The man who Trigger's his up her arms, and her a little so that she on the seat, away from him. She had got only a of him as he her, but he to be the same of spacer's as the group which had her into the car. The other man in the car, the driver, sat up with his to them. He looked like any ordinary middle-aged civilian.
Trigger let her out slowly. There was no point in now. She her a little, but she didn't to be actually frightened. At least, not yet.
"Spot anything so far?" the man who her asked. It was a voice. It matter-of-fact, unexcited.
"Three anyway," the driver said with p. 52equal casualness. He didn't turn his head. "Make it two.... One very possible now, I'd say!"
"Better it to her then."
The driver didn't reply, but the car's of power pushed Trigger hard on the seat. She couldn't see much more than a shifting piece of the sky line through the view plate. Their own car to be at a rate. They were probably, she thought, already above the main traffic over Ceyce.
"Now, Miss Argee," the man her said, "I'd like to you a little first."
"Go ahead and me," Trigger said unsteadily.
"You're in no from us," he said. "We're your friends."
"Nice friends!" Trigger.
"I'll it all in a of minutes. There may be some on our at the moment, and if they start to catch up—"
"Which they to be doing," the driver interrupted. "Hang on for a fast when we the next cloud bank."
"We'll shake them there," the other man to Trigger. "In case we don't though, I'll need hands free to the guns."
"So?" she asked.
"So I'd like to a set of on you for just a minutes. I've been you're a lady, and we don't want you to do anything thoughtless. You won't have them on very long. All right?"
Trigger her lip. It wasn't all right, and she didn't at all so far.
"Go ahead," she said.
He let go of her left arm, to for the handcuffs. She around on him and into fast action.
She was at the of mayhem. The trouble was that the big she was trying the on at least as and with twice her muscle. She a out that the Denton was no longer in her pocket. After that she got the initiative. It didn't help either that the car to be trying to in three at once.
All in all, about passed she was on the seat, her hands her again, at the by the plastic of the cuffs. The the driver, his hands on the of the seat. He wasn't, Trigger bitterly, hard. The view plate was full of the of a cloud heart. They to be again.
One more and they came out into wet cloud-shadow and on into sunlight.
A passed. Then the remarked, "Looks like you them, chum."
"Right," said the driver. "Almost at the river now. I'll turn north there and down."
"Right," said the ape. "Get us that and we'll be out of trouble."
A minutes passed in silence. Presently p. 54Trigger they were and altitude. Then a line of trees by in the view plate. "Nice flying!" the said. He the driver in the and to Trigger.
They looked at each other for a seconds. He was tall, dark-eyed, very tanned, with thick shoulders. He wasn't more than five or six years older than she was. He was studying her curiously, and his were steady. Something in her for a moment, a small of fear. Something passed through her thoughts, a odd impression, like a memory, of huge, cold, away. It was gone she it more clearly. She frowned.
The smiled. It wasn't, Trigger saw, an face. "Sorry the party got rough," he said. "Will you give if I take those off and tell you what this is about?"
She him again. "Better tell me first," she said shortly.
"All right. We're taking you to Commissioner Tate. We'll be there in about an hour. He'll tell you himself why he wanted to see you."
Trigger's for an instant. Secretly she very much relieved. Holati Tate, at any rate, wouldn't let anything to her—and she would out at last what had been going on.
"You've got an odd way of taking people places," she observed.
He laughed. "The party wasn't p. 55scheduled. You'd you wanted to speak to the Commissioner. We were sent to the Colonial School to you up and you to him. When we out you'd disappeared, we had to do some fast improvising. Not my to tell you the for that."
Trigger said hesitantly, "Those people who were this car—"
"What about them?" he asked thoughtfully.
"Were they after me?"
"Well," he said, "they weren't after me. Better let the Commissioner tell you about that, too. Now—how about parole?"
She nodded. "Till you turn me over to the Commissioner."
"Fair enough," he said. "You're his problem then." He took a small piece of metal out of a pocket and of her with it. He didn't to do more than touch the cuffs, but she the and away.
Trigger her wrists. "Where's my gun?" she asked.
"I've got it. I'll give it to the Commissioner."
"How did you people me so fast?"
"Police keep bank under twenty-four hour survey. We had someone their screens. You were going in." He sat her. "I'd myself, but I don't know if that would fit in with the Commissioner's plans."
Trigger shrugged. It still was possible, she decided, that her own plans weren't spoiled. Holati and his friends didn't necessarily p. 56know about that account. If they did know she'd had one and had closed it out, they make a good at what she'd done with the money. But if she just quiet, there might be an opportunity to to Ceyce and the Dawn City by tomorrow evening.
"Cigarette?" the Commissioner's amiably.
Trigger at him from the side. Not amiably. "No, thanks."
"No hard feelings, are there?" He looked surprised.
"Yes," she said evenly. "There are."
"Maybe," the driver from the front, "what Miss Argee do with is a of Puya. Flask's in my pocket. Left side."
"There's an idea," Trigger's companion. He looked at her. "It's very good Puya."
"So on it," Trigger told him gently. She settled into the of the seat and closed her eyes. "You can wake me up when we to the Commissioner."
"In some way," Holati Tate said, "this little item here to be at the of the whole problem. Know what it is?"
Trigger looked at the little item with some revulsion. Dark green, with pink streakings, it on the table them, like a a and a long. It was that the end nearest her in a from to side, as if the thing from a very slow twitch.
