"Redhead? Ken? What has he to do with it? I thought it was Norman went with you."
"It was, but it was Rice's idea, and he was supposed to come along. He got cold feet or something and never showed up. Can I razz him now!" He turned suddenly serious. "Don't you tell him about this job. I want to!" He started to walk toward the dock, then turned back. "I'm going out to Four to collect something Ray borrowed a while back. Want to come along?"
Bob looked at the sky, but the Hunter expressed no opinion, and he had to make up his own mind. "I don't think so," he said. "The barge is a little ripe for my taste." He watched as the brown-skinned eighteen-year-old disappeared among the storage sheds, then turned slowly back up the road.
"That was our only real chance for a boat," he said to the Hunter. "We'll have to wait until the fellows get out of school. As a group, we stand a better chance of borrowing one-or maybe it won't take long to fix our own. I didn't have time to look at it very closely when we took the plank down yesterday."
"Was that boy going to use his own boat?"
"Yes. You heard him say he was going out to Four- that's Tank Four-to get something. The person he mentioned works on the barge they use for carrying the tank wastes. Charlie wants to collect from him before he leaves the island."
The Hunter was instantly alert. "Leaves the island? You mean the bargeman?"
"No-Charlie. Didn't you hear what he was saying?"
"I heard him talk about a job, but that was all. Is it taking him away?"
"Of course! Charlie's the son of the mate of that ship-the one who stowed away, hoping to get a job on her! Don't you remember-his father told us the first night, on the ship!"
"I remember your talking to an officer on the tanker," the Hunter replied, "but I did not and do not know what you said. You were not talking English." Bob stopped short and whistled.
"I forgot all about that!" He paused a moment to marshal his thoughts, and told the story as briefly and clearly as he could. The Hunter thought for a time after he had finished.
"Then this Charles Teroa has left the island once since my arrival and is shortly to leave it again. Your friend Norman Hay has also left once. For Heaven's sake, if there are any others you've heard about, tell me!"
"There aren't, unless you want to count Charlie's father, and I don't suppose he's been ashore here much. What does it matter about the other trip? They never got ashore, you know, and I'm sure they didn't sleep in port, so if our friend was with them he couldn't have left except at sea."
"You may be right, but that will no longer be true for this one you just saw. He must be examined before he leaves! Start thinking, please."
For the first time that day Bob completely forgot his sunburn as he walked back up the road.
Chapter X. MEDICAL REPORT
BOB MANAGED to hide his concern at lunch; his mother had thought of something during the morning to take his mind off the new problem. She had been wondering how to persuade her son to have a checkup by the island doctor, and had realized just after he disappeared what a splendid excuse the sunburn provided. She had no opportunity to discuss it with her husband, since Bob had arrived home first, but he would probably have agreed with her anyway. She brought up the subject as they finished the meal.
She did not really expect to win without argument; she knew Bob was ashamed of having acquired the sunburn and did not want more people than were strictly necessary to know about it. She was therefore somewhat astonished when her son agreed without a murmur to the suggestion that he drop into the doctor's office that afternoon, though she had the control and presence of mind not to show it.
The fact of the matter was that Bob had been thinking about the Hunter's failure to answer certain of his questions, particularly those which dealt with the details of how he was to recognize his quarry and still more, what he was to do after the creature was found. If the Hunter knew, well and good; but the suspicion that his invisible guest did not know was growing. It followed that Bob must get some ideas of his own; and for such ideas to be any use, he must learn more about the Hunter's species. The alien had said he resembled a virus. Very well. Bob would find out about viruses, and the logical place to do that was in a doctor's office. He had known it would be somewhat out of character for him to make the suggestion himself, but it did not occur to him to wonder that his mother should have done so; he simply accepted it as a piece of luck.
Dr. Seever knew Bob very wellas he knew every other person born on the island. He had read the communication from the school doctor, and agreed with Mr. Kinnaird's opinion of it; but he was glad of the chance to see the boy himself. Even he, however, was a little startled when he saw the color of Bob's skin.
"Good heavens! You really celebrated getting back here, didn't you?"
"Don't rub it in, Doc. I really know better."
"I should think so. Well, well tan your hide for you- not the way it ought to be done, but you'll be more comfortable." The doctor set briskly to work, talking steadily the while. "You certainly aren't the fellow you used to be. I can remember when you were one of the most thoughtful and careful people here. Have you been sick lately at that school of yours?" Bob had not expected the question so soon or in just this form, but he had made plans for putting it to his own use when it came,
"Certainly not. You can look me over all day and won't find any germs at work."
Dr. Seever looked over his glasses at the boy. "That's certainly possible, I know, but is hardly assurance that nothing is wrong. It was not germs that caused that sunburn, you know."
"Well, I sprained an ankle and had a cut or two, but they don't count. You were talking about sickness, and you could find out about that with your microscope, couldn't you?"
The doctor smiled, conceiving that he knew what the boy was driving at "It's nice to find someone with such touching faith in medical science," he said, "but I'm afraid I couldn't. Just a minute and I'll show you why." He finished applying the sunburn material, put the container away, and brought an excellent microscope out of its cabinet Some searching among rather dusty slide files found what he wanted, and he began slipping the bits of glass onto the stage one after another as he talked.
"This one we can see, and recognize, easily. It's protozoan-an amoeba, of the type that causes a disease called dysentery. It's big, as disease-causing organisms run."
"I've seen them in bio class at school," Bob admitted, "but I didn't know they caused disease."
"Most of them don't. Now this"-the doctor slipped another slide under the objective-"is a good deal smaller. The other wasn't really a germ at all. This causes typhoid fever when it gets a chance, though we haven't had a case in a long time. The next is smaller still and is the cause of cholera."
"It looks like a sausage with the string still on one end," Bob remarked as he raised his head from the instrument.
"You can see it better with the high-powered objective in place," Dr. Seever remarked, turning the turret at the lower end of the instrument and sinking back into his chair while Bob looked once more.
"That's about as far as this gadget can go. There are many smaller bacteria-some of them harmless, some not. There is a class of things called Rickettsia which are smaller still and may not be bacteria at all, and there are viruses."
Bob turned from the microscope and attempted the difficult feat of looking interested without showing that the conversation had finally reached the point he wished.
"Then you can't show me a virus?" he asked, knowing the answer perfectly well.
"That's what I'm getting at A few of them have been photographed with the aid of the electron microscope- they seem to look a little like that cholera bug I showed you-but that's all. As a matter of fact, the word 'virus' was simply a confession of ignorance for a long time; doctors were blaming diseases which seemed to be life-caused for one reason of another, but for which they could find no causative organism such as I've shown you, on what they called 'filterable viruses'-so named because no matter how fine a filter you squeezed the juice from a diseased creature through, the cause seemed to go through with it They even found ways to separate the virus stuff chemically and crystallize it; it would still cause the same disease when the crystals were dissolved in water again. They devised a lot of very pretty experiments to guess at the sizes of the things, and their shapes, and other such matters long before they saw *em. Some scientists thought -and still think-they are single molecules; big ones, of course-even bigger than the albumin ones-that's the white of egg, you know. I have read several darn good books on the subject; you might like to do the same."