Like the rest of the men, Mr. Kinnaird was far too busy to say much. He was a civil engineer by training, but, like everyone else on the island, he was expected to turn his hand to whatever job needed doing. For once the work came very near to his specialty, and he was making the most of it. The Hunter saw him occasionally, when Bob chanced to be looking somewhere near the right direction, and he was always busy-clinging precariously (it seemed to the alien) to the tops of ladders gauging the separation of the molds; stepping across the thirty-foot-deep chasm which the concrete was to fill, to climb the slope beyond and check the preparations of the men at the mixers; freezing over a spirit level or a theodolite as he gauged location or angle of stance of some newly positioned part; checking the fuel tank on the generator engine; even taking a turn at the power saw where the ends of the props were cut to the proper angles-jobs which would each have been done by a different man anywhere else, and jobs which sometimes scared even the watching Hunter. The alien decided that he had been overhasty in condemning the man for letting his son do dangerous work. Mr. Kinnaird just didn't think of that phase of the matter. Well, so much more work for the Hunter. Maybe someday he could educate the boy to take care of himself; but if he had had fifteen years of this example the chances were smaller than the detective had hoped.
The man was not completely ignoring his son, however. Bob succeeded in concealing one yawn from everyone but his guest; but his father spotted the second and ordered him away from work. He knew what lack of sleep could do to a person's coordination and had no desire to see the elder Malmstrorn's prediction fulfilled.
"Do I have to go home?" asked Bob. "I wanted to see them pour."
"You won't be able to see if you don't get some sleep. No, you needn't go home; but stop working for a while and catch a nap. There's a good place up at the top of the hill there where you can see what's going on and lie down in comfort at the same time. I'll wake you before they pour, if you insist."
Bob made no objection. It was not yet ten o'clock, and he would never have ordinarily dreamed of sleeping so early; but the last few days had been a tremendous change in activity from the routine of the school, and even he was beginning to feel the results. Anyway, he knew that objecting would do him no good.
He climbed the hill accordingly, and on the very top found a spot which answered to his father's description. He stretched out on the soft grass, propped his head up on his elbows, and regarded the brilliant scene below him.
From here he could see almost everything at once. It was as though he looked down from a balcony onto a lighted stage. Only the area at the very foot of the wall to be was hidden by the molds; and there was plenty to watch elsewhere in the work area. Even outside this something could be seen; there was the faint glow from the water of the lagoon, with the nearer tanks silhouetted against it and the brighter band of luminosity that limned the outer reef. Bob could hear the breakers if he listened for them; but, like everyone else on the island, he was so accustomed to their endless sound that he seldom noticed it. To his left a few lights were visible, some on the dock and some in the half-dozen houses not hidden from his gaze by the shoulder of the hill. In the other direction, to the east, there was only darkness. The machines used to mow the lush vegetation grown there to feed the culture tanks were abandoned for the night, and the only sound was the rustling among the pithy stalks caused by small animals and vagrant breezes. There were a few mosquitoes and sand flies as well, but the Hunter also believed his host needed sleep, and frightened off with tiny pseudo-pods any that landed on the boy's exposed skin. It may have been listening to these faint noises which proved tot be Bob's undoing, for in spite of the firmest determination merely to rest and watch he was sound asleep when his father came up the hill to find him.
Mr. Kinnaird approached silently and looked down at the boy for some time with an expression that defied interpretation. At last, as the sound of the mixers below swelled abruptly, he nudged the prone figure with his toe. -This proving ineffective, he bent over and shook his son gently; and eventually Bob emitted an audible yawn and opened his eyes. It took him a second or two to take in the situation, then he got to his feet at once.
"Thanks, Dad. I didn't think I'd go to sleep. Is it late? Are they pouring?"
"Just starting." Mr. Kinnaird made no comments about sleep. He had only one son but knew the minds of boys. "I'll have to go back to the floor; I suppose you'll want to watch from the top. Just to be sure someone's around to see you if you fall in." They started downhill together without further talk.
At the mixers Mr. Kinnaird bore off to the left, continuing down past the cut made for the tank, while Bob stayed by the machinery. It was already in action, and more of the lights had been moved up to the scene, so that every operation was clearly visible. The upper ends of the machines received apparently endless supplies of sand and cement from stock piles previously built up and of water pumped up from one of the big desalting units at the edge of the lagoon. A smooth, gray-white river of concrete poured from spouts at the lower end and into the chasm between the carefully placed mold boards. The scene of activity was gradually being obscured under a haze of cement dust. The men were protected from it by goggles, but Bob was not, and presently the penetrating stuff began to get into his eyes. The Hunter made a halfhearted attempt to do something about it, but it meant putting tissue on the outside of the boy's eyeballs which would interfere with sight from both their proper owner and himself, so he let the tear glands do the job. He had no particular ulterior motives, but was far from disappointed when his host moved a little way up the hill to get out of the dust cloud; for, as usual, Bob had been watching things with an annoying disregard for his own safety and had had to be ordered out of the way several times by some of the men.
Just before midnight, with the pouring almost done, Mr. Kinnaird reappeared and located Bob, who was asleep again. He did not fulfill his promise of making the boy ride home on his bicycle.
Chapter XIV. ACCIDENTS
SUNDAY morning the boys met as planned, bringing lunches with them. The bicycles were cached as usual, and the group splashed down the creek to the boat, where all but Bob changed to bathing suits. He kept on shirt and slacks, as his sunburn was not quite at the stage where another layer would be advisable. He and Malmstrom took the oars, and they rowed along the shore toward the northwest. They stopped for a moment at Hay's tank and tasted the water, which seemed now to be ordinary sea water; then they headed the small craft between the islet and the north end of the beach. They were forced ashore at the seaward end of the passage, as the surf was too heavy for rowing; they splashed overside in water that one moment was knee deep and the next barely reached their ankles, and towed the boat for the half mile that lay between them and the gate. Here they re-embarked, and the exploration of the southern reef began.
This barrier ran much closer to the island than did that on the northern side, the stretch of water enclosed by it usually only a few hundred yards wide and never more than half a mile. The islets were fewer as well, the reef consisting for the most part of a forest of branching corals that appeared above water only at low tide, though it was wide enough to block even the heaviest breakers. It was a harder place to loot, from the boys' viewpoint, since the flotsam in which they were apt to be interested frequently lodged in the midst of a jagged, marble-hard labyrinth. The boat could not possibly be taken among those growths, and someone had to wade, wearing heavy shoes.