At first the alien was not aware of anyone else in the neighborhood, and could do his normal job with-out worrying about the need for camouflage. He promptly blocked the opened capillaries, and the larger vessels where bone had come through the skin; practically no blood escaped. He was working the displaced face and head tissue back to its approximately correct place when he heard something.

At first he could not decide its nature; then it began to resemble a fairly large body making its way through the underbrush. Presently this ceased and very faint footsteps sounded on the drive. The Hunter was relieved at first; getting Bob to the doctor's place was obviously necessary, and obviously more than the symbiont could manage unaided. Whoever was combing should be able either to give help or go for it Bob's eyes were closed, so his partner could see nothing even though they had come to rest lying flat on his back.

The alien tried to force one lid open to see who was standing over them, but had not succeeded when a thin sliver of metal went through his host's chest, nailing him neatly to the ground. The Hunter forgot all about seeing, and barely noticed the fleeing footsteps. He was suddenly very busy.

The metal had entered Bob's body at the base of the breastbone and slanted a trifle upward, going through the right ventricle of his heart and emerging just to the right of his spine. The heart continued to beat on its own, but the symbiont had to surround it with his own tissue to prevent blood from escaping through the two holes and filling the pericardium, which would seriously hamper heart action. The metal helped plug the holes, but was doing no good otherwise. For the moment, all the Hunter could do was maintain blood pressure and circulation until help showed up. There was no. immediate likelihood that it would.

Bob came back to consciousness in fifteen minutes or so. The Hunter recognized the fact before his host started to move, and told him slowly and carefully s what was wrong, to prevent his doing so incautiously. Bob listened, and finally understood.

"What can we do?" he asked. "I know you can keep me alive, but I'd hate to have the family find me this way."

"I agree, though probably not for the same reasons," the Hunter answered, "The average human being who saw you might react by pulling out this piece of metal, and that's something I want done only under my guidance or Dr. Seever's. Do you think you're strong enough yet? Don't worry about shock; I'll handle your blood pressure."

"I guess so.” Bob reached carefully toward his chest, and felt the projecting end of the weapon. "I'd say this was one of those picnic skewers we cooked with the other night."

"That was my impression," responded the alien, "though I've only felt the part inside you. Fortunately it's one of the straight ones, not the twisted kind. I'd have missed more of your blood otherwise, there'd have been a lot more damage to your heart, and you'd be having a much tougher job of pulling. Get hold of it-there-and work it very slowly upward. I'll take care of the inside. That's good-that's right-very slowly, especially when the point comes out of the ground-you don't want it to wiggle any more than we can help-that's the way-"

The Hunter kept talking. Some time Bob was going to become fully aware of what he was doing, but that moment should be postponed if at all possible until the skewer was out of him, or at least out of his heart. If nausea, a very likely result of full realization, were to occur before then, the Hunter would have a distinctly more complex job. He made it a point to hold his host's eyes closed; for even though he was not permitting any blood to emerge with the metal, the sight of the thing protruding from one's own chest was something to be avoided. The Hunter could regard the operation with professional interest; Bob was un-likely to possess quite that much detachment.

It took several minutes, but they managed it with-out doing any more damage. In spite of the fluid pressure and constant motion, the Hunter had no trouble holding the heart punctures closed; he judged they would heal in a few days, barring fallout from the other problems, and told his host so. "But in the mean-time, don't do anything which might raise your blood pressure too much," he finished.

"Does that include standing up and walking?" Bob asked. "It seems to me I should get to the doc without waiting for someone to come home. Now that you're letting me look at things, I get the impression that someone ought to set this arm. Thanks for taking care of the sensation, by the way."

"Well, for once it wasn't your own carelessness," his companion replied. "I'm not strong enough to set your bones. Let's see what caused this fall, and then we'll walk, very slowly, to the doctor's."

The Hunter by this time had checked all his host's injuries. The blow which had knocked him unconscious seemed to have produced no real brain damage. His skull was intact, and while the Hunter never dared intrude in actual brain tissue except within the blood vessels of that organ, none of these seemed damaged and there had been no leakage of blood into the cerebrospinal fluid.

Bob found movement no more painful than before, and made his way to the bicycle. What had happened was fairly clear.

The front tire was cut to the rim; nothing else was visibly wrong. Bob summarized.

"Someone stretched a wire across the road about hub high. After I went into it, he removed the wire and skewered me, not necessarily in that order. That's clear enough. But I don't see why; it seems a little extreme for one of Andre's practical jokes-not the trip-wire, but the stabbing, wouldn't you say?"

The Hunter had to agree, though he had thought of the same child himself.

They could find no trace of where the wire had been attached, though there was no lack of possible places. The Hunter wondered whether any eleven year-old could have hidden his tracks so well, but kept the thought to himself. He could reach no conclusions except that someone was not very concerned with Bob's health-there was no way of being sure that the offender even had anything particular against the young engineer; he might have been merely a target of opportunity. The alien had not practiced his profession for several years, and began to wonder whether he was losing the touch. He should, he felt, have been sure of something.

Bob insisted, over his partner's objections, on wheeling the bicycle back to its shed before heading toward the Seever home-cum-hospital.

"If the folks come back before I do and find it in that shape, they'll go crazy," he pointed out. "You can just keep my heart plugged up a couple of minutes longer."

"It's not the time, but the pressure," the Hunter pointed out. "Remember, I wasn't strong enough to pull the skewer out by myself."

"I'll go slow," Bob promised, and with that his companion had to be content.

Actually the principal difficulty with the walk was provided by Bob's joints, which were still painful. They met no one on the way. It seemed likely that everyone on the island-perhaps even the setter of the trip wire, by this time-was out on the beach celebrating. It would be the same ten days later on Bastille Day, since French blood was as strong as American, on the island, and those who felt more Polynesian than anything else were perfectly willing to accept any excuse for a good time.

Unfortunately, there was no one at the Seevers' either, when they got there. Bob used the telephone, first to -notify the refinery of his accident and his whereabouts, then to call a few likely places for the doctor. It seemed rather probable that he and his family might be out on the reef, where people often partied or picnicked, but the store and the library seemed worth trying. Practically none of the island's private homes had telephones.