There was a beach on the lagoon side, but the outer face merged directly into the irregular, murderous coral of the reef itself, dangerous for a swimmer on the quietest days and suicidal with the slightest swell. The reef, defined as the region where coral grew close enough to the surface to influence wave patterns, ex tended hundreds of yards out to sea. It broke much of the violence of incoming waves, but complicated their pattern so as to make it impossible to tell when a particular spot along Apu's outer face would be under water the next moment. The Hunter and Bob both remembered vividly the time years before when Ken Rice had gone down into one of the coral-rimmed bays to pick something up, and nearly been drowned. The "something" had not been recovered, but the Hunter had seen it clearly enough to identify a generator shield which must have come from his quarry's ship, and which had provided the first certainty that the other alien had come ashore at all.

It was this object they were seeking, in the hope that it would provide information which would narrow the search area for the missing ship of the fugitive. It was this vessel which promised more to the plan; the Hunter knew that his own vessel had been crushed almost flat, and might have been too completely corroded for detection even by the time the searchers might have come. The shield, on the other hand, had appeared intact, giving some promise that the ship it had come from had escaped such complete destruction.

The search was not easy. Coral grows, and waves destroy; the outer side of Apu had changed much. Bob and the Hunter remembered roughly where the near-drowning had occurred, but it took them more than fifteen minutes to narrow down to four the possibilities among the endless bays and coves. Even then they were far from sure; very close examination would be necessary.

They approached the first of these with caution; it was hurling spray far above their heads at irregular intervals as waves focused into it Neither Bob nor the Hunter could identify its interior details with any certainty in the moments they could look. They had hoped that the gleam of metal might be visible, but that was not really reasonable after all these years. If this were the same notch, conditions had changed. Then, the boys had gone into it without hesitation; now, not even the most foolhardy of teen-agers would have taken the chance. They stayed with it as long as they did only because Jenny, who had only verbal description to go by kept pointing at different features and asking whether this, or that, or the other thing might possibly be what they wanted. Unfortunately, while all were possibilities, none was encouraging enough to merit close investigation in that welter of foam and sharp coral.

The second of the possible spots was much quieter and less dangerous, but they spent even more time there. Several of the coral masses might, as far as appearance was concerned, be concealing the object of their search. Bob and Jenny had swimming suits under their outer clothes, and both went into the water to check these possibilities more closely. Bob of course could see much better under water than the girl, since the alien could extrude tissue to reshape his cornea for focusing in the different medium, but even with this help no sign of metal was detected. At the third bay, Bob's fatigue caught up with him gain, and Jenny had to help him out of the water. On the theory that food would provide energy, she insisted on his eating one of the fruits she had brought, and this triggered the nausea of the day before.

Jenny had not really accepted the fact that the situation was really a life-and-death one as far as Bob was concerned. She felt slightly superior about his need-for her help in the water, and was even somewhat amused at the spectacle he made trying to eat. Neither Bob nor his symbiont fully understood her.

Serious or not, however, she insisted on finishing the check-out of the third cove by herself and, judging by the time she spent under water, must have done a fairly thorough job. She tried to make up for deficient underwater eyesight by using her sense of touch, and emerged finally with several cuts on hands and fore arms, inflicted by the coral.

Then she wanted to do the fourth site alone, though it was much like the first in wave action.

"Don't be crazy!" Bob snapped when she made this proposal. "It's as dangerous as the one we passed up, and I'm not in shape to help you when you get in trouble. If we really knew the thing was there it might be different, but we're not sure enough for that sort of risk. Look from up here if you want, and tell us if you think anything looks hopeful, and then we'll decide what to do; but I think we're going to need that metal detector Dad is lining up even for this part of the search. If you go in there, you'll have to stop calling Shorty a nut."

"I suppose that's true," Jenny agreed reluctantly "but I thought you considered this project important."

"I do. It's important enough not to lose any of the help. Get your clothes on; we don't want to lose any-one to sunburn, either." The redhead, in spite of her lifelong residence in the tropics, had skin even paler than Bob's, though she was heavily freckled.

"Maybe the Hunter ought to stay with me for a while, and protect the useful, member of the team," she suggested.

"He can't do anything about sunburn-he can't stand ultraviolet even as well as we can," replied Bob.

"I was thinking about my hands," she retorted, looking at the oozing scratches.

"Well, the Hunter might leave me while I'm awake now that I know him so well, but he'd certainly wait until you were asleep before he went to you. He has definite ideas about how people who aren't used to symbiosis are likely to react to a puddle of green jelly flowing toward them; and if they pull him apart trying to get away while he's partly inside, he finds it more than uncomfortable."

"Green jelly? Andre said something about-oh. I didn't-" Jenny fell silent, her stomach suddenly feeling much like Bob's. She donned her outer clothes, took a fruit from the bag, but then appeared to change her mind about eating. She put it back, thought for a few more seconds, and then spoke.

"What do you want to do now? Do you think a couple of hours rest will get your muscles going again, as it did yesterday? Should we stay here and look over more places after you're back on your feet, or should I help you into the boat and take you back? Do you really think we can accomplish anything here before we have the metal-finder your father was going to get from Mr. Tavake?"

"We'll stay right here, if it's all right with you. I don't want half the kids on Ell to see me in this state."

"I could take you to the creek mouth near your house."

"I don't want to take the chance. More and more people keep learning about the Hunter, but I don't want it to get to the whole island. I'll keep picking the recruits, and don't want spectators."

"Are you sorry you told me?"

"That's a loaded question, but-no. You know I'm not crazy, and if you're still a little uncertain, your father will straighten you out. I can stand having the word get to people who'll be helpful."

"Then you want to look around Apu some more after you can walk, even if we don't have the detector."

"Right."

"And in the meantime we just wait here and toast." Jenny put no question mark at the end of the sentence, and even the Hunter could see that she had no intention of waiting. He had met numerous human beings who would always be quite willing to sit still and fill a time interval with pointless talk, but he could see that Jenny Seever was not one of them.

She did sit quietly for a little while, thinking, but it was a matter of minutes rather than hours. Then she stood up.

"I'm going to see Mr. Tavake and find out how long it will take him to make that detector. Your father must have talked to him about it by now. Do you want to wait here until I get back, or shall I take you ashore near your house, or what?"