"The whole job will take days, but that much will get us started," the older girl replied. "If this other thing you're talking about is important, my job can wait-or I can do it all myself, though probably not as accurately."

"We're hung up for the moment on our thing, anyway," Bob assured her. Even the Hunter knew that both Bob and Maeta were merely being polite. He was much less sure about Jenny. Unavoidably, Bob stayed and the redhead departed.

Maeta led the way downstairs. The book crates had been placed beside a large table in a basement room. While it was not regularly used by the library patrons, the walls were lined with partly filled bookshelves. The table was loaded with pots of adhesive, scissors, tape, and similar library equipment, and one corner of the room was occupied by a large, very comfortable-looking armchair with a small table beside it. Maeta looked at these and smiled.

"This was set up as a study for Mr. Thorvaldsen when the library was built, but he fell asleep in the chair so often that he decided to use his old place in the laboratory building. We've taken it over for book processing. How many do you think you have here?"

"Don't remember exactly. They're not all course texts. I was told I could buy other stuff which was recommended to us as reference material; that's why I can't say I've read every last page of it. I guess the easiest thing is to get it all out on the table and start sorting by subject, unless librarians have some more; ingenious way of doing it."

Maeta glanced at him, but had nothing to say to his closing remark, and they started as he had suggested. The girl worked quickly and efficiently, and made good use of Bob's knowledge. She said nothing about the remarks Bob and Jenny had made while they were upstairs, but the Hunter felt sure she was thinking about them. The young woman was obviously far too intelligent not to be curious. The alien was thinking about her more and more as the morning wore on, not only about her evident brains but also about her competence-remarked upon the night before-on and in the water. She could be useful, if Bob's prejudices could be submitted to another blow.

But Bob was getting harder to persuade with each new recruit. It might be necessary to manage Bob for his own good. Jenny would be willing to do that, in principle; but of course there was some difficulty in speaking to Jenny. The Hunter thought deeply, and did not regard the library session as time wasted.

For most of the two hours, Maeta said nothing not directly connected with the job, but just before the session ended she changed the subject briefly.

"Bob, did you say anything to Jenny which could make her think you were laughing at her, or looking down at her, because she hadn't been to college?"

"Not that I can remember. I certainly didn't mean to." Bob's surprise was quite genuine. "What makes you ask?"

"I know she's sensitive about not getting accepted by any college and something she said when she was leaving a while ago made me wonder whether you'd twisted the knife."

"Well, I never thought about it. I didn't even know she'd applied for a college. Why should staying here bother her? Lot's of people don't go-you didn't, and you're older than she is, and it doesn't seem to bother you. Shorty didn't, and it certainly doesn't bother him!"

"Shorty? Oh, the Malmstrom boy." That was an interesting way to put it, since Malmstrom was three years or so older than Maeta. “I don't know much about him. I never applied to a college, and didn't have to face a rejection. I'm perfectly happy here. I like to learn things, and in this library I'd be lifetimes just catching up with what's available. There's just nothing else I want which might take me away from Ell. But Jenny isn't that way, and please be careful what you say to her."

"All right Thanks for telling me."

Bob took Maeta's admonition at face value, but the Hunter felt there must be something behind it. He tried to puzzle out the possibilities as they went upstairs. Perhaps Maeta felt genuinely protective about Jenny; the redhead was younger, though only by a year or so. She might, on the other hand, be more concerned with Bob and his tendency to be just a little too pleased with his brand new degree, a tendency of which the Hunter was quite aware. He could see no reason why Maeta should be particularly interested in Bob-or rather, while he could see one, he considered it unlikely on such short acquaintance. He had heard it said that females had a general tendency to try to remold any available males, but since the speakers had always been males, he had placed little weight in the claim. He considered it biologically unlikely that there would be major psychological differences between the two human sexes, other than superimposed cultural ones.

He would probably have dismissed the question as both unimportant and insoluble anyway, even if his attention had not been sharply distracted.

Bob had used his bicycle for the mile-and-a-half trip from his house. Maeta had accompanied them to the library door, though she was planning to go back to do more work on the books, and Bob was looking back to utter conventional farewells as he swung aboard his machine. A second later he was sprawled on the concrete.

The Hunter had the damage categorized at once; his host had severe scrapes on the left knee, shoulder, and elbow. He was not quite so quick at deciding how much repair and protection to supply. Had Bob been alone, he would not have lost a drop of blood; but Maeta and the other witnesses who had immediately collected might not be able to believe that anyone could suffer such a fall with no damage. Perhaps the Hunter should allow him to bleed a little-not enough to cause real damage, of course-for the sake of appearances.

On the other hand, the concept of "luck" was widely accepted among human beings, he reflected, and he had noticed that many of the species could dismiss the most incredible events from their minds simply by using this word. The Hunter decided to take the chance. He followed his natural inclinations, sealed off all blood leaks, and got to work on the microorganisms they had picked up.

His partner, surprised, though he was, had picked himself up before anyone actually reached him. His first reaction was one of extreme embarrassment, not helped by the words of one of the juvenile witnesses.

"You'd think anyone would look where be was going on a bike, even with a girl around, wouldn't you?"

"I was just-" Bob stopped talking at once, realizing there was nothing he could possibly say which would not furnish more ammunition for a ten-year-old.

"What happened, Bob?" Maeta had returned by now. "Are you hurt?"

"Not physically. My ego will take some repair. I don't really know what happened; the bike just went out from under me." Everyone, including the children who had gathered, clustered more closely to look at the machine was nothing obviously wrong until Bob cautiously mounted it again, and eased it gently forward. Then it was obvious to all that the handlebars and the front wheel were no longer aligned with the bar straight across, the wheel pointed noticeably to the right. This would ordinarily have made no difference; a cyclist's reflexes operate off in put from the inertial senses and the general visual picture of the terrain. He doesn't keep looking at the front wheel to see where he is going next. In this in stance, however, Bob had not really started to roll when he had put his weight on the left pedal and started to swing his right leg across. He had not noticed the change in the handlebar-wheel relationship before he started to move. Naturally he had started a frantic left turn as he began to fall, but the bicycle was moving far too slowly for this to be effective, and with the wheel near ninety degrees, the entire machine had slid from under him, as he had said.