"We'd better head for the library. Do you have a story ready to cover this meeting with Andre we're supposed to have had-especially if she's met him and mentioned it to him?"

"No, but I'll manage. She's not suspicious, if you mean your sister."

"I do. Not yet." The last two words were pointedly rather bitter, and even Jenny caught their implication. Nothing more was said during the mile and a quarter paddle until near the end, when they saw Daphne waiting for them on the beach by the causeway.

"I suppose you'll tell her it's not the right thing, when you see it." Jenny's tone was more resigned than indignant.

"I'll tell her whether it is or isn't, according to what I see. I appreciate your worry about my health, Jen, but there are some things I can't see doing. I'll kid young Silly in situations we both know aren't serious, and she knows I will, but real out-and-out lying on important matters-no. Maybe I care too much about what she thinks of me after she finds out, but that's the way I feel. Maybe I've been living with the Hunter too long."

"Thanks," the alien muttered.

"Why should she ever have to find out?" asked Jenny, quite seriously.

"Maybe you haven't been living with the Hunter long enough," was Bob's answer. They were ashore by then, and the child was running toward them across the sand.

Bob was not completely restored, but was able to get to the library without letting his condition become obvious to Daphne. Both he and the Hunter were worrying about the other possibility, but nothing more had happened to his stomach since they had left Apu; and now, fortunately, his stomach was practically empty.

The library was a surprisingly large structure, considering the general environment. The reason was another of PFI's policies. Employees' children not only had the option of a college education at company expense, in return for the work contract afterward; the company also covered book expenses, but required that the books come back to the island afterward. Thorvaldsen was not really trying to start a college on Ell, he insisted, but he wanted for both himself and everyone else on the island good access to as much of human culture, as possible. It was said that he had once read all the nasty things ever said about capitalists and had set out to prove that none of them had to be true. Whatever his intentions, Ell's population formed a generally well read group, from the relatively few pure-blooded Polynesians, through the mixtures which formed the majority, to the relatively few pure-blooded Europeans. It was also a prosperous population; PFI oil had made the island dependent on the rest of the world for everything but food, but no one was worried; it was likely to be a long time before the oil market failed. Even the foresighted ones who felt that man should shift to nuclear power because of the probable effects of carbon-burning on the planet's climate admitted that PFI was taking as much carbon dioxide from the environment as its customers were putting in.

In any case, the library was large and accessible. It was open, with people on duty, every day from sunrise to three hours after sunset.

The librarian on duty at the moment was a middle-aged woman unknown to the Hunter, though Bob was able to call her by name.

"Hi, Mrs. Moetua. Did my pile of books get here?"

The woman looked up and nodded, without interrupting work on a card she was typing. Then she saw Daphne and glanced toward one of the cases; she was the one who had borne the brunt of the little girl's questioning a short time before, and could guess why the group was there. She swung her gaze back to Daphne, who caught her eye and lowered her voice to a whisper as she led the others toward her discovery.

It was well above eye level even for Bob and Jenny, on top of a case of encyclopedias, and certainly from distance answered the verbal description which Bob had supplied and his sister modified. It was half hidden by the coral which had grown around it in a complex pattern which fully justified its present use as an ornament.

However, enough of the underlying alloy could be seen to make recognition easy, and Bob and the Hunter looked at it for only a few moments. Neither had any doubt about its identity. The Hunter would have liked to examine it more closely, as a feature he had not noticed in the brief glimpse seven years before now caught his attention, but he decided to wait -Bob was heading back toward the librarian's desk by now, and the alien decided to let him finish what-ever he had in mind.

"You told Daphne that Maeta Teroa brought that thing in?"

"I said I thought she did," the woman replied. "That's still the way I remember it. It's been here as long as the building, but so has Maeta, and I'm not absolutely sure. She isn't here today, but shouldn't be hard to find. Why are you interested?"

"I saw something like it years ago out on the reef, and wondered if this might be the same thing. It's certainly curious; I wonder it didn't go out with Museum Exchange."

"They don't get everything," the woman smiled. "Don't make remarks about the Exchange if you want Mae to help you. She does a lot of collecting for them, and we have a lot of stuff here-books and specimens both-as a result."

"Thanks, I'll be careful. I didn't mean to sound critical; I have some minerals at the house which I got from a German museum through that outfit, when I was on my rock-loving bug years ago. I'll ask Mae when I see her; thanks, Mrs. Moetua."

Outside, Bob turned to the girls.

"That saves a lot of time. Silly, I'll have to think of a real prize for you; start making a list of things you want."

"It really is the thing?" Jenny asked.

"It really is-if you can believe me." The young woman had the grace to blush, but kept on with her questions.

"What can we do now?"

"We'll have to get Maeta to tell us as exactly as possible where she found it, so we can try backtracking the way we'd planned."

"What do you mean?" asked Daphne. "Backtracking what?"

"Part of the secret," replied her brother. "Maybe I can tell you later, but I don't promise. You may as well go off and play. There's nothing we can do until I see Maeta, so you won't miss anything. They said she was out on the water?" Both girls nodded affirmatively. "All right. I suppose we could go out in the boat again and try to spot her, but the chances wouldn't be very good-she could be picnicking on any of the islets, even around on the south side, and not just cruising around the lagoon. She could even be fishing or sailing outside the reef."

"But it wouldn't hurt to go see, and you could take me with you in the boat," pointed out Daphne.

Bob looked at Jenny, who smiled and shrugged.

"All right, small sister, if you get on your bike, dash home, and put on something sun proof over that scrap of tape you call a bathing suit. Scoot!"

The child vanished.

The rest of the day was spent, not very productively, on the lagoon. Daphne enjoyed herself, and even the older human beings had a good time, but the Hunter was impatient and bored. He could not, in spite of his long life and general tendency toward calm, understand how Bob could apparently put the problem of his own life so casually and completely out of mind. Granted that the trouble was the Hunter's fault, it was Bob's life. It did occur to the alien that this might be another consequence of the relatively short human life span; but that could not be the whole story. The Castorian humanoids he knew lived an even shorter time on the average and he doubted that any of these could have been so casual in such a situation. Certainly none of the individuals he had known personally would have been.

Since most of Ell ate the evening meal shortly after sundown, there was no great difficulty about intercepting Maeta at her home. Daphne had been sent off with the message that her brother would be home a few minutes later; Jenny accompanied him to the home of the Teroas, who lived in the middle of a fairly extensive garden just at the point where the roads met, and only a few score yards from the library.