"About an hour after you'd to the bunk," Holati said, "I to your rooms to up some Precol reports we'd been setting up."
Trigger nodded. "I the reports."
"A of were on your doors when I got there. They for their guns, unfortunately. But I called the nearest Scout Intelligence office and had them dead-brained."
"Why that?" she asked.
"It have been an accident—a of ordinary thugs. But their looked a little too good for ordinary thugs. I didn't know just what to be of, but I got anyway."
"That's you, all right," Trigger acknowledged. "What were they?"
"They had an Evalee record which told us more p. 80than the did. They were high-priced boys. Their told us they'd allowed themselves to be mind-blocked on this particular job. High-priced boys won't do that unless they can set their price very much higher. It didn't look at all any more as if they'd come to your door by accident."
"No," she admitted.
"The Feds got in on it then. There'd been that in Mantelish's lab. There were in the pattern. You Mantelish. You'd been on Harvest Moon with him. They there be a connection."
"But what connection?" she protested. "I know I don't know anything that do any good!"
He shrugged. "I can't it either, Trigger girl. But the of it was that I was put in of this phase of the investigation. If there is a connection, it'll come out eventually. In any case, we want to know who's been trying to have you up and why."
She his with eyes.
"That's definite, is it?" she asked. "There couldn't possibly still be a mistake?"
"No. It's definite."
"So that's what the in the Colonial School yesterday was about...."
He nodded. "It was their try since the Evalee matter."
"Why do you think they waited so long?"
"Because they you were being guarded. It's difficult to keep an number p. 81of men around without in observers."
Trigger at the plasmoid. "That sounds," she remarked, "as if you'd let other you'd left them a good opening to at Repulsive."
He didn't smile. "I might have done that. Don't tell the Council."
Trigger her lips. "I won't. So the who were after me I was booby-trapped. But then they came in anyway. That doesn't very bright. Or did you do something again to make them think the road was clear?"
"No," he said. "They were trying to clear the road for themselves. We they would finally. The was set up as a one-two."
"As a what?"
"One-two. You into what be a like that with one gang. If it was a trap, they were sacrifices. You the opposition will now its precautions. Sometimes it does—and a day or so later you're for the raid. That occasionally. Anyway it was the plan in this case."
"How do you know?"
"They'd started in for the in Ceyce when Quillan's group you. So Quillan you first."
She flushed. "I wasn't as as I thought, was I?"
The Commissioner grunted. "Smart to give us a king-sized headache! But they didn't p. 82have any trouble you. We tonight that some of material had been into all your clothes. Even the flimsies. Somebody may have been planted in the laundry, but that's not now." He looked at her for a moment. "What you decide to take off so suddenly?" he asked.
Trigger shrugged. "I was angry with you," she admitted. "More or less with everybody. Then I for a transfer, and the bounced—from Evalee! I I'd had and that I'd just clear out. So I did—or I did."
"Can't you," said Holati.
Trigger said, "I still think it would have been to keep me right from the start of what was going on."
He his head. "I wouldn't be telling you a thing now," he said, "if it hadn't been definitely that you're already in the matter. This into a operation. I wouldn't have wanted you in on it, if it have been avoided. And if you weren't going to be in on it, I couldn't go Federation to you."
"I'm in on it, definitely, eh?"
He nodded. "For the duration."
"But you're still not telling me everything?"
"There're a I can't tell you," he said. "I'm orders in that."
Trigger faintly. "That's a switch! I didn't know you how."
"I've of orders in my time," the p. 83Commissioner said, "when I they sense. And I think these do."
Trigger was a moment. "You said a while ago that most of the was to go off me tonight. Can you talk about that?"
"Yes, that's all right." He considered. "I'll have to tell you something else again first—why we're going to Manon."
She settled in her chair. "Go ahead."
"Somebody got the idea that one of the Gess Fayle might have done is to so he wouldn't have to come to the Hub for a while. If he set up shop on some away, and around with that unit for a year or so until he all about it, he might do for himself than by selling it to somebody."
"But that would be risky, wouldn't it?" said Trigger. "With just the he pack on a League transport."
"Not very much risk," said the Commissioner, "if he had an agreement to have an Independent Fleet meet him."
"Oh." She nodded.
