"I thought it must be some sort of disease," he said, "but I never heard of one that attacks everything alike. Have you?"
Bob shook his head. "No. Was that why you borrowed that book of the doc's?"
Norman looked up sharply. "Why, yes. Who told you about that?"
"The doc. I wanted to find out something about viruses, and he said you had the best of his books on the subject Are you still using it?"
"I guess not. What got you interested in viruses? I read what it had to say about 'em and couldn't get much out of it."
"Oh, I don't know. It was something about nobody being able to decide whether they were really alive or not I guess. That sounded pretty queer. If they eat and grow, they must be alive."
"I remember something about that-" At this point the conversation was interrupted, sparing Bob the need for further invention.
"For gosh sakes, Norm, give him the book when you get home, but let's not get lost in the upper atmosphere now! Exercise your brains on this pool of yours if you like, or else let's go along the reef and see what we can find." It was Malmstrom who had cut in, and Rice supported him vocally. Colby, as usual, remained silent in the background.
"I suppose you're right" Hay turned back to the pool. "I don't know, though, what I'm likely to think of right now that I couldn't in the last three or four months. I was hoping Bob might have a new idea."
"I don't know much biology-just the school course," Robert replied. "Have you gone down in it to see if you could find anything? Have you brought up anything like a piece of coral, to see what's happened to the polyps?"
"No, I've never been swimming in it. At first I didn't want to disturb the fish I had collected, and later I thought that whatever disease affected so many different things might get me too."
"That's a thought. Still, you must have touched the water a lot before things got really bad, and nothing happened to you. I'll go in if you like." Once again the Hunter came close to losing his temper. "What would you like me to bring up?"
Norman stared at him for a moment. "You really think it's safe? All right, I'll go in if you will."
That gave Bob a jolt; he had, almost without thought, been assuming himself safe from any disease germ that might be around, but Hay, as far as anyone could tell, had no symbiote to protect him.
That thought gave rise to another-did he? Would that explain his courage? Bob thought not, since it seemed most unlikely that their quarry's host would have any idea of the alien's presence but it was something to be considered when there was more tune. For the moment the question was whether he should make good his offer of entering the questionable water if Hay were going to follow him.
He decided that he would; after all, the argument he had used against the trouble's being a disease seemed sound; and anyway there was a doctor on the island.
"All right," he said, starting to strip.
"Wait a minute! Are you fellows crazy?" Malmstrom and Rice yelled almost together. "If that water's been killing the fish, you're foolish to go in."
"It's safe enough," said Bob. "We're not fish." He was aware of the weakness of this argument but could not think of a better one on the spur of the moment. The two Kenneths were still expostulating as he slipped feet first into the pool, with Norman beside him-both knew better than to dive into a coral pool, however clear it might be. Colby, who had not contributed to the argument, walked over to the boat, got an oar, came back, and stood watching.
The trouble with the pool manifested itself with remarkable speed. Bob swam out to the middle and did a surface dive, a maneuver which should have taken him without effort to the bottom eight feet down. It did nothing of the sort; his momentum barely got his feet under water. He took a couple of strokes, reached the bottom, broke a sea fan loose, and bobbed back to the surface with remarkable speed. As was his custom, he started blowing out air just before his head broke water, and managed to get some of the liquid into his mouth in the process. That was enough.
"Norm! Taste this water!" he yelled. "No wonder your fish died." Hay obeyed hesitantly, and grimaced.
"Where did all the salt come from?" he asked. Bob swam to the edge of the pool, clambered out, and started to dress before answering.
"We should have guessed," he said. Sea water comes in when the waves are high, enough, but the only way it leaves is by evaporation. The salt stays behind. You shouldn't have blocked off all the passages to the sea. We'll have to chip out one of your plugs and find some wire netting, if you still want to take those pictures."
"My gosh," exclaimed Hay, "and I wrote a school report on Great Salt Lake only last year." He started to dress, indifferent as Bob to the fact that he was still wet. "What'll we do? Go back for a crowbar or something, or poke around the reef for a while now that we're here?"
A brief discussion resulted in the adoption of the second plan, and the group returned to the boat On the way Norman pulled a large, battered bucket out of the bushes, laughing as he did so. "I used to fill up the pool with this sometimes, when I thought it was getting low," he said.
"I guess we can find some other use for Mr. Bucket now." He tossed it into the bow of the boat after the others, entered, and shoved off.
For an hour they rowed along inside the reef, occasionally disembarking on one of the larger islets, more often coasting alongside the ridges and lumps of coral while using poles to keep them off the more dangerous sections. They had worked some distance along the reef away from the island itself and had reached another fairly large islet-this one actually supported half-a-dozen coconut palms-where they disembarked and pulled the boat well up on the gritty soil. Their loot up to this time had not been very impressive, consisting mainly of a few cowries and a weirdly colored fragment of coral for which Malmstrom had gone overboard in twelve feet of water. The Hunter's profit from the expedition had been even less so far, which annoyed him, since the exploration of the reef for clues had been largely his idea.
He made the utmost use of Bob's eyes, however. They were nearing his arbitrary one-mile limit north of the beach, which meant that about half of the region in which he expected to find clues of his quarry's landing had been covered. There was still not very much to see, however. On one side of the irregular islet the breakers thundered; on the other was the relatively calm water of the lagoon, with the bulk of one of the great culture tanks a few hundred yards away. The scavenger barge was beside the tank at the moment, and the small figures of its crew were visible on the catwalks that crossed the paneled roof; beyond, and dwarfed by a distance of fully three miles, the houses of the island dwellers were barely visible.
These, however, could hardly be considered clues, it seemed to the Hunter, and he brought his attention back to the immediate surroundings. The present bit of land was similar to that on which Hay's pool was located, and like it, had very irregular edges-clefts, walled with living coral, in which the water gurgled down almost out of sight and then spurted upward into the watchers' faces as another breaker came thundering against the barrier. Some of the openings were narrow at the outer edge and broadened farther in, so that the water in them was quieter, though there was always the endless up-and-down wash started by the waves.
It was in these larger openings that the boys did most of their searching-it would have been impossible to get anything out of the others, reckless as some of the youngsters tended to be.
Rice, the first one out of the boat, had run to one of the largest while the others were still pulling the little craft up and making it fast; and dropping into a prone position with his head over the edge, he shaded his eyes and looked down into the clear water. By the tune the others came up he was already pulling off his shirt.