 CHAPTER VII The burly character, who had appeared at the door, said differently that Professor Mantellish had wanted to be present while his lab-equipment was stowed aboard. If the professor didn't mind, things were about that far along. Mantellish excused himself and went off with the messenger. The door closed. Quillen came back to his chair. We are moving the outfit later tonight, the Commissioner explained. Mantellish is coming along, plus around eight tons of his lab-equipment, plus his special U-league guards. Oh! Trigger picked up the Puyah glass. She looked into it. It was empty. Moving where, she asked. Manon, said the Commissioner. Tell you about that later. Every last muscle in Trigger's body seemed to go limp simultaneously. She settled back slightly in the chair, surprised by the force of the reaction. She had realized by now how keyed up she was. She sighed a small sigh. Then she smiled at Quillen. Major, she said, how about a tiny little refill on that Puyah, about half? Quillen took care of the tiny little refill. Commissioner Tate said, by the way, Quillen does have a degree in subspace engineering and gets assigned to the engineers now and then, but his real job's space-scout intelligence. Trigger nodded. I'd almost guessed it. She gave Quillen another smile. She nearly gave one thirteen A. a smile. And now, said the Commissioner, we'll talk more freely. We tell Mantellish just as little as we can. To tell you the truth, Trigger, the Professor is a terrible handicap on an operation like this. I understand he was a great friend of your father's. Yes, she said. Going over for visits to Mantellish's garden with my father is one of the earliest things I remember. I can imagine he's a problem. She shifted her gaze curiously from one to the other of the two men. What are you people doing, looking for guess fail and the key unit? Oh, Lottie Tate said. That's about it. We're one of a few thousand federation groups assigned to the same general job. Each group works at its specialties and the information gets correlated. He paused. The Federation Council. They're the ones we're working for directly. The Council's biggest concern is the very delicate political situation that's involved. They feel it could develop suddenly into a dangerous one. They may be right. In what way? Trigger asked. Well, suppose that key unit is lost and stays lost. Suppose all the other plasmoids put together don't contain enough information to show how the old galactics produced the things and got them to operate. Somebody would get that worked out pretty soon, wouldn't they? Not necessarily, or even probably, according to Mantellish and some other people who know what's happened. There seem to be too many basic factors missing. It might be necessary to develop a whole new class of sciences first, and that could take a few centuries. Well, Trigger admitted, I could get along without the things indefinitely. Same here. The plasmoid Nabob agreed ungrateful. Weird beasties. But let's see. At present there are 1,258 member worlds to the Federation, aren't there? More or less. And the number of planetary confederacies, sub-planetary governments, industrial, financial and commercial combines, assorted power groups, etc., and so on, is something I'd hate to have to calculate. What are you driving at? She asked. They've all been told we're heading for a new golden age, courtesy of the plasmoid science. Practically everybody has believed it. Now there's considerable doubt. Oh, she said. Of course. Practically everybody is going to get very unhappy, eh? That, said Commissioner Tate, is only a little of it. Yes, the thing isn't just lost, somebody's got it. Very likely. Trigger nodded. Fail's ship might have got wrecked accidentally, of course. But the way he took off shows he planned to disappear. A crack up on top of that would be too much of a coincidence. So any one of the umpteen thousands of organizations in the hub might be the one that has that plasmoid now. Including, said Holadi, any one of the two hundred and fourteen restricted worlds. Their treaties of limitation wouldn't have let them get into the plasmoid pie until the others had been added a decade or so. They would have been quite eager. There was a little pause. Then Trigger said, Lordy, the thing could even set off another string of wars. That's a point the Council is nervous about, he said. Well, it certainly is a mess. You would have thought the Federation might have had a security chief in on that first operation, right there on Harvest Moon. They did, he said. It was fail. Oh, pretty embarrassing. Trigger was silent for a moment. Holadi, could those things ever become as valuable as people keep saying? It's all sounded a little exaggerated to me. The Commissioner said he'd wondered about that too. I'm not enough of a biologist to make an educated guess. What it seems to boil down to is that they might, which would be enough to tempt a lot of people to gamble very high for a chance to get control of the plasmoid process, and we know definitely that some people are gambling for it. How do you know? We've been working a couple of leads here. Pretty short leads so far, but you work with what you get. He nodded at the table. We picked up the first lead through 113A. Trigger glanced down. The plasmoid lay there some inches from the end of her hand. You know, she said uncomfortably, old repulsive moved again while we were talking, towards my hand. She drew the hand away. I was watching it, Major Quillen said reassuringly from the end of the table. I would have warned you, but it stopped when it got as far as it is now. That was around five minutes ago. Trigger reached back and gave old repulsive a cautious pat. Very lively character. He does feel pleasant to touch. Kitty cat pleasant. How did you get a lead through him? Mantellish brought it back to McHaddon with him, mainly because of its similarity to 113. He was curious because he couldn't even guess at what its function was. It was just lying there in a cubicle. So he did considerable experimenting with it while he waited for guess fail to show up, and league headquarters fidgeted it around hoping to get the kind of report from Mantellish and fail that Mantellish thought they had already received. They were wondering where fail was too, but they knew fail was security, so they didn't like to get too nosy. Trigger shook her head. Wonderful. So what happened with 113A? Mantellish began to get results with it, the commissioner said. One experiment was rather startling. He'd been trying that electrical stimulation business. Nothing happened until he had finished. Then he touched the plasmoid, and it fed the whole charge back to him. Apparently it was a fairly hefty dose. She laughed delightedly. Good for repulsive. Stood up for his rights, eh? Mantellish gained some such impression anyway. He became more cautious with it after that, and then he learned something that should be important. He was visiting another lab where they had a couple of plasmoids which actually moved now and then. He had 113A in his coat pocket. The two lab plasmoids stopped moving while he was there. They haven't moved since. Like the Harvest Moon plasmoids when they stimulated 113? Right. He thought about that, and then located another moving plasmoid. He dropped in to look it over, with 113A in his pocket again, and it stopped. He did the same thing in one more place and then quit. There aren't that many moving plasmoids around. Those three labs are still wondering what hit their specimens. He studied 113A curiously. A mighty mite. What does Mantellish make of it? He thinks the 112-113 unit forms a kind of self-regulating system. The big one induces plasmoid activity, the little one modifies it. This 113A might be a spare regulator. But it seems to be more than a spare, which brings us to that first lead we got. A gang of raiders crashed Mantellish's lab one night. When was that? Some months ago, before you and I left Manon? The professor was out, and 113A had gone along in his pocket as usual. But his two lab guards and one of the raiders were killed. The others got away. Guess Fail's defection was a certainty by then, and everybody was very nervous. The feds got there fast and dead-brained the raider. They learned just two things. One, he'd been mind-blocked and couldn't have spilled any significant information even if they had got him alive. The other item they drew from his brain was a clear impression of the target of the raid. The professor's pal here. Uh-huh, Trigger said, lost in thought. She poked repulsive lightly. That would be Fail and his associates, then, or somebody who knew about them. Did they want to kill it or grab it? The commissioner looked at her. Grab it was the dead-brained report, why? Just wondering. Would make a difference, wouldn't it? Did they try again? There have been five more attempts, he said. And what's everybody concluded from that? They want 113A in a very bad way, so they need it. In connection with the key unit, Trigger asked. Probably. That makes everything look very much better, doesn't it? Quite a little, he said. The unit may not work, or may not work satisfactorily unless 113A is in the area. Mantelish talks of something he calls proximity influence. Whatever that is, 113A has demonstrated it has it. So, Trigger said, they might have two-thirds of what everybody wants, and you might have one-third. Right here on the table. How many of the later raiders did you catch? All of them, said the commissioner. Around forty. We got them dead, we got them alive. It didn't make much difference. They were hired hands. Very expensive hired hands, but still just that. Most of them didn't know a thing we could use. The ones that did know something were mind-blocked again. I thought, Trigger said reflectively, you could unblock someone like that. You can sometimes, if you're very good at it, and if you have time enough. We couldn't afford to wait a year. They died before they could tell us anything. There was a pause. Then Trigger asked, How did you get involved in this personally? More or less by accident, the commissioner said. It was in connection with our second lead. That's me, huh? She said unhappily. Yes. Why would anyone want to grab me? I don't know anything. He shook his head. We haven't found out yet. We're hoping we will in a very few days. Is that one of the things you can't tell me about? I can tell you most of what I know at the moment, said the commissioner. Remember the night we stopped off at Eveli on the way in from Manon? Yes, she said. That big hotel! End of Chapter 7, Chapter 8 of Legacy, by James H. Schmitz. