"Well, we didn't just it up to them," Quillan said. "Ship's Engineering a in their cabin. Slight but definite. They got out in a hurry." He added, "They did a though."
"Might have been less trouble to me to move," Trigger remarked.
"Might have been. I didn't know what mood you'd be in."
Trigger to let that ride. This was a very place. By the looks of it, there were thirty or people in their vicinity; but if one looked again in a of minutes, there might be an different thirty or people around. Sitting in easy chairs or at tables, about in small groups, talking, drinking, laughing, they past slowly; overhead, below, sometimes at p. 128odd angles—fading from and presently returning.
In she and Quillan were in a little room by themselves, and with more than ordinary an and a which Quillan had on at their entry. "I'll us out of the circuit," he remarked, "until you've your questions."
"Viewer circuit?" she repeated.
Quillan a hand around. "That," he said. "There are more and spies, political agents, top-class men and on this ship than you'd believe. A good of them are lip readers, and the you want to talk about are with the Federation's secret. So while it's a not to put you on in a place like this, we won't take the chance."
Trigger let that too. A group had at an table eight away while Quillan was speaking. Everybody at the table high, and two of the were amorous; but she couldn't picture any of them as somebody's or agents. She to the chatter. Some Hub she didn't know.
"None of those people can see or us then?" she asked.
"Not until we want them to. Viewer you as much as you like. Most of the here just doesn't see much point to privacy. Like those two."
Trigger his glance. At a above them, a matched pair of black-haired, black-gowned sat at a small table, their drinks, looking around.
"Twins," Trigger said.
"No," said Quillan. "That's Blent and Company."
"Oh?"
"Blent's a lady of and tendencies," he explained. He gave the matched pair another study. "Perhaps one can't her. One of them's her facsimile. Blent—whichever it is—is without her face."
"Oh," Trigger said. She'd been studying the gowns. "That," she said, a enviously, "is why I'm not at all to go on here."
"Eh?" said Quillan.
Trigger to herself in the on the right, which, she had noticed, by and viewees. A touch on the management's part.
"Until we walked in here," she explained, "I this was a little I'm wearing."
"Hmmm," Quillan said judiciously. He a of the image of the slim, green, backless, half-thigh-length which had looked so breath-taking and in a Ceyce window. Trigger's a little. The major had the dress in detail before.
"It's about as a little as you p. 130get for around a hundred and fifty credits," he remarked. "Most of the the girls are here are conceptions. That at around ten to twenty times as high. I wasn't talking about the dress. Now what were those questions?"
Trigger took a small of her drink, considering. She hadn't up her mind about Major Quillan, but until she him more definitely, it might be best to go by appearances. The so small in his company.
"How did you people me so quickly?" she asked.
"Next time you want to off a planet," Quillan her, "pick something like a small freighter. Or a small-boat to you out of the and flag a for you. Plenty of captains will make a space stop to up a paying passenger. Liners we can check."
"Sorry," Trigger said meekly. "I'm still new at this business."
"And thank God for that!" said Quillan. "If you have the time and the money, it's also a good idea, of course, to a times you where you're heading. Actually, I suppose, the for you up so fast should go to those computers."
"Oh?"
"Yes." Major Quillan looked at his drink for a moment. "There they sit," he suddenly, "with their plastic p. 131out! Rows of them. You them something you don't understand. They don't it either. Nobody can tell me they can. But they it around and a bit, and out comes some suggestion."
"So they helped you me?" she said cautiously. It was clear that the major had about computers.
"Oh, sure," he said. "It out it was a good idea to do what those CCs say. Anything that up in the area you're on into the as a of course. We were on the liners. Dawn City reports a of murders. 'Dawn City to the of the list!' the computers. Nobody why. They just into the ticket purchase records. And right there are the little Argee thumbprints!"
He looked at Trigger. "My own bet," he said, accusingly, "was that you were one of those that had just taken off. We didn't know about that ticket reservation."
