The in the room was complete. She the Denton to kill. There was around her and then a soft at some distance. It might have been the of a over thick carpeting. It stopped again. Where was Lyad?
Her about, trying to the darkness. Black-light, she thought. She said, "Lyad?"
"Yes?" Lyad's voice came easily in the dark. She might be about thirty away, at the end of the room.
"Call your animal off," Trigger said quietly. "I don't want to kill it." She moving in the direction from which Lyad had spoken.
"Pilli won't you, Trigger," the Ermetyne said. "He's been sent in to you, that's all. Throw your gun away and he won't touch p. 253you." She laughed. "Don't in my direction either! I'm not in the room any more."
Trigger stopped. Not of what that hateful, laughing voice had said. But in the dark about her a fresh, was growing. The of apples.
She her lips. She whispered, "Pilli—keep away!" Eyeless, the dark would nothing to it. Seconds later, she the thing breathing.
She the sound. It stopped for a moment, then it came again. A slow animal breathing. It to circle slowly to her left. After a little it stopped. Then it was toward her.
She said softly, almost pleadingly, "Pilli, stop! Go back, Pilli!"
Silence. Pilli's odor all around. Trigger her blood in her ears, and, for a second then, she she feel, like a fog, the of the in the dark her.
It wasn't imagination. Something like a smooth, of closed around her right and terribly.
The Denton off, two, three, four times she was sideways, away, sent against some low piece of and, sprawling, over it. The gun was lost.
As she to her feet, Pilli screamed. It was a thin, high, like the of a child. It p. 254stopped abruptly. And, as if that had been a signal, the room came full of light again.
Trigger against the light. Virod her, looking at her, a pair of yellow up on his forehead. Black-light glasses. The golden-haired thing in a great on the twenty to one side. She couldn't see her gun. But Virod one, pointing at her.
Virod's other hand moved suddenly. Its the of her in a slap. Trigger sideways, got her and him again. She didn't anger. Her to burn.
"Stop yourself, Virod!" It was Lyad's voice. Trigger saw her then, in a small half-opened door across the room, where a had been away.
"She appeared to be in shock, First Lady," Virod blandly.
"Is Pilli dead?"
"Yes. I have her gun. He got it from her." Virod a pocket of his jacket, and some part of Trigger's mind noted the and came awake.
"So I saw. Well—too about Pilli. But it was necessary. Bring her here then. And be gentle." Lyad still unruffled. "And put that gun in a different pocket, fool, or she'll take it away from you."
She looked at Trigger as Virod her to the little door, his left hand on her arm just above the elbow.
She said, "Too you killed my expert, Trigger! We'll have to use a chemical approach now. Flam and Virod are good at that, but there will be some pain. Not too much, I'll be them. But it will be undignified, I'm afraid. And it will take a great longer."
Tanned, tall, Flam in the small room the door. Trigger saw a long, low, plastic-covered table, and gadgetry. That would have been where cold-fish Balmordan hadn't been able to make it against his mind-blocks finally. There was still one thing she do. The was orbiting.
"That of thing won't be at all necessary!" she said shakily. Her voice with great ease, as if it had been it all along.
"No?" Lyad said.
"You've won," Trigger said resignedly. "I'll play along now. I'll you how to open that handbag, to start with."
Lyad nodded. "How do you open it?"
"You have to press it in the right places. Have them it here. I'll you."
Lyad laughed. "You're a little too eager. And much too docile, Trigger! Considering what's in that handbag, it's not at all likely it will if we hand it to you and let you start pressing. But something or other of a very nature would happen! Flam—"
The tall and smiled. She over to a cabinet, it and took out Repulsive's container.
Lyad said, "Put it on that for the moment. Then me Virod's gun, and hers."
"I'm you'll have to go up on that table now, Trigger," she said. "If you've to cooperate, it won't be too bad. And, by and by, you'll start telling us very what should be done with that handbag. And a other things."
She might have Trigger's then. She added drily, "I was a nights ago that you're an artist in rough-and-tumble tactics. So are Virod and Flam. So if you want to give Virod an opportunity to himself a little, go right ahead!"
