Trigger came out of the ceridim trance hours before Lyad awoke from the stunner blast she'd absorbed. The Commissioner was sitting in a chair beside her bunk, napping.

She looked around a moment, feeling very comfortable and secure. This was her personal cabin on Commissioner Tate's ship, the one he referred to as the Big Job, modeled after the long-range patrol ships of the Space Scouts. It wasn't actually very big, but six or seven people could go traveling around in it very comfortably. At the moment it appeared to be howling through subspace at its hellish rate again, going somewhere.

Well, that could keep.

Trigger reached out and poked the Commissioner's knee. "Hey, Holati!" she whispered. "Wake up."

p.266

His eyes opened. He looked at her and smiled. "Back again, eh?" he said.

Trigger motioned at the door. "Close it," she whispered. "Got something to tell you."

"Talk away," he said. "Quillan's piloting, the First Lady's out cold, and Mantelish got dive-sick and I doped him. Nobody else on board."

Trigger lay back and looked at him. "This is going to sound pretty odd!" she warned him. Then she told him what Repulsive had done and what he was trying to do.

The Commissioner looked badly shaken.

"You sure of that, Trigger?"

"Sure, I'm sure."

"Trying to talk to you?"

"That's it."

He blinked at her. "I looked in the bag, and the thing was gone."

"Lyad knows it was gone," Trigger said. "So in case she gets a chance to blab to someone, we'll say you had it."

He nodded and stood up. "You stay here," he said. "Prescription for the kind of treatment you've had is a day of bed rest."

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to go talk to that Psychology ship," he said. "And just let 'em try to stall me this time!"

He went off up the passage toward the transmitter cabinet in the forward part of the ship. Some minutes passed. Then Trigger suddenly heard Commissioner Tate's voice raised in great wrath. She listened. It appeared the Psychology Service p.267 had got off on the wrong foot by advising him once more to stay calm.

He came back presently and sat down beside the bunk, still a little red in the face. "They're going to follow us," he said. "If they hadn't, I would have turned back and gunned our way on board that lopsided disgrace of theirs."

"Follow us? Where?"

He grunted. "A place called Luscious. We'll be there in under a week. It'll take them about three. But they're starting immediately."

Trigger blinked. "Looks like the plasmoids have made it to the head of the problem list!"

"I wouldn't be surprised," said the Commissioner. "I was put through to that Pilch after a while. She said to remind you to listen to your thinking whenever you can get around to it. Know what she meant?"

"I'm not sure I do," Trigger said hesitantly. "But she's mentioned it. I'll give it a whirl. Why are we going to Luscious?"

"Selan's Fleet found plasmoids on it. It's in the Vishni area."

"What kind of plasmoids?"

He shrugged. "They don't amount to much, from what I heard. Small stuff. But definitely plasmoid. It looks like somebody might have done some experimenting there for a while. And not long ago."

"Did they find the big one?"

"Not yet. No trace of any people on Luscious either." He chewed his lip thoughtfully for a moment. p.268 "About an hour after we picked you and Lyad up," he said, "we had a Council Order transmitted to the ship. Told us to swing off course a bit and rendezvous with a fast courier boat of theirs."

"What for?"

"The order said the courier was to take Lyad on board and head for the Hub with her. Some diplomatic business." He scratched his chin. "It also instructed us to treat the First Lady of Tranest with the courtesy due to her station meanwhile."

"Brother!" Trigger said, outraged.

"Just too bad I couldn't read that message," said Holati Tate. "Some gravitic disturbance! Rendezvous point's hours behind us. They'll never catch up."

"Ho-ho!" said Trigger. "But that's being pretty insubordinate, Holati!"

"It was till just now," he said. "I mentioned that we had Lyad on board to that Pilch person. She said she'd speak to the Council. We're to hang on to Lyad and when Pilch gets to Luscious she'll interview her."

Trigger grinned. "Now that," she remarked, "gives me a feeling of great satisfaction, somehow. When Pilch gets her little mitts on someone, there isn't much left out."

"I had that impression. Meanwhile, we'll put the Ermetyne through a routine questioning ourselves when she gets over being groggy. Courtesy will be on the moderate side. She'll probably spill part of what she knows, especially if you sit there and hand her the beady stare from time to time."

p.269

"That," Trigger assured him, "will be hardly an effort at all!"

"I can imagine. You're pretty sure that thing will show up again?"

Trigger nodded. "Just leave the handbag with me."

"All right." He stood up. "I've got a hot lunch prepared for you. I'll bring the bag along. Then you can tell me what happened after they grabbed you."

"How did you find out I was gone?" Trigger asked.

"Your fac," he said. "The girl was darn good actually. I talked to you—her—on office transmitter once and didn't spot a sour note. Mostly she just kept out of everybody's way. Very slick at it! We would have got her fairly fast because we were preparing for take-off to Luscious by then. But she spilled it herself."

"How?"

"I located her finally again, on transmitter screen. There was no one on her side to impress. She took a sniff of porgee."

Trigger laughed delightedly. "Good old porgee pouch! It beat them twice. But how did you know where I was?"

"No problem there. We knew Lyad had strings on Pluly. Quillan knew about that sealed level on Pluly's yacht and got Pluly to invite him over to admire the harem right after the Dawn City arrived. While he was admiring, he was also recording floor patterns for a subtub jump. That gimmick's pretty much of a spilled secret now, but on p.270 a swap for you and Lyad it was worth it. We came aboard five minutes after we'd nabbed your fac."

"The Ermetyne figured you'd go chasing after the Aurora," Trigger said.

"Well," the Commissioner said tolerantly, "the Ermetyne's pretty young. The Aurora was a bit obvious."

"How come Quillan didn't start wondering when I didn't show up in Mantelish's lab with Repulsive?"

"So that's what he was for!" Holati said. He rubbed the side of his jaw. "I was curious about that angle! That wasn't Quillan. That was Quillan's fac."

"In Mantelish's lab?" Trigger said, startled.

"Sure. That's how they all got in. In those specimen crates Mantelish has been lugging into the dome the past couple of days. It looks like the prof's been hypnotized up to his ears for months."

The last five hours of her day of recuperative rest Trigger spent asleep, her cabin door locked and the plasmoid purse open on the bunk beside her. Holati had come by just before to report that the Ermetyne was now awake but very groggy, apparently more than a little shocked, and not yet quite able to believe she was still alive. He'd dose her with this and that, and interrogations would be postponed until everybody was on their feet.

When Trigger woke up from her five hour nap, the purse was shut. She opened it and looked inside. Repulsive was down there, quietly curled up.

"Smart little bugger, aren't you?" she said, not p.271 entirely with approval. Then she reached in and gave him a pat. She locked the purse, got dressed and went up to the front of the ship, carrying Repulsive along.

All four of the others were up in the lounge area which included the partitioned control section. The partition had been slid into the wall and the Commissioner, who was at the controls at the moment, had swung his seat half around toward the lounge.

He glanced at the plasmoid purse as Trigger came in, grinned and gave her a small wink.

"Come in and sit down," he said. "We've been waiting for you."

Trigger sat down and looked at them. Something apparently had been going on. Quillan's tanned face was thoughtful, perhaps a trifle amused. Mantelish looked very red and angry. His shock of white hair was wildly rumpled. The Ermetyne appeared a bit wilted.

"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 p.272 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 p.273 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 p.274 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 p.275 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 p.276 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.

p.277

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.

p.278