Holati Tate her the drink and on with the details.
Trigger and he and a dozen or so of the group of U-League had been in what was now as Section 52 of Harvest Moon. The Commissioner was by himself, over some which had been in one of the compartments. After a while Doctor Azol joined him and told him Mantelish and the others had gone on to another section. Holati and Azol the check-up together and were about to the area to catch up with the group, when Holati saw Trigger on the in an compartment.
"You to be in some of coma," he said. "We you up and put you into a chair by one of the survey screens, and were trying to out a call on Azol's to the p. 189ambulance when you opened your eyes. You looked at me and said, 'Oh, there you are! I was just going to go looking for you.'"
"It was that you didn't anything had happened. Azol started to say something, but I on his foot, and he on. In fact, he on so fast that I a little of him."
"Poor Azol!" Trigger said.
"Poor nothing!" the Commissioner said cryptically. "I'll tell you about that some other time. I Doctor Azol to say nothing to until the had been clarified, in view of the security being ... being practiced," he amended. Then he'd returned to Manon Planet with Trigger immediately, where she was over by Precol's medical staff. Physically there wasn't a thing with her.
"And that," said Trigger, a little frightened, "is something else I don't remember!"
"Well, you wouldn't," the Commissioner said. "You were a hypno-spray first. You out for three hours. When you up, you you'd been having a good nap. Since the were sure you hadn't up some odd infection, I wanted to know just what else had on Harvest Moon. One of those scientific big might also have used a hypno-spray on you, with the idea of you into a for shenanigans."
Trigger faintly. "You do have a p. 190mind!" The faded. "Was that what they were going to out in that mind-search on Maccadon I out on?"
"It's one of the they might have looked for," he agreed.
Trigger at him very for a moment. "Well, I that up!" she remarked. "But why is everybody—" She her head. "Excuse me. Go on."
The Commissioner on. "Old Doc Leeharvis was the herself. She what she might be a mind-block when she to you to what happened. We know now it wasn't a mind-block. But she wouldn't monkey with you any farther, and told me to in an expert. So I called the Psychology Service's on Orado."
Trigger looked startled, then laughed. "The eggheads? You right to the top there, didn't you?"
"Tried to," said Holati Tate. "It's a good idea when you want service. They told me to and to say nothing to you. An expert would be out promptly."
"Was he?"
"Yes."
Trigger's a little. "Same old hypno-spray treatment?"
"Right," said Commissioner Tate. "He came, sprayed, investigated. Then he told me to calm, and off looking puzzled."
"Puzzled?" she said.
"If I hadn't that come in p. 191all grades," the Commissioner said, "I'd know it now. That one they sent was just to there might be something in the case he wasn't getting. But that was all."
Trigger was a moment. "So there've been more of those I don't know about!" she observed, her voice taking on an edge.
"Uh-huh," the Commissioner said cautiously.
"How many?"
"Seven."
Trigger flushed, up, blazing, and a very word.
"Excuse me," she added a moment later. "I got away."
"Perfectly all right," said the Commissioner.
"I've been just a up anyway," Trigger on, voice and color still high, "with people me for a one way or another they to like it!"
"Don't you a bit," he said.
"And don't think I don't your calling in all those experts. I do. It's just their sneaky, underhanded, methods I don't go for!"
"Exactly how I about it," said the Commissioner.
Trigger at him suspiciously. "You're a type yourself!" she said. "Well, the blowup, Holati. They had some for it. Have they out anything at all with all the and investigating?"
"Oh, yes. They to have p. 192progress. The last report I had from them—about a month ago—shows that the original has been resolved."
Trigger looked surprised. "If it's been resolved," she said reasonably, "why don't I what happened?"
"You aren't to of it the final interview—I don't know the for that. But the memory is available now. On tap, so to speak. They'll give you a cue, and then you'll it."
"Just like that, eh?" She paused. "So the Psychology Service is Whatzzit."
"Whatzzit?" said the Commissioner.
She about Whatzzit. He grinned.
"Yes," he said. "They're the ones who've been the instructions, as as you're concerned."
Trigger was a moment. "I've heard," she said, "the have when they want to use it. You don't much about them otherwise. Let me think just a little."
"Go ahead," said Holati.
A minute away.
"What it to so far," Trigger said then, "is still much what you told me on Maccadon. The Psychology Service thinks I know something that might help clean up the problem. Or at least help it."
He nodded.
"And the people who've been trying to me very are doing it for the same reason."
He again. "That's almost certain."
"Do you think the might already have out what the is?"
The Commissioner his head. "If they had, we'd be doing something about it. The Federation Council is very nervous!"
"Well...." Trigger said. She her lips. "That Lyad...." she said.
"What about her?"
"She to me," said Trigger. "Major Quillan reported it, I suppose?"
"Sure."
"And it wouldn't be just to some plasmoid. Especially since you say a number of small ones are already available. Then there're the ones that up in the Hub. She has a by now."
He nodded. "Probably."
"She to know a about what's been going on...."
"Very likely she does."
"Let's her!" said Trigger. "We can do it quietly. And she's too big to be mind-blocked. We'd part of the answer. Perhaps all of it!"
Something in the Commissioner's small eyes. He over and her knee.
"You're a girl after my own heart, Trigger girl," he said. "I'm for it. But the Council would have away if they'd you make that suggestion!"
"They're as as that?" she asked, disappointed.
"Yes—and you can't them. Fumbles be bad. When it comes to someone around Lyad's level, our own group is restricted to counteraction. If we against her, it'll be up to the to decide what's to be done about it. Tactfully. We wouldn't be involved."