"And by what is, at all events, an coincidence," the Commissioner on, "we've had word that an called Vishni's Fleet hasn't been from for some months. Their I-Fleet area is a long way out Manon, but Fayle have it there, at League ship speeds, in about twenty days. Less, if Vishni sent a to meet him and him out of subspace. If he's Vishni's, he's had his of p. 84a hundred and a thousand very expert to see nothing to him planetside. And Vishni's boys are the of you for a like that.
"Now, what's been done is to a of the other I-Fleets around there and set them and as many Space Scout as be from to the Vishni territory. Our is in of that operation. And Manon, of course, is a point from which to it than the Hub. If something is that looks to in detail, we'll only be a week's away.
"So we've been to move for the past two now, which was when the reports started in from the Vishni area—negative reports so far, by the way. I've from day to day, there were also that your friends might be set to at you finally. It to that up first. Now they've swung, and we'll go."
He his chin. "The thing about it all," he remarked, "is that we're going there with the two the opposition has it wants. We're them know those will be available in the Manon System henceforward. They might and just the whole project. If they do, that's fine. We'll go ahead with up the Vishni phase of the operation.
"But," he continued, "the are they can't their project any more than we can looking for that key unit. So we'll them to up in Manon. When they do, they'll be in and in a where they have only something like fifty thousand people to out in, of a civilization. I think they'll very for them very fast in Manon."
"Very good," said Trigger. "That I like! But what makes you think the opposition is just one group? There might be a of them by now. Maybe among themselves."
"I'd on at least two groups myself," he said. "And if they're fighting, they've got our blessing. They're still all opposition as as we're concerned."
She nodded, "How are you them know about the move?"
"The around here are with observers. Very some of them use—one boy has been in a tree for weeks. We let them see what we want to. This they saw you in. Later tonight they'll see you into the ship with the of the party and taking off. They've already up to tell them just where the ship's going." He paused. "But you've got a job to up here first, Trigger. That'll take about four days. So it won't be you they see into the ship."
"What!" She up.
"We've got a for you," he explained. p. 86"Girl agent. She goes along to the to Manon."
Trigger herself up slowly all over.
"What's this job you're talking about?" she asked evenly.
"Can't tell you in too much detail. But around four days from now somebody is in to Maccadon to you."
"Interview me? What about?"
He a moment. "There's a theory," he said, "that you might have you don't know you have. And that the people who sent after you want that information. If it's true, the will it out."
Her mouth suddenly. She her to Quillan. "Major," she said, "I think I'd like that cigarette now."
He came over and one for her. Trigger thanked him and puffed. And she'd almost everything, she was thinking. The paid-up reservation. Every last thing.
"I'd like to it straight," she said. "What you're talking about like it's a mind-search job, Holati."
"It's in that class," he said. "But it won't be an ordinary mind-search. The people who are here are top at that of work."
She nodded. "I don't know much about it.... Do they think somebody's got to me with a hypno-spray or something? That I've been conditioned? Something like that?"
"I don't know, Trigger," he said. "It may be p. 87something in that line. But it is, they'll be able to it."
Trigger her lips, "I was thinking, you know," she said. "Supposing I'm mind-blocked."
He his head. "I can tell you that, anyway," he said. "We already know you're not."
Trigger was a moment. Then she said, "After that interview's over, I'm to ship out to Manon—is that it?"
"That's right."
"But it would on the outcome of that too, wouldn't it?" Trigger pointed out. "I you can't be sure what those people might decide, can you?"
"Yes, I can," he said. "This thing's been all out, Trigger. And the next step of the for you is Manon. Nothing else."
She didn't him in the least. He couldn't know. She nodded.
"Guess I might as well play along." She looked at him. "I don't think I had much choice, did I?"
"Afraid not," he admitted. "It's one of those that just have to be done. But you won't it all bad. Your companion, by the way, for the next three days will be Mihul."
"Mihul!" Trigger exclaimed.
"Right there," said Mihul's voice. Trigger around in her chair. Mihul in a door which had appeared in the full of the room. She gave Trigger a smile. Trigger looked at the Commissioner.
"I don't it," she said.
"Oh, Mihul's in Scout Intelligence," he said, "wouldn't be here if she weren't."
"Been an agent for eighteen years," Mihul said, forward. "Hi, Trigger, surprised?"
"Yes," Trigger admitted. "Very."
"They me into this job," Mihul said, "because they you and I would along together just fine."