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. LEGACY. CHAPTER 8 About an hour after you decided to hit the bunk, Holadi said, I portaled back to your rooms to pick up some pre-call reports we've been setting up. Trigger nodded. I remembered the reports. A couple of characters were working on your doors when I got there. They went for their guns, unfortunately. But I called the nearest Scout Intelligence office and had them dead-brained. Why that, she asked. It could have been an accident, a couple of ordinary thugs. But their equipment looked a little too good for ordinary thugs. I didn't know just what to be suspicious of, but I got suspicious anyway. That's you all right, Trigger acknowledged. What were they? They had an Eveli record which told us more than the brains did. They were high-priced boys. Their brains told us they'd allowed themselves to be mind-blocked on this particular job. High-priced boys won't do that unless they can set their standard price very much higher. It didn't look at all any more as if they'd come to your door by accident. No, she admitted. The feds got in on it then. There'd been that business in Mantelish's lab. There were similarities in the pattern. You knew Mantelish. You'd been on Harvest Moon with him. They thought there could be a connection. But what connection, she protested. I know I don't know anything that could do anybody any good. He shrugged. I can't figure it either, Trigger girl. But the upshot of it was that I was put in charge of this phase of the general investigation. If there is a connection, it'll come out eventually. In any case, we want to know who's been trying to have you picked up and why. She studied his face with troubled eyes. That's quite definite, is it, she asked. There couldn't possibly still be a mistake? No, it's definite. So that's what the grabber business in the colonial school yesterday was about. He nodded. It was their very first try since the Aveli matter. Why do you think they waited so long? Because they suspected you were being guarded. It's difficult to keep an adequate number of men around without arousing doubts in interested observers. Trigger glanced at the plasmoid. That sounds, she remarked, as if you'd let other interested observers feel you'd left them a good opening to get at repulsive. He didn't quite smile. I might have done that. Don't tell the counsel. Trigger perched her lips. I won't. So the grabbers who were after me figured I was booby-trapped. But then they came in anyway. That doesn't seem very bright. Or did you do something again to make them think the road was clear? No, he said. They were trying to clear the road for themselves. We thought they would, finally. The deal was set up as a one-two. As a what? One-two. You slug into what could be a trap like that with one gang. If it was a trap they were sacrifices. You hope the opposition will now relax its precautions. Sometimes it does. And a day or so later you're back for the real raid. That works occasionally. Anyway, it was the plan in this case. How do you know? They'd started closing in for the grab in Seisi when Quillen's group located you. So Quillen grabbed you first. She flushed. I wasn't as smart as I thought, was I? The commissioner grunted. Smart enough to give us a king-sized headache. But they didn't have any trouble finding you. We discovered tonight that some kind of tracer material had been worked into all your clothes, even the flimsies. Somebody may have been planted in the school laundry, but that's not important now. He looked at her for a moment. What made you decide to take off so suddenly? He asked. Trigger shrugged. I was getting pretty angry with you, she admitted. More or less with everybody. Then I applied for a transfer, and the application bounced, from Iveli. I figured I'd had enough and that I just quietly clear out. So I did. Or I thought I did. Can't blame you, said Holadi. Trigger said, I still think it would have been smarter to keep me informed right from the start of what was going on. He shook his head. I wouldn't be telling you a thing even now, he said, if it hadn't been definitely established that you're already involved in the matter. This could develop into a pretty messy operation. I wouldn't have wanted you in on it if it could have been avoided. And if you weren't going to be in on it, I couldn't go spilling Federation secrets to you. I'm in on it, definitely, eh? He nodded, for the duration. But you're still not telling me everything? There are a few things I can't tell you, he said. I'm following orders in that. Trigger smiled faintly. That's a switch. I didn't know you knew how. I followed plenty of orders in my time, the Commissioner said, when I thought they made sense, and I think these do. Trigger was silent a moment. You said a while ago that most of the heat was to go off me tonight. Can you talk about that? Yes, that's all right, he considered. I'll have to tell you something else again first. Why we're going to Manon? She settled back in her chair. Go ahead. Somebody got the idea that one of the things guests fail might have done is to arrange things so he wouldn't have to come back to the hub for a while. If he could set up shop on some outworld far enough away and take her around with that plasmoid unit for a year or so until he knew all about it, he might do better for himself than by simply selling it to somebody. But that would be pretty risky, wouldn't it? said Trigger. With just the equipment he could pack on a league transport? Not very much risk, said the Commissioner, if he had an agreement to have an independent fleet meet him. Oh, she nodded. And by what is, at all events, an interesting coincidence, the Commissioner went on. We've had word that an outfit called Vishni's fleet hasn't been heard from for some months. Their i-fleet area is a long way out beyond Manon, but fail could have made it there at league ship speeds in about twenty days, less if Vishni sent a few pilots to meet him and guide him out of subspace. If he's bought Vishni's, he's had his pick of a few hundred uncharted habitable planets and a few thousand very expert outworlders to see nothing happens between planetside. And Vishni's boys are exactly the kind of crumbs you could buy for a deal like that. Now, what's been done is to hire a few of the other i-fleets around there and set them, and as many space scout squadrons as could be kicked loose from duty elsewhere, to surveying the Vishni territory. Our outfit is in charge of that operation. And Manon, of course, is a lot better point from which to conduct it than the hub. If something is discovered that looks interesting enough to investigate in detail, will only be a week's run away. So we've been ready to move for the past two weeks now, which was when the first report started coming in from the Vishni area, negative report so far by the way. I've kept stalling from day to day, because there were also indications that your grabber friends might be getting set to swing at you finally. It seemed tidier to get that matter cleared up first. Now they've swung, and will go. He rubbed his chin. The nice thing about it all, he remarked, is that we're going there with the two items the opposition has revealed at once. We're letting them know those items will be available in the Manon system hence forward. They might get discouraged and just drop the whole project. If they do, that's fine. We'll go ahead with cleaning up the Vishni phase of the operation. But, he continued, the indications are they can't drop their project any more than we can drop looking for that key unit. So we'll expect them to show up in Manon. When they do, they'll be working in unfamiliar territory, and in a system where they have only something like fifty thousand people to hide out in, instead of a planetary civilization. I think they'll find things getting very hot for them very fast in Manon. Very good, said Trigger. That I like. But what makes you think the opposition is just one group? There might be a bunch of them by now, maybe even fighting among themselves. I'd bet on at least two groups myself, he said, and if they're fighting they've got our blessing. They're still all opposition as far as we're concerned. She nodded. How are you letting them know about the move? The mountains around here are lousy with observers. Very cute tricks some of them use. One boy has been sitting in a hollow tree for weeks. We let them see what we want to. This evening they saw you coming in. Later tonight they'll see you climbing into the ship with the rest of the party and taking off. They've already picked up messages to tell them just where the ship is going. He paused. But you've got a job to finish up here first, Trigger. That'll take about four days. So it won't really be you they see climbing into the ship. What? She straightened up. We've got a facsimile for you, he explained. Girl agent. She goes along to draw the heat to Manon. Trigger felt herself tightening up slowly all over. What's this job you're talking about? She asked evenly. Can't tell you in too much detail. But around four days from now somebody is coming in to MacCaddon to interview you. Interview me? What about? He hesitated a moment. There's a theory, he said, that you might have information you don't know