"What I don't see," Trigger said, the subject, "is why two should so very unusual. There must be a of them, after all."
"True," said Quillan. "But not that look like killings."
"Oh!" she said startled. "Is that what these were?"
"That's what Ship Security thinks."
Trigger frowned. "But what be the connection—"
Quillan across the table and her p. 132hand. "You've got it!" he said with approval. "Exactly! No connection. Some day I'm going to walk those and give them each a blast where it will do the most good. It will be being for."
Trigger said, "I that was being guarded."
"It is. It would be very hard to one out nowadays. But somebody's them in the Hub. Just a few. Keeps the price up."
Trigger uncomfortably. She'd of those swift, clever, in action. "You say it looked like killings. They haven't it?"
"No. But they think they got of it. Emptied the air from most of the ship after they and over the of it with life detectors. They've got a set up now that would spot a if it moved twenty in any direction."
"Life go out of normal space, don't they?" she said. "That's why they then."
Quillan nodded. "You're a well-informed doll. They're it's been into space or of by its owner, but they'll go on looking till we Garth."
"Who got killed?"
"A Rest Warden and a Security officer. In the area. It might have been sent after somebody there. Apparently it ran into the two men and killed them on the spot. The officer got off one and that set off the alarms. So cat couldn't the job that time."
"It's all of gruesome, isn't it?" Trigger said.
"Catassins are," Quillan agreed. "That's a fact."
Trigger took another sip. She set her glass. "There's something else," she said reluctantly.
"Yes?"
"When you said you'd come on to see I got to Manon, I was none of the people who'd been after me on Maccadon know I was on the Dawn City. They might though. Quite easily."
"Oh?" said Quillan.
"Yes. You see I two calls to the ticket office. One from a ComWeb and one from the bank. If they already had me by that material, they have had an pick-up on me, I suppose."
"I think we'd it," said Quillan. "You had a when you came out of the bank anyway." His past her. "We'll to that later. Right now, take a look at that entrance, will you?"
Trigger in the direction he'd indicated.
"They do look like they're somebody important," she said. "Do you know them?"
"Some of them. That who looks like he almost has to be the Dawn City's First Captain is the Dawn City's First Captain. The lady he's into the is Lyad Ermetyne. The Ermetyne. You've of the Ermetynes?"
"The Ermetyne Wars? Tranest?" Trigger said doubtfully.
"They're the ones. Lyad is the of the clan."
The history of Hub other than one's own so so that its study was in only by specialists. Trigger wasn't one. "Tranest is one of the restricted now, isn't it?" she ventured.
"It is. Restriction is to be a handicap. But Tranest is also one of the worlds in the Hub."
Trigger the woman with some as the party moved along a corridor, by the circuit's pick-up. Lyad Ermetyne didn't look more than a years older than she was herself. Rather small, slender, with features. She something ankle-length and long-sleeved in with an odd, quality to it.
"Isn't she the of Tranest or something of the sort?" Trigger asked.
Quillan his head. "They've had no there, technically, since they had to their with the Federation. She just the planet, that's all."
"What would she be doing, going to Manon?"
"I'd like to know," Quillan said. "The Ermetyne's a lady of many interests. Now—see the man just her?"
"The one with the big who of blinking?"
"That one. He's Belchik Pluly and—"
"Pluly?" Trigger interrupted. "The Pluly Lines?"
"Yes. Why?"
"Oh—nothing really. I heard—a friend of p. 135mine—Pluly's got a out in the Manon System. And a daughter."
Quillan nodded. "Nelauk."
"How did you know?"
"I've met her. Quite a girl, that Nelauk. Only child of Pluly's old age, and he on her. Anyway, he's been on the of being black-listed by Grand Commerce off and on through the past three decades. But nobody's been able to pin anything more on him than that he close to the limits of a large number of laws."
"He's very rich, I imagine?" Trigger said thoughtfully.