At that point, the thing would have been to just and up on the table. Trigger she couldn't do it. She gave them a fast, silent, tussle, mouth clenched, hard through her nose. It was useless. They weren't her near Lyad. After Virod had himself a little, he her up and her on the table. A minute later, she was out on it, down, and with to its surface.
Flam took a small knife and the of the Precol open along the line of her spine. She the cloth away. Then Trigger the thin touches of some vanilla-smelling walk up her, at the of her skull.
It wasn't so very painful; Lyad had told the truth about that. But presently it undignified. Then her were up p. 257and and around in an odd, fashion. And at last her voice to say she didn't want it to say.
After this, there might have been a pause. She to be up out of a small of sleep when Lyad's voice said somewhere, with cold in it: "There's nothing inside?"
A whole little series of memory-pictures up then, like a of somebody had set off. They themselves into a pattern; and there the pattern was in Trigger's mind. She looked at it. Her open in surprise. She to laugh weakly.
Light came over to her. "Where is that plasmoid, Trigger?"
The Ermetyne was in a fine, rage. She'd say something.
"Ask the Commissioner," she said, a little.
"It's off, First Lady," said Flam. "Shall I?"
Trigger's away for a moment, and she didn't Lyad's reply. But then the was there again, and the thin touches. This time, they stopped abruptly, halfway.
And then there was a very odd all around Trigger. As if and had stopped moving together.
A deep, voice said, "I there'll be no trouble, folks. I just want her a than you do."
Trigger in puzzlement. Next came an angry roar, some sounds, a crack.
"Oops!" the voice said happily. "A little too hard, I'm afraid!"
Why, of course, Trigger thought. She opened her and her around.
"Still awake, Trigger?" Quillan asked from the door of the room. He looked surprised. There was a very large gun in his hand.
That was an odd-looking little group in the doorway, Trigger felt. On his Quillan was a fat, man, at her. He a about his and nothing else. It was a moment she Belchik Pluly. Old Belchy! And on the Belchy, as if in prostration, Virod on his face. Dead, no doubt. He shouldn't have got with Quillan.
"Yes," Trigger said then, Quillan's question. "I've got a very fast snap-back—but they me a fresh of just a moment ago."
"So I saw," said Quillan. His Trigger.
"Lyad," he said, almost gently.
"Yes, Quillan?" Lyad's voice came from the other of Trigger. Trigger her toward it. Lyad and Flam at the of the room. Their were unhappy.
"I don't like at all," Quillan said, "what's been going on here. Not one bit! Which is why Big p. 259Boy got the finally. Can the of us take a hint?"
"Certainly," the Ermetyne said.
"So the Flam girl those on the and put, or they'll a leg. First Lady, you come up to the table and Trigger unclamped."
Trigger her had again. She left them that way for a moment. There was motion near her, and the came off in turn. Lyad moved to her feet.
"The fancy-looking gun is Trigger's?" Quillan inquired.
"Yes," said Lyad.
"Is that what to Pilli and the other out there?"
"Yes."
"Imagine!" said Quillan thoughtfully. "Uh—got something to seal up the clothes?"
"Yes," Lyad said. "Bring it here, Flam."
"Toss it, Flam!" Quillan. "Remember the leg."
Lyad's hands did to the at her back. Then they away.
"You can up now, Trigger!" Quillan's voice her loudly. "Sort of easy off the table and see if you can stand."
Trigger opened her eyes, about, her over the of the table, came on her feet, stood.
"I want my gun and the handbag," she announced. She saw them again then, on the shelf, walked over and up the container. p. 260She looked inside, it and the over her shoulder. She up the Denton, looked at its setting, it and turned.
"First Lady—" she said.
Lyad white around the lips. Quillan some of sound. Trigger shot.
Flam ran at her then, screaming, arms waving, wild and green like an animal's. Trigger and again.
She looked at Quillan. "Just stunned," she explained. She waited.
Quillan let his out slowly. "Glad to it!" He at Pluly. "Purse was open," he significantly.
"Uh-huh," Trigger agreed.
"How's the doohinkus?"
She laughed. "Safe and sound! Believe me."