you have. And that the people who sent grabbers after you want that information. If it's true, the interview will bring it out. Her mouth went dry suddenly. She turned her head to Quillen. Major, she said, I think I'd like that cigarette now. He came over and lit one for her. Trigger thanked him and puffed. And she'd almost spilled everything she was thinking. The paid-up reservation, every last thing. I'd like to get it straight, she said. What you're talking about sounds like it's a mind-search job, Holadi. It's in that class, he said, but it won't be an ordinary mind-search. The people who are coming here are top experts at that kind of work. She nodded. I don't know much about it. Do they think somebody's got to me with a hypnospray or something? That I've been conditioned, something like that? I don't know, Trigger, he said. It may be something in that line, but whatever it is they'll be able to handle it. Trigger moistened her lips. I was thinking you know, she said, supposing I mind blocked. He shook his head. I can tell you that anyway, he said, we already know you're not. Trigger was silent a moment. Then she said, after that interviews over, I'm to ship out to Manon, is that it? That's right. But it would depend on the outcome of that interview too, I wouldn't have witnessed it, Trigger pointed out. I mean, you can't really be sure of what those people might decide, can you? Yes, I can, he said. This thing's been all scheduled out, Trigger. And the next step of the schedule for you is Manon, nothing else. She didn't believe him in the least. He couldn't know. She nodded. Guess I might as well play along. She looked at him. I don't think I really had much choice, did I? Afraid not, he admitted. It's one of those things that just have to be done. But you won't find it all bad. Your companion, by the way, for the next three days will be Mehul. Mehul, Trigger exclaimed. Right there, said Mehul's voice. Trigger swung around in her chair. Mehul stood in a door which had appeared in the full wall of the room. She gave Trigger a smile. Trigger looked back at the commissioner. I don't get it, she said. Oh, Mehul's in scout intelligence, he said. Wouldn't be here if she weren't. Been an agent for eighteen years, Mehul said, coming forward. Hi, Trigger. Surprised? Yes, Trigger admitted. Very. They brought me into this job, Mehul said, because they figured you and I would get along together just fine. End of Chapter 8. Chapter 9. Of Legacy, by James H. Schmitz. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Legacy. Chapter 9. It was really infernally bad luck. Mehul was going to be the least easy of wardens to get away from, particularly in time to catch a liner to-morrow night. Mehul knew her much too well. Like to come along and meet your facsimile now? Mehul inquired. She grinned. Most people find the first time quite an experience. Trigger stood up resignedly. All right, she said. They were being polite about it, but it was clear that it was still a cop and prisoner situation. And old friend Mehul, she remembered something then. I believe Major Quillen has my gun. He looked at her thoughtfully, not smiling. No, he said, gave it to Mehul. That's right, said Mehul. Let's go, kid. They went out through the door that had appeared in the wall. It closed again behind them. The facsimile stood up from behind a table at which she had been sitting as Trigger and Mehul came into the room. She gave Trigger a brief, impersonal glance, then looked at Mehul. Mehul performed no introductions. Dress robe and scarf, she said to the facsimile. The shoes are close enough. She turned to Trigger. She'll be wearing your street clothes when she leaves, she said. Could we have the dress now? Trigger pulled the dress over her head, tossed it to Mehul and stood in her underwear, looking at her double slip out of her street clothes. They did seem to be a very close match in size and proportions. Watching the shifting play of slim muscles in the long legs and smooth back, Trigger decided the similarity was largely a natural one. The silver blonde hair was the same, of course. The gray eyes seemed almost identical. And the rest of the face was a little too identical. They must have used a life-mass there. It was a bit uncanny. Like seeing one's mirror image start moving about independently. If the girl had talked, it might have reduced the effect. But she remained silent. She put on the dress Trigger had been wearing and smoothed it down. Mehul surveyed the result. She nodded. Perfect! She took Trigger's robe and scarf from the back of a chair where someone had draped them and handed them over. You won't wear the scarf, she said. Just shove it into a pocket of the coat. The girl slung the cloak over her shoulder and stood holding the scarf. Mehul looked her over once more. You'll do, she said. She smiled briefly. All right. The facsimile glanced at Trigger again, turned and moved attractively out of the room. Trigger frowned. Something wrong? Mehul asked. She had gone over to a wall basin and was washing out a tumbler. Why did she walk like that? A little swing in the rear? She studied it. Mehul half filled the tumbler with water, fished a transparent splinter of something out of a pocket and cracked the splinter over the edge of the glass. Among your friends it's referred to as the R.G. Lilt. She's got you down pat, kid. Trigger didn't comment. Am I supposed to put on her clothes? No, we've got another costume for you. Mehul came over holding out the glass. This is for you. Trigger looked at the glass suspiciously. What's in it? The blue eyes regarded her mildly. You could call it a sedative. Don't need any, thanks. Better take it anyway. Mehul patted her hip with her other hand. Little hypo-gun here. That's the alternative. What? That's right. Same type of charge as in your fancy dentin. Stuff in the glass is easier to take and won't leave you groggy. What's the idea? I've known you quite a while, Sidney Hool, and I was watching you the last twenty minutes in that room through a screen. You'll take off again if you get the least chance. I don't blame you a bit. You're being pushed around. But now it's my job to see you don't take off. And until we get to where you're going, I want to be sure you'll stay quiet. She still held out the glass. She was in a long, tanned, capable hand. She stood three inches taller than Trigger, weighed 35 pounds more. Not an ounce of that additional 35 pounds was fat. If she needed assistance, the hunting lodge was full of potential helpers. She didn't. I never claimed that I'd like this arrangement, Trigger said carefully. I did say I'd go along with it. I will. Isn't that enough? Sure, Michoul said properly. Give word of parole. There was a long pause. No, Trigger said. I thought not. Drink or gun? Drink, Trigger said coldly. She took the glass. How long will it put me out? Eight to nine hours. Michoul stood by watchfully while Trigger emptied the tumbler. After a moment the tumbler fell to the floor. She reached out and caught Trigger as she started down. All right, she said, across her shoulder to the open doorway behind her. Let's move. Trigger awoke and instantly went taut with tension. She lay quiet a few seconds, not even opening her eyes. There was cool sunlight on her eyelids, but she was indoors. There was a subdued murmur of sound somewhere. After a moment she knew it came from a news-viewer turned low, in some adjoining room. But there didn't seem to be anybody immediately around her. Wherely she opened her eyes. She was on a couch in an airy, spacious room furnished in the palest of greens and ivory. One entire side of the room was either a window or a solito screen. In it was a distant mountain range with many snowy peaks and almost cloudless blue sky. Sun at mid-morning or mid-afternoon. Sun and all had the look of McHaddon. They probably still were on the planet. That was where the interview was to take place. But she could also have been sent on a three-day space cruise, which would be a rather good way to make sure a prisoner stayed exactly where he wanted her. This could be a space-liner suite with a packaged view of any one of some hundreds of worlds and with packaged sunlight thrown in. There was one door to the room. It stood open and the news-viewer talk came from there. Trigger sat up quietly and looked down at the clothes she wore. All white. A short-sleeved half-blouse of some soft, rather heavy, very comfortable, unfamiliar stuff. Bear midriff. White kid trousers, which flared at the thighs and were drawn into a close fit just above the knees and down the calves, vanishing into kid boots with thick, flexible soles. Sporting outfit. That meant McHaddon. She pulled a handful of hair forward and looked at it. They'd recolored it, this time to a warm, mahogany brown. She swung her legs off the couch and stood up quietly. A dozen soft steps across the springy, thick-napped turf of ivory carpet took her to the window. The news-viewer clicked and went silent. Not bad, Trigger said. She saw a long range of woodlands and open heath, rising gradually into the flanks of the mountains. On the far right was the still, silver glitter of two lakes. Where are we? Baila Upland's Game Preserve. That's the Gamebird area before you. Mehul appeared in the door frame, in an outfit almost a duplicate of Trigger's, in pearl-gray tones. Feel all right? Feeling fine, Trigger said. Baila Upland's, the southern tip of the continent. She could make it back to Sacy in two hours or less. She turned and grinned at Mehul. I also feel hungry. How long was I out? Mehul glanced at her wristwatch. Eight hours, ten minutes. You woke up on schedule. I had breakfast set up thirty minutes ago. I've already eaten mine, took one sniff and plunged in. It's good. Mehul's hair, Trigger saw, had been cropped short and a streak of gray added over the right side, and they changed the color of her eyes to hazel. She wondered what had been done to her along that