"There was no chance of his dodging?" "He was an even less experienced astronaut than I. If he ever wanted to get back home, he would not have dodged."
"Would he have wanted to get back? What was he running from? Enough to make him panic?"
"Nothing capital. He would have been sentenced to ten or fifteen of your years in symbiosis with an un-intelligent work animal-a hard labor sentence." "And how long is that to your people, subjectively? How long do you normally live?" The Hunter had never expected that question, and was totally unprepared to dodge it. He had never intended to discuss the matter with any human being, least of all with his own host. However, the questioner was waiting for an answer, and any sort of hesitation would do more harm than good.
"Our own life spans are rather indefinite, though we do die eventually. The beings we originally learned to live with, on my home world, usually last about forty of your years with our help. We average perhaps a dozen times that, but cannot count on it. The sentence, if anything, would have seemed milder to him than to you. In any case, we are now guessing about what other people would be guessing. I must admit that there is no absolute certainty that my people have come or will come to this planet, but I consider the chances good enough to justify planning on that basis, especially when such a relatively short distance seems to be involved."
"Short distance? Then you think you've identified your home star?" Mrs. Kinnaird's voice was eager.
"We think so." Bob was speaking on his own, now. "It's a very funny group of stars, and only one system like it was ever mentioned in my astronomy course. We think it must be Castor. That's a six-star system -two bright ones very much like Sirius, each with a faint companion which we don't know much about because we can't see it-they just cause a periodic Doppler shift in the bright stars' spectra-and finally a pair of red dwarf suns, circling the others a long way out. We know a lot about those because they form an eclipsing spectroscopic pair; we think they must be the suns for the Hunter's planet, because everything we could check about brightness and periods and so on seemed to fit. They're what are called flare stars, which fits, too. The whole thing is forty-five or fifty light-years away. The Hunter isn't really sure about the speeds of their interstellar flyers, but thinks the distance is reasonable."
"You've mixed a few pronouns up-mostly the 'we's'-" his mother said, "but I think we get the picture. All right, we'll be optimistic too-we have to be, just as both of you do." The Hunter appreciated her choice of words; after the confession about his life span, it would not have been unreasonable for a human being to suspect that Bob was just another incident in his life, who would be dying a little sooner than his other hosts. In fact, the alien was seriously disturbed, by Bob's situation, and at least as much bothered by his own responsibility for it. He was not permitting himself to think about his own future if they failed to save Bob's life.
Bob's father might have been as aware of this as his wife seemed to be, but his words provided no evidence either way. His job with PFI involved enough responsibility to make him a forceful and decisive person, and his words, after a few moments' thought, concerned only the actions to be taken.
"All right. Step one, Bob gets a good night's sleep so he can at least start tomorrow looking and acting normal. Two, he visits Ben Seever first thing in the morning, tells him everything, and takes whatever steps possible to get an assignment which won't make his condition any worse. It would be nice if it left him free for work on the search project, but we'll stay with possibles for the moment.
"Three, I do what I can about getting hold of free-diving equipment-I know there isn't any on Ell, but I think the company is experimenting with it on Tahiti. I also do research on metal-detecting equipment, its availability and usefulness for underwater work.
"The Hunter thinks of every possible way to get the attention of any of his people who may be on the island, or on Earth, without going to the extreme of publishing the whole story worldwide. I wouldn't mind doing that myself, but if it would interfere with whatever they'd normally be doing here, it might cause them to give up Earth as a bad job and leave. I don't see that that is really likely, but we're not taking the chance.
"Finally, both Bob and the Hunter give serious thought to which, and how many, additional people we might let into the business. I doubt that five people, one in shaky health and one restricted in his physical movements, are going to be enough. I know it will take thinking, but think."
But it was not thought which started the first recruiting action.
3. Complications
"Lighted any more fires lately?"
It was not a standard greeting by any criteria, and to both Bob and the Hunter it was more than disconcerting. The young woman who had given it was not herself surprising; they both had known Jenny Seever for years, and had heard that she was working for her father. As the island population had grown, the company had made additions to the Seever residence, turning it into a small hospital. Seever himself had had to become a little more formal in the matter of keeping records on his patients. The first thought to cross the minds of the two visitors was that Seever had made a record of the earlier project, and his daughter had come across it in the course of her work.
Bob, however, rejected this after a moment's thought. The doctor would not have written anything down, much less left the record where anyone else could find it, without first consulting Bob himself and his symbiont.
Nevertheless, the girl seemed to know something. The police project had indeed ended in a fire, an oil-fed bonfire which had consumed the alien fugitive, and the question could hardly be coincidence. However, Bob had read his share of detective stories, and was not going to be tricked into telling her more than she might already have learned.
"Lots," he answered, after a hesitation which he realized was probably revealing. "It was a good spring in the Northeast, and picnics were quite the thing before finals. Why?"
Jenny made no direct answer; her listeners got the impression that she had not expected the sort of response Bob had given. In this they were quite right. Since she was much quicker-witted than Bob or the Hunter, she knew better than to continue firing blindly after the first shot, had missed. She changed the subject, letting others make what they could of it- not that she thought of the man standing in front of her desk as representing two people, of course.
“I suppose you want to see Dad."
"Sure. I can't start work for PFI without a checkup, and I owe PFI several years of work in return for my chem degree, so obviously PFI wants me to have a checkup. Also, I'd like to see him anyway, just as an old friend. Is anyone with him now?"
"Yes. You'll have to wait." She couldn't resist one more shot "Would you like some matches?"
"No, thanks. I don't smoke."
"Not even fuel oil?"
"Not for fun."
The Hunter rather wished he could take part in the duel, but had to admit to himself that his host was doing well enough. Obviously the girl knew something; any chance of coincidence had vanished with the second question. It would be necessary to learn her status from the doctor before anything revealing could be said, but this seemed as obvious to Bob as it was to his symbiont.