by Hal Clement
The boy pocketed the matches and strolled a little way back up the hill, where he could see the greater part of the tank floor once more. There he seated himself, and once more concentrated his attention on the actions of his father.
At last the event he had been waiting for occurred. Mr. Kinnaird appeared with a metal drum on his shoulder, and as Bob stood up to see more clearly, he disappeared below the far edge of the flooring, at the point where the jeep was usually parked.
Bob began strolling toward the neighboring tank as casually as he could, keeping a careful eye downhill. He had been in motion only a few seconds when the little car appeared with his father at the wheel and the drum visible beside him. There was no question of his destination; and, as Bob remembered, he was sure to be gone at least half an hour. He disappeared almost at once below the neighboring tank, and, owing to Bob's nearness to this structure, did not reappear at all.
Bob himself used the same tank for concealment. He kept with difficulty, to his casual pace until he had put the tank between himself and the scene of activity; then he turned slightly downhill and began running at the top of his speed.
A few moments brought him to the end of the paved road. Here the line of corrugated-iron storage sheds began; and, to the Hunter's bewilderment, Bob began inspecting them closely. The first few were normally used for construction machinery, such as mixers and graders; some of these were empty, their normal contents being in use. Several more, closer to the residential district, contained cans of gasoline and fuel and lubricating oils. The boy examined them all, stood looking around for a moment as though to get something straight in his mind, and then once more plunged into furious activity.
Choosing one of the empty sheds-he did not actually go in, but looked over about half the floor area from a point outside the door-he began carrying vast armfuls of five-gallon cans and stacking them beside the entrance. Even the Hunter wondered at the number he was able to carry, until the sound as he put them down disclosed the fact that they were empty. When the stack was built to his satisfaction, in a broad pyramid taller than the boy himself, he went to another shed and began reading very carefully the stenciled abbreviations on another set of cans. These, it turned out, were far from empty. They contained a fluid that would have passed anywhere for kerosene, although it had never been in an oil well. Two of these Bob placed at strategic points in his pyramid; another he opened, and began pouring the contents onto the stack of cans and over the adjacent ground. The Hunter suddenly connected this maneuver with the matches.
"Are you making a fire or not?" he asked. "Why the empties?"
"There'll be a fire, all right," was the reply. "I just don't want to flatten this part of the island."
"But what's the point? A fire can't hurt our friend without doing considerably worse to your father."
"I know it. But if he just thinks Dad is in a position where he can't escape the fire, I expect he might be tempted to leave. And I'm going to be standing by with another oil can and more matches."
"Fine." The sarcasm could not be described. "Just how do you expect to get your father into such a situation?"
"You'll see." Bob's voice went grim again as he spoke, and the Hunter began seriously to wonder just what was in his youthful ally's mind. As an afterthought, Bob dumped one more can of oil on the pyre, this time using a heavier fluid normally employed as a lubricant. Then he obtained a can of the kerosene, loosened its screw cap, and stationed himself across the road from his incipient bonfire at a point where he could see the dock between the sheds. He kept his eyes glued on this point, except for an occasional uneasy glance up toward the new tank. If anyone came down and found his handiwork just now, it would be embarrassing.
He had not bothered to check the time when his father went down on the errand, and had no idea how long the construction of his bonfire had taken, so he did not know how long he was likely to have to wait. Consequently, he dared not move from his station. The Hunter had asked no further questions, which was just as well; Bob had no intention of answering them until a time of his own choosing. He did not like to act in this way toward the alien, whom he liked, but the idea of killing an intelligent creature had begun to bother him now that the deed was imminent, and he wanted to be sure he attacked the right one. For a boy of his age Robert Kinnaird had a remarkably objective mind.
At last, to his immense relief, the jeep reappeared, far out on the dock. As it turned onto the causeway, the boy rose slowly to his feet and moved gradually across the road toward his fire, keeping the jeep in view; as it finally became hidden, close to shore, behind the nearer sheds, he took the last few steps to the pile of dripping cans and drew the folder of matches from his pocket. As he did so, he uttered his carefully prepared and carefully timed answer to the Hunter's question.
"It won't be difficult at all, Hunter, to make him come. You see, I'm going to be just inside the shed!" He twisted a match from the folder as he finished speaking. He rather expected to lose the control of his limbs about that time; certainly if the Hunter were not what he seemed but what the boy had feared he might be, Bob would never be-allowed to strike that match. He had deliberately refrained from going where he could see the back windows of the shed, which he well knew existed; his guest should not know of them. The idea that a criminal of the sort which had been described to him would have the speed of mind to recognize his actual safety, or the courage to call the boy's bluff, did not occur to Robert. He had so timed his speech that the other should have no time to think; either he trusted the boy, which almost certainly no criminal could bring himself to do, or he would paralyze him instantly. The scheme had flaws, of course. Bob may even have recognized some of them; but, on the whole, it was a very promising one.
He struck the match without interference.
He bent over and touched the flaming tip to the edge of the pool of oil.
The match promptly went out.