line. Want to come in? Mehul said. We can talk while you eat. Trigger nodded. After I freshened up. The bathroom mirror showed they'd left her eyes alone. But there was a very puzzling impression that she was staring at an image considerably plumper, shorter, younger than it should be. A teenager, around seventeen or eighteen. Her eyes narrowed. If they'd done flesh sculpting on her, it would cause complications. She stripped hurriedly and checked. They hadn't tampered with her body. So it had to be the clothes. Though it was difficult to see how even the most cunning cut could provide such a very convincing illusion of being more rounded out, heavier around the thighs, larger breasts, just missing being dumpy, in fact. She dressed again, looked again, and came out of the bathroom, still puzzled. Choice of three game birds for breakfast, Mehul announced. Never heard of any of them. All good. Plus regular stuff. She patted her flat midriff. Ate too much, she admitted. Now dig in, and I'll brief you. Trigger dug in. I had a look at myself in the mirror, she remarked. What's this, now you see it, now you don't business, a fifteen or so pounds of baby fat? Mehul laughed. You don't really have it. I know that, too. How do they do it? Sub-color job in the clothes. They're not really white. Anyone looking at you gets his vision distorted a little without realizing it. Takes a wider view of certain areas, for example. You can play it around a lot of ways. I never heard of that one, Trigger said. You'd think it would be sensational in fashions. It would be. Right now it's top secret for as long as intelligence can keep it that way. Trigger chewed a savory morsel of something. Then why did you tell me? You're one of the gang, however reluctant. And you're good at keeping the mouth shut. Your name, by the way, is now Comteen Lod, just turned eighteen. I'm your dear mama. You call me Drura. We're from Slith Talgon on Aveli, here for a few days shooting. Trigger nodded. Do we do any shooting? Mehul pointed a finger at a side-table. The dentin lay there, looking like a toy beside a standard slender-barrelled sporting-pistol. Bet your life, Comteen, she said. I've always been too stingy to try out a first-class preserve on my own money, and this one is first-class. She paused. Comteen and Drura Lod really exist. We're a very fair copy of what they look like, and they'll be kept out of sight till we're done here. Now. She leaned back comfortably, tilting the chair and clasping her hands around one knee. Aside from the sport, we're here because you're a convalescent. You're recovering from a rather severe attack of dicart fever. Heard of it? Trigger reflected. Something you pick up in some sections of the Aveli tropics, isn't it? Mehul nodded. That's what you did, child. Skip your shots on the last trip we took, and six months later you're still paying for it. You were in one of those typical dicart fever comas when we brought you in last night. Very clever! Trigger commented acidly. Very! Mehul pursed her lips. The dicart bug causes temporary derangements, you know, spells during which convalescents talk wildly, imagine things! Trigger popped into the fragment of meat between her teeth and chewed thoughtfully, looking over at Mehul. Very good duck, or whatever, she said. Like imagining they've been more or less kidnapped, you mean? Things like that, Mehul agreed. Trigger shook her head. I wouldn't, anyway. You types are bound to have all the legal angles covered. Sure, said Mehul, just thought I'd mention it. Have you used that dentin much on game? Not too often. Trigger had been wondering whether they'd left the stunner compartment loaded. But it's a very fair gun for it. I know. The other one's a yule. Good game-gun, too. You'll use that. Trigger swallowed. She met the calm eyes watching her. I've never handled a yule. Why the switch? They're easy to handle. The reason for the switch is that you can't just stun someone with a yule. It's better if we both stay armed, though it isn't really necessary. So much money comes to play around here, they can afford to keep the uplands very thoroughly policed, and they do. But an ace in the hole never hurts. She considered. Changed your mind about the parole business yet? I hadn't really thought about it, Trigger said. I'd let you carry your own gun, then. Trigger looked reflective, then shook her head. I'd rather not. Suit yourself, Mehul said agreeably. In that case, though, there should be something else understood. What's that? We'll have up to three, four days to spend here together before what's it shows up. What's it? For future reference, Mehul said, what's it will be that which, or he, or she who wishes to have that interview with you and has arranged for it. That's in case you want to talk about it. I might as well tell you that I'll do very little talking about what's it. I thought, Trigger suggested, I was one of the gang. I've got special instructions on the matter, Mehul said. Anyway, what's it shows up. You have your interview. After that, we do whatever what's it says we're to do, as you know. Trigger nodded. Meanwhile, said Mehul, we're here. Very pleasant place to spend three, four days in my opinion, and I think in yours. Very pleasant, Trigger agreed. I'd been suspecting it was you who suggested it would be a good place to wait in. No, Mehul said, though I might have, if anyone had asked me, but what's it's handling all the arrangements, it seems. Now we could have fun here, which, I suspect, would be the purpose as far as you're concerned. Fun, Trigger said. To put you into a good frame of mind for that interview might be the idea, Mehul said. I don't know. Three days here should relax almost anyone. Get in a little shooting, loaf around the pools, go for rides, things like that. The only trouble is, I'm afraid you're nourishing dark notions which are likely to take all the enjoyment out of it, not to mention the possibility of really relaxing. Like what, Trigger asked. Oh, Mehul said, there are all sorts of possibilities, of course. She nodded her head at the guns. Like yanking the dentin out of my holster and feeding me a dose of the stunner, or picking up that coffee-pot there and tapping me on the skull with it. It's about the right weight. Trigger said thoughtfully. I don't think either of those would work. They might, Mehul said. They just might. You're fast. You've been taught to improvise. And there's something eating you. You're edgy as a cat. So, Trigger said. So, Mehul said. There are a number of alternatives. I'll lay them out for you. You take your pick. For one, I could just keep you doped. Three days in dope won't hurt you, and you'll certainly be no problem then. Another way. I'll let you stay awake, but we stay in our rooms. I can lock you in at night, and that window is escape-proof. I checked. It would be sort of boring, but we can have tapes and stuff brought up. I'd have the guns put away, and I'd watch you like a hawk every minute of the day. She looked at Trigger inquiringly. Like either of those? Not much, Trigger said. They're safe, Mehul said. Quite safe. Maybe I should. Well, the heat's off, and it's just a matter now of holding you for what's it. There are a couple of other choices. One of them has an angle you won't like much either. On the other hand, it would give you a sporting chance to take off if you're really wild about it. And it's entirely in line with my instructions. I warned them you're tricky. Trigger stopped eating. Let's hear that one. Mehul tilted the chair back a little farther and studied her a moment. Pretty much like I said before. Everything friendly and casual. Gone a bit, swim a bit, go for a ride or soar, lie around in the sun. But because of those notions of yours, there'd be one thing added—an un-incentive. An un-incentive? Trigger repeated. Exactly, said Mehul. That isn't at all in line with my instructions. But you're a pretty dignified little character, and I think it should work. Just what does this un-incentive consist of? Trigger inquired warily. If you make a break and get away, Mehul said, that's one thing. Something's eating you, and I'm not sure I'd like the way this matter's being handled. In fact, I don't like it. So I'll try to stop you from leaving, but if it turns out I couldn't, I won't hold any grudges. Even if I wake up with lumps. She paused. On the other hand, she said, there we are, together for three, four days. I don't want to spend them fighting off attempts to clobber me every thirty seconds. So any time you try and miss, Comteen, Mama is going to pin you down fast and hot up your seat with whatever is handiest. Trigger stared at her. She cleared her throat. While I'm carrying a gun, she said shakily, don't be ridiculous, Mehul. You're not going to gun me for keeps to get out of a licking, Mehul said, and that's all the Yule can do. How else will you stop me? Trigger's fingernails drummed the table top briefly. She wet her lips. I don't know, she admitted. Of course, said Mehul, all this unpleasantness can be avoided very easily. There's always the fourth method. What's that? Just give parole. No parole, Trigger said thinly. All right, which of the other ways will it be? Trigger didn't hesitate. The sporting chance, she said, the others aren't choices. Fair enough, said Mehul. She stood up and went over to the wall. She selected a holster belt for the rest of the day. She went over to the wall. She selected a holster belt from the pair hanging there and fastened it around her. I rather thought you'd pick it, she said. She gave Trigger a brief grin. Just make sure it's a good opening. I will, Trigger said. Mehul moved to the side table, took up the dentin, looked at it, and slid it into her holster. She turned to gaze out the window. Nice country, she said. If you're done with breakfast, how about going out right now for a first try at the birds? Trigger hefted the coffee pot gently. It was about the right weight at that. But the range was a little more than she liked considering the un-incentive. Besides, it might crack the monster skull. She set the pot gently down again. Great idea, she said. And I'm all finished eating. End of Chapter 9. Chapter 10. Of Legacy. By James H. Schmitz. