Trigger gasped. Her open. She a to the surface of the creek. Being on the as it was, that didn't work. So she stopped about and covering-up here and there instead.
"You've got a nerve!" she as her came back. "Beat it! Fast!"
Ole Quillan, on the bank fifteen above her, looked hurt. He also looked.
"Look!" he said plaintively. "I just came over to make sure you were all right—wild animals around! I wasn't studying the color scheme."
"Beat it! At once!"
Quillan with difficulty.
"Though now it's been mentioned," he on, speaking and unevenly, "there is all that and that of pink and that p. 290white." He was more by the moment; Trigger he would off the bank and land in the her. "And the—ooh-ummh!—wet red and the freckles!" he along, his starting out of his head. "And the lovely—"
"Quillan!" she yelled. "Please!"
Quillan himself. "Uh!" he said. He a breath. The wild look faded. Sanity appeared to return. "Well, it's the truth about those wild animals! Some of large, was just now into the at the upper end of the valley!"
Trigger a along the bank. Her were away, just the water.
"I'm some of large, right here!" she said coldly. "What's worse, it's me. Turn around!"
Quillan sighed. "You're a hard woman, Argee," he said. But he turned. He was a gun, as a of fact; but he did that anyway. "This thing," he on, "is to have a like a bat, three across. It flies."
"Very interesting," Trigger told him. She he wasn't going to turn around again. "So now I'll just into my clothes, and then—"
It came out of the trees around the upper of the sixty away. It had a like a bat, and was on top and yellow below. Its the bank on either side. The three-foot mouth was wide open, very long thin white teeth. It came p. 291skimming over the surface of the water toward her.
"Quiiii-LLAN!"
They walked along the to camp. Trigger walked a steps ahead, her very straight. The of it had been the look on his face.
"Heel!" she observed. "Heel! Heel! Heel!"
"Now, Trigger," Quillan said her. "After all, it was you who came up the bank and around my neck. All wet, too."
"I was scared!" Trigger snarled. "Who wouldn't be? You didn't an to take full of the situation!"
"True," Quillan admitted. "I'd the bat. There you were. Who'd hesitate? I'm not out of my mind."
She did two steps of pure and to him. She put her hands on her hips. Quillan stopped warily.
"Your mind!" she said. "I'd to have one like it. What do you think I am? One of Belchik's houris?"
For a man his size, he was quick. Before she move, he was there, one big arm about her shoulders, her arms to her sides. "Easy, Trigger!" he said softly.
Well, others had to her like that when she didn't want to be held. A twist, a jerk, a heave—and over and they went. Trigger p. 292braced herself quietly. If she was quick now—— She twisted, jerked, heaved. She stopped, discouraged. The hadn't appreciably.
She had been it wasn't going to work with Quillan.
"Let go!" she said furiously, a fast at his instep. But the aside. Her shoe into the of the path. The might have an pair of on his feet!
Then his free was under her chin, it carefully. His other appeared above hers. Very close. Very dark.
"I'll bite!" Trigger fiercely. "I'll bi—mmph!
"Mmmph—grrmm!
"Grr-mm-mhm.... Hm-m-m ... mhm!"
They walked on along the trail, hand in hand. They came up over the last little rise. Trigger looked on the camp. She frowned.
"Pretty dull!" she observed.
"Eh?" Quillan asked, startled.
"Not that, ape!" she said. She his hand. "Your aren't good, but it wasn't. I meant generally. We're just here now waiting. Nothing to be happening."
It was true, at least on the surface. There were a great number of ships and men around and near Luscious, but they weren't in view. They were to jump in any direction, at any moment, but they had nothing to jump at yet. The Commissioner's hadn't more than p. 293two or three times in the last two days. Even the mostly silent.
"Cheer up, Doll!" Quillan said. "Something's to soon."
That evening, a Devagas ship came in on Luscious.
They were prepared for it, of course. That somebody came from time to time to look over the local was only to be expected. As the ship in on the other of the planet, four one-man Scout in on it from four points of the horizon, screens up. They on it and themselves. A Federation appeared in the air above it.
