming they can be solved. Pretty iffy. We are hoping they can be, that they're actually on Earth, and that finding the ships will help you find the people. I won't ask pardon for the loose pronouns, you know what I mean. My job is to keep you functioning, and, if possible, free part of the time-holding the juggler's plates in the air, as the Hunter so aptly puts it-until all this is ac-accomplished."

"It could be said more encouragingly, but that's right as far as you go," conceded Bob. "You do have one other job. Somehow PFI will have to be persuaded to use me in some way that won't either kill me too soon or reveal my medical problems to too many people. You can't just say I'm not able to work. Old Toke takes a big interest in people, and I can imagine his shipping me back to the States, or Japan, or wherever he happens to think I can get better medical attention than you can provide here. I mention this, of course, just to keep you from loafing between the shots of whatever you have to give me to keep me going."

"Phmph," snorted Seever. "Whatever I-

"And in addition," the young man went on, "you'll really have to do something about Jenny."

"My daughter? Why? If you're falling in love with her I certainly don't object, but you'll have to do your own courting."

"Did you ever tell her about the Hunter and our adventures a few years ago? Or tell your wife so Jenny could have heard, or write any of it where she could have come across it to read?"

"No. None of those. I've wanted to tell Ev, but it isn't my secret. I will, if you and the Hunter ever let me. I've never written any of it anywhere."

"Then why did Jenny just now greet me, or us, with questions about fighting fuel oil fires? As I remember, she was away from Ell when we disposed of the Hunter's little problem-and she'd have been only about eleven then, anyway."

"That's right, she was." Seever was both puzzled and surprised. "I can’t imagine what she's up to, or what she's found out, or how. If I talk in my sleep that coherently I'm sure Ev would have said some-thing, and it still wouldn't explain Jenny's hearing me. Do you want to have her in and ask her right now, or have me ask her alone later on, or hold everything until you've done some thinking and investigating on your own?"

The Hunter expressed himself strongly in Bob's ear, but his host had reached the same conclusion in- dependently and even more quickly.

"The last, by all means. I'd just as soon she didn't know we'd even mentioned it to you. We have no idea how much she knows, or why she's interested. If anyone starts asking her, she'll feel more certain she's on to something real-if she isn't certain already, of course. The only fire I can imagine her asking about is the one I lighted when we tricked the Hunter's quarry out of Dad's body-I can't remember ever lighting another that would mean anything special to anyone, at least. I can’t see why she should be asking, if she never heard about it from anywhere."

"So," Seever cut in, "you're between Dilemma's right horn of needing to find out what she could have heard and where she could have heard it, and the left one of not wanting her to think that what she has heard means anything-if she doesn't already. I can see that, and will do my best not to make things any more confusing. I won't say anything to Jen if she doesn't start saying things to me. If she does, I'll find out what I can. You're right-she wasn't here that other time; she was in the hospital on Tahiti recovering from bone surgery I couldn't handle here, and her mother was with her. As you say, she was only eleven anyway. Someone else must have seen you light the fire, and must have told her, assuming there's any rational basis at all for her question. The alternative is not only impossible for me to consider, but calls for more coincidence than I can stomach." He paused in thought for several seconds.

"Look," he said at length. "I’m not going to say anything to her unless she spoke first, and I'll keep the promise unless you release me, but give this some thought. If I don't say anything to her, thereby implying that you didn't say anything to me about her fire questions, won't that itself be suspicious? Why wouldn't you have mentioned it to me? Shouldn't I question her, not as though she poking into someone else's business, but as though I were wondering about her state of mind?"

The point seemed well taken, to the Hunter. Bob was less convinced.

I can't stop you," he said slowly, "and don't want to hold you to a promise which goes against your judgment. So-well, do what you think is best. You certainly know her better than I do. The Hunter and I have to find those ships, and can't spend time yet finding out what Jenny's up to.”

Seever raised an eyebrow; it seemed to him that his daughter's actions might be relevant enough to the current problem to deserve very close and immediate investigation. Bob failed to notice the change of expression, and the Hunter failed to see it clearly. His host's eyes were aimed in more or less the right direction, but the image of the doctor's face was not in their foveal region. The alien could make use of the less central parts of the retinas better than their owner could but not perfectly; there was no remedy for the fact that the eye lenses did not focus perfectly.

