Part 16

"What's been going on?" Trigger asked.

It was the wrong question. Mantelish took a deep breath and began bellowing like a wounded thunder-ork. Trigger listened, with some admiration. It was one of the best jobs of well-verbalized huffing she'd heard, even from the professor. He ran down in less than five minutes, though--apparently he'd already let off considerable steam.

Lyad had dehypnotized him, at the Commissioner's suggestion. It had been a lengthy job, requiring a couple of hours, but it was a complete one. Which was understandable, since it was the First Lady herself, Trigger gathered gradually from the noise, who had put Mantelish under the influence, back in his own garden on Maccadon, and within two weeks after his first return from Harvest Moon.

It was again Lyad who had given Mantelish his call to bemused duty via a transmitted verbal cue on her arrival in Manon, and instructed him to get lost from his League guards for a few hours in Manon's swamps. There she had met and conferred with him and pumped him of all he could tell her. As the final outrage, she had instructed him to lug her crated cohorts, preserved like Pluly's harem ladies, into the Precol dome--to care for them tenderly there and at the proper cued moment to release them for action--all under the illusion that they were priceless biological specimens!

Mantelish wasn't in the least appeased by the fact that--again at the Commissioner's suggestion--Lyad had installed one minor new hypno-command which, she said, would clear up permanently his tendency toward attacks of dive sickness. But he just ran down finally and sat there, glowering at the Ermetyne now and then.

"Well," the Commissioner remarked, "this might be as good a time as any to ask a few questions. Got your little quizzer with you, Quillan?"

Quillan nodded. Lyad looked at both of them in turn and then, briefly and for the first time, glanced in Trigger's direction.

It wasn't exactly an appealing glance. It might have been a questioning one. And Trigger discovered suddenly that she felt just a little sympathy for Lyad. Lyad had lost out on a very big gamble. And, each in his own way, there were three very formidable males among whom she was sitting. None of them was friendly; two were oversized, and the undersized one had a fairly bloodchilling record for anyone on the wrong side of law and order. Trigger decided to forget about beady stares for the moment.

"Cheer up, Lyad!" she said. "Nobody's going to hurt you. Just give 'em the answers!"

She got another glance. Not a grateful one, exactly. Not an ungrateful one either. Temporary support had been acknowledged.

"Commissioner Tate has informed me," the Ermetyne said, "that this group does not recognize the principle of diplomatic immunity in my case. Under the circumstances I must accept that. And so I shall answer any questions I can." She looked at the pocket quizzer Quillan was checking over unhurriedly. "But such verification instruments are of no use in questioning me."

"Why not?" Quillan asked idly.

"I've been conditioned against them, of course," Lyad said. "I'm an Ermetyne of Tranest. By the time I was twelve years old, that toy of yours couldn't have registered a reaction from me that I didn't want it to show."

Quillan slipped the toy back in his pocket.

"True enough, First Lady," he said. "And that's one small strike in your favor. We thought you might try to gimmick the gadget. Now we'll just pitch you some questions. A recorder's on. Don't stall on the answers."

And he and the Commissioner started flipping out questions. The Ermetyne flipped back the answers. So far as Trigger could tell, there wasn't any stalling. Or any time for it.

Azol: Doctor Azol had been her boy from the start. He was now on Tranest. The main item in his report to her had been the significance of the 112-113 plasmoid unit. He'd also reported that Trigger Argee had become unconscious on Harvest Moon. They'd considered the possibility that somebody was controlling Trigger Argee, or attempting to control her, because of her connections with the plasmoid operations.

Gess Fayle: Lyad had been looking for Doctor Fayle as earnestly as everyone else after his disappearance. She had not been able to buy him. So far as she knew, nobody had been able to buy him. Doctor Fayle had appeared to intend to work for himself. He was at present well outside the Hub's area of space. He still had 112-113 with him. Yes, she could become more specific about the location--with the help of star maps.

"Let's get them out," said Commissioner Tate.