"One of the obviously," she said. "A p. 57jumpy one." She at it. "Looks like that 113. Is it?"
She around. Commissioner Tate and Professor Mantelish, who sat in an off to her right, were at her, up, about something. "What's the matter?" she asked.
"We're just wondering," said Holati, "how you to 113, in particular, out of the thousands of on Harvest Moon."
"Oh. One of the Junior Scientists on your Project mentioned the 112-113 unit. That it to mind. Is this 113?"
"No," said Holati Tate. "But it to be a of it." He was a mild-looking little man, well along in years, and in his Precol uniform. The small in the sun-darkened, weren't mild, if you them more closely, or if you the Commissioner.
"Have to you in on some of the first, Trigger girl," he'd said, when she was to his little private office and with some what the was up. The tall hadn't come into the office with her. He asked the Commissioner from the door he should Professor Mantelish to the room, and the Commissioner nodded. Then the door closed and the two of them were alone.
"I know it's looked odd," Commissioner Tate admitted, "but the have been very odd. Still are. And I didn't want to worry you any more than I had to."
Trigger, unmollified, pointed out that the p. 58methods he'd used not to worry her had been soothing.
"I know that, too," said the Commissioner. "But if I'd told you immediately, you would have had to be for the past two months, than just for a day or so. The has now, very considerably. In fact, in another days you shouldn't have any more to worry at all." He briefly. "At least, no more than the of us."
Trigger a dry-lipped suddenly. "I do at present?" she asked.
"You did till today. There's been some on you, Trigger girl. We're most of it off tonight. For good, I think."
"You some will be left?"
"In a way," he said. "But that should be up too in the next three or four days. Anyway we can most of the act tonight."
Trigger her head. "It isn't being very fast!" she observed.
"I told you I couldn't tell it backwards," the Commissioner said patiently. "All right if we start in the now?"
"I we'd better," she admitted.
"Fine," said Commissioner Tate. He got to his feet. "Then let's go join Mantelish."
"Why the professor?"
"He help a with the explaining. If he's in the mood. Anyway he's got a of I'd like you to look at."
"A pet!" Trigger. She her p. 59again and up resignedly. "Lead on, Commissioner!"
They joined Mantelish and his in what looked like the room of what had looked like an old-fashioned when the came on it two ice-sheeted peaks. Trigger wasn't sure in just what of the main they were; but there were only two or three alternatives—it was high in the mountains, and night came a here than it did around Ceyce.
She Mantelish and sat at the table. Then the Commissioner locked the doors and her to the professor's pet.
"It's 113-A," he said now. "Even the isn't he the two. Right, Mantelish?"
"That is true," said Mantelish, "at present." He was a very big, but healthy-looking old man with a thick of white and a face. "Without a physical comparison—" He shrugged.
"What's so about the critter?" Trigger asked, the again. One good thing about it, she thought—it wasn't to her back.
"It goes to the time," the Commissioner said, "when Mantelish and Fayle and Azol were the League of the on Harvest Moon. You the situation?"
"If you their to the to some of life, I do, naturally."
"One of them got for old Azol, didn't it?" Professor Mantelish from his armchair.
Trigger grimaced. Doctor Azol's might be one of the that had her a negative plasmoids. With Mantelish and Doctor Gess Fayle, Azol had been the third of the three big U-League boys in of the on Harvest Moon. As she it, it was Azol who that Plasmoids occasionally be to food. Almost any of food, it out, so long as it a quantity of protein. What had to Azol looked like a particularly result of the discovery. It was an had been the he had into the of one of the largest plasmoids. By the time he was found, all of him from the on up already had been absorbed.
"I meant your to them to work," she said.
Commissioner Tate looked at Mantelish. "You tell her about that part of it," he suggested.
Mantelish his head. "I'd too technical," he said resignedly. "I always do. At least they say so. You tell her."
But Holati Tate's had to the table. "Hey, now!" he said in a low voice.
Trigger his gaze. After a moment she p. 61made a soft, of distaste.
"Ugh!" she remarked. "It's moving!"
"So it is," Holati said.
"Towards me!" said Trigger. "I think—"
"Don't startled. Mantelish!"
Mantelish already was up slowly Trigger's chair. "Don't move!" he her.
"Why not?" said Trigger.
"Hush, my dear." Mantelish a large, hand on each of her and slightly. "It's sensitive! This is very interesting. Very."
Perhaps it was. She the plasmoid. It had out and was very slowly but very across the table. Definitely in her direction.
"Ho-ho!" said Mantelish in a murmur. "Perhaps it you, Trigger! Ho-ho!" He pleased.
"Well," Trigger said helplessly, "I don't like it!" She under Mantelish's hands. "And I'd sooner out of this chair!"
"Don't be childish, Trigger," said the annoyedly. "You're as if it were, in some manner, offensive."
"It is," she said.
"Hush, my dear," Mantelish said absently, on a little more pressure. Trigger resignedly. They watched. In about a minute, the thing the of the table. Trigger herself to out from under Mantelish's p. 62hands and go out of the chair if it looked as if the was about to into her lap.
But it stopped. For a it motionless. Then it its end and it and in the air. At her, Trigger suspected.
"Yipes!" she said, horrified.
The end back. The still again. After a minute it was still still.
"Show's over for the moment, I guess," said the Commissioner.
"I'm so," said Professor Mantelish. His big hands away from Trigger's shoulders. "You it, Trigger!" he at her accusingly.
