Needle

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. Ki

"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. Ki

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. Ki

Mr. Ki

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. Ki

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.