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Legacy. Chapter 10. Half an hour later there still hadn't been any decent openings. Trigger was maintaining a somewhat brooding silence at the moment. Mehul, beside her, in the driver's seat of the tiny sports-hopper, chatted pleasantly about this and that. But she didn't appear to expect any answers. There weren't many half hours left to be wasted. Trigger stared thoughtfully out through the telescopic ground-view plate before her, while the hopper soared at a thousand feet toward the two-mile square of preserve area which had been assigned to them to hunt over that morning. Dimly reflected in the view-plate, she could see the head of the gun-pup who went with that particular area lifted above the seat-back behind her. He was gazing straight ahead between the two humans, absorbed in canine reflections. There was plenty of bird-life down there. Some were original Terran forms, maintained unchanged in the U-Leaks genetic banks. Probably many more were inspired modifications produced on grand commerce game ranches. At any other time, Trigger would have found herself enjoying the outing almost as much as Mehul. Not now. Other things kept running through her head. Money, for example. They hadn't returned her own cash to her and apparently didn't intend to, at least not until after the interview. But Mehul was carrying at least part of their spending money in a hip-pocket wallet. The rest of it might be in a concealed room safe or deposited with the resort hotel's cashier. She glanced over at Mehul again. Good friend Mehul never before had looked quite so large, life, alert, and generally fit for a rough and tumble. That un-incentive idea was fetishly ingenious. It was difficult to plan things through clearly and calmly, while one's self-esteem kept quailing at vivid visualizations of the results of making a mistake. The hopper settled down near the center of their territory, guided the last half-mile by Mehul, who had fancied the looks of some shrub-cluttered ravines ahead. Trigger opened the door on her side. The gun-pup leaped lightly across the seat and came out behind her. He turned to look over his huntresses and gave them a wag, a polite but perfunctory one. Then he stood waiting for orders. Mehul considered him. Guess he's in charge here, she said. She waved a hand at the pup. Go find him, old boy! We'll string along. He loped off swiftly, a lean, brown, hound-like creature, a grand commerce development of some aristocratic terren breed, and probably a considerable improvement on the best of his progenitors. He curved around a thick clump of shrubs like a low-flying hawk. Two plump feather-shapes, Emerald Green and Crimson, whirled up out of the near side of the shrubbery, saw the humans before them, and rose steeply, picking up speed. A great many separate, clearly detailed thing seemed to be going on within the next four or five seconds. Mehul swore, scooping the dentin out of its holster. Trigger already had the yule out, but the gun was unfamiliar. She hesitated. Fascinated, she glanced from the speeding, soaring featherballs to Mehul, watched the tall woman straighten for an overhead shot, left hand grasping right wrist to steady the lightweight dentin. And in that particular instant, Trigger knew exactly what was going to happen next. The dentin flicked forth one bolt. Mehul stretched a little more for the next shot. Trigger wheeled matter-of-factly, dropping the yule, left elbow close to her side. Her left fist rammed solidly into Mehul's bare brown midriff, just under the arch of the ribcage. That punch, in those precise circumstances, would have paralyzed the average person. It didn't quite paralyze Mehul. She dropped forward, doubled up, and struggled for breath, but already twisting around toward Trigger. Trigger stepped across her, picked up the dentin, shifted its setting, thumbed it to twelve-hour stunner max, and let Mehul have it between the shoulder blades. Mehul jerked forward and went limp. Trigger stood there, shaking violently, looking down at Mehul and fighting the irrational conviction that she had just committed cold-blooded murder. The gun-pup trotted up with the one downed bird. He placed it reverently by Mehul's outflung hand. Then he sat back on his haunches, and regarded Trigger with something of the detached compassion of a good undertaker. Apparently this wasn't his first experience with a hunting casualty. The story Trigger babbled into the hopper's communicator a minute later was that Drura Lodd had succumbed to an attack of Dicart fever coma, and that an ambulance and a fast flit to a hospital in the nearest city were indicated. The preserved hotel was startled but reassuring. That the mother should be afflicted with the same ailment as the daughter was news to them but plausible enough. Within eight minutes a police ambulance was flying Mehul and Trigger at emergency speeds towards a small upland city behind the mountains. Trigger never found out the city's name. Three minutes after she'd followed Mehul's floating stretcher into the hospital she quietly left the building again by a street entrance. Mehul's wallet had contained two hundred and thirteen crowns. It was enough, barely. She got a complete change of clothes in the first automatic service store she came to and left the store in them, carrying the sporting outfit in a bag. The air cab she hired to take her to Sacy had to be paid for in advance, which left her eighty-two crowns. As they went flying over a lake a while later the bag with the sporting clothes and accessories was dumped out of the cab's rear window. It was just possible that the space-couch had been able to put that tracer material idea to immediate use. In Sacy a short two hours after she'd felled Mehul, Trigger called the interstellar spaceport and learned that the dawn city was open to passengers and their guests. Bernadale Ganneth picked up her tickets and went on board, mingling un-austentaciously with the group in a mood of festive leave-taking. She went fading even more un-austentaciously down a hallway when the group stopped cheerfully to pose for a solidopic girl from one of the news agencies. She'd located her cabin after a lengthy search, set the door to Don't Disturb, glanced around the cabin and decided to inspect it in more detail later. She pulled off her slippers, climbed on the outsized divan which passed here for a bunk and stretched out. She lay there a while, blinking at the ceiling and worrying a little about Mehul. Even theoretically a stunner max-blast couldn't cause Mehul the slightest permanent damage. It might, however, leave her in a fairly peevish mood after the grogginess wore off, since the impact wasn't supposed to be pleasant. But Mehul had stated she would hold no grudges over a successful escape attempt, and even if they caught up with her again before she got to Manon, this attempt certainly had to be rated a technical success. They might catch up, of course, trigger thought. The Federation must have an enormous variety of means at its disposal when it set out seriously to locate one of its missing citizens. But the dawn city would be some hours on its way before Mehul even began to think coherently again. She'd spread the alarm then, but it should be a while before they started to suspect Trigger had left the planet. McKinnon was her home-world after all. If she just wanted to hold up, that was where she would have had the best chance to do it successfully. Eveli, the first hub-stop, was only nine hours flight away. Garth lay less than five hours beyond Eveli. After that there was only the long subspace run to Manon. They'd have to work very fast to keep her from leaving the hub this time. Trigger glanced over the Denton, lying by the bedside comm-web, on a little table at the head of the Devan thing. She was aware of a feeling of great contentment, of growing relaxation. She closed her eyes. By and large, she thought, all things considered, she hadn't come off badly among the cloak and dagger experts. She was on her way to Manon. Some hours later, she slept through the dawn city's thunderous take-off. When she woke up next, she was in semi-darkness. But she knew where she was, and a familiar feeling of low weight told her the ship was in flight. She sat up. At her motion, the area about her brightened, and the cabin grew visible again. It was rather large, oval-shaped. There were three closed doors in the walls, and the walls themselves were light amber, of oddly insubstantial appearance. A rosy tinge was flowing up from the floor level through them, and as the color surged higher and deepened, there came an accompanying stir of far-off, barely audible music. The don't-disturb sign still reflected dimly from the interior panels of the passage door. Trigger found its control switch on the bedstand and shut it off. At once, a soft chiming sounded from the miniature comm-web on the bedstand. Its screen filled with a pulsing glow, and there was a voice. This is a recording, Miss Drulganath, the voice told her. If room service may intrude with an audio message, please be so good as to touch the blue circle at the base of your comm-web. Trigger touched the blue circle. Go ahead, she invited. Thank you, Miss Drulganath, said the voice. For the duration of your voyage, your personal comm-web will be open to callers, for either audio or visual intrusion, only by your verbal permission, or by your touch on the blue circle. It stopped. Another voice picked up. This is your personal room stewardess, Miss Drulganath. Forgive the intrusion, but the ship will dive in one hour. Do you wish to have a rest cubicle prepared? No thanks, Trigger said. I'll stay awake. Thank