By lunchtime, Trigger was acting almost again. "I've got the Precol job up," she reported to Holati Tate. "I'll it like I used to, I can. When I can't, the will shift in automatically." The were the five among her had been in her absence.
"Major Quillan called me up to Mantelish's around ten," she on. "They wanted to see Repulsive, so I took him up there. Then it out Mantelish wanted to take Repulsive along on a this afternoon."
Holati looked startled. "He can't do that, and he it!" He for the transmitter.
"Don't bother, Commissioner. I told Mantelish I'd been put in of Repulsive, and that he'd an arm if he to walk out of the with him."
Holati his throat. "I see! How did Mantelish react?"
"Oh, he a bit. Like he does. Then he and he by without Repulsive out there. So we by while he and the thing, and so on. After that he got and said you'd asked him to me in on theory."
"So I did," said Holati. "Did he?"
"He tried, I think. But it's like you say. I got in about three and up." She looked at the Commissioner. "I didn't have a to talk to Major Quillan alone, so I'm why Mantelish was told the I-Fleets in the Vishni area are for with on them. I you he was too woolly-minded to be trusted."
"We couldn't keep that from him very well," Holati said. "He was the boy who of it."
"You didn't have to tell him they'd some did you?"
"He did, unfortunately. He's had those of his for about a month, but he didn't to think of them. The he was to come to Manon originally was to over the the Fleets have been sending here. It's as a of low-grade life-forms as I've seen, but not plasmoid. Mantelish into a and wanted to know why the weren't using detectors."
"Oh, Lord!" Trigger said.
"That's what it's like when you're with p. 214him," said the Commissioner. "We started making up and them out there, but the new results haven't come in yet."
"Well, that it." Trigger looked at the a moment, then up and met the Commissioner's eye. She slightly.
"Incidentally," she said, "I did take the opportunity to to Major Quillan for him a this morning. I shouldn't have done that."
"He didn't offended," said Holati.
"No, not really," she agreed.
"And I to him that you had a very good to disturbed."
"Thanks," said Trigger. "By the way, was he a at one time? And a hijacker?"
"Yes—very successful at it. It's excellent for some phases of Intelligence work. As I it, though, Quillan to up one of the Hub's in the process, and was two in rank."
"Broken?" Trigger said. "Why?"
"Unwarranted with a political situation. The Scouts are about that. You're to see those things. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes you do and go ahead anyway. They may you on the privately, but they also give you the axe."
"I see," she said. She smiled.
"Just how did we in you up to date yesterday?" the Commissioner asked.
"The that weren't Doctor Azol," Trigger said.
If it hadn't been for the with Trigger, Holati said, he mightn't have been about Doctor Azol's by a thrombosis-induced spell of unconsciousness. There had been no previous that the U-League's of its scientists, in with the find, might have been up from the start.
But as stood, he did look on the event with very skepticism. Doctor Azol's death, in that particular form, too much of a coincidence. For, himself, only Azol that another person already had and on Harvest Moon. Only Azol therefore might that the Commissioner would the official of the incident, thus the death in Azol's case much more than the attack had done.
The Commissioner on from there to the that if Azol had to disappear, it might well have been with the of to somebody waiting for it in the Hub. He saw to it that the were preserved, and that word of what have was passed on to a high Federation official he to be trustworthy. That was all he was in a position to do, or in doing, himself. Security men presently came and took the of Doctor Azol's to the Hub.
"It wasn't until some months later, when the up and I was put on this job, that I any more about it," Holati Tate said. "It wasn't Azol. It was part of some which he'd with him for just such a use. Anyway, they had Azol's patterns on record, and they didn't jibe."
His and Trigger took it on an extension.
"Argee," she said. She a moment. "All right. Coming over." She up, the earphone. "Office tangle," she explained. "Guess they I'm fluffing, now I'm back. I'll here as soon as it's out. Oh, by the way."
"Yes?"
"The Psychology Service ship in the morning. It'll arrive some time tomorrow and wants a station to it the system, where it won't be likely to attention. Are they as as all that?"
"I've one or two that were bigger," the Commissioner said. "But not much."
"When they're stationed, they'll send someone over in a to me up."
The Commissioner nodded. "I'll check on the for that. The idea of the still you?"
"Well, I'd sooner it wasn't necessary," Trigger admitted. "But I it is." She briefly. "Anyway, I'll be able to tell my some day that I once talked to one of the egg heads!"
The Psychology Service woman who up from a as Trigger came into the small next looked to Major Quillan's Dawn City assistant, Gaya. Standing, you see that she was more than Gaya. She had all of Gaya's good looks.
"The name is Pilch," she said. She looked at Trigger and smiled. It was a good smile, Trigger thought; not the professional job she'd expected. "And who Gaya," she on, "thinks we must be twins."
Trigger laughed. "Aren't you?"
"Just cousins." The voice was all right too—clear and easy. Trigger herself somewhat. "That's one they me to come and you. We're already almost acquainted. Another is that I've been to take you through the work for your after we to the ship. We can a on the way, and that should make it less disagreeable. Boat's in the park over there."
They started a to the park area. "Just how is it going to be?" Trigger asked.
"Not at all in your case. You're to the more than you know. Your will just up where the last job ended and go on from there. It's when you have to work through that you have a little trouble."
Trigger was still that over as she p. 218stepped ahead of Pilch into the smaller of two needle-nosed by side. Pilch her in and closed the lock them. "The other one's a job," she remarked. "Our escort. Commissioner Tate very sure we had one, too!" She Trigger to a low soft seat that took up the space of the room the lock, sat her and spoke at a pickup. "All set. Let's ride!"
