Hal Clement - Natives of Space

“I suppose they figure if we did get drowned they’d have an awful time getting us out; they say it’s over a hundred feet deep,” responded the older boy, somewhat absently.

Jackie looked up sharply at his tone. Jim was carefully removing a sock and exposing a rather ugly scrape which obviously had been fresh when the sock was donned. Jackie came over to examine it. “How did you do that?” he asked.

“Hit my foot against the rock the first time I dived. It’s a little bit sore,” replied Jim.

“Hadn’t we better have Mother put iodine on it?”

“Then how do I explain where I got it, sap? Go get the iodine yourself and I’ll put it on; but don’t let them see you get it.”

Jackie nodded, and ran barefooted downstairs to the kitchen. He found the brown bottle without difficulty, brought it upstairs, watched Jim’s rather sketchy applica-tion of the antiseptic, and returned the bottle to its place. When he returned from the second trip Jim was in bed; so he blew out the lamp without speaking and crawled under his own blankets.

The next morning was bright and almost clear; but a few thin cirrus clouds implied the possibility of another change in the weather. The boys, strolling down the road toward school, recognized the signs; they prompted a remark from Jackie as they passed the second quarry.

“I bet the middle of a rainstorm would be a good time to go swimming there. No one would be around, and you’d have a good excuse for being wet.”

“You’d probably break your neck on the rocks,” replied his brother. “They’re bad enough when it’s dry.” Jim’s foot was bothering him a little, and his attitude toward the quarry was a rather negative one. He had managed to conceal his trouble from their mother, but now he was limping slightly. They had already fallen behind the other boys, who had met them at the Wade gate, and there began to be a serious prospect of their being late for school. Jim realized this as they entered the town and with an effort increased his pace; they managed to get to their rooms with two or three minutes to spare, to Jim’s relief. He had been foreseeing the need for a written excuse, which might have been difficult to provide.

When they met at lunch time, Jim refused to discuss his foot, and even Jackie began to worry about the situa-tion. He knew his elder brother would not lie about his means of acquiring the injury, and it seemed very likely that the question was going to arise. After school, there was no doubt of it. Jimmy insisted that his brother not wait for him, but go home and stay out of the way until he had faced the authorities; Jackie was willing to avoid the house, but wanted to keep with Jim until they got there. The older boy’s personality triumphed, and Jackie went on with the main crowd, while James limped on behind.

They did not swim, that day. The older boys had determined to play higher up the mountain side, and the younger ones trailed along. They spent a riotous afternoon, with little thought to passage of time; and Jackie heard the supper bell ring when he was a hundred yards from the house. He took to his heels, paused briefly at the pump, burst into the kitchen, recovered his poise, and proceeded more sedately to the dining room. His mother looked up as he entered, and asked quietly, “Where’s Jimmy?”

That morning, as on the previous day, Thrykar had made careful count of the number of human beings passing the quarry. Although only one automobile had passed the second day, the number of pedestrians had tallied three times — fifteen people had walked to town both mornings; two had walked back in the afternoon, and thirteen had paused to swim. He concluded that those fifteen could be counted on as regular customers, when he laid his plans for the second afternoon.

This time, he took up his station very near the road, concealed as best he could behind bushes.

Tes was at his station of the day before, ready to give him warning of people approaching. He was not counting on a lone swimmer remaining behind at the quarry; he hoped to snatch one of the passersby from the road itself.

In consequence, he was more than pleased to see that the human beings did not stop to swim; the first group to pass consisted of twelve, whom he rightly assumed to be most of the previous day’s swimmers, and the second was the pair of girls, which Thrykar, of course, was unable to recognize as such. There was one to go; and, though it seemed too good to be true, there was every chance that that one would pass alone.

He did. Tes signaled his approach, and Thrykar, not waiting for anything more, started blowing a bubble. The wind was against him today; he had to make a much larger one, of heavier material, and “anchor” it to the middle of the road. It was more visible, in consequence, than the other had been; but he placed it in the shadow of a tree. Jimmy might not have seen it even had he been less preoccupied. As it was, he almost missed it; Thrykar had time to lay but one trap, which he placed at the center of the road; and Jimmy, from long-established habit, walked on the left. In consequence, he was down-wind from the thing; and when it ruptured at his grazing touch, the alien had no reason to be dissatisfied with the result.

The boy hit the ground before Thrykar could catch him, but there were no visible marks to suggest injury to his head when the trapper examined him. Thrykar picked up the unconscious form with an effort, collected the books which had fallen from its hand, and staggered back to the place where he had concealed the rest of his equipment.

This was not the place from which he had been watching; there was more equipment this time, the opera-tion would take longer, and it would have been foolhardy to work so close to the road.

He had found another space between large, discarded granite blocks about midway be-tween road and quarry; and this he made his operating room.

Before going to work, he applied an extra dose of the anaesthetic directly to the boy’s nostrils; and he laid the cylinder containing the substance close at hand. He uncased a much larger needle, connected by transparent, flexible tubing to a small jar graduated for volumetric measure; and, not trusting his memory, he laid the book beside it, open to the page which gave the quantity of blood that might safely be removed from a human being — a quantity determined long before by experi-ment.

As he had done the day before, he swabbed the unprotected throat with alcohol, and inserted the needle; a tiny rubberlike bulb, equipped with a one-way valve, attached to the jar, provided the gentle suction needed, and the container slowly filled to the indicated gradua-tion. Thrykar promptly stopped pumping, extracted the needle, and sealed the puncture as before. Then, before the blood had time to cool appreciably, he removed a small stopper from the jar, inserted his slender tongue, and spent the next two minutes absorbing the liquid into his own circulatory system.

That accomplished, he quickly replaced the apparatus in its case. Then he exerted himself to pick up Jimmy’s body and carry it back to the road, at the point where the boy had fallen. There he laid him, face down, as nearly as he could recall in the attitude in which he had collapsed; the books were replaced near his left hand, and after a few minutes’ search the alien found a fair-sized fragment of granite, which he placed near the boy’s foot to serve as a reason for falling. He considered placing another under the head to account for the loss of consciousness, but couldn’t bring himself to provide the necessary additional bruise.

Looking around carefully to make sure none of the human being’s property was unreasonably far from the body, Thrykar returned to his watching place and set himself to await the boy’s return to consciousness. He had no fears himself for the subject’s health, but he remembered Tes’ reaction the day before, and wanted to be able to reassure her.