you, Miss Drulganath. As a formality and in accordance with Federation regulations, allow me to remind you that Federation law does not permit the bearing of personal weapons by passengers during a dive. Her glance went to the Denton. All right, she said. I won't. It's because of dive hallucinations, I suppose. Thank you very much, Miss Drulganath. Yes, it is because of the mishaprehensions which may be caused by dive hallucinations. May I be of service to you at this time? Perhaps you would like me to demonstrate the various interesting uses of your personal comm-web cabinet. Trigger's eye shifted to the far end of the cabin. A rather large, very elegant piece of furniture stood there. Its function hadn't been immediately obvious, but she had heard of comm-web service cabinets. She thanked the stewardess but declined the offer. The lady switched off, apparently a trifle distressed at not having discovered anything Berna Drulganath's personal stewardess might do for Berna right now. Trigger went curiously over to the cabinet. It opened at her touch, and she sat down before it, glancing over its panels. A remarkable number of uses were indicated, which might make it confusing to the average hub citizen. But she had been trained in communications, and the service cabinet was as simple as any gadget in its class could get. She punched in the ship's location diagram. The Dawn City was slightly more than an hour out of Sacey Port, but it hadn't yet cleared the subspace nets, which created interlocking and impenetrable fields of energy about the McHaddon system. A ship couldn't dive in such an area without risking immediate destruction. But the nets were painstakingly maintained insurance against a day when subspace warfare might again explode through the hub. Trigger glanced over the diagram to root ahead. Eveli Garth. A tiny green spark in the far remoteness of space beyond them represented man and son. Eleven days or so. With the money to afford a rest cubicle, the time could be cut to a subjective three or four hours. But it would have been foolish anyway to sleep through the one trip on a hub luxury liner she was ever likely to take in her life. She set the cabinet to her review of the Dawn City's passenger facilities, and was informed that everything would remain at the disposal of waking passengers throughout all dives. She glanced over bars, fashion shows, dining and gaming rooms. The cascade plunge, from the looks of it, would have been something for Mahool. Our large staff of travellers' companions, just what she needed. The Solido Auditorium. And the Inferno. Our sensations a limited haul. A dulcet voice informed her regretfully that Federation law did not permit the transmission of full SU effects to individual cabins. It did, however, permit a few sample glimpses. Trigger took her glimpses, sniffed austerely, switched back to the fashions. There had been a neat little black suit on display there. While she didn't intend to start roaming about the ship until it dived, and the majority of her fellow travellers were immersed in their rest cubicles, she probably still would be somewhat conspicuous in her automatic sales dress on a boat like the Dawn City. That little black suit hadn't looked at all expensive. Twelve hundred forty-two Federation credits, she repeated evenly a minute later. I see. Came to roughly eight hundred fifty McCaddon crowns was what she saw. May we model it in your suite, madam? The store manager inquired. No thanks, Trigger told her, just looking them over a bit. She switched off, frowned absently at a panel labeled Your Selection of Personalized Illusion Arrangements, shook her head, snapped the cabinet shut, and stood up. It looked like she had a choice between being conspicuous and staying in her cabin and playing around with things like the creation of illusion scenes. And she was really a little old for that kind of entertainment. She opened the door to the narrow passageway outside the cabin and glanced tentatively along it. It was very quiet here. One of the reasons this was the cheapest cabin they'd had available, presumably, was that it lay outside the main passenger areas. To the right the corridor opened on a larger hall which ran past a few hundred yards of storerooms before it came to a stairway. At the head of the stairway one came out eventually on one of the passenger levels. To the left the corridor ended at the door of what seemed to be the only other cabin in this section. Trigger looked back toward the other cabin. Oh, she said. Well, hello. The other cabin door stood open. A rather odd-looking little person sat in a low armchair immediately inside it. She had lifted a thin, green-sleeved arm in a greeting or beckoning gesture as Trigger turned. She repeated the gesture now. Come here, girl! She called amably in a quavery old woman voice. Well, it couldn't do any harm. Trigger put on her polite smile and walked down the hall toward the open door. A quite tiny old woman it was, with a head either shaved or naturally bald, dressed in a kind of dark green pajamas. Long, glassy earrings of the same color pulled down the lobes of her small ears. The oddness of the face was due mainly to the fact that she wore a great deal of makeup and that the makeup was a matching green. She twisted her head to the left as Trigger came up and chirped something. Another woman appeared behind the door, almost a duplicate of the first, except that this one had gone all out for pink. Tiny things. They both beamed up at her. Trigger beamed back. She stopped just outside the door. Greetings! said the pink one. Greetings! Trigger replied, wondering what world they came from. The style wasn't exactly like anything she'd seen before. We, the green lady informed her, with a not unkindly touch of condescension, are with the ascab of Elfkund. Oh! said Trigger in the tone of one who is impressed. Elfkund had rung any bells. And with whom are you, girl? the pink one inquired. Well, Trigger said, I'm not actually with anybody. The smiles faded abruptly. They glanced at each other, then looked back at Trigger. Rather severely it seemed. Do you mean, the green one asked carefully, that you are not a retainer? Trigger nodded. I'm from MacCaddon, she explained. The name is Bernard Rulganath. MacCaddon, the pink one repeated. You are a commoner, then, young Berna? Of course he is. The green one looked offended. MacCaddon. She got out of her chair with remarkable sprainess and moved to the door. It's quite drafty, she said, looking pointedly past Trigger. The door closed on Trigger's face. A second later she heard the lock snap shut. A moment after that the don't disturb sign appeared. Well, she thought, wandering back to her cabin. It didn't look as if she were going to be bothered with excessively friendly neighbors on this trip. She had a bath and then discovered a mechanical stylist in a recess beside the bathroom mirror. She swung the gadget out into the room, set it for a dye removal operation, and sat down beneath it. A redhead again a minute or so later. She switched the machine to orado styles and left it to make up its electronic mind as to what would be the most suitable creation under the circumstances. The stylist hovered above her for over a minute, muttering and clucking as it conducted an apparently disapproving survey of the job. Then it went swiftly and silently to work. When it shut itself off, Trigger checked the results in the mirror. She wasn't too pleased. An upswept arrangement which brought out the bone structure of her face rather well but didn't do much else for her. Possibly the stylist had included the automatic sales dress in its computations. Well, it would have to do for her first tour of the ship. End of Chapter 10 Chapter 11 of Legacy by James H. Schmitz This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Legacy Chapter 11 The bedside comm-web warned her politely that it was now ten minutes to dive-point. Waking passengers who experienced subspace distress in any form could obtain immediate assistance by a call on any comm-web. If they preferred, they could have their cabins kept under the continuous visual supervision of their personal steward or stewardess. The Dawn City's passenger area still looked rather well populated when Trigger arrived, but some of the passengers were showing signs of regretting their decision to stay awake. Presently she became aware of a faint queasiness herself. It wasn't bad, mainly a sensation as if the ship were trying continuously to turn over on its axis around her and not quite making it, and she knew from previous experience that after the first hour or so she would be completely free of that. She walked into a low, dimly-lit, very swank-looking gambling-room, still well patronized by the hardier section of her fellow-travelers, searching for a place where she could sit down unobtrusively for a while and let the subspace reaction work itself out. A couch beside a closed door near the unlit end of the room seemed about right for the purpose. Trigger sat down and glanced around. There were a variety of games in progress, all unfamiliar to her. The players were mostly men, but a remarkable number of beautiful women, beautifully gowned, stood around the tables as observers. Travellers' companions, Trigger realized suddenly, the Dawn City's employees naturally would be inured to subspace effects. From the scraps of talk she could pick up, the stakes seemed uniformly high. A sort of vertigo suddenly built up in her again. This one was stronger than most. For a moment she couldn't be sure whether she was going to be sick or not. She stood up, stepped over to the door a few feet away, pulled it open and went through, drawing it shut behind her. There had been a shielding black light screen in the doorway. On the other side was bottled sunshine. She found herself on a long balcony which overlooked a formal garden in closure thirty feet below. There was no one else in sight. She