"What now?" he asked. "Have you started to feel that fatigue yet today?"
"Nope, not yet. All I've done is bike down here, of course."
"What are you going to do now? Start looking for a boat, or entertain your sister?"
"She's in school for a few more hours, thank goodness. It's a pity vacation starts so soon. I'm just as bothered how to keep her little nose out of this project as I am about keeping it secret from the rest of the island-I suppose those amount to the same thing; if she knows, she'll tell her friends. However, we'll play that by ear. The first problem is a boat."
"What happened to the one your bunch used to have?"
"It sort of died of old age. The last time it started to fall apart, none of us had the time to fix it."
"Well, I have a suggestion, but you may not like it."
"What?"
"Jenny has a boat-more of a canoe, really-that she might be willing to lend."
"Without being told the whole story? I can't believe it."
"Oh, I wouldn't say she was that feminine," the father chuckled.
"I wasn't thinking about her sex, I'm assuming she's human. I wouldn't lend one of my own without a pretty good idea of what the borrower wanted it for. I was expecting to buy one so as to be able to use it without anyone's being entitled to ask what I was doing with it. Going outside the reef and working close in can be risky, especially with the wind from the west, and the owner would have every right to wonder if my head was on straight. Certainly Jenny would, if she's wondering about me already. You sure she hasn't been asking you about me?"
Seever's expression changed as he thought for a moment.
"Well, now that I think of it, she has; but there was nothing about fire in her questions. I mentioned a few weeks ago, at dinner I think, that my old-young friend Bob Kinnaird was going to be back from college before long, and she did put a question or two. I don't remember just how she worded them, now, but they seemed perfectly ordinary to me at the time. She never did know you very well, she'd been away at the time of the other problem, and I assumed she was wondering why I regarded you as a friend rather than just another patient."
Bob thought for several seconds, without consulting the Hunter.
"Maybe had better talk to her about the boat. It will be an excuse for talking, and maybe this fire business will start to make some sense. All right if I call her in?"
Seever nodded agreement, but things didn't work out quite as expected. The moment Bob opened the door to the reception room, he and the Hunter saw several people waiting. Jenny promptly nodded to one of these, who as promptly rose and headed for the examining room, leaving Bob with nothing to do but hold the door for her.
The situation also left him with little to say, except the basic request which was intended to start a longer inquiry. For a moment Bob wondered whether he should even do that; he asked the Hunter inaudibly; "Should we wait?" The alien advised him to ask about the boat anyway, since one was so badly needed. Bob almost nodded, but remembered in time.
"Jen," he asked, "your dad says you have a boat, and I need one for a while. Can I come back after office hours and see you about borrowing it?"
Jenny hesitated, too. Both Bob and the symbiont felt that the question, for some reason, surprised her.
"There aren't any real hours. Dad's open all the time, but I'm generally through by four or so. Come back then if you want. But tell me-have you been talking to that stringy towhead Malmstrom?
" "I met him when I landed yesterday just before sundown, and we talked old times for a few minutes until my folks showed up."
"He didn't say anything about my boat?"
"No. Why should he? Is it only for the use of blond males over six feet three inches, or something? I could bleach my hair a little, but I don't see how I can get five inches taller." Bob had taken a chance the Hunter felt, asking questions which might lead to project-related answers with other people present, but Bob himself felt otherwise. He was sure that Jenny, whatever she said, would keep some sort of control in public; and the need for doing so might, he felt, distract her from the job of concealing things from him. It didn't work, however.
"No," was all she said. "Forget it. I'll talk to you later." The four people in the waiting room had obviously been listening, and at least two of them were openly amused. Jenny glared at one of these, a girl about her own age, went back to her desk, and very pointedly busied herself with her paper work. Bob tried to catch her eye, but she didn't look up, and after a few seconds he left. Outside, he steered the bicycle toward the dock, rather than back home.
"You know," be muttered to his guest with less than impressive originality, "there's something queer going on. I wish I could guess whether it has anything to do with us or not. Her question about fire suggests it does, but that's all. I could believe she was having some sort of feud with Shorty-"
"Which needn't be connected with the fire matter at all," cut in the alien.
"True." Bob's train of thought was momentarily derailed, and he brooded silently as they rolled down the road. Finally he said more firmly, "Maybe we'd better hunt up Shorty and get another piece or two to this jigsaw." The Hunter agreed that this was sensible, but it did them no good; Malmstrom was not to be found.
It was Friday and he should have been working, but that did not help in locating him. Both working times and working places tended to be variable on Ell, since the population was small and the work had to be done when it had to be done. Malmstrom was still part of the youngest and least skilled section of the work force-what Bob thought of as a "hey-you" -and he might literally be anywhere on the island. However, some places were more likely than others. He was not at the seaplane float, where the Catalina was moored unattended. Bob remembered that Dulac had said he was to have this day off. Malmstrom was not anywhere around the refinery and pumping station at the end of the dock. There was no tanker in that day, so the pumps were idle, but the refining section was always busy; it took the best part of an hour to make sure the one they sought wasn't there. This was partly because of the changes which had taken place since Bob's boyhood; the refinery had expanded and grown much more complex during the Korean troubles. To the original marine fuels and lubricants which had once been the principal products of the organization, there had been added the more volatile liquids needed to slake the enormous thirst of jet engines; and more recently still, raw materials for plastics had been placed on the list.
The same expansion was noticeable along the northeast leg of the island, where they went next. There were more culture tanks; the distillation plant had been duplicated; and new and faster-growing vegetation covered the areas devoted to tank fodder. There were plenty of people at work, but Malmstrom was not among them.
He could, of course, have been at any of the tanks which dotted the lagoon. He could have been somewhere on the longer northwest leg of the island, though none of the industry was located here-it was all residential where it wasn't jungle. He might, Bob admitted to his companion, be hiding out from work anywhere around the lagoon, though that seemed unlikely. Everyone on the island was a PFI shareholder from birth, and the general attitude toward parasites was very negative.
The search ended just before noon, when Bob's muscles gave out. Neither he nor the Hunter was particularly surprised. There was nothing to be done about it but rest. They were near the northeast tip of the main island at this point, on a slope with the coral reef running out straight ahead of them, the lagoon to their left, and the empty Pacific to the right. There were no houses in this part of Ell, though parts of three culture tanks could be seen behind the ridge. They were on the road, which was narrow here and closely bordered by fodder-plants-the quick-growing stuff which was constantly being harvested and dumped into the culture tanks to feed the hydrocarbon-producing bacteria. There was no one in sight, which was a relief to both of them.