They got them out. The Ermetyne presently circled a largish section of the Vishni Fleet's area. The questions began again.

113-A: Professor Mantelish had told her of his experiments with this plasmoid--

There was an interruption here while Mantelish huffed reflexively. But it was very brief. The professor wanted to learn more about the First Lady's depravities himself.

--and its various possible associations with the main unit. But by the time this information became available to her, 113-A had been placed under heavy guard. Professor Mantelish had made one attempt to smuggle it out to her.

Huff-huff!

--but had been unable to walk past the guards with it. Tranest agents had made several unsuccessful attempts to pick up the plasmoid. She knew that another group had made similarly unsuccessful attempts. The Devagas. She did not yet know the specific nature of 113-A's importance. But it was important.

Trigger: Trigger Argee might be able to tell them why Trigger was important. Doctor Fayle certainly could. So could the top ranks of the Devagas hierarchy. Lyad, at the moment, could not. She did know that Trigger Argee's importance was associated directly with that of plasmoid 113-A. This information had been obtained from a Devagas operator, now dead. Not Balmordan. The operator had been in charge of the attempted pickup on Evalee. The much more elaborate affair at the Colonial School had been a Tranest job. A Devagas group had made attempts to interfere with it, but had been disposed of.

Pluly: Lyad had strings on Belchik. He was afraid of the Devagas but somewhat more terrified of her. His fear of the Devagas was due to the fact that he and an associate had provided the hierarchy with a very large quantity of contraband materials. The nature of the materials indicated the Devagas were constructing a major fortified outpost on a world either airless or with poisonous atmosphere. Pluly's associate had since been murdered. Pluly believed he was next in line to be silenced.

Balmordan: Balmordan had been a rather high-ranking Devagas Intelligence agent. Lyad had heard of him only recently. He had been in charge of the attempts to obtain 113-A. Lyad had convinced him that she would make a very dangerous competitor in the Manon area. She also had made information regarding her activities there available to him. So Balmordan and a select group of his gunmen had attended Pluly's party on Pluly's yacht. They had been allowed to force their way into the sealed level and were there caught in a black-light trap. The gunmen had been killed. Balmordan had been questioned.

The questioning revealed that the Devagas had found Doctor Fayle and the 112-113 unit, almost immediately after Fayle's disappearance. They had succeeded in creating some working plasmoids. To go into satisfactory operation, they still needed 113-A. Balmordan had not known why. But they no longer needed Trigger Argee. Trigger Argee was now to be destroyed at the earliest opportunity. Again Balmordan had not known why. Fayle and his unit were in the fortress dome the Devagas had been building. It was in the area Lyad had indicated. It was supposed to be very thoroughly concealed. Balmordan might or might not have known its exact coordinates. His investigators made the inevitable slip finally and triggered a violent mind-block reaction. Balmordan had died. Dead-braining him had produced no further relevant information.

The little drumfire of questions ended abruptly. Trigger glanced at her watch. It had been going on for only fifteen minutes, but she felt somewhat dizzy by now. The Ermetyne just looked a little more wilted.

After a minute, Commissioner Tate inquired politely whether there was any further information the First Lady could think of to give them at this time.

She shook her head. No.

Only Professor Mantelish believed her.

But the interrogation was over, apparently.

24

Quillan took over the ship controls, and the Commissioner and Trigger went with the recorder into the little office back of the transmitter cabinet, to slam out some fast reports to the Hub and other points. Lyad was apologizing profoundly to Mantelish as they left the lounge. The professor was huffing back at her, rather mildly.

A little while later, Lyad, showing indications of restrained surprise, was helping Trigger prepare dinner. They took it into the lounge. Quillan remained at the controls while the others started eating. Trigger fixed up a tray and brought it to him.

"Thanks for the rescue, Major!" she said.

He grinned up at her. "It was a pleasure."

Trigger glanced back at the little group in the lounge. "Think she was fibbing a bit?"