Almost trembling with anxiety-the jeep would turn the corner at any moment-he lit another, and this time touched a place where the liquid had soaked into the ground, leaving a thin film instead of a deep pool. This time it caught, with a satisfactory "whoosh" of flame, and an instant later the pile was blazing merrily.
Bob leaped into the shed before the flames spread over the pool in front of the door and stood back from the already fierce heat, watching the road.
For the first time the Hunter spoke. "I trust you know what you're doing. If you suddenly can't breathe, it'll be me keeping smoke out of your lungs." Then he left his host's vision unobstructed. Bob was satisfied; things were moving too fast for him to find fault with the alien's reaction.
He heard the jeep before he saw it; Mr. Kinnaird had evidently seen the smoke, and stepped on the gas, as the little engine was whining merrily. He had no extinguisher in the vehicle capable of handling a blaze such as this appeared to be, and Bob realized, as the vehicle was almost level with the flame-blocked door, that his father was going up the hill for help. That, however, he was able to modify.
"Dad!" He said nothing else-if his father wanted to conclude that he was in danger, that was all right, but Bob was not going to lie about it. He was sure that the sound of his son's voice coming apparently from inside the inferno would induce Mr. Kinnaird to stop the car and come on foot to investigate or rescue; he underestimated both his father's reaction speed and resourcefulness. So, evidently, did someone else.
At the sound of Bob's voice from within the apparently blazing shed the driver took his foot from the gas pedal and cut the steering wheel hard to the left. His intention was at once obvious to Bob and the Hunter: he meant to bring the vehicle's hood right up to the door, gaining momentary protection for both the boy and himself from the blazing pool beneath, and back out again the instant his son could leap aboard. It was a simple plan, and a very good one. It should have worked, and in that event Bob and his guardian angel would have to devise a new plan-and some rather detailed explanations.
Fortunately,
from their point of view, another factor entered the situation. Mr. Kinnaird's hidden guest grasped the situation, or at least his host's plan, almost as rapidly as the two watchers; but that creature had no intention of risking itself any closer to a pile of flaming oil containers which, from all appearances, might be expected to blast a rain of fire all over the surrounding landscape at any moment. They were already within twenty yards of the blaze, and man and symbiote alike could feel the heat. There was literally no way on earth by which the latter could force his host to turn the jeep around and drive in the opposite direction. There was, likewise, no way by which he could be forced to stop the vehicle; but the creature did not realize this in the tension of the moment. At any rate, it did what seemed best.
Mr. Kinnaird took one hand from the wheel and brushed it across his eyes, which told the watchers in the shed more clearly than words what had happened; but he no longer needed eyes to hold a searingly clear mental picture of his son in the flames ahead, and the jeep neither swerved nor slowed. The symbiote must have realized almost instantly that blindness was insufficient, and a dozen yards from the shed Mr. Kinnaird collapsed over the wheel.
Unfortunately for his guest, the jeep was still in gear, as anyone who had paid normal attention to earthly matters would have foreseen unless utterly panic-stricken; and the little car continued its course, still turning slightly to the left, and thudded into the corrugated-iron wall of the shed several yards from the door. The fact that his foot had slipped off the gas pedal when he was paralyzed probably saved Mr. Kinnaird from a broken neck.
Things had been moving a little too fast for Bob; he had expected his father to be overcome while on foot and somewhat farther from the fire. He had intended using the oilcan in his hand to control the spread of the flames so that the fugitive would believe his helpless host in immediate danger of immolation. Now he could not fulfill this plan, since he could no longer get close enough to the pool of fire in the doorway to see the jeep, to say nothing of splashing oil in its neighborhood. To make the situation rather more awkward, one of the full cans that Bob had placed on the pile chose at this moment to let go. Since he had had the intelligence not to use gasoline, the container simply ruptured along a seam and let a further wave of liquid fire spread down the pile and over the ground; but that wave came closer to the stalled jeep than the boy could tell with certainty.
Almost frantic with his own anxiety, the boy suddenly remembered the windows whose existence he had so carefully concealed from the Hunter while the trap was being set. He whirled and dashed for the nearest, still clutching the oilcan and yelling at the same time in island French: "Don't worry! There's a window!" He managed to wriggle through the unglazed opening and drop to the ground outside. He landed on his feet and raced around the corner of the shed. What he saw as he made the turn brought him up short and restored the thought of his original purpose in his mind.
The fire had not yet reached the jeep, though it was spreading momentarily closer; but that was not the fact that drew the boy's eyes like a magnet.
His father was still slumped over the wheel, outlined clearly against the blaze beyond; and beside him, shielded by his body from the fierce, radiant heat, was something else. The Hunter had never allowed Bob to see him, but there was no doubt in the boy's mind what this was-a soft-looking mass of nearly opaque greenish jelly, swelling momentarily as more of its substance poured out of the man's clothing. Bob instantly drew back behind the corner, though he could see nothing resembling an eye, and peeked cautiously.
The alien creature seemed to be gathering itself for a plunge of some sort. A slender tentacle reached out from the central mass and groped downward over the side of the jeep. It seemed to cringe momentarily as it passed below the protection of the metal and felt the radiation; but apparently its owner felt that a little now was preferable to more later, and the pseudopod continued to the ground. There its tip seemed to swell coincidentally with the shrinking of the main mass on the seat, and Bob gathered himself for action. It took nearly a minute for the whole weird body to reach the ground.