leaned back against the wall beside the door, closed her eyes, and breathed slowly and deeply for some seconds. The sickish sensation began to fade. When she opened her eyes again, she saw the little yellow man. He stood motionless at the far end of the garden, next to some flowering shrubbery out of which he might have just stepped. He seemed to be peering along the sandpath which curved in toward the balcony and vanished beneath it, below the point where Trigger stood. It was sheer fright which immobilized her at first. Because there was not anything really human about that small, squat, man-shaped figure. A dwarfish yellow demon he seemed, evil and menacing. The garden she realized suddenly might be an illusion scene, or else. The thing moved in that instant. It became a blur of motion along the curving path and disappeared under the balcony. After a second or so she heard the sound of a door closing some distance away. The garden lay still again. Trigger stayed where she was, her knees shaking a little. The fright appeared to have driven every trace of nausea out of her and gradually her heartbeat began to return to normal. She took three cautious steps forward to the balcony railing where the tip of a swaying green tree branch was in reach. She put her hand out hesitantly, felt the smooth vegetable texture of a leaf, grasped it, pulled it away. She moved back to the door and examined the leaf. It was a quite real leaf. Thin sap formed a bead of amber moisture at the break in the stalk as she looked at it. No illusion structure could be elaborated to that extent. So she just had her first dive hallucination, and it had been a dilly. Trigger dropped the leaf, pushed shakily at the balcony door and stepped back through the black light screen into the reassuring murmur of human voices in the gambling room. An hour later the ship's loudspeaker system went on. It announced that the dawn city would surface in fifteen minutes because of gravidic disturbances and proceed the rest of the way to Eveli in normal space, arriving approximately five hours behind schedule. Rest cubicle passengers would not be disturbed unless this was specifically requested by a qualified associate. Trigger turned her attention back to her viewer, feeling rather relieved. She hadn't experienced any further hallucinations or other indications of subspace distress, but the one she'd had would do her for a while. The little viewer library she was in was otherwise deserted, and she'd been going about her studies there just the least bit nervously. Subject of the studies were the Hub's principal games of chance. She'd identified a few of those she'd been watching, and one of them did look as if someone who went at it with an intelligent understanding of the odds. A part of Trigger kept ta-tudding and shaking its head at such reckless notions, but another part pointed out that they couldn't be much worse off financially than they were right now. So what if they arrived in Manon dead-broke instead of practically? Besides, there was the problem of remaining inconspicuous till they got there. On the dawn city no one whose wardrobe was limited to one automatic sales-dress was going to remain inconspicuous very long. Trigger in Toto went on calculating the odds for various possible play combinations. She developed her first betting system, presently discovered several holes in it, and began to develop another. The loudspeaker system went on again. She was too absorbed to pay much attention to it at first. Then she suddenly straightened up and listened, frowning. The man speaking now was the liner's first security officer. He was being very polite and regretful. Under section such-and-such, number so-and-so, of the Federation's legal code, a cabin by cabin search of the passenger area of the dawn city had become necessary. The persons of passengers would not be searched. Passengers might, if they wished, be present while their cabins were inspected, but this was not required. Baggage need not be opened, providing its spy proofing was not activated. Any information revealed by the search, which did not pertain to a violation of the code section and number in question, would not be recorded and could not be introduced as future legal evidence under any circumstances. Complaints regarding the search could be addressed to any planetary moderator's office. This wasn't good at all. Trigger stood up. The absence of luggage in her cabin might narrows more than passing interest in the searchers. Her gun was a different matter. Discrete inquiries regarding a female passenger who carried a doubled-barreled sporting dentin might be one of the check methods used by the Scout Intelligence Boys if they started thinking of liners which recently had left McAdden in connection with Trigger's disappearance. There weren't likely to be more than two or three guns of that type on board, and it was almost certain that she would be the only woman who owned one. She'd better go get the dentin immediately, and then vanish again into the public sections of the ship. Some security officer with a good memory and a habit of noticing faces might identify her otherwise from the news-viewer pictures taken on Manon. And he just might start wondering then why she was traveling as Berna Drelganath and start to check. She paused long enough to get the legal code article referred to into the viewer. Somebody on board appeared to have gotten himself murdered. She reached the cabin too late. A couple of young security men already were going over it. Trigger said hello pleasantly. It was too bad, but it wasn't their fault. They just had a job to do. They smiled back at her, apologized for the intrusion, and went on with their business. She sat down and watched them. The dentin was there in plain sight. Dropping it into her purse now would be more likely to fix it in their memory than leaving it where it was. The gadgets they were using were in concealing casings, and she couldn't guess what they were looking for by the way they used them. It didn't seem that either of them was trying to haul up an identifying memory about her. They did look a little surprised when the second cabin closet was opened and found to be as empty as the first, but no comments were made about that. Two minutes after Trigger had come in, they were finished and bowed themselves out of the cabin again. They turned in toward the cabin occupied by the ancient retainers of the Azkab of Elfkund. Trigger left her door open. This she wanted to hear if she could. She heard. The Elfkund door also stayed open, while the racket beyond it grew shriller by the moment. Finally a comm-web chimed. A feminine voice spoke sternly. The quivering outcries subsided. It looked as if security had been obliged to call on someone higher up in the Elfkund entourage to come to its aid. Trigger closed her door grinning. On the screen of her secluded library she presently watched a great port shuttle swing in from Iveli to meet the hovering dawn city. It would bring another five hundred or so passengers on board and take off the few who had merely been making the short run from MacCaddon to Iveli in style. Solitipic operators were quite likely to be on the shuttle, so she had decided to keep away from the entry area. The transfer operation was carried out very expeditiously, probably to make up for some of the time lost on the surface. When the shuttle shoved off, the loudspeaker announced that normal space flight would be maintained till after the stopover at Garth. Trigger wandered thoughtfully back to her cabin. She closed the door behind her. Then she saw the man sitting by the comm-web cabinet. Her breath sucked in. She crouched a little, ready to wheel and bolt. Take it easy, Trigger, Major Quillen said. He was in civilian clothes of rather doodish cut. Trigger swallowed. There was to obviously no place to bolt, too. How did you find me? He shrugged. Longer story. You're not under arrest. I'm not? No, said Quillen. When we get to Madden, the commissioner will have a suggestion to make to you. Suggestion? Trigger said warily. I believe you're to take back your old pre-call job in Madden, but as cover for your participation in our little project, if you agree to it. What if I don't? He shrugged again. It seems you'll be riding your own ticket from here on out. Trigger stared at him, wondering. Why? Quillen grinned. New instructions have been handed down, he said. If you're still curious, ask what's it? Oh, Trigger said. Then why are you here? I, said Quillen, am to make damn sure you get to Madden. I brought a few people with me. Mahool, too, Trigger asked, a shade differently. No, she's on a caddon. Is she? How's she doing? Doing all right, Quillen said. She sends her regards, and says a little less heft on the next solar plexus you torpedo should be good enough. Trigger flushed. She isn't sore, is she? Not the way you mean, he considered. Not many people have jumped Mahool successfully. In her cock-eyed way, she seemed pretty proud of her student. Trigger felt the flush deepen. I caught her off guard, she said. Obviously, said Quillen. In any ordinary argument she could pull your legs off and tie you up with them. Still, that wasn't bad. Have you talked to anybody since you came on board? Just the room stewardess, and a couple of old ladies in the next cabin. Yeah, he said. Couple of old ladies. What did you talk about? Trigger recounted the conversation. He reflected, nodded, and stood up. I put a couple of suitcases in that closet over there, he said. Your personal stuff is in them, detracered. Another thing. Somebody checked over your finances and came to the conclusion you're broke. Not exactly broke, said Trigger. Quillen reached into a pocket, pulled out an envelope, and laid it on the cabinet. Here's a little extra spending money, then, he said. The balance of your pre-call paid a date. I had picked up on Aveli this morning. 