"Very. He'd be much if it weren't for his hobby."
"What's that?"
"Harems. The Pluly among the most and best in the Hub."
Trigger looked at Pluly again. "Ugh!" she said faintly.
Quillan laughed. "The Pluly salaries are high. Viewer's the group now, so there's just one more I'd like you to notice. The tall girl with black hair, in orange."
Trigger nodded. "Yes. I see her. She's beautiful."
"So she is. She's also Space Scout Intelligence. Gaya. Comes from Farnhart where they use the single name system. A noted horsewoman, very wealthy, established. Which is why we like to use her in like this."
Trigger was a moment. Then she said, p. 136"What of is it? I mean, what's she doing with Lyad Ermetyne and the others?"
"She herself to the group as soon as she Lyad had come on board. Which," Quillan said, "is what I would have told Gaya to do if I'd Lyad first."
Trigger was a little longer this time. "Were you this Lyad be...."
"One of our suspects? Well," said Quillan judiciously, "let's say Lyad has all the qualifications. Since she's come on board, we'd her. When something's going on that looks more than tricky, Lyad is always considering. And there's one point that looks more to me now than it did at first."
"What's that?"
"Those two little old ladies I out of their cabin."
Trigger looked at him. "What about them?"
"This about them. The Askab of Elfkund is, you might way, one of the branch of the Ermetyne in the Hub. He is also a hard-working in his own right. But he's not the right size to be one of the people we're about. Lyad is. He might have been doing a job for her."
"Job?" she asked. She laughed. "Not with those odd little grannies?"
"We know the odd little grannies. They're the Askab's and at it. They were you up while you were having that little chat, doll. Probably not for a this time. You p. 137were just the of a medical check-up. Presumably, though, for some purpose."
"How do you know?" Trigger asked, very uncomfortably.
"One of those little in their was a recorder. It would have been close to the door while you were there. If they didn't take your out I got there, they're still inside. They're being and they know it. It like a good idea to keep the Askab until we out those of his had been next door to you on purpose."
"Apparently they were," Trigger admitted. "Nice of people!"
"Oh, they're not all bad. Lyad has her points. And old Belchik, for example, isn't a heel. He just had no ethics. Or morals. And habits. Anyway, all this up the of what we should do with you now."
Trigger set her on the table.
"Refill?" Quillan inquired. He for the them.
"No," she said. "I just want to make a statement."
"State away." He refilled his own glass.
"For some reason," said Trigger, "I've been acting lately—the last two days—in a manner."
Quillan choked. He set his hastily, over and her hand. "Doll," he said, touched, "it's come to you! At last."
She at him. "I don't act that way."
"That," said Quillan, "was what had me so baffled. According to the Commissioner and others, you're as in the as a diamond, usually. And frankly—"
"I know it," Trigger said dangerously. "Don't it in!"
"I apologize," said Quillan. He her other hand.
"At any rate," Trigger said, her hands back, "now that I've it, I'm going to make up for it. From here on out, I'll cooperate."
"To the hilt?"
She nodded. "To the hilt! Whatever that is."
"You can't imagine," said Quillan, "how much that me." He her glass, her a look. "I had instructions, of course, not to do anything like you by the of the neck, you into a and on it, drawn, until we'd in Precol Port. But I was tempted, I can tell you."
He paused and thought. "You know," he again, "that would be the best."
"No!" Trigger said indignantly. "When I said cooperate, I meant actively. Mihul said I'm one of the in this project. From now on I'll like one. And I'll also to be like one."
"Hm," said Quillan. "Well, there is something you can do, all right."
"What's that?"
"Go on here, now."
"What for?" she asked.
"As bait, you sweet ninny! If the is on this ship, we should a new from him." He the green dress in the again. His absent. It might be best, Trigger suspected, a uneasily, to keep Major Quillan's away from like nibbling.
"All right," she said briskly. "Let's do that. But you'll have to me."
