"For Pete's sake! Malaria or no malaria, there's certainly one infection he doesn't have! And I've been straining my eyes for the last hour. With all that stuff in his blood-Bob, boy, tell me I'm an idiot if you like-I can see you've been on to the idea ever since I mentioned the critters." He was silent for a moment, shaking his head. "You know," he said at last, "this would be a beautiful test. I can't imagine our friend leaving a normal crop of germs in his host's blood just to meet this situation; that would be carrying caution just a mite too far. If I just had an excuse for making blood tests of everyone on the island- Well, anyway, that leaves only one suspect on the list. I hope the principle of elimination is good."
"You don't know the half of it," said Bob, finding his voice at last. "It leaves no one on the list. I scratched off Hugh before supper." He gave his reasons, and the doctor had to admit their justice.
"Still, I hope he brings that hand to me. I'll get the blood smear if I have to lie like Ananias. Well, there's at least one good point: our ideas have run dry, and the Hunter will finally have to come across with some of his. How about it, Hunter?"
"You would seem to be right," the detective replied. "If you will give me the night to work out a course of action, I will tell you what I can tomorrow."
He was perfectly aware that the reason for delay was rather thin, but he had a strong motive just then for not telling his friends that he knew where their quarry was.
Chapter XIX. SOLUTION
THOUGH BOB had no share in the turmoil of thoughts that were boiling through the Hunter's mind, he was a long time going to sleep. Hay had still been at Malmstrom's house, and they had chattered at the invalid's bedside until his mother had suggested that Kenneth could use some sleep; but very little of Robert's mind had been on the conversation.
The Hunter claimed to have carried their line of thought further and to be able to work out another line of action from it; Bob couldn't, and was wondering how stupid he must be compared to his guest. It bothered him, and he kept trying to imagine how the other alien's probable course could have been traced any further than the piece of metal on the reef-if Rice and Teroa were to be left out of consideration.
The Hunter felt stupid too. He himself had suggested that line of thought to Bob. True, he had not expected much to come of it, but it had contained possibilities for action on his host's part and should have left him free to work out ideas more in line with his training and practice. These last, however, had failed miserably, as he might have expected so far from the civilization which gave them technical backing; and he was now realizing that he had deliberately ignored the answer to his problem for some days, even with the diverse arguments of Bob and the doctor endlessly before him.
It was fortunate that Bob had been working on his own in the matter of the "trap" in the woods, of course; had he not been, the plan of having the Hunter check Teroa and the other boys individually would have been put to work before the doctor was in the secret. That would have meant that the Hunter was not with Bob for stretches of at least thirty-six hours at a time, and he would, he now realized, have missed clues that had been presented to him practically every day. Most of them meant little or nothing by themselves, but taken together…
He wished his host would go to sleep. There were things to be done, and done soon. Bob's eyes were closed, and the alien's only contact with his surroundings was auditory; but the boy's heartbeat and breathing proved clearly that he was still awake. For the thousandth time the detective wished he were a mind reader. He had the helpless feeling of a movie patron as the hero walks into a dark alley; all he could do was listen.
There was enough sound to give him a picture of his surroundings, of course: the endless dull boom of the breakers a mile away across the hill and even farther over the lagoon; the faint whine and hum of insect life in the forest outside; the less regular rustle of small animals in the undergrowth; and the much more distinct sounds made by Bob's parents as they came upstairs.
They had been talking, but they quieted down as they approached. Either Bob had been the subject of the conversation, or they just didn't want to disturb him. The boy heard them, however; the sudden ceasing of his restless motion and the deliberate relaxation that followed told the Hunter that. Mrs. Kinnaird glanced into her son's room and went on, leaving the door ajar; a moment later the Hunter heard another door open and close.
He was tense and anxious by the tune Bob was definitely asleep, though not nearly enough to impair his judgment on that important matter. Once certain, however, he went instantly into action. His gelatinous flesh began to ooze out from the pores of Bob's skin-openings as large and convenient for the Hunter as the exits of a football stadium. Through sheet and mattress he poured with even greater ease, and in two or three minutes his whole mass was gathered into a single lump beneath the boy's bed.
He paused a moment to listen again, then flowed toward the door and extended an eye-bearing pseudopod through the crack. He was going to make a personal check of his suspect-or certainty, for he was morally certain he was right. He had not forgotten the argument of the doctor in favor of postponing such an examination until he was prepared to take immediate measures in disposing of what he found; but he felt that there was now one serious flaw in those arguments-if the Hunter's belief was correct, Bob must have betrayed himself time and again! There would be no more delay.
There was a light in the hall, but it was not nearly bright enough to bother him. Presently he was extended in the form of a pencil-thick rope of flesh along several yards of the baseboard. Here he waited again, while he analyzed the breathing sounds coming from the room where the elder Kinnairds slept; satisfied that both were actually asleep, he entered. The door of the room was closed, but that meant nothing to him-even had its edge been sealed airtight, there was always the keyhole.
He knew already the difference in rate and depth that served to distinguish the breathing of the two, and he made his way without hesitation to a point beneath the suspect's bed. A thread of jelly groped upward until it touched the mattress and went on through. The rest of the formless body followed and consolidated within the mattress itself; and then, cautiously, the Hunter located the sleeper's feet. His technique was polished by this time, and, if he had cared to do so, he could have entered this body far more rapidly than he had made himself at home in Bob's, for there would be no exploring to be done. However, bodily entry was not in his plans; and most of him remained in the mattress while the exploring tentacle started to penetrate. It did not get far.
The human skin is made of several distinct layers, but the cells which make up these are all of strictly ordinary size and pattern, whether they be dead and cornified like those in the outer layer or living and growing like those below. There is not, normally, a layeror even a discontinuous networkof cells far more minute, sensitive, and mobile than the others. Bob had such a layer, of course the Hunter had provided it for his own purpose; and the detective was not in the least surprised to encounter a similar net just beneath the epidermis of Mr. Arthur Kinnaird. He had expected it.