"Sure. Mainly she'd decided in advance how much to tell and how much not. She thinks fast in action though! No slips. What she told of what she knows makes a solid story, and with angles we can check on fast. So it's bound to have plenty of information in it. It'll do for the moment."

"She's already started buttering up Mantelish," said Trigger.

"She'll do that," Quillan said. "By the time we reach Luscious, the prof probably might as well be back in the trances. The Commissioner intends to give her a little rope, I think."

"How close is Luscious to that area she showed?"

Quillan flicked on their course screen and superimposed the map Lyad had marked. "Red dot's well inside," he pointed out. "That bit was probably quite solid info." He looked up at her. "Did it bother you much to hear the Devagas have dropped the grab idea and are out to do you in?"

Trigger shook her head. "Not really," she said. "Wouldn't make much difference one way or the other, would it?"

"Very little." He patted her hand. "Well, they're not going to get you, doll--one way _or_ the other!"

Trigger smiled. "I believe you," she said. "Thanks." She looked back into the lounge again. Just at present she did have a feeling of relaxed, unconcerned security. It probably wasn't going to last, though. She glanced at Quillan.

"Those computers of yours," she said. "What did they have to say about that not-catassin you squashed?"

"The crazy things claim now it was a plasmoid," Quillan said, "Revolting notion! But it makes some sense for once. Checks with some of the things Lyad just told us, too. Do you remember that Vethi sponge Balmordan was carrying?"

"Yes."

"It didn't come off the ship with him. He checked it out as having died en route."

"That is a revolting notion!" Trigger said after a moment. "Well, at least we've got detectors now."

But the feeling of security had faded somewhat again.

Before dinner was half over, the long-range transmitters abruptly came to life. For the next thirty minutes or so, messages rattled in incessantly, as assorted Headquarters here and there reacted to the Ermetyne's report. The Commissioner sat in the little office and sorted over the incoming information. Trigger stayed at the transmitters, feeding it to him as it arrived. None of it affected them directly--they were already headed for the point in space a great many other people would now start heading for very soon.

Then business dropped off again almost as suddenly as it had picked up. A half dozen low priority items straggled in, in as many minutes. The transmitters purred idly. Then the person-to-person buzzer sounded.

Trigger punched the screen button. A voice pronounced the ship's dial number.

"Acknowledging," Trigger said. "Who is it?"

"Orado ComWeb Center," said the voice. "Stand by for contact with Federation Councilman Roadgear."

Trigger whacked the panic button. Roadgear was a NAME! "Standing by," she said.

Commissioner Tate came in through the door and slipped into the chair she'd already vacated. Trigger took another seat a few feet away. She felt a little nervous, but she'd always wanted to see a high-powered diplomat in action.

The screen lit up. She recognized Roadgear from his pics. Tall, fine-looking man of the silvered sideburns type. He was in an armchair in a very plush office.

"Congratulations, Commissioner!" he said, smiling. "I believe you're aware by now that your latest report has set many wheels spinning rapidly!"

"I rather expected it would," the Commissioner admitted. He also smiled.

They pitched it back and forth a few times, very chummy. Roadgear didn't appear to be involved in any specific way with the operations which soon would center about Luscious. Trigger began to wonder what he was after.

"A few of us are rather curious to know," Roadgear said, "why you didn't acknowledge the last Council Order sent you."

Trigger didn't quite start nervously.

"When was this?" asked the Commissioner.

Roadgear smiled softly and told him.

"Got a record here of some scrambled item that arrived about then," the Commissioner said. "Very good of you to call me about it, Councilman. What was the order content?"

"It's dated now, as it happens," Roadgear said. "Actually I'm calling about another matter. The First Lady of Tranest appears to have been very obliging about informing you of some of her recent activities."

The Commissioner nodded. "Yes, very obliging."

"And in so short a time after her, ah, detainment. You must have been very persuasive?"

"Well," Holati Tate said, "no more than usually."

"Yes," said Councilman Roadgear. "Now there's been some slight concern expressed by some members of the Council--well, let's say they'd just like to be reassured that the amenities one observes in dealing with a head of state actually are being observed in this case. I'm sure they are, of course."

