"You mean if the doc's right and he wasn't killed after all? I suppose so, but why should he?"
"Why should anyone else? The doctor asked that, and I don't think you gave him much of an answer. I agree with him that it's a very weak spot in your whole picture."
"Well, I agree with the Hunter. He knows his own people best, and who am I to argue with him? I feel like celebrating."
"You mean you will feel like celebrating if what we've found actually turns out to be one of the ships."
"Yes, of course. Right now, though, I just feel certain that it will be-it must be-and it's a darned good feeling."
"I can believe it must be. I just hope I never hear you say, in a belittling sort of tone, that wishful thinking is a feminine trait I wish I could feel as sure as you seem to."
"The Hunter calls it a human trait. Why not be human, Mae?"
In spite of the slightly pejorative remark which had just been attributed to him, the Hunter was sharing his host's feeling at the moment. He, too, felt un-reasonably sure that the object the girls had found would turn out to be one of the ships. He knew that there was an excellent chance that it was something else shed by Earth's metal-wasting culture, but fully expected, to be feeling around inside a more or less damaged faster-than-light flyer in another thirteen or fourteen hours.
As they reached the shore end of the causeway, Bob looked off to his right along the beach. Jenny's kayak was lying bottom up where it had been for several days, two or three hundred yards from where he and Maeta stood, but the owner was nowhere in sight. Many other craft were on the lagoon, though most were heading for shore, dock, or anchorage as the sun sank.
"Maybe she's finished already," Maeta answered the unuttered question. "She's had a couple of hours, and it was just a matter of cementing a patch."
"Likely enough," Bob admitted. Maeta had not mentioned Jenny's brake trouble, and it had not occurred to her that anything else was likely to happen to the younger girl. Bob, so far, had seemed to be the principal target, if anyone was really shooting. Maeta, therefore, had forgotten about the brake, and failed to mention it as they walked. The three of them had another few hundred yards of calm as they strolled toward the Seever home. It evaporated at the door, where Jenny's mother met them.
"I thought you weren't coming at all!" she exclaimed. "I suppose you just got away from your work, Bob. Look, you're both to go to Jenny's boat, Ben says, and look very carefully for something sharp. We want to find out what it was."
Bob and Maeta started to ask the obvious questions together, but the woman held up her hand to stem them.
"I'm sorry; I know that's out of order. I'm upset. Just as Jenny got to her boat an hour or so ago-she stopped here for a while first-she stepped on something in the sand that cut her right foot, just behind the base of the big toe, all the way to the bone. Her father is still sewing tendons together. A couple of young people brought her home, but she's lost a lot of blood and hasn't been able to tell us much. Ben and I want to know what she stepped on. So do you. It isn't as| though this was the States, paved with broken bottles; this is a civilized community."
"Will she be all right?" asked Bob, and "Did she lose too much blood?" was Maeta's more specific inquiry.
"Yes to you, Bob, and I don't think so, Mae. You two get down there and find out what she stepped on, please."
Neither of them argued. They headed straight toward the beach, short-cutting the road but of course avoiding gardens. There were large spots of blood along the faint path which they followed; Jenny had evidently been helped home this way.
The beach was well peopled, though the sun was almost down. Most of the boats were now ashore or at anchor. No one, however, seemed aware of Jenny's accident; at least there was no crowd around her canoe, and no excited clusters of people. It was a perfectly ordinary Ell Saturday just before suppertime.
Bob and Maeta were adequately shod, so they did not hesitate to approach the kayak. The sand a yard or so from its near side was blood-caked, and this seemed a reasonable place to start looking. With a brief, "On the job, Hunter, and skip the speeches," Bob knelt beside the brown patch and began scooping sand away from it. The Hunter had to admit that his host was working with reasonable caution, considering the circumstances, so he said nothing and got on the job -ready to take care of things if Bob found the thing they wanted the hard way.
After a minute or two, with the immediate site of the stain excavated to a depth of six or eight inches Maeta began to dig as well. After disposing of Bob's objections, which sounded very much like those the Hunter used on Bob himself when he felt his host was being careless, she started along the side of the boat and searched for a couple of feet in either direction from the spot on the boat which had obviously been prepared to take a patch. Then she began working out toward Bob. Unfortunately they had not come very close to meeting when the sun set.
"We'll have to try again in the morning," Bob said, straightening up with an effort. "I wonder when we can get out to check the ship or whatever you found?"
"Stay here," was Maeta's injunction. "I'll go home and get a light, our place is closerthan the doctor's."
"You think it's worth the trouble? No one else is likely to get hurt before morning."
"Yes, it is," the girl said firmly. The Hunter, a little surprised at Bob's obtuseness, added, "Of course it is, Bob. Remember your bike trip-wire. We must either find what she stepped on, or make certain that it's gone." Maeta had disappeared by the time this sentence was completed, but Bob answered aloud anyway. "Oh, of course. I hadn't thought of that. I guess I was expecting to be the only victim, if there was anything to that idea. If this really wasn't an accident-I suppose that's what Jenny's mother was talking about-where do you suppose they'd hide it?"
"Close to the boat, where anyone working on the patch would be most nicely to step on it," the Hunter answered rather impatiently.
"Oh-then that's why Mae started digging where she did."
"I would assume so." The alien restrained himself with a slight effort; after all, his host was not completely as he should be and in any case had freely admitted that he was not always quick on the uptake.
They tried to continue the search while waiting for Maeta, but even with Venus helping the gibbous moon, progress was slow. Fortunately the girl was back in a few minutes with a flashlight, and to Bob's relief was willing to hold it while he did the digging. He worked very carefully, with the girl's and the Hunter's vision supplementing his own, and after another hour all three were prepared to certify that there was nothing within a fifteen-foot radius of the point under the patch site which could possibly penetrate the human skin, except for a few shells. None of these showed a trace of blood, even to the Hunter.
This was more than interesting, since skin had certainly been penetrated.
"He'd have been smarter to leave it here. It could have been an accident, then," Bob remarked.
"Like tightening up your bike again," Maeta pointed out. "Is this really someone who's not very bright, which I could believe of Andre, or is there some reason we haven't thought of for making it obvious these aren't accidents?"
Bob had not thought of that possibility, and had no answer to the suggestion. They returned thoughtfully to the Seevers' with their report.
The doctor had finished his work, and Jenny was on a couch with the damaged foot heavily bandaged and splinted to immobilize toes and ankle. During the ensuing discussion, in which the Hunter took little part, Bob and he heard for the first time of her bicycle trouble. Everyone admitted that coincidence was being stretched far beyond its yield point. Bob was the most reluctant, in spite of the evidence, to believe that there was deliberate interference with the project to save his life, but even he was halfhearted in asking Seever whether other people on the island had been showing a larger than normal incidence of burns, falls, cuts, and other accidents. The answer was a qualified negative as Seever put it; nothing of the sort had caught his attention.