Through the Eye of a Needle n-2

by Hal Clement

  "Do you really think Ben Seever can do anything?" was Arthur Kinnaird's contribution. "He can't possibly know as much as the Hunter, even if he is a doctor rather than a detective."

  Bob nodded basic agreement with the point; it was one he and the Hunter had considered long before.

  "I don't know what he can do, Dad, but we can't help being better off with him than without him. We're telling him the whole story tomorrow. I'd have to see him anyway, since I'll be expected to have a checkup before reporting to work; tomorrow's Friday, and I'm sure PFI will expect my muscles to be available Monday. If nothing else, Doc may be able, to think of something which will keep me out of heavy-muscle work. If I don't do anything useful at all, they'll want to send me to the States or Japan for a real medical going-over, and we've got to stay here." "Why?" both parents asked at once. Bob smiled. "Don't give up when you first hear it. The basic assumption may be wrong, but at least it's not ridiculous. Our first job is to find one or both of the ships that crashed near Ell nearly eight years ago. What do you know about self-contained diving gear, Dad?"

  Arthur Kinnaird, quite predictably, ignored the question and put one of his own.

  "What good will the ships do? Are there supposed to be medical supplies in them? Would anything useful have lasted this long under water?"

  "Probably not," admitted Bob. "We're not looking for supplies or equipment. The Hunter's ship was certainly thoroughly wrecked, and it's likely the other one was too. We need something else.

  "We-the Hunter and I-have been thinking this through for over two years now, and we've reached one very firm conclusion. This problem can be solved, if at all, only by specialists among the Hunter's own races. This sort of thing has happened to them before when they encountered new species, and at least some of the time they have found answers."

  Arthur Kinnaird was frowning thoughtfully; his son's expression was more hopeful.

  The man spoke. "How on Earth, if the phrase means anything, will finding either of those ships get you in touch with specialists from the Hunter's world? Do you think there are radios in them that will reach that far? And did you ever figure out where he came from, anyway? I thought he said he was hopelessly lost among the stars?"

  "Let's see, Dad; in order, if I can. No, neither of us expects to find anything usable in either ship. Radios wouldn't mean anything even if they worked; it would take fifty years or so for electromagnetic waves to make the trip one way. Our idea is a little less direct and maybe a little less promising, but we think it's more than just wishing.

  "It's true that when I first knew him, and for quite a while afterward, the Hunter believed he was hopelessly lost. It wasn't until I took an astronomy course, with him looking on of course, that he got a reasonable idea of how thinly the stars are scattered in space, and how few are the possibilities that would have to be considered by the people who might be looking for him. He knows the time he traveled, though not the distance in any of our units. His departure direction was known to his own people, though of course they won't know how far he went. He feels sure that when he failed to return in a few of our months, searchers would have followed his line. He is even more sure that he did not pass at all close to any stars likely to distract those searchers; ours was the first that he and his quarry came at all close to. His friends should have had no trouble in finding this planetary system."

  "But there are nine planets going around our sun," Mrs. Kinnaird pointed out, "and even if they narrowed it down to this one there are a lot of square miles to cover."

  "That's why-or one reason why-we need to find the ships. They'll help us estimate the searchers' chance of narrowing down. The Hunter says that even when they're shut down, the faster-than-light engines involve force fields which can be spotted from millions of miles away-that's how he was able to follow the other ship. He's not sure how long the fields would last, or how far away they can be sensed, after the sort of violence which his own ship suffered. Sooner or later corrosion would destroy them so completely that no field effects would remain, and that's another reason we want to find them-to see how far that process may have gone."

  "But no matter what their condition, what can you and the Hunter, or the rest of us, do about it?" asked his father.

  "It will affect our plans. If the ships were detectable, searchers will have already covered this island very thoroughly-probably when the Hunter and I weren't here. If they weren't, at least the searchers would have found Earth, and the Hunter is certain they'd have been interested, in the planet and in humanity. They'd have gone home, reported, and by now a team would be somewhere on the planet giving it a going-over for five to ten years to decide whether they should make open contact with humanity. If I could be sure of living ten years, we could sit back and wait."

  "Assuming they decided in favor," his mother pointed out."

  "Yes-I suppose I shouldn't be taking that for granted; In any case we can't wait. The real question we have to solve is whether there'd be members of the Hunter's species here on Ell, as there would be if they'd found the ships, or whether all of Earth has to be searched. I must admit I'm hoping for the first,"

  "But would they still be here if they had found them?"

  "Not steadily, but they'd come back from time to time to check on the pilots. They'd have found no trace of them, and they'd want to rescue the Hunter and arrest the other one."

  "Why should they care about the arrest, alter such a long time?" the woman asked. "Was he that terrible a criminal?"

  "I don't know-just a minute." Bob waited while the Hunter covered the point, then relayed. "He had done things for his own convenience which endangered his host, without the latter's consent. He was therefore self-centered enough to be a danger to any human beings he used; they'd want to get him as a protection to our own people." "Would he have done what the Hunter has done to you?" asked his father. It was the first time he had let bitterness enter the conversation.

  "That's not fair, Dad. The Hunter didn't do this on purpose, and he's trying to repair the trouble. The other one would simply have found himself another host when I became too messed up to be useful-probably long before now, since it's taking a lot of effort to keep me going already."

  "All right, sorry. Why wouldn't these searchers have left messages around for the Hunter?

  "Because they couldn't be sure the other one had been disposed of, of course. For the next obvious question with a less obvious answer, where would the Hunter leave messages for the searchers-except in the ships? It would have to be someplace they'd examine closely, and they won't check every drain pipe on this island, much less on Earth. Anything which could be seen from any distance would attract human attention, which would be very bad until the team decides about open contact."

  "And if they haven't found the ships?"

  "Then neither of us has any good ideas. The best is to publish some of the Hunter's police codes, transcribed as closely into local alphabets as possible, in large-circulation papers; but that's not very promising with, say, fifty investigators scattered over the planet. We'll try that if we have to-it'll take even more help than the other operation-but we certainly hope we don't have to."

  "So do I." Arthur Kinnaird's voice had dropped from its earlier rather sharp intensity. "All right. You've made your case for doing some diving. We'd better find out whether those mine detectors they used in the war will work under water-"

  "In principle, yes," Bob interrupted. "We'd have to make sure water didn't get into their circuitry, though. Do you think we can get hold of one? It should make a big difference, especially if the ships are under coral or mud by now."

  "We'll try. There's nothing else we can do. I wish I could be more optimistic. Hunter, when you come right down to it, you really can't be sure whether any of your people have reached or will reach Earth, can you?"

  The alien relayed a "No" through his young host, very reluctantly. He had problems enough without destroying Bob's morale, he felt. However, the word seem
ed to make no difference to the young chemist. Certainly his father noticed nothing, and was not thinking along such lines, for he went on,

  "Is it really possible you can feel sure they can find this solar system? I can see their picking out Earth if they do, but photos I've seen of the Milky Way star clouds look pretty discouraging when it comes to a hide and seek game. Bob, look at the ceiling and start reading the Hunter's answer to that. I don't want to discourage anyone-I don't want to be discouraged myself, but I've got to have a realistic idea."

  "He doesn't talk to me by shadowing the retinas any more, Dad; he speaks directly into my ear bones. But I'll relay."

  The Hunter couldn't afford to hesitate, under the circumstances. He spoke, and his host quoted.

  "The only doubt is raised by the nature of your Sun, which is much brighter and hotter than ours. It is possible that there are stars more like our own which lay fairly close to our line of flight; I can only say that my instruments failed to detect them. If they got a really good fix our departure direction, which they should have very easily, they would have to examine this system. It is possible they'll have to check others, too, but I've been here for nearly eight of your years. I honestly consider the chances very good indeed that some of my species are on Earth right now."

  "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 som
e 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.

  "People have queer ideas of fun," Jenny countered.

  "I see. Like being mysterious. Look, Kid, or Miss Seever or whatever you want me to call you, I don't know what you're talking about." The Hunter, with the passion for strict truthfulness which had developed naturally in his long life, was rather disturbed by this remark. Even the reflection that it was not totally false, since Bob could really only guess what she was talking about, did not console him completely. "If someone has burned a house or something like that here on Ell, I don't know anything about it-I've been away for two years, and just got back last night. If you're talking about something else, you'll have to be specific enough to make sense. If you're just being funny, it isn't. If you've been reading mystery stories, change detectives. I'm not falling for the all-is-lost-fly-at-once line."