Blue-green sky moved past them in the little room's screen; then a by and back. Pilch at Trigger. "Takes off like a yazong, that boy! He'll the job to the ship. About those barriers. Supposing I told you something like this. There's no in this line of work. We go directly to the we're looking for and only with that. Your private life, your personal thoughts, secret, and inviolate. What would you say?"
"I'd say you're a liar," Trigger said promptly.
"Of course. That of thing is sometimes told to interviewees. We don't with it. But now I told you very that no will be of any little personal we may get?"
"Lying again."
"Right again," said Pilch. "You've been about as as anyone to be of a total therapy. Your personal are already on record, and since I'm doing most of the work with you, I've p. 219studied all the significant-looking ones very closely. You're a good person, for my money. All right?"
Trigger her uncomfortably. Hardly all right, but....
"I I can it," she said. "As as you're concerned, anyway." She hesitated. "What's the like?"
"Old Cranadon?" said Pilch. "You won't mind her a bit, I think. Very old type. Let's through the first, and then I'll you to her. If you think it would make you more comfortable, I'll just around while she's working. I've sat in on her before. How's that?"
"Sounds better," Trigger said. She did a good relieved.
They presently into a tunnel-like lock of the space vehicle Holati Tate had as a mountain. From what Trigger see of it in the lights on the approach, it did closely a very large of the sort. They through a series of lifts, and passages, and up in a small and room with a small desk, a very large couch, a wall-screen, and gadgetry. Pilch sat at the and Trigger to make herself on the couch.
Trigger on the couch. She had a very of through dimness.
Half an hour later she sat up on the couch. Pilch on a light and looked at her thoughtfully. Trigger blinked. Then her p. 220widened, with surprise, then in comprehension.
"Liar!" she said.
"Hm-m-m," said Pilch. "Yes."
"That was the interview!"
"True."
"Then you're the egghead!"
"Tcha!" said Pilch. "Well, I I can myself as being like that. Yes. You're another, by the way. We're just about different things. Not so very different."
"You were about this," Trigger said. She her off the and Pilch dubiously. Pilch grinned.
"Took most of the out of it, didn't it?"
"Yes," Trigger admitted, "it did. Now what do we do?"
"Now," said Pilch, "I'll explain."
The thing that had their attention was a process. It just to be a the Psychology Service hadn't under those particular before.
"Here's what our had the last time," Pilch said. "Lines and lines of stuff, of course. But here's a which makes it clear. Your mother dies when you're six months old. Then there are a you don't like very much. Good but much too for you, though you don't know that, and they don't either, naturally. Next, you're seven years old—a over—and there's a on the farm near Ceyce where you all p. 221your vacations. You just love that old pond."
Trigger laughed. "A old hole, actually! Full of of things. I out to that farm six years ago, just to look around it again. But you're right. I did love that pond, once."
"Right up to that seventh summer," Pilch said. "Which was the your father's her on the farm with you."
Trigger nodded. "Perhaps. I don't the time too well."
"Well," Pilch said, "she was a woman. In some ways. She was about the age your mother had been when she died. She was very good-looking. And she was nice! She played with a little girl, sang to her. Told her stories. Cuddled her."
Trigger blinked. "Did she? I don't—"
"However," said Pilch, "she did not play with, tell to, cuddle, etcetera, little girls who"—her voice thin and edged—"come in all and from that dirty, old pond!"
Trigger looked startled. "You know," she said, "I do I her saying that—just that way!"
"You it," said Pilch, "now. You saw her again after that summer. Your father had good sense. He didn't her, as he to do he saw how she was going to be with you. You to your old just once more, on your next vacation. She wasn't there. What had you done? You around, sad. And you p. 222stepped on a and cut your badly. Sort of a self-punishment."
She over a pages of some record on her desk. "Now you start what's about that, I'll over a crossed-in items. Age twelve. There's that Maccadon animal like a jellyfish—a mingo, isn't it?—that your kitten."
"The mingo!" Trigger said. "I that. I killed it."
"Right. You it and out the kitten, but the was and digested. You all day and the night about that."
"I might have, I suppose."
"You did. Now those are two points. There's other with them. No need to go into details. As classes—you've now and then on that or squashed. Bad smells. Etcetera. How do you about plasmoids?"
Trigger her nose. "I just think they're things. All except—"
Oops! She herself.
"—Repulsive," said Pilch. "It's all right about Repulsive. We've been of that little item you're guarding. If we hadn't been told, we'd know now, of course. Go ahead."
"Well, it's odd!" Trigger thoughtfully. "I just said I were unpleasant. But that's the way I used to about them. I don't that way now."
"Except again," said Pilch, "for that little on the ship. If it was a plasmoid. You it was, don't you?"
Trigger nodded. "That would be bad!"
"Very bad," said Pilch. "Plasmoids generally, you about them now as you about potatoes ... ... like that?"
"That's about it," Trigger said. She still looked puzzled.
"We'll go over what to have your there in a minute or so. Here's another thing—" Pilch paused a moment, then said, "Night last, about an hour after you'd gone to bed, you had a very light touch of the same pattern of you on that station."
"While I was asleep?" Trigger said, startled.
"That's right. Comparatively very light, very brief. Five or six minutes. Dream activity, etcetera, out. Some on lines. Then, normal sleep until about five minutes you up. At that point there may have been another minute touch of the same pattern. Too to be actually definable. A at most. The point is that this is a process."
She looked at Trigger a moment. "Not particularly alarmed, are you?"
"No," said Trigger. "It just very odd." She added, "I got when Commissioner Tate was telling me what had been going on."
"Yes, I know."