Trigger nodded, him. "Go on."
"Well, can a of things, of course. If we actually into the First Lady while we're in it, we'll her—as long as we can. And from all accounts, now that she's up to take personal of around here, we can some very fast, very direct action from Lyad."
"How fast?"
"My own guess," said the Commissioner, "would be around a week. If she hasn't moved by then, we might help along a little."
"Make a of those openings for her, eh? Well, that doesn't too bad." Trigger reflected. "Then there's Point Number Two," she said.
"What's that?"
She grimaced. "I'm not on it," she confessed, "but I think we'd do something about that with Whatzzit I out of. If they still want to talk to me—"
"They do. Very much so."
"What's that about their saying it was now for me to go on to Manon?"
Commissioner Tate at his left ear p. 195lobe. "Frankly," he said, "that's something that me a little."
"Shook you? Why?"
"It's that of in grades. The upper ranks in the Psychology Service are people, I understand. After your we were promptly. A of high-bracket took over for a while. But after the fourth I was told I'd have to you to the Hub to let somebody the next stage of they've been doing. They said they couldn't of that for a to Manon."
"Was that the we to Maccadon?" Trigger asked, startled.
"Sure. But we still hadn't got near the Service's top level then. As I it, their don't much time on cases. They keep with on the of our more cultures—and there are to be only a hundred or so of them in that category. So I was more than a little when the Service me one of those people was to Maccadon to your interview."
"One of the eggheads!" Trigger nervously. "And then I just took off! They can't have too good an opinion of me at the moment, you know."
"Apparently that didn't them in the least," the Commissioner said. "They told me to p. 196stay and make sure you got to Manon all right. Then they said they had a ship in this area, and they'd it over to Manon after you here."
"A ship?" Trigger asked.
"I've a of their ships—they looked like mountains. Camouflage jobs. What they actually are is superlaboratories, from what I've heard. This one has a of those on board, and one of them will take you on. It's here in a day or so."
Trigger had somewhat. "You know," she said, "I a little myself now."
"I'm not surprised," said the Commissioner.
She her head. "Well if they're topnotchers, they must know what they're doing." She gave him a smile. "Looks like I'm something unusual! Like a culture.... Weak joke," she added.
The Commissioner the weak joke. "There's another thing," he said thoughtfully.
"What's that?"
"When I mentioned your about being interviewed, they told me not to worry about it—that you wouldn't try to out again. That's why I was when you up the of the just now."
"Now that is odd," Trigger after a pause. "How would they know?"
"Right," he said. He sighed. "Guess we're a little out of our there. I've come close to with them a times—had the they were me off and p. 197information. But they do know what they're doing." He at his watch. "That hour's about up now, by the way."
"Well, if there's something else that should be I can my dinner date," Trigger said, reluctantly. "I had a to talk with Brule at the for a while, when we came in this morning."
"I wasn't that," said Holati. "There still are to be discussed, but a hours one way or the other won't make any difference. We'll together again around tomorrow. Then you'll be in well on all the main points of this business."
Trigger nodded. "Fine."
"What I had in mind right now was that the Service people having you look over their last report on you after your arrival. You'd have just time for that going to keep your date. Care to do it?"
"I would!" Trigger said.
The for attention while she was studying the report. Holati Tate off to answer it. The report was lengthy, and Trigger was still going over it when he got back. He sat again and waited.
When she looked up finally, he asked, "Can you make much of it?"
"Not very much," Trigger admitted. "It just what to have happened. Not how or why. Apparently they did me to a total of that knocked-out period in the last interview—I reported you and Doctor p. 198Azol moving around and talking in the next compartment."
He nodded. "I of my with Azol to be able to that part of it."
"Then, some time I actually down," said Trigger, "I was already in that coma. Getting into it. It started when I walked away from Mantelish's group, without having any particular for doing it. I just walked. Then I was in another by myself and still walking, and the deeper, until I physical of myself and down. Then I there a while until you came that and saw me. And after you'd me up and put me in that chair—just like that, up! Except that I don't what and think I've just left Mantelish to go looking for you. I don't wonder how I to be there in a chair!"
The Commissioner briefly. "That's right. You didn't."
Her the pages of the report, the green in the ring he'd her to wear little of light. "They positive that nobody else came near me that period. And that nobody had used a hypno-spray on me or a into me—anything like that—before the or it was came on. How do you they be so sure of that?"
"I wouldn't know," Holati said. "But I think we might as well assume they're right."
"I so. What it to to is they're saying I was something like a very much slowed-down, very shock—source still undetermined, but to me out for a while. Only they also say that—for a whole list of reasons—it couldn't possibly have been an after all! And when the left, it instantaneously. That would be just the to the pattern of an shock, wouldn't it?"
"Yes," he said. "That to me too, but it didn't anything to me. Possibly it's something to the Psychology Service."
"Well," Trigger said, "it's all very odd. Very disagreeable, too!" She the report on the arm of her chair and looked at the Commissioner. "Guess I'd now," she said. "But there was something you said that me wonder. There was very little of Doctor Azol left after that got through with him."
He nodded. "True."
"It wasn't Azol, was it?"
"No."
"Man, oh, man!" Trigger jumped up, over his chair and gave him a quick on an ear tip. "If I ask one more question, we'll be here the next two hours. I'll instead! See you around lunchtime, Commissioner!"
"Right, Trigger," he said, up.
He closed the door her and to the transmitter. He looked unhappy.
"Yes?" said a voice in the transmitter.
"She just left," Commissioner Tate said. "Get on the and there!"
