It was mid-afternoon when they reached the out rigger on North Beach and embarked. The swell had increased since morning, and everyone was wet by the time they were afloat. The mile to the site was covered quickly, with all but Bob at the paddles, and the final search for the buoy took a little longer than Maeta had predicted. She worked the craft into what she recalled was the right position with respect to the marker, told Seever and Mrs. Kinnaird to hold it there, and without further ceremony slid overboard with the bottle. For a moment she trod water between the canoe's hull and the outrigger as she took in air; then she upended and drove downward.
Seever and Mrs. Kinnaird watched her as well as they could without interfering with their paddling. Bob did not. He was barely aware that she had gone at all he was becoming less and less conscious of any thing except pain. His limbs were sorer than ever, and his head felt hot. He knew the Hunter had been away from him for longer periods than this, but he felt far worse than the last time; and he was beginning to wonder whether the juggling act with his hormones was closing. He didn't know. He was beginning not to care. The sun hurt his eyes, even in the shadow of his hat brim, and he dosed them.
Maeta surfaced, well within the ninety seconds she had allowed, and slid into the canoe as smoothly as she had left it. "No trouble," she said, after getting her breath. "You can see the outline of the ship under the mud, if you know what to look for. I felt into the stuff. It's very soft, and there are only a few inches of it over the top part of the ship. I felt the hard stuff, but couldn't tell by touch if it was metal or something else."
"You left the message." Bob's mother did not put it as a question.
"Sure. Neck of the bottle down against the hull, the bottom part with the paper sticking above the mud. If they look at all, or feel at all carefully, they can't miss it."
"You shouldn't have taken the chance of touching the ship," the older woman said. "Bob was right about that. You might have gotten an electric shock, or something of that sort, as the Hunter seems to have done. Could that be what happened to him, Ben?"
The doctor shrugged. "Noway to tell, until he comes to and tells us. I don't know what electricity would do to him; I couldn't guess even if his tissues were likeours. There's no simple way to tell; a man can stand a shock that will kill a horse. Did he ever tell you anything about that, Bob?"
An incoherent mumble was his only answer. Mrs., Kinnaird gave a gasp of terror, but managed to retain her grip on her paddle.
Seconds later Bob was stretched out on the bottom of the dugout while Seever checked him over as well as the cramped situation allowed. He could find only the deep flush on the face and a racing pulse, which might have meant several things. The women were already paddling back toward North Beach as hard as they could. After doing what little he could for Bob, the doctor picked up the remaining paddle and used it.
At the beach, he issued orders quickly.
"We can't hand-carry him all the way to the hospital. Annette, get to your house and see if Arthur is there. If he is, have him get a car-he can usually find one. Maeta, bike down to the village and try to find either him or a car, too. Check around the desalting stations first, then go out to the refinery. Never mind explanations, just say I need a car, capital NOW. As you pass my place, tell Ev to get my kit here as fast as she can. I should have known better than to come without it."
With the women gone, Seever turned back to his patient. They had carried him into the shade, and it was now obvious even without a thermometer that he had a high fever. His face was flushed, and he was perspiring heavily. Seever was somewhat relieved by the latter fact, but be removed his own shirt and Bob's, soaked them in the sea, and spread one over the younger man's chest He improvised a turban with the other.
It was almost sunset when a jeep appeared at high speed. Arthur Kinnaird was at the wheel, his daughter beside him, and Maeta in the back seat. They stopped a few yards short of where Bob was lying; Kinnaird was not the sort to take chances on being stuck in the sand at such a time.
"Your wife wasn't home. I've told him everything," Maeta said before Seever could ask a question.
"All right. Arthur, get us to my place as quickly as you can. I'll use the back seat, with Bob. Daph, crowd in front with Mae until we get to your house; you can get off there."
"No! I'm staying with you. Bob's sick!"
Seever was too busy even to shrug, much less argue. Maeta had shifted to the front seat and taken the child on her lap, and seconds later they were speeding back down the road. Bob's father said nothing as they approached his house, and did not slow down; the child was still with them as they approached the hospital. She tried to help carry Bob into the building; then Maeta took her out. Arthur Kinnaird remained as Seever went to work.
The trouble was plain enough now. Bob's temperature was indeed high, and the broken left arm was showing the red streaks which indicated massive in fection. Seever removed the cast to reveal a red and black mess underneath.
"Antibiotics?" asked Kinnaird.
"Maybe. They don't work on everything, in spite of people's calling them 'miracle drugs'-they were doing that with the sulfa compounds a few years ago, too. I'll do the best I can, but he may not be able to keep the arm."
"This is a fine time for the Hunter to be out of action."
"Probably not coincidence," pointed out Seever. "If he were there, this wouldn't have happened at all. Look, I'll give the boy a shot of what seems best- I'll make some tests first-and then, if I can, I'll wait six hours before doing anything else. Of course, if things get obviously worse I won't be able to give all that time. Then well have to decide about the arm.
"And I'm going to do one more thing."
Kinnaird noddedin understanding as the doctor put a smaller table beside the one on which Bob was lying, placed the basin containing the Hunter on it, and put Bob's right hand in the basin. They watched as the hand sank slowly into the jelly. Then Seever got out his microscope, and took scrapings from the tissue of the other arm.
12. Joker
That was the situation when the Hunter woke up. It took him a little while to catch up with reality, though he knew well enough what had happened at the ship. It had obviously been found by the search expedition, identified, as being the onestolen by the Hunter's quarry, and booby-trapped against the possible return of that individual. The alien recalled Seever's question about standard police procedures, and would have blushed had he been equipped for it.
He was perfectly familiar with the immobilizing agent which had been used, and if he had been properly alert would never have been trapped by it.
He became aware of the basin which held him, and of his host's hand immersed in his substance. That was presumably what had allowed him to wake up. The agent itself would have held him for months; but he had absorbed an equilibrium amount of it while separate from his host's body; and his own four pounds of tissue would have been saturated by a very small total quantity of the substance. Since it was designed to be absorbed rapidly by tissues similar to those of the Hunter's usual host species, which were biochemically fairly similar to those of humanity, and since Bob massed thirty-five or forty times as much as his symbiont, enough had now diffused into Bob's body to clear the Hunter's nearly completely. Returning to Bob seemed safe enough, since the concentration of the substance would be so much smaller.