"Somehow," Bob went on, "we've got to get hold of a boat. Dad's looking for diving gear and metal-finding equipment, but the ships certainly went down off the reef-at least, the Hunter's did, and that generator casing from the other turned up at a place which suggested it had been brought from outside. We'll need a reasonably good boat, because there'll be wind and surf problems out there."

Seever accepted the change of subject. "It'll need size, too, to carry air pumps and hoses and all that stuff," he said.

"Maybe not. Dad's going to try to find free-diving gear-the sort of stuff that fellow Cousteau has been developing. I was pricing it back in the States, but couldn't afford it or I'd have brought a set with me."

"Maybe the company has some."

"Dad was going to check that. Even if it does, though, I'll have trouble using their stuff full time."

"You'll have trouble doing anything full time except work for PFI. I may be able to clear you from heavy muscle work or fix you up so you can do it, but I don't see you spending eight hours a day poking around on the ocean bottom outside the reef. Thorvaldsen is very pro basic research, but your project would hardly fit anything he's likely to have in mind."

The Hunter and his host had talked this situation over at great length, and Bob was able to respond promptly.

"We've had some ideas on that. Remember, I have an even better certainty that it can be done about both fusion power and faster-than-light travel than Toke had about biological engineering back in the twenties, when he started PFL. I'm as certain about them as the Russians were about the nuclear bomb-they didn't have to steal anything; when we used it, we'd given them free the only bit of knowledge whose lack might have kept them from making their own. If I could convince Old Toke that I really had something in either line, he'd probably back me carte blanche for basic research. There are only two troubles. One is that I'll have to solve my medical difficulties first, before I'll really have much to show him; and second, I can't honestly tell him either that I know how the Hunter's people do these things, or that they start giving up technical information hand over fist after they've cured me. In fact, as the Hunter admits, they'd probably be very cagey about letting me or any other human being learn many details for a generation or so, even after they open Earth up to symbiosis, if they do. I don't like the idea of deceiving the old guy for several reasons, not the least of which is my doubt that I'd get away with it.

"Of course, this just may be my uneasiness about telling anyone about the Hunter and his people any-way; every time I think of it, I think of the word spreading that R. N. Kinnaird has lost his marbles."

"You know I could prove your story," Seever pointed out. "I did to your parents."

"You'd be taking a chance. Not everyone has been cured of synthetic pneumonia by a lump of green jelly, and not everyone who learned about the jelly would react in a nice, friendly, rational manner. I don't want to sound too paranoid, but I can see people who learned about the Hunter resenting my advantages."

"Your present 'advantages' are hardly targets of jealousy."

"We're assuming my problems are going to be solved-remember? I'm trying to take the long view. Let's make the spreading of the word to the upper echelons the very last string to the bow, and concentrate on finding a decent boat."

"With no diving gear at all, even the self-contained sort you mentioned what hurry is there for a boat? Surface diving off the reef won't let you search below three or four fathoms, and even that would take roughly forever," Seever pointed out.

"Of course. And I couldn't do much in one day without wearing myself out, unless you can do something about these weakness attacks. That wasn't the idea. Do you remember that piece of metal the fellows and I found out on one of the reef islands, the one that almost got Kenny Rice drowned?"

"I remember your telling me about it. You said it was a generator casing or something like that from one of the ships. I never saw it myself."

"That's it, we want to find it again, and let the Hunter check it over more carefully. He thinks he can get some idea of how far the other one traveled with it. He'll try to move it around himself under water to get some idea of the effort involved, maybe even backtrack. That thing certainly wouldn't have dragged very freely through the coral."

"Won't the coral have grown enough in the last seven or eight years to make that sort of detailed study pretty futile?"

"Maybe, but the Hunter thinks it's worth doing, and I agree. At least it will help us narrow down possibilities ties until we get the diving gear. Of course, any other ideas which anyone gets will be welcome, too." I

Seever sighed. "All right," he agreed, "let's get down to my strictly medical part of the problem. Let me take a blood sample, not that I have the lab equipment I'd like, and I'll see if I can get any ideas from what I don't find in you." His expression was clearly pessimistic. "There's one sort of known illness which vaguely resembles what you describe, and I've heard of a drug which might possibly help the symptoms. Just to make you happy, there's no claim it will touch the cause, which no one has yet identified. Of course, I don't have the drug here."

