The monster took a long time to die, though it became helpless quite rapidly. Once it ceased to struggle, the Hunter continued the search for its eyes, and eventually found them. He deposited a film of himself between and around their retinal cells, in anticipation of the time when there would be enough light for him to see. Also, since the now-quiescent shark was showing a distressing tendency to sink, the alien began extending other appendages to trap any air bubbles which might be brought near by the storm. These, together with the carbon dioxide he produced himself, he gradually accumulated in the fish's abdominal cavity to give buoyancy. He needed very little gas for this purpose, but it took him a long time to collect it, since he was too small to produce large volumes of carbon dioxide very rapidly.
The breakers were sounding much more loudly by the time he was able to take his attention from these jobs, and he realized that his assumption of a shoreward drift was justified. The waves were imparting a sickening up-and-down motion to his unusual raft, which neither bothered nor pleased him; it was horizontal motion he wanted, and that was comparatively slow until the water became quite shallow.
He waited for a long time after his conveyance stopped moving, expecting each moment to be floated and dragged back into deep water again, but nothing happened, and gradually the sound of waves began to decrease slightly and the amount of spray falling on him to diminish. The Hunter suspected that the storm was dying.out. Actually, the tide had turned; but the result was the same as far as he was concerned.
By the time the combination of approaching dawn and thinning storm clouds provided enough light for his surroundings to be visible his late host was well above the reach of the heaviest waves. The shark's eyes would not focus on their own retinas out of water, but the Hunter found that the new focal surface was inside the eyeball and built a retina of his own in the appropriate place. The lenses also turned out to be a little less than perfect, but he modified their curvature with some of his own body substance and eventually found himself able to see his surroundings without exposing himself to the view of others.
There were rifts in the storm clouds now through which a few of the brightest stars were still visible against the gray background of approaching dawn. Slowly these breaks grew larger, and by the time the sun rose the sky was almost clear, though the wind still blew fiercely.
His vantage point was not ideal, but he was able to make out a good deal of his surroundings. In one direction the beach extended a short distance to a line of tall, slender trees crowned with feathery tufts of leaves. He could not see beyond these, his point of observation being too low, though they were not themselves set thickly enough to obstruct the view. In the opposite direction was more debris-strewn beach, with the roar of the still-heavy surf sounding beyond it. The Hunter could not actually see the ocean, but its direction was obvious. To the right was a body of water which, he realized, must be a small pool, filled by the storm and now emptying back into the sea through an opening too small or too steep for the surf to enter. This was probably the only reason the shark had stranded at all-it had been washed into this pool and left there by the receding tide.
Several times he heard raucous screeching sounds and saw birds overhead. This pleased him greatly; evidently there were higher forms of life than fishes on the planet, and there was some hope of obtaining a more suitable host. An intelligent one would be best, since an intelligent creature is ordinarily best able to protect itself. It would also be more likely to travel widely, thus facilitating the now-necessary search for the pilot of the other ship. It was very likely, however, as the Hunter fully realized, that there would be serious difficulty in obtaining access to the body of an intelligent creature who was not accustomed to the idea of symbiosis.
All that, however, would have to wait on chance. Even if there were intelligent beings on this planet they might never come to this spot; and even if they did, he might not recognize them for what they were in time to get any good out of the situation. It would be best to wait, several days if need be, to observe just what forms of life frequented this locality; after that he could make plans to invade the one best suited to his needs. Time was probably not vital; it was as certain as anything could be that Ms quarry was no more able to leave the planet than was the Hunter himself, and while he remained on it the search would be decidedly tedious. Time spent in careful preparation would undoubtedly pay dividends.
He waited, therefore, while the sun rose higher and the wind gradually died down to a mild breeze. It became quite warm; and he was aware before long of chemical changes going on in the flesh of the shark. They were changes which made it certain that, if a sense of smell were common to many of the creatures of this world, he was bound to have visitors before too long. The Hunter could have halted the process of decay by the simple expedient of consuming the bacteria that caused it, but he was not particularly hungry and certainly had no objection to visitors. On the contrary!
Chapter II. SHELTER
THE FIRST visitors were gulls. One by one they descended, attracted by sight and smell, and began tearing at the carcass of the shark. The Hunter withdrew to the lower parts of the body and made no attempt to drive them off, even when they pounced upon the eyes of the great fish and speedily deprived him of visual contact with the outside world. If other life forms came he would know it anyway; if they didn't, it was just as well to have the gulls there.
The greedy birds remained undisturbed until mid-afternoon. They did not make too much progress in disposing of the shark-the tough skin defied their beaks in most places. They were persistent, however, and when they suddenly took wing and departed in a body, it was evident to the Hunter that there must be something of interest in the neighborhood. He hastily extruded enough tissue from one of the gill slits to make an eye and looked cautiously about him.
He saw why the gulls had left. From the direction of the trees a number of much larger creatures were coming. They were bipeds, and the Hunter estimated with the ease of long practice that the largest weighed fully a hundred and twenty pounds, which, in an air-breather, meant that the addition of his own mass and oxygen consumption was unlikely to prove a serious burden. Much closer to him was a smaller four-legged creature running rapidly toward the dead shark and uttering an apparently endless string of sharp yelping sounds. The Hunter placed it at about fifty pounds and filed the information mentally for future use.
The four bipeds were also running, but not nearly so rapidly as the smaller animal. As they approached, the hidden watcher examined them carefully, and the more he saw the more pleased he was. They could travel with fair speed; their skulls were of a size that gave promise of considerable intelligence, if one could safety assume that this race kept its brain there; their skins seemed almost entirely unprotected, giving promise of easy access through the pores. As they slowed up and stopped beside the hammerhead's body, they gave another indication of intelligence by exchanging articulate sounds which unquestionably represented speech. The Hunter, to put it mildly, was delighted. He had not dared hope for such an ideal host to appear so quickly.
Of course there were problems still to be solved. It was a fairly safe bet that the creatures were not accustomed to the idea of symbiosis, at least as the Hunter's race practiced it. The alien was sure he had never seen members of this race before, and was equally sure he knew all those with whom his people normally associated. Therefore, if these beings actually saw him approaching, they would almost certainly go to considerable lengths to avoid contact; and even if this proved futile, forcible entry on the Hunter's part would create an attitude highly unlikely to lead to future co-operation. It seemed, therefore, that subtlety would have to be employed.