Teroa was properly indignant. "What do you mean? I never sleep when there's work to do." He glanced at a patch of grass in the shade of a large tree which grew beside the house. "Just look; best place in the world for a nap, and you found me working. I'm even going back to school."
"How come?"
"I'm taking navigation from Mr. Dennis. Figured it would help next time I tried."
Bob raised his eyebrows. "Next time? You're hard to discourage. When will that be?"
"Don't know yet. I'll tell you when I think I'm ready. Want to come along?"
"I donno. I don't want a job on a ship, that's certain. Well see how I feel when you make up your mind. I've got to get this stuff home, and get the jeep back to Dad, and get to the school before the fellows get out; I'd better be going."
Teroa nodded and stepped back from the side of the jeep. 'Too bad you're not one of those things we learned about in school, that splits in two every so often. I was wishing I was a little while ago, then part of me might have gotten away with that stunt."
Bob, on occasion, was a quick thinker. This time, at least, he managed to conceal the jolt Charles's words had given him; he repeated the farewells, started the vehicle, swung around the corner to the right, and stepped on the gas. For the half mile the road ran among the houses and gardens he said nothing, except at the very end, when he pointed out a long, low building on their left as the school A short distance beyond this, however, he pulled to the side of the road and stopped. They were out of sight of the rest of the island, having driven with startling suddenness into the densely overgrown section Bob had mentioned.
"Hunter," the boy said tensely as soon as they were stopped, "I never thought of it, but Charlie reminded me. You folks are like amoebae, you said. Are you entirely like them? I mean-is there any chance of-of our having more than one of your people to catch?"
The Hunter had not understood the boy's hesitance and did not understand the question until he had digested it a moment.
"You mean, might our friend have split in two, as your amoebae do?" he asked. "Not in the sense you mean-we are slightly more complicated beings. It would be possible for him to bud off an offspring-separate a portion of his flesh to make a new individual, but that one would be at least one of your years reaching full size. He could, of course, release it at any time, but I don't think he would, for a very good reason.
"If he tried it while in the body of a host, the new symbiote would have no more knowledge, than a newborn child of your own race; it would certainly kill the host in its blind search for food, or simply while moving around in ignorance of its surroundings. While it is true we know more biology than your race, we are not born with the knowledge; learning to live with a host takes time and is one of the chief phases of our education.
"Therefore, if our quarry does reproduce at all, he win do it from purely selfish motives-to create a being which will almost certainly be quickly caught and destroyed, so that the pursuers he expects will think he himself has been killed. It was a good point, of course-I had not considered the possibility myself-but it is true that a creature such as we are pursuing would probably not hesitate to do such a thing-if he thinks of it. Of course his first care will be to find a hiding place; and if that turns out to be a satisfactory host, I doubt whether he would take the chance of leaving for the purpose you suggested."
"That's some relief." Bob sighed. "For a few minutes there I was thinking that the last five months might have given us a whole tribe to chase down."
He restarted the jeep and drove the short remaining distance to his home without interruption. The house lay some distance up the hill from the road, at the end of a drive completely roofed in by trees. It was a fairly large, two-storied dwelling in the midst of the jungle-the heavy growths had been cleared away for only a few yards around it, so that the first-floor windows were shaded most of the time. In front, where the drive emerged, an extra amount of labor had made a sun porch possible, though even this Mrs. Kinnaird had found better to shade with flowering creepers. The temperature of the island was not excessively high, because of the surrounding water, but the sun was frequently intense and shade something to be ardently sought.
She was waiting on the porch. She had known of the ship's arrival, and had heard the jeep coming up the drive. Bob's greeting was affectionate, though less boisterous than the one on the dock, but Mrs. Kinnaird could find nothing wrong either with her son's appearance or his behavior. He did not stay long, but she did not expect that; she simply listened happily to his almost endless talk as he unloaded the jeep, dragged the luggage up to his room, changed out of his traveling clothes, found his bicycle and loaded it into the car, and departed. She was fond of her son and would have liked to see more of him, but she knew that he would not enjoy sitting around talking to her for any length of time; and she was wise enough not to regret the fact particularly. As a matter of fact, if he had gone so much out of character as to do some such thing she would have been worried; as it was, the load that the school communication had put on her mind was partly lifted as she watched and listened. She was able to turn to her housework with a lighter heart, when the jeep bounced back down the drive on its way to the dock.
Bob met no one and stopped for nothing on this trip. He parked the jeep in its accustomed place beside one of the tanks, unloaded his bicycle, and started to mount. There was a slight delay, caused by his having forgotten to check the tires before leaving home, then he was pedaling back along the causeway. There was excitement and anticipation written large on his face, not merely because he was to rejoin his friends after a long absence, but because an exciting play was, from his point of view, about to start. He was ready. He knew the stage-the island on which he had been born, and whose every square yard he was sure he knew. The Hunter knew the setting-the habits and capabilities of the murderous being they sought, and Only the characters were left. A trace of grimness tinged the excitement on Bob's face as he thought of that; he was far from stupid, and had long since realized that, of all the people on the island, the most likely ones to have afforded refuge to his quarry were those who spent the most time near the shore and in the water-in short, his best friends.
Chapter IX. THE PLAYERS
BOB TIMED his arrival well; the school was dismissed only a minute or two after he reached it, and he was immediately surrounded by a riotous crowd of acquaintances. The school-age population of the island was a rather large fraction of the total. When the station had been established some eighteen years before only young married couples were accepted for positions there. Consequently there was a great deal of chatter, handshaking, and mutual inquiry before the group finally broke up and left Bob surrounded by a few of his closest friends.
Only one of these could the Hunter recognize as a member of the group who had been swimming together the day he met Bob. He had not, at the time, been very familiar with the distinguished criteria of human features, but Kenny Rice's mop of flame-colored hair was hard to forget. The alien quickly learned from the conversation which of the others had belonged to the swimming party: they were boys named Norman Hay and Hugh Colby-presumably the ones to whom Bob had already referred in describing the layout of the island. The other one he had mentioned, Kenneth Malmstrom, was the only other member of the present group; he was a blond fifteen-year-old approximately six feet tall who had come by his nickname in the usual manner-he was distinguished by the inevitable sobriquet of "Shorty." These four, together with Bob, had been companions ever since they were old enough to go out of sight of their neighboring houses. It was more than coincidence that the alien had found most of them swimming at the point where he first came ashore; any islander, knowing the point where he had landed, would have been perfectly willing to bet that the Hunter would make one of the five his first host. They were born beachcombers. None of them, therefore, thought it strange when Bob quickly brought the conversation around to such matters.