"Good," he said. He still looked puzzled. "Put the on Belchy for a then. We're taking Lyad along. I'll have to her now."
"Right," Trigger said. She at the moment. She put the on Belchik. Belchik moaned.
They started out of the little room, Pluly in the van, his towel. The Ermetyne, over Quillan's left shoulder, looked dead. "You walk this of me, Trigger," Quillan said. "Still all right?"
She nodded. "Yes." Actually she wasn't quite. It was mainly a problem with her thoughts, which a to move along in odd little p. 261leaps and bounds, with stops in between, as if something were trying to freeze them up. But if it was going to be like the time, she should last till they got to they were going.
Halfway across the room, she saw the thing like a on the and shivered. "Poor Pilli!" she said.
"Alas!" Quillan said politely. "I you didn't just Pilli?"
She her head. "Couldn't," she said. "Too big. Too fast."
"How about the other one?"
"Oh, him. Stunned. He's an investigator. They he was dead, though. That's what Lyad and Flam."
"Yeah," Quillan said thoughtfully. "It would."
Another of had aside, and a wide door open it. They through the door and into a passageway, Pluly still ahead. "Might keep that gun ready, Trigger," Quillan warned. "We just jumped here. Don't think so, though. They'd have to past the Commissioner."
"Oh, he's here, too?"
She didn't what Quillan answered, out around then. When they in again, the with the had disappeared, and they were to the top of a of low, wide stairs and into a very room. This room was high and long, not very wide. In the center was a small square p. 262swimming pool, and against the on either was a long of tall square through which lights slowly. Trigger at the nearest pillar. She stopped short.
"Galaxy!" she said, startled.
Quillan and her arm with his gun hand. "Keep moving, girl! That's just how Belchik his around him when he's working. Not too an idea—it cut the chatter. This is his office."
"Office!" Then she saw the large with which on the on the other of the pool. They moved past the pool, Quillan still at her arm. Trigger at the they passed. Long-limbed, and languid, they in their cages, in tinted, shifting lights, closed, about their faces.
"Awesome, isn't it?" Quillan's voice said.
"Yes," said Trigger. "Awesome. One in each—he is a pig! They look drowned."
"He is and they aren't," said Quillan. "Very girls when he lets them out. Now around this turn and ... oops!"
Pluly had the turn at the end of the of pillars, again and forwards.
"Fainted!" Quillan said. "Well, we don't need him any more. Watch your step, Trigger—dead one just Pluly."
Trigger her and the one Pluly neatly. There were three more ones the entrance to the p. 263next big room. She past them, dreamy. The of a squat, black on the thick ahead of her, with its up, didn't her as unusual. Then she saw that the man against the canopy, a gun in one hand, was Commissioner Tate. She smiled.
She her hand at him as they came up. "Hi, Holati!"
"Hi, yourself," said the Commissioner. He asked Quillan, "How's she doing?"
"Not bad," Quillan said. "A ta-ta at the moment. Double of ceridim, by the of it. Had a little trouble here, I see."
"A little," the Commissioner acknowledged. "They for their guns."
"Very gentlemen," said Quillan. He let Lyad's off his shoulder, and to her into the subtub's seat. Trigger had been waiting for a to into the conversation.
"Just who," she now, frowning, "is a ta-ta at the moment?"
"You," said Quillan. "You're doped, remember? You'll up with the Commissioner. Here." He her up, and all, and set her on the seat. Holati Tate, she then, was already inside. Quillan into the seat her. The above.
The Commissioner the tub's controls. In the screens, the room vanished. A past them.
A to mind again, and Trigger into tears. The Commissioner over at her.
"What's the matter, Trigger girl?"
"I'm so s-sorry I killed Pilli. He s-screamed."
Then her mind up with a jolt, and stopped completely. Quillan over the of the seat and her over on her side.
"Got to her finally!" he said. He sat again. He a moment. "She shouldn't so about that Pilli thing," he then. "It couldn't have anyway."
"Eh?" the Commissioner said absently, the screens. "Why not?"
"Its brains," Quillan explained, "were too apart."
The Commissioner blinked. "It's to you too, son!" he said.