The Commissioner was silent a moment. "I was informed a while ago," he said, "that full responsibility for this Head of State has been assigned to my group. Is that correct?"

The Councilman reddened very slightly. "Quite," he said. "The official Council Order should reach you in a day or so."

"Well, then," said the Commissioner, "I'll assure you and you can assure the Councilmen who were feeling concerned that the amenities are being observed. Then everybody can relax again. Is that all right?"

"No, not quite," Roadgear said annoyedly. "In fact, the Councilmen would very much prefer it, Commissioner, if I were given an opportunity to speak to the First Lady directly to reassure myself on the point."

"Well," Commissioner Tate said, "she can't come to the transmitters right now. She's washing the dishes."

The Councilman reddened very considerably this time. He stared at the Commissioner a moment longer. Then he said in a very soft voice, "Oh, the hell with it!" He added, "Good luck, Commissioner--you're going to need it some time."

The screen went blank.

* * * * *

The scouts of Selan's Independent Fleet, who had first looked this planet over and decided to call it Luscious, had selected a name, Trigger thought, which probably would stick. Because that was what it was, at least in the area where they were camping.

She rolled over from her side to her face and gave herself a push away from the rock she'd been regarding contemplatively for the past few minutes. Feet first, she went drifting out into a somewhat deeper section of Plasmoid Creek.

None of it was very deep. There were pools here and there, in the stretch of the creek she usually came to, where she could stand on her toes in the warm clear water and, arms stretched straight up, barely tickle the surface with her finger tips. But along most of the stretch the bigger rocks weren't even submerged.

She came sliding over the sand to another rock, turned on her back and leaned up against the rock, blinking at sun reflections along the water. Camp was a couple of hundred yards down the valley, its sounds cut off by a rise of the ground. The Commissioner's ship was there, plus a half dozen tents, plus a sizable I-Fleet unit with lab facilities which Selan's outfit had loaned Mantelish for the duration. There were some fifteen, twenty people in all about the camp at the moment. They knew she was loafing around in the water up here and wouldn't disturb her.

Strictly speaking, of course, she wasn't loafing. She was learning how to listen to herself think. She didn't feel she was getting the knack of it too quickly; but it was coming. The best way seemed to be to let go mentally as much as possible; to wait without impatience, really to more-or-less listen quietly within yourself, as if you were looking around in some strange forest, letting whatever wanted to come to view come, and fade again, as something else rose to view instead. The main difficulty was with the business of relaxing mentally, which wasn't at all her natural method of approaching a problem.

But when she could do it, information of a kind that was beginning to look very interesting was likely to come filtering into her awareness. Whatever was at work deep in her mind--and she could give a pretty fair guess at what it was now--seemed as weak and slow as the Psychology Service people had indicated. The traces of its work were usually faint and vague. But gradually the traces were forming into some very definite pictures.

Lazing around in the waters of Plasmoid Creek for an hour or so every morning had turned out to be a helpful part of the process. On the flashing, all-out run to Luscious, subspace all the way, with the Commissioner and Quillan spelling each other around the clock at the controls, the transmitters clattering for attention every half hour, the ship's housekeeping had to be handled, and somebody besides Mantelish needed to keep a moderately beady eye on the Ermetyne, she hadn't even thought of acting on Pilch's suggestion.

But once they'd landed, there suddenly wasn't much to keep her busy, and she could shift priority to listening to herself think. It was one of those interim periods where everything was being prepared and nothing had got started. As a plasmoid planet, Luscious was pretty much of a bust. It was true that plasmoids were here. It was also true that until fairly recently plasmoids were being produced here.

By the simple method of looking where they were thickest, Selan's people even had located the plasmoid which had been producing the others, several days before Mantelish arrived to confirm their find. This one, by the plasmoid standards of Luscious, was a regular monster, some twenty-five inches high; a gray, mummylike thing, dead and half rotted inside. It was the first plasmoid--with the possible exception of whatever had flattened itself out on Quillan's gravity mine--known to have died. There had been very considerable excitement when it was first discovered, because the description made it sound very much as if they'd finally located 112-113.