The instant its last contact with the jeep was broken Bob acted. He sprang from the concealment and sprinted toward the car, still bearing his oilcan. The Hunter expected him to pour its contents over the creature now flowing desperately away from the flames, but he passed it with scarcely a glance, pushed his father away from the steering wheel, got under it himself, started the jeep, and backed it a good thirty yards from the building. Then, and only then, did he give attention to the Hunter's main job.
The fugitive had covered a little distance during this maneuver. It had kept close to the wall of the shed and made the best possible time away from the heat, the disappearance of the shelter provided by the jeep spurring it to greater efforts. Apparently it saw Bob coming, however, for it stopped its flowing motion and gathered into a hemispherical mass from which a number of fine tendrils began to reach out toward the approaching human being. Its first idea must have been that this would be a. satisfactory host, at least until it got away from this neighborhood. Then it must have realized the Hunter's presence in this purposeful and unswerving approach and tried for an instant to resume its flight. Realizing its limitations in speed, however, it humped together again; and even Bob could see, from his recollection of the Hunter's story of his own actions, that the creature must be trying to go underground.
There was a difference, however, between the well-packed, much-traveled ground by the shed and the loose sand of the beach. The spaces between grains were smaller, and most of them were full of water, which is soft only when there is somewhere to push it. Long before there was any appreciable diminution in the creature's size it was being drenched by the stream of oil from the can Bob was carrying.
The boy poured until the container was almost empty, soaking the ground all about the thing for several feet; then he used the last of the oil to form a trail from the pool he had made toward the blaze. This accomplished, he stood back for a moment and watched the finger of fire reach slowly out toward its new playground.
It was too slow to satisfy Bob, and after a moment he took out the matches again, ignited the entire folder, and tossed it as accurately as he could onto the semi-fluid lump in the center of the oil pool. He had no reason for complaint this time; he barely got away from the sheet of flame himself.
Chapter XXI. PROBLEM THREE
THE HUNTER wanted to stay until the fire had burned out, to make certain of results, but Bob, once he had done all he could, turned his attention at once to his father. A single glance at the inferno surrounding the fugitive's last known position was enough for him. He ran back to the jeep, glanced at his father's still motionless form, and sent the vehicle whirling toward the doctor's office. The Hunter dared make no remark; interference with his host's eyesight at this speed would have been a serious error.
Mr. Kinnaird had been able to see ever since the alien had left his body; he had been conscious the whole time. The paralysis, however, had endured considerably longer than the dose given to Bob by the Hunter, and he had not been in a position to see very well what went on by the shed. He knew Bob had stopped at what seemed to him dangerous proximity to the fire and had gone back for something, but he did not know what. He struggled all the way down the road to get the question past his vocal cords.
He recovered enough to sit up before they finished the short ride to the doctor's office, and the questions were beginning to pour forth as the jeep pulled up at the door. Bob, of course, was relieved to see the recovery, but he had developed another and rather serious worry in the meantime, and he merely said, "Never mind about what happened to the shed and me; I want to find out what happened to you. Can you walk in, or shall I help?"
The last sentence was a stroke of genius; it shut the elder Kinnaird up with a snap. He emerged with dignity from the car and stalked ahead of his son to the doctor's door. The boy followed; normally, he would have been wearing a grin of amused triumph, but an expression of
worry still overcast his face.
Inside, the doctor finally got a more or less coherent idea of what had happened from their two stories, and from Bob's expression and a number of meaningful glances made a guess at the underlying phenomena; he ordered Mr. Kinnaird onto the examination table. The man objected, saying that he wanted to find out something from Bob first.
"I'll talk to him," Seever said. "You stay put." He went outside for a moment with the boy, raising his eyebrows interrogatively.
"Yes." Bob answered the unspoken question. "But you won't find anything now except maybe a lack of germs. I'll tell you all about it later; but the job's done."
He waited until the doctor had disappeared once more, and then spoke to the Hunter.
"What are your plans, now that your job is finished here? Go back to your own world?"
"I can't. I told you that," was the silent answer. "My ship is totally wrecked, and even if the other were not, I could never find it. I have a rough idea of how a space ship works, but I am a policeman, not a physicist or construction engineer. I could no more make a space ship than you could build one of the airliners we traveled on together."
"Then-?"
"I am on earth for life, except for the ridiculously small chance of another ship's arriving from my old home. You can guess the likelihood of that if you will look at an astronomical picture of the Milky Way. Just what I do here and who my host is-and even if I have a host at all -depend on you. We do not thrust ourselves on those who do not want our company. What do you say?"
Bob did not answer at once. He looked back across the village to the pillar of smoke that was now thinning above the hill, and thought. The Hunter assumed that he was considering the pros and cons of the suggestion, and felt a little hurt that there should be any hesitation, even though he had begun to appreciate the human desire for privacy at certain times; but for once he had misunderstood his host.