He knew as well as the man in the other seat that there was no danger, but the knowledge didn't seem to help his nervous system at the reflex level. His eyes and his semicircular canals were feeding conflicting data to his brain. The Pacific was garnished with convection cells that afternoon; some of them were visible by virtue of the cumulus puffs which topped them, but others could only make themselves felt. The young man had several times been on the verge of suggesting that they climb above the cumulus tops, but he knew what the answer would be. Dulac, the pilot, had very professional ideas about fuel conservation, even on a short trip such as this. His combat flying over the same ocean during the early forties had given him a clear idea of the magnitude of the water-to-land ratio even in areas where islands were frequent. Kinnaird himself had insisted on making the flight that afternoon, rather than early the following morning. Dulac had warned him that it would be a bumpy ride. All that Bob could do was feel irritated at the third member of the group, and he knew that any such annoyance was both unjustified and futile. He had known for years that the Hunter would do nothing about such a trivial phenomenon as motion sickness.

The Hunter himself was not quite sure whether he should take steps or not. The flight was, of course, Bob's own fault; there was no practical reason why they couldn't have waited until the next day. The human youth knew, from both precept and experience that his alien companion would do everything in his power to preserve him from real injury or illness, but that he did not want to encourage Bob to lean at all heavily on the being's invisible presence. The four pounds of jelly distributed throughout the man's body cavities knew that total dependence on another being could lead to even more trouble than seven years of partial dependence already had. The Hunter, these days, tended to lean over backward to avoid doing anything more than basic scratch-plugging. He knew that he was overreacting, and that a little nerve pressure to ease his host's nausea would probably do no real harm; but, with Bob's health at its present level, he could not bring himself to take a chance. After all, the trip couldn't take much longer.