"I don't see what we can do about the Hunter except wait," was the answer. "If you should think of anything better, Doc, go ahead without waiting for my opinion."
"I don't agree with that," said Maeta. "Bob has lived with the Hunter for years, and must know more about him than anyone-even Bob himself-realizes. Some idea of the doctor's might recall something to him that he hasn't thought of yet-or might remind him of something which would warn us that the idea was bad, or dangerous to the Hunter."
"A good point," agreed Seever. "But how about the rest of the job? You're interpreting that 'yes' on the buzzer as meaning the ship was really there. Does that give us any line of action, even without the Hunter?"
Neither Bob nor Jenny had any ideas at first, but Maeta produced one almost instantly.
"As I understand it," she said," the plan was for the Hunter to leave a message at this ship, on the assumption that his people are on the earth and would check there at times. Hadn't we better put a note there ourselves? We don't know whether he had a chance to before he was knocked out."
"We don't know the language," pointed out Jenny.
"Why should we need to? If they're really investigating this world, there's a good chance they'll have learned French or English."
"That's a thought," Bob agreed. "We could write out the whole story and put it in a weighted bottle, right on top of the ship. They couldn't help noticing it"
"It may not be quite that easy," Maeta pointed out. "The ship is buried under, the mud, and the bottle might not be obvious. They might not pay attention to anything not buried like the ship. The Hunter could probably, have put his message inside the ship, but we might not even able to put it exactly on top. Remember, the Hunter had us move around a little before he finally signaled he'd found it-if that was what his signal meant."
"What else could he have meant?" asked Bob in indignantly. "And can't we remember which way he moved us?"
"Nothing else, I hope; that's all that makes sense to me, too. A One-word message can usually be misinterpreted, though. Yes, we can find the spot again. I just don't want you to think all the troubles are over." "No fear of that," Bob assured her. "Inever have the chance to get that idea."
"Sorry, still hurting?"
"Yes. Muscles, joints, arm, and face, though the last is pretty well back together. Well, I'll try to get my mind off it by writing a message to the Hunter's crowd. The sooner we get it out there, the better. If they do visit the ship it must be at night, and with the luck I have these days it'll be tonight if we don't get out there this afternoon. I wonder how often they do check back? Or if anything the Hunter did today could have set off a signal to bring them back?"
"That's a thought," agreed Seever. "Much better than your last one. Why would they have to come by night? They could make their approach under water at any time-or can their spaceships only move straight up and down, or something like that?" Bob looked startled.
"I never thought of that, and I don't really know about the ships. Well, we should get the message out there anyway. Somebody find a bottle."
The note was written as briefly as possible, in pencil, on a single sheet of paper. The doctor then waxed the paper. A bottle had been found, the amount of sand needed to sink it ascertained, and paper and, sand inserted. A tiny hole was drilled in the cork of the bottle to facilitate the entry of one of the Hunter's people, and the cork was tightly inserted; then the bottle was shaken around, top downward, until the paper had worked its way above the sand, presumably out of reach of water which would be forced part way into the bottle by the pressure at the bottom.
"That seems to do it," Jenny said happily when all this was accomplished. "I wish I could go with you."
"But of course you're too intelligent to suggest it seriously," her father added. Jenny made no answer.
"Sorry, Jen," Bob put in, "but there really isn't much to this anyway. By the time there's anything more to do, if there ever is, you should be all right again. There's just one more thing we need, then we can take off."
"What's that?" asked Seever.
"A good, heavy rock."
"What for? The bottle will sink."
"I know the bottle will. The trouble is, I won’t. We're not just dropping the bottle over the side; we're putting it right on the ship. I'm not a good enough swimmer to reach the bottom at four fathoms, at least with one bad arm, and if I got there I wouldn't have air enough to go looking for just the right spot. I'll sink myself with the rock, and save effort and air."
"And the doctor was talking about Jenny's intelligence!" exclaimed Maeta. "He'll have to hunt for some different words for yours. I'll go down, you idiot. Why this urge to go swimming with a broken arm? If you just want to see the ship, don't bother; you can't. It's all under mud."
"I know you can do it," admitted Bob. "You can do it better than I could even with two good arms and all my health. But there's something down there that injured the Hunter, and I have no business asking anyone else to face that. You've already been taking enough chances under water for me, Mae. This is my job and the Hunter's. He's taken a chance and apparently lost; now it's my turn."
His mother started to say something, but changed her mind.
"That's right, Mom. Of course you don't want me to go down, but you're honest enough to know I'm the one who should."
Maeta was on her feet. She was not really qualified to tower over anyone, but Bob was seated and had to lookup.
"Skip the heroics, Robert Kinnaird" she snapped. "The person who should go is the person who can do it best, and don't make it sound like a Roger Young mission, I'll be down and up again, with the bottle exactly where it should be, in ninety seconds-and that's allowing for mistakes in spotting the canoe. If anyone sees a shark, I'll wait; I'm not being heroic. I was down there before, after the Hunter was knocked out, remember, and nothing happened to me. And how many rocks do you plan to take out there in my canoe? You'll miss the site the first time and have to come up, and you'll need another rock to go down again, and another and probably another."
"Don't rub it in."
The battle of wills was fun to watch. Told about it later, the Hunter regretted having missed it, though, as he admitted, the end was never in doubt. Fond as he was of Bob, he knew by now that he was not always a completely reasonable being. He had not known Maeta nearly as long-casual acquaintance as one of Charles Teroa's sisters seven years before hardly counted-but he already knew that she was more intelligent than his host and quicker-witted. She also possessed a more forceful personality.
Besides all this, in the present situation she was right and both of them knew it. Bob's mother and the doctor kept out of it after the first few words, and between them managed to keep Jenny quiet too. The redhead, for reasons of her own, was on Maeta's side, but the older girl needed no help.
No rocks were carried.
Seever suddenly decided that he owed himself a pleasant ride on the water, and went along. Bob objected to this, saying that the Hunter should be kept under a medical eye, but the doctor insisted that there was nothing more he could do for the alien. In fact, he was much more worried about Bob, who now was deprived of his alien partner, lacked infection resistance of his own, and was otherwise not at his best. He refrained from mentioning this reason to either Mrs. Kinnaird or her son, and decided not to remind them of the situation by taking his bag along. He regretted this omission later.