"Where would you have to send for it?" asked Bob. The States?"

"Japan would probably be faster."

"Is it something you ever use? I mean, will anyone here get suspicious if you order it?"

"Don't get paranoid, youngster. No one ever checks on what I order. I'm my whole department. There's no one on Ell who would react to the name 'neostigmine' even if he saw the order, except maybe Old Toke himself. If you really want to worry, devote your thoughts to the fact that I'm only 'guessing it may help. Maybe I'll get more ideas from your blood, but don't count on it. Even though the Hunter is a detective, not a biochemist, and has grown up with a nonhuman species, he must know more about human physiology and biochemistry than I do. If he tells you to do anything, do it; don't wait for my advice."

The Hunter knew that Seever was right, but rather, regretted his having brought up the point. Bob's morale was already quite low enough, and keeping him alive was already hard enough. Trying, to keep the young chemist's hopes up was complicated by his intelligence; anything encouraging, to be worth, saying, had to be reasonable. He and the Hunter had talked, long before and very briefly, of the possibility of finding the fugitive's ship and learning enough from it to let them build a larger one capable of taking Bob himself to Castor. Bob had dismissed the notion out of hand; it had been perfectly obvious to him that the job would have been analogous to a Cro-Magnon man's trying to copy an airplane engine. It was not a matter of native intelligence, but of the culture's back-ground knowledge.

"I'll take blood from inside the right elbow, Hunter, if you want to get out of the way," Seever said as he approached with a large syringe. "I won't bother with the ligature if you'll supply a little back pressure on the vein."

The Hunter agreed, Bob nodded, and seconds later the doctor had his sample.

"What now?" he asked. "Have you started to feel that fatigue yet today?"

"Nope, not yet. All I've done is bike down here, of course."

"What are you going to do now? Start looking for a boat, or entertain your sister?"

"She's in school for a few more hours, thank goodness. It's a pity vacation starts so soon. I'm just as bothered how to keep her little nose out of this project as I am about keeping it secret from the rest of the island-I suppose those amount to the same thing; if she knows, she'll tell her friends. However, we'll play that by ear. The first problem is a boat."

"What happened to the one your bunch used to have?"

"It sort of died of old age. The last time it started to fall apart, none of us had the time to fix it."

"Well, I have a suggestion, but you may not like it."

"What?"

"Jenny has a boat-more of a canoe, really-that she might be willing to lend."

"Without being told the whole story? I can't believe it."

"Oh, I wouldn't say she was that feminine," the father chuckled.

"I wasn't thinking about her sex, I'm assuming she's human. I wouldn't lend one of my own without a pretty good idea of what the borrower wanted it for. I was expecting to buy one so as to be able to use it without anyone's being entitled to ask what I was doing with it. Going outside the reef and working close in can be risky, especially with the wind from the west, and the owner would have every right to wonder if my head was on straight. Certainly Jenny would, if she's wondering about me already. You sure she hasn't been asking you about me?"

Seever's expression changed as he thought for a moment.

"Well, now that I think of it, she has; but there was nothing about fire in her questions. I mentioned a few weeks ago, at dinner I think, that my old-young friend Bob Kinnaird was going to be back from college before long, and she did put a question or two. I don't remember just how she worded them, now, but they seemed perfectly ordinary to me at the time. She never did know you very well, she'd been away at the time of the other problem, and I assumed she was wondering why I regarded you as a friend rather than just another patient."

Bob thought for several seconds, without consulting the Hunter.

"Maybe had better talk to her about the boat. It will be an excuse for talking, and maybe this fire business will start to make some sense. All right if I call her in?"

Seever nodded agreement, but things didn't work out quite as expected. The moment Bob opened the door to the reception room, he and the Hunter saw several people waiting. Jenny promptly nodded to one of these, who as promptly rose and headed for the examining room, leaving Bob with nothing to do but hold the door for her.