728 FC. Thanks, Trigger said. I can use some of that. They stood looking at each other. Any questions? He asked. Sure, Trigger said, but you wouldn't answer them. Try me, doll, said Quillen. But let's shift operations to the fanciest cocktail lounge on this thing before you start. I feel like relaxing a little. For just one girl, you've given us a fairly rough time these last forty-eight hours. I'm sorry, Trigger said. I'll bet, said Quillen. Trigger glanced at the closet. If he brought everything along, there was a dress in one of those suitcases that would have been a little too daring for McCaddon. It should, therefore, be just about right for a cocktail lounge on the dawn city, as she hadn't had a chance to wear it yet. Give me ten minutes to change. Fine, Quillen started toward the door. By the way, I'm your neighbor now. The cabin at the end of the hall, she asked, startled. That's right. He smiled at her. I'll be back in ten minutes. Well, that was going to be cozy. Trigger found the dress, shook it out, and slipped into it, enormously puzzled, but also enormously relieved. That what's it? She wondered how he had induced the Elf-Con ladies to leave. Perhaps he'd managed to have a better cabin offered to them. It must be convenient to have that kind of a pull. End of CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER XII. OF LEGACY. By James H. Schmitz. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. LEGACY. CHAPTER XII. Well, we didn't just leave it up to them, Quillen said. Ship's engineering spotted a radiation leak in their cabin. Slight, but definite. They got bundled out in a squawking hurry. He added, They did get a better cabin, though. Might have been less trouble to get me to move, Trigger remarked. Might have been. I didn't know what mood you'd be in. Trigger decided to let that ride. This cocktail lounge was a very curious place. By the looks of it there were thirty or forty people in their immediate vicinity. But if one looked again in a couple of minutes there might be an entirely different thirty or forty people around. Sitting in easy chairs or at tables, standing about in small groups, talking, drinking, laughing, they drifted past slowly. Overhead, below, sometimes tilted at odd angles, waiting from sight and presently returning. In actual fact, she and Quillen were in a little room by themselves, and with more than ordinary privacy via an audio block and a reconstruct scrambler which Quillen had switched on at their entry. I'll leave us out of the viewer circuit, he remarked, until you finished your questions. Viewer circuit, she repeated. Quillen waved a hand around. That, he said. There are more commercial and industrial spies, political agents, top-class confidence men, and what not on board this ship than you probably believe. A good percentage of them are pretty fair lip-readers, and the things you want to talk about are connected with the Federation's hottest current secret. So while it's a downright crime not to put you on immediate display in a place like this, we won't take the chance. Here let that ride, too. A group had materialized at an oblong table eight feet away while Quillen was speaking. Everybody at the table seemed fairly high, and two of the couples were embarrassingly amorous, but she couldn't quite picture any of them as somebody's spies or agents. She listened to the muted chatter. Some hub dialect she didn't know. None of those people can see or hear us then, she asked. Not until we want them to. Viewer gives you as much privacy as you like. Most of the crowd here just doesn't see much point to privacy. Like those two. Trigger followed his glance. At a tilted angle above them, a matched pair of black-haired, black-gowned young sirens sat at a small table sipping their drinks, looking languidly around. Twins, Trigger said. No, said Quillen. That's Blenton Company. Oh! Blentz a lady of leisure and somewhat excessively narcissistic tendencies, he explained. He gave the matched pair another brief study. Perhaps one can't really blame her. One of them's her facsimile. Blentz, whichever it is, is never without her face. Oh! Trigger said. She'd been studying the gowns. That, she said, a trifle enviously, is why I'm not at all eager to go on display here. Eh? said Quillen. Trigger turned to regard herself in the wall mirror on the right, which, she had noticed, remained carefully unobscured by drifting viewers and view-ees. A thoughtful touch on the lounge management's part. Until we walked in here, she explained, I thought this was a pretty sharp little outfit I'm wearing. Hmm! Quillen said judiciously. He made a detailed appraisal of the mirror image of the slim, green, backless, half-thigh-length sheath which had looked so breathtaking and seductive in a sassy display window. Trigger's eyes narrowed a little. The Major had appraised the dress in detail before. It's about as sharp a little outfit you could get for around a hundred and fifty credits, he remarked. Most of the items the girls are sporting here are personality conceptions. That starts at around ten to twenty times as high. I wasn't talking about displaying the dress. Now, what were those questions? Trigger took a small sip of her drink, considering. She hadn't made up her mind about Major Quillen, but until she could evaluate him more definitely it might be best to go by appearances. The appearances so far indicated small sips in his company. How did you people find me so quickly? she asked. Next time you went to sneak off a civilized planet, Quillen advised her, pick something like a small freighter, or hire a small boat to get you out of the system and flag down a freighter for you. Many of tramp captains will make a space stop to pick up a paying passenger. Liners we can check. Sorry, Trigger said meekly. I'm still new at this business. And thank God for that, said Quillen. If you had the time and the money, it's also a good idea, of course, to zig a few times before you zag towards where you're really heading. Actually, I suppose, the credit for picking you up so fast should go to those collating computers. Oh. Yes. Major Quillen looked broodingly at his drink for a moment. There they sit. He remarked suddenly, with their stupid plastic faces hanging out, rows of them. You feed them something you don't understand. They don't understand it either. Nobody can tell me they can. But they kick it around and giggle a bit and out come some ungodly suggestion. So they helped you find me? She said cautiously. It was clear that the Major had strong feelings about computers. Oh, sure, he said. It usually turns out it was a good idea to do what those CCs say. Anything unusual that shows up in the area you're working on gets chunked into the things as a matter of course. We were on the Liners. Dawn City reports back a couple of murders. Dawn City to the head of the list cry the computers. Nobody asks why. They just plow into the ticket purchase records. And right there are the little RG thumbprints. He looked at Trigger. My own bet, he said somewhat accusingly, was that you were one of those that had just taken off. We didn't know about that ticket reservation. What I don't see, Trigger said, changing the subject, is why two murders should seem so very unusual. There must be quite a few of them after all. True, said Quillen, but not murders that look like catacin killings. Oh, she said startled. Is that what these were? That's what ship security thinks. Trigger frowned. But what could be the connection? Quillen reached across the table and patted her hand. You've got it, he said with approval. Exactly. No connection. Some day I'm going to walk down those rows and give each of them a blast where it will do the most good. It will be worth being broken for. Trigger said, I thought that catacin planet was being guarded. It is. It would be very hard to sneak one out nowadays, but somebody's breeding them in the hub. Just a few. Keeps the price up. Trigger grimaced uncomfortably. She'd seen recordings of those swift, clever, constitutionally murderous creatures in action. You say it looked like catacin killings. They haven't found it? No, but they think they got rid of it. Empty the air from most of the ship after they surfaced and combed over the rest of it with life detectors. They've got a detector system set up now that would spot a catacin if it moved twenty feet in any direction. Life detectors go haywire out of normal space, don't they? She said. That's why they surfaced then. Quillen nodded. You're a well-informed doll. They're pretty certain it's been sucked into space or disposed of by its owner, but they'll go on looking till we dive beyond Garth. Who got killed? A rest warden and a security officer? In the rest cubicle area. It might have been sent after somebody there. Apparently it ran into the two men and killed them on the spot. The officer got off one shot and that set off the automatic alarms. So Pussycat couldn't finish the job that time. It's all sort of gruesome, isn't it? Trigger said. Catacins are, Quillen agreed. That's a fact. Trigger took another sip. She set down her glass. There's something else, she said reluctantly. Yes? When you said you'd come on board to see I got to Manon, I was thinking none of the people who'd been after me on McKeddon could know I was on the Dawn City. They might, though, quite easily. Oh, said Quillen. Yes. You see, I made two calls to the ticket office. One from a street comm-web and one from the bank. If they already had spotted me by that tracer material they could have had an audio pickup on me, I suppose. I think we'd better suppose it, said Quillen. You had a tail when you came out of the bank, anyway. His glance went past her. We'll get back to that later. Right now. Take a look at that entrance, will you? Trigger turned in the direction he'd indicated. They do look like they're somebody important, she said. Do you know them? Some of them. That gentleman, who looks like he almost has to be the Dawn City's first captain, really is the Dawