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The Hunter had thought along the same lines briefly, but had realized that if his enemy were actually in the boy and persuading him to do any of these tricks; it was perfectly possible that all the human beings on the canoe were likely to be drowned. The other creature would have no real interest in the welfare of its host, and would probably consider the child well spent in a maneuver which deprived the Hunter of his own host and an assistant. The aliens would not suffer as the canoe splintered against the reef. They would not drown; and filings would be back where they were nearly eight years ago when the two representatives of the worst and the best of Castor's culture had reached Earth. Back where they were, except that this time the fugitive would be less likely to make any of the mistakes which had let the Hunter find him before.
The Hunter wondered what had been done to the canoe, and when it would make itself felt.
The wind, from the southwest was still rising. Bob and his symbiont were getting more and more uneasy and even Maeta was a little tense. She was begi
In spite of the wind and her personal distraction, she found the marker buoy above the ship with surprising speed. It was still clear in spite of the wind, and the tanks in the lagoon which provided direction references were easy to see. She brought the canoe bow-on to the wind, and drew in her paddle.
"Andre, see if you can hold us here for a minute without my help. You can see that buoy; try to keep us just where we are with respect to it" The youngster, surprisingly to Bob, made no argument, but dug in with his paddle.
Bob was a little slow in reading the implications of Maeta's order, and by the time he turned to look at her she had slipped off the shirt and slacks which had covered her swimsuit, and was on her way overside with the bottle. Even the Hunter would have settled for dropping the message overboard at this point, and Bob was nearly frantic; but she gave no one time to expostulate. Bob got only part of a sentence out be fore she disappeared, leaving him quite literally holding his breath.
She was up again before he had to let it out, and slid aboard with her usual seal like grace. She snatched up her paddle; and snapped an order as she began to use it.
"Bob, be ready to lean out, or climb out, on the forward boom. I can't head straight for the beach, but even so the rigger will be upwind now. We're not a real double hull, and the outrigger is light; the wind may try to pick it up. Your job is not to let that happen. Andre, good work; keep paddling as you are."
It was much more difficult now. The wind had been more or less behind them on the way out; now it held them back. Maeta saw quickly that she was not allowing enough for drift, and pointed more to the west. She finally found a heading which seemed to offer a vector sum leading to the beach, but even Andre could see that it would be a long time getting them there. Maeta evidently decided it would take too long; after a few minutes she turned almost straight west, out to sea away from Ell.
''What's the idea?" Bob shouted over the wind., "We can't make it back. Andre is wearing out, and I don't think I'll last that long myself. I want to get clear of the reef, and northwest is the quickest way. You can get off the boom, now."
"But we'll be blown out to sea!"
"I know. But Island Eight is about thirty-five miles away, and straight downwind as nearly as I can judge. We won't have much trouble hitting it-there's a com pass here. We'll see it from miles away, and the tank there is unusually high, so ifwe miss the line a little we can still correct before we get there. Right now the important thing is to clear Ell's reef."
"And stay, afloat."
Maeta gestured that qualification away with a toss of her head. She knew there was no worry from wind or wave on the open sea as long as she could manipulate a paddle. The confidence of competence was perhaps slightly inflated, by the arrogance of youth, but she did know what she was doing. The error of putting to sea at all that day had been the result of attaching too much weight to factors unrelated to the weather; she would, she still felt, do the same thing again as long as she could feel reasonably sure of delivering the message.
"How about the reef at Eight?" yelled Bob. "I've never been there."
"Neither have I," was the answer, "but Charlie says the passage is on this side and wide enough to be no problem-the tankers get in. Keep paddling just a little longer, Andy; you're doing fine."
She had gradually been heading more to the north as they drew away from Ell. Now, sure of her clear ance, she bore around to the northeast and put the wind directly behind them. Andre was allowed to stop paddling, and Maeta herself eased off her efforts to what was necessary to hold their heading. They passed the northwest fringe of Ell's reef with two or three hundred yards to spare, though the breakers looked un-comfortably close to Bob.
Then there was empty sea before them. Maeta had estimated their speed, from the time it took to pass familiar objects along the northern reef, at about six knots-the wind, of course, was much higher, but had much less grip on the outrigger than the water did. This meant that the best part of six hours would be needed to reach Island Eight.
There was no danger of anyone's going to sleep. The canoe pitched violently enough to make it necessary to hold on most of the time, and spray blown from the tops of the waves made it necessary to bail fairly often. It was not, except for the first few minutes of doubt, a frightening trip even for the boy. None of them was really comfortable in the wind and spray, of course; Maeta put her slacks and shirt back on, soaked as they were, and Andre, who was clad only in shorts, forgot his independence and indifference enough to snuggle close to Bob for warmth. The Hunter thought of making a direct check for the presence of his not-certainly-dead quarry in the youngster's body, but could not be sure that it would be safe. If the boy moved very much, especially if he pulled away, while the alien was partly in one body and partly in the other, the results would be extremely unfortunate. The detective could of course afford to lose a few tiny tendrils, as he had at the ship, but such appendages might not be enough to find the other being. If the fugitive were actually there, he was aware of the Hunter's presence in Bob's body from the latter's recovery from the heart wound, and would be hiding-withdrawn into a single mass, or a few small masses, in body cavities, rather than spread out through the boy's system in a network ready for protective duty.
The Hunter mentioned all this to his host, and Bob agreed that unless the boy fell asleep the direct search would be unwise. Andre did not fall asleep.
By mid-afternoon, the tank of Island Eight was visible directly ahead. It was of experimental design, more than twice the usual twelve-to-fifteen-foot height of PFI's culture tanks, and visible from a much greater distance.
Unfortunately, the experiment had not been very successful, and at the moment the unit was unused and the small atoll it occupied was uninhabited.
Half an hour after the first sighting, the breakers marking the reef became visible. At first, they stretched an equal distance to each side of the bow, with no sign of a break. Even Maeta was getting tense -it would soon be impossible to clear either side of the white water-when they finally sighted the pas sage, a little to their left. The girl altered their course slightly, and presently told Andre to start paddling again. Bob and the Hunter, neither able to do any thing constructive, could only watch with increasing tension as the breakers drew closer. An occasional glance back at Maeta's face was somewhat reassuring, but not entirely; one could interpret her expression as one either of concentration or of worry.