The Devagas ship couldn't escape. So it itself up.
They were prepared for that, too. The Devagas pilot was being dead-brained three minutes later. He didn't know a thing the exact of an armed, Devagas dome, three days' away.
The Scout ships that had been for the in toward it from every direction. The more of the Federation behind. There was no for the heavies. The Devagas ship's attempt to a to its had been without effort. The Scouts were in fast to attempts.
"And now we forces," the Commissioner said. He was the only one, Trigger thought, who didn't too by it all. p. 294"Quillan, you and your group going! They can use you there a whole than we can here."
For just a second, Quillan looked like a man being in two directions. He didn't look at Trigger. He asked, "Think it's wise to you people unguarded?"
"Quillan," said Commissioner Tate, "that's the time in my life has I need guarding."
"Sorry sir," said Quillan.
"You mean," Trigger said, "we're not going? We're just here?"
"You've got an appointment, remember?" the Commissioner said.
Quillan and company were gone the hour. Mantelish, Holati Tate, Lyad and Trigger at camp.
Luscious looked very lonely.
"It isn't just the king they're to catch there," the Commissioner told Trigger. "And I wouldn't care, frankly, if the thing the next thousand years. But we had a very odd report last week. The Federation's boys have been the Devagas worlds and Tranest very closely of late, naturally. The report is that there isn't the that a single one of the top members of the Devagas has been on any of their worlds in the past two months."
"Oh," she said. "They think they're out here? In that dome?"
"That's what's suspected."
"But why?"
He his chin. "If anyone knows, they haven't told me. It's nothing nice."
Trigger pondered. "You'd think they'd use facsimiles," she said. "Like Lyad."
"Oh, they did," he said. "They did. That's one of the for being sure they're gone. They're near as expert at that as the Tranest characters. A little study of the the were just that."
Trigger again. "Did they anything on Tranest?"
"Yes. One combat-strength of those souped-up of the Aurora class they're allowed by can't be for."
Trigger her in her hands and looked at him. "Is that why we've on Luscious, Holati—the four of us?"
"It's one reason. That Repulsive thing of yours is another."
"What about him?"
"I have a feeling," he said, "that while they'll the in that Devagas dome, they won't the 112-113 item there."
"So Lyad still is gambling," Trigger said. "And we're we'll more out of her next play than she does." She hesitated. "Holati—"
"Yes?"
"When did you decide it would be if nobody got to see that king again?"
Holati Tate said, "About the time I saw the p. 296reconstruct of that yellow of Balmordan's. Frankly, Trigger, there was a good of of possibilities along that line we to the of Harvest Moon. If we have just it away for a of centuries—until there was more good around the Hub—we would have done it. But somebody was to across it sometime. And the did look as if it might be valuable. So we took the chance."
"And now you'd like to it?"
"If it's still possible. Half the Fed Council would like to see it happen. But they don't think along those lines. There be a that would Hub politics into the of they haven't been in for a hundred years. If anything is done, it will have to look as if it had been something nobody have helped. And that still might be enough."
"I so. Holati—"
"Yes?"
She her head. "Nothing. Or if it is, I'll ask you later." She up. "I think I'll go have my swim."
She still in Plasmoid Creek in the mornings. The had been as an of appearances, a very mild-mannered to the and of which around watercourses. Luscious still looked like the of all possible worlds for any as as a being. But she the Denton near now, just in case.
She out again in the sun-warmed water, a to her on, into the a little so the wouldn't shift her, and closed her eyes. She still, slowly. Contact was more easily and every morning. But the which had to through in the last days wasn't at all calculated to make one happy.
She was now she was going to die in this thing. She had almost let it out to Holati, which wouldn't have helped in the least. She'd have to watch that in future.
Repulsive hadn't said she would die. He'd said, "Maybe." Repulsive was too. Scared badly.
Trigger quiet, her thoughts, her attention and down. Creek water against her cheek.
It was all that one clock moved so slowly. That was the thing that couldn't be changed. Ever.