They hadn't. This one--if Trigger had followed Mantelish correctly--could be regarded as a cheap imitation of 112. And its productions, compared with the working plastic life of Harvest Moon, appeared to be strictly on a kindergarten level: nuts and bolts and less than that. To Trigger, most of the ones that had been collected looked like assorted bugs and worms, though one at least was the size of a small pig.

"No form, no pattern," Mantelish rumbled. "Was the thing practicing? Did it attempt to construct an assistant and set it down here to test it? Well, now!" He went off again to incomprehensibilities, apparently no longer entirely dissatisfied. "Get me 112!" he bellowed. "Then this business will be solved! Meanwhile we now at least have plasmoid material to waste. We can experiment boldly! Come, Lyad, my dear."

And Lyad followed him into the lab unit, where they went to work again, dissecting, burning, stimulating, inoculating and so forth great numbers of more or less pancake-sized subplasmoids.

* * * * *

This morning Trigger wasn't getting down to the best semidrowsy level at all readily. And it might very well be that Lyad-my-dear business. "You know," she had told the Commissioner thoughtfully the day before, "by the time we're done, Lyad will know more about plasmoids than anyone in the Hub except Mantelish!"

He didn't look concerned. "Won't matter much. By the time we're done, she and the rest of the Ermetynes will have had to cough up control of Tranest. They've broken treaty with this business."

"Oh," Trigger said. "Does Lyad know that?"

"Sure. She also knows she's getting off easy. If she were a Federation citizen, she'd be up for compulsory rehabilitation right now."

"She'll try something if she gets half a chance!" Trigger warned.

"She sure will!" the Commissioner said absently. He went on with his work.

It didn't seem to be Lyad that was bothering. Trigger lay flat on her back in the shallow sand bar, arms behind her head, feeling the sun's warmth on her closed eyelids. She watched her thoughts drifting by slowly.

It just might be Quillan.

Ole Major Quillan. The rescuer in time of need. The not-catassin smasher. Quite a guy. The water murmured past her.

On the ride out here they'd run by one another now and then, going from job to job. After they'd arrived, Quillan was gone three quarters of the time, helping out in the hunt for the concealed Devagas fortress. It was still concealed; they hadn't yet picked up a trace.

But every so often he made it back to camp. And every so often when he was back in camp and didn't think she was looking, he'd be sitting there looking at her.

Trigger grinned happily. Ole Major Quillan--being bashful! Well now!

And that did it. She could feel herself relaxing, slipping down and away, drifting down through her mind ... farther ... deeper ... toward the tiny voice that spoke in such a strange language and still was becoming daily more comprehensible.

"Uh, say, Trigger!"

25

Trigger gasped. Her eyes flew open. She made a convulsive effort to vanish beneath the surface of the creek. Being flat on the sand as it was, that didn't work. So she stopped splashing about and made rapid covering-up motions here and there instead.

"You've got a nerve!" she snapped as her breath came back. "Beat it! Fast!"

Ole bashful Quillan, standing on the bank fifteen feet 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 inhaled with apparent difficulty.

"Though now it's been mentioned," he went on, speaking rapidly and unevenly, "there _is_ all that brown and that sort of pink and that lovely white." He was getting more enthusiastic by the moment; Trigger became afraid he would fall off the bank and land in the creek beside her. "And the--ooh-ummh!--wet red hair and the freckles!" he rattled along, his eyes starting out of his head. "And the lovely--"

"Quillan!" she yelled. "Please!"

Quillan checked himself. "Uh!" he said. He drew a deep breath. The wild look faded. Sanity appeared to return. "Well, it's the truth about those wild animals! Some sort of large, uncouth critter was observed just now ducking into the forest at the upper end of the valley!"

Trigger darted a glance along the bank. Her clothes were forty feet away, just beside the water.