The situation also left him with little to say, except the basic request which was intended to start a longer inquiry. For a moment Bob wondered whether he should even do that; he asked the Hunter inaudibly; "Should we wait?" The alien advised him to ask about the boat anyway, since one was so badly needed. Bob almost nodded, but remembered in time.

"Jen," he asked, "your dad says you have a boat, and I need one for a while. Can I come back after office hours and see you about borrowing it?"

Jenny hesitated, too. Both Bob and the symbiont felt that the question, for some reason, surprised her.

"There aren't any real hours. Dad's open all the time, but I'm generally through by four or so. Come back then if you want. But tell me-have you been talking to that stringy towhead Malmstrom?

" "I met him when I landed yesterday just before sundown, and we talked old times for a few minutes until my folks showed up."

"He didn't say anything about my boat?"

"No. Why should he? Is it only for the use of blond males over six feet three inches, or something? I could bleach my hair a little, but I don't see how I can get five inches taller." Bob had taken a chance the Hunter felt, asking questions which might lead to project-related answers with other people present, but Bob himself felt otherwise. He was sure that Jenny, whatever she said, would keep some sort of control in public; and the need for doing so might, he felt, distract her from the job of concealing things from him. It didn't work, however.

"No," was all she said. "Forget it. I'll talk to you later." The four people in the waiting room had obviously been listening, and at least two of them were openly amused. Jenny glared at one of these, a girl about her own age, went back to her desk, and very pointedly busied herself with her paper work. Bob tried to catch her eye, but she didn't look up, and after a few seconds he left. Outside, he steered the bicycle toward the dock, rather than back home.

"You know," be muttered to his guest with less than impressive originality, "there's something queer going on. I wish I could guess whether it has anything to do with us or not. Her question about fire suggests it does, but that's all. I could believe she was having some sort of feud with Shorty-"

"Which needn't be connected with the fire matter at all," cut in the alien.

"True." Bob's train of thought was momentarily derailed, and he brooded silently as they rolled down the road. Finally he said more firmly, "Maybe we'd better hunt up Shorty and get another piece or two to this jigsaw." The Hunter agreed that this was sensible, but it did them no good; Malmstrom was not to be found.

It was Friday and he should have been working, but that did not help in locating him. Both working times and working places tended to be variable on Ell, since the population was small and the work had to be done when it had to be done. Malmstrom was still part of the youngest and least skilled section of the work force-what Bob thought of as a "hey-you" -and he might literally be anywhere on the island. However, some places were more likely than others. He was not at the seaplane float, where the Catalina was moored unattended. Bob remembered that Dulac had said he was to have this day off. Malmstrom was not anywhere around the refinery and pumping station at the end of the dock. There was no tanker in that day, so the pumps were idle, but the refining section was always busy; it took the best part of an hour to make sure the one they sought wasn't there. This was partly because of the changes which had taken place since Bob's boyhood; the refinery had expanded and grown much more complex during the Korean troubles. To the original marine fuels and lubricants which had once been the principal products of the organization, there had been added the more volatile liquids needed to slake the enormous thirst of jet engines; and more recently still, raw materials for plastics had been placed on the list.

The same expansion was noticeable along the northeast leg of the island, where they went next. There were more culture tanks; the distillation plant had been duplicated; and new and faster-growing vegetation covered the areas devoted to tank fodder. There were plenty of people at work, but Malmstrom was not among them.

He could, of course, have been at any of the tanks which dotted the lagoon. He could have been somewhere on the longer northwest leg of the island, though none of the industry was located here-it was all residential where it wasn't jungle. He might, Bob admitted to his companion, be hiding out from work anywhere around the lagoon, though that seemed unlikely. Everyone on the island was a PFI shareholder from birth, and the general attitude toward parasites was very negative.

The search ended just before noon, when Bob's muscles gave out. Neither he nor the Hunter was particularly surprised. There was nothing to be done about it but rest. They were near the northeast tip of the main island at this point, on a slope with the coral reef running out straight ahead of them, the lagoon to their left, and the empty Pacific to the right. There were no houses in this part of Ell, though parts of three culture tanks could be seen behind the ridge. They were on the road, which was narrow here and closely bordered by fodder-plants-the quick-growing stuff which was constantly being harvested and dumped into the culture tanks to feed the hydrocarbon-producing bacteria. There was no one in sight, which was a relief to both of them.

Lying down was distasteful but unavoidable; Bob had to rest. The' soil consisted largely of tank sludge, and was one reason there were no residences at this end of the island. The smell was as offensive to the Hunter as to his host; the former avoided it by withdrawing from Bob's lungs-where he usually left a small part of his tissue directly exposed to the incoming oxygen-and making do with that available in the blood stream. The alien's need for the element was small except when he was operating independently of a host.

"It's an awful place to rest, and I know it bothers you too, but there's not much else we can do," Bob said as he settled down beside the bicycle. "I'll have to get back into at least walking condition if we're to keep that date with Jenny this afternoon."

"Perhaps we could make the doctor's house from here by going on foot very slowly," the symbiont suggested. "At least, shouldn't we try? He would certainly want to examine you in this condition, I'm sure, and even if you haven't recovered by four o'clock you could still talk to the young woman."

"Two miles? Forget it. Besides, if I walked in like this-or more probably crawled in-she'd have to have some explanation."

"I've been thinking about that," the symbiont replied. "If you use her boat, you'll probably have to explain a lot anyway, as you yourself were saying to her father. Also, you can't go alone to do the searching; neither your parents nor the doctor will be available for help much of the time; it's her boat, she'll probably want to go along with us at least part of the time, and we're going to have trouble finding a convincing reason why she shouldn't. Bob, I know you like it much less than I do-after all, I'm merely following a reasonable regulation which can legally be violated if circumstances demand it, while you are quite reasonably afraid of being thought crazy or a liar by people who don't get the story first-hand and with all the evidence; but I am getting resigned to the idea that we're going to need several more of your people in this operation with us-fully informed."

"You can really get away with breaking your regulations?"

"I would have to justify my actions, but we tend to have much respect for the judgment of the man in the field. I have already exercised that discretion with you, the doctor, and your parents, and am not worried about any penalties when we are rescued. I am quite certain that none of you will let out the word in such broadcast fashion as to interfere with the work of any exploring team. I do believe, now, that a few more members of this in-group are going to be needed to save your life-which I regard as much more important than holding certain principles inviolate."

"And you think Jenny is a good prospect?" asked

Bob.

"I don't know. She should be useful; she is clearly intelligent or she could not be doing the work she does for her father. She appears physically strong- she is nearly as tall as you, and I judge not much lighter. If she uses this boat of hers very much, I feel safe in assuming that a reasonable fraction of the weight is muscle. Another point from the work she does-her father evidently trusts her discretion, or she wouldn't be doing.his medical records. Your species has what I consider an exaggerated idea of the importance of privacy in such matters. Think it over- but I think I'm right."

Bob did not think for very long; he fell asleep. This was one of the most inconvenient human habits, from the Hunter's viewpoint. He himself could not sleep in anything like the human fashion; he remained conscious as long as the oxygen supply was adequate. His humanoid hosts on his home world spent less than a tenth of their time in sleep, and the cultural situation was based on this fact and provided activities for the small symbionts during these periods.

When, and if, Bob's medical problem was solved, the Hunter knew that he would have to work out some rather difficult details about their partnership. Presumably the examination team, if it decided to join up with humanity, would have solutions to offer.

At the moment, he could do something. The surrounding vegetation was strange to him-the breeds were always being replaced with new ones by the biological engineers-and there existed a small chance, that something useful in the medical problem might be present. The Hunter extended a fairly large pseudo-pod through the skin of his host's hand and gathered in some of the material, pulling it close against the skin, digesting it, and checking the breakdown products for new materials. A few seemed promising, and samples of their molecules were absorbed through Bob's pores and between the cells: of the inner skin layers for local, very careful testing of their biological effects. The Hunter himself did not leave his own tissue outside for long; sunlight drove him back inside. The Castor C twin suns produced strong ultraviolet only during the aperiodic flare times, and he could stand very little of it.

He devoted the rest of the sleep to investigation. He had to experiment; dangerous as it might be, ignorance was even more so. He increased and decreased hormone secretion, trying to decide when one or another was not only doing a primary job but also affecting the flow of still others.

It was detective work, but he wished he had studied biochemistry more carefully a couple of human lifetimes ago.