Before he made contact with anyone who could offer a useful suggestion, the door opened and Jenny entered. Neither she nor Bob actually asked, "What are you doing here?" but the question was plain on both faces. Bob and the Hunter had expected her to be out at the search area, and of course she had expected Bob to be at work.

"Wind's too high, and onshore," she answered the unasked question. "After all, we've had better luck with the weather than we've had any right to expect, so far."

Bob explained his own presence by displaying his left arm. The Hunter thought this would be poor judgment, but the girl had seen such things before in her father's office and took it quite calmly. She eyed the projecting bone for a moment and then said quite steadily, "You'd better sit down or lie down. Dad will have to set that; I suppose the Hunter has done everything else."

"I think so. Where is your father? I was phoning around for him."

"Down on the beach with a bucket of burn ointment. Fireworks day. Didn't you either remember or hear?"

"I didn't remember that aspect of it, and even with the Hunter this arm takes up a lot of my attention. Can you bring him back here, or should I go to him?"

"You stay put. I'll have him right back." The girl vanished again, without wasting time asking how the injury had occurred. She was back in ten minutes with her parents and Maeta, who had been with them. It was much later, however, before the story was told.

The doctor and the Hunter had to decide whether to use a local anesthetic, which would force the alien to withdraw from the arm, or let the Hunter block the sensory, nerves from the area. The latter would be better except that he was not sure he could handle the general crepitating-the grating of the bones as they were set, which would travel through much of the skeleton and be almost impossible to prevent Bob from feeling. Seever pointed out that a local injection would do little for this phenomenon either, and that it would be better for the Hunter to be on hand to take care of bleeding and infection. Seever would do his best not to let the bones grate.

The Hunter agreed to this. Bob had to serve as communication relay as his guest helped guide Seever's manipulation. Eventually, however, he was able to tell the story while the doctor worked on a cast for his arm.

Seever was quite indignant at not having been, told about the heart damage before working on the arm, but had to admit that the information would not have made him act at all differently.

Both girls thought of Andre immediately, and said so, but both admitted there was doubt. The trip-wire they would have credited to him without hesitation, but the stabbing was, as Bob had felt, a different matter.

"You didn't even see the wire, much less the person, did you?" asked Maeta.

"No," Bob answered. "All I actually saw was the cut tire, and the skewer after it was out of my chest. The Hunter heard footsteps while I was still out, but didn't see anything. At any rate it was no accident. Someone wanted to kill me-or, as the Hunter points out, wanted to kill someone. He may not have cared who."

"Maybe not,'? Pointed out the older girl, "but it was your handlebars that were loosened back there at the library." Bob had never discussed this matter with the others. He answered as he had to the Hunter.

"They weren’t loosened. They were turned slightly

and tightened in a different position." He filled in the other details.

"That couldn't have been an accident either," Mrs. Seever said.

"Right. If my bar had been loose, then maybe; but itwouldn't tighten in a different position on its own." "Then someone was trying to hurt you even then." "I can't see that. It was a silly way to try. Fifty to one I'd have been facing forward as I started and never fallen at all. Someone might have been trying to annoy me."

"Was Andre" there?" asked Jenny. "No. A bunch of kids collected to laugh, but he wasn't one of them."

"But you were inside the library, and your bike outside, for hours," Jenny pointed out. "He could have been there any time."

"So could anyone on the island except Maeta, who was writing things on file cards while I described books to her. I'm not worrying about that trick; it's something I could believe of any kid. What happened today is a different ballpark. A minor practical joke and a neck-breaking effort combined with a stabbing just don't go together."

"I'm not so sure," the doctor said slowly. "These have one thing in common."

"What?" The Hunter's voice joined the others on their way in from Bob's eardrum.,

"In both cases, you faced the possibility of being injured or killed, but because of the Hunter you're essentially undamaged." Bob glanced at his arm and raised his eyebrows. "You know what I mean. The Hunter has been doing his job. Whoever pushed the skewer through you an hour or two ago is going to have a fascinating body of information to use when he sees you walking around later today. Couldn't both these tricks have been experiments? I can think of one person who might very well want to conduct some tests on you, Bob, now that you're back on Ell."

"Who?" asked the younger girl. The others were

silent. Seever’s meaning flashed on Bob and the Hunter at the same moment, and neither was surprised at the doctor's next question.

"Hunter, just how certain are you that the one you were chasing was actually destroyed in that fire?"

10. Joke Three

"It never occurred to me to doubt it," Bob relayed from the Hunter. "I'm sure I would have died under the same conditions. We saw him on the ground. Bob poured oil on and around him, and lighted it. 'The soil was packed hard, and contained enough moisture to make penetration a slow job."

"You tried it yourself?"

"Not at that spot," the alien had to admit, "but-"

"But you still feel sure," Seever interrupted Bob's relay. "All right, you may be-may have been- quite right. General experience carries weight no one can reasonably ignore, though I do wish you'd tested that soil on the spot and at the time. I also think we'd better learn more about the desChenes boy who was watching. It would be best if you could check him yourself, but pretty awkward to arrange. I'll try, but if you can make any suggestions-this sounds like our talk seven years ago, doesn't it?"

Bob admitted that it did, and brought the discussion back to order.

"I admit it would be worthwhile to find just what that young clown has been up to, and whether your suspicion could have any basis," he said. "We still have the search, though. What about that? It's too rough today, you said, Jen?"

"Yes,” the girl amplified, "even with a couple more paddlers we couldn't have held position long while Mae was down. It's going to be bad for another couple of days, we think."

"Hm." Bob frowned. "And we have less than half the planned area mapped. Well, I don't see what we can do-that's a pity; I should think this arm would get me off work for a week or two, and that would give us a lot of useful time. I wish those diving out-fits would come."

"We'd still need a boat to get out there, unless you're thinking of swimming a mile or so from North Beach, searching until you're worn out, and then swimming back," Maeta pointed out

"You could do it."

"No doubt, but I wouldn't. I'm sane. Not for anything short of life and death-I mean-" She fell silent, and a blush showed even on her dark skin. Bob laughed, genuinely and without bitterness.

"All right, Mae, I know this isn't like rescuing a drowning child. We all know the search is just a hope, and maybe not such a good one as I want to believe, and it would be silly for you to take too much risk. I feel bad enough about the chances you've already been taking. There are sharks there sometimes, and they're not always polite enough to show a fin as they approach. Tell me, could a power boat hold position out there with this wind and chop? If it could, we could send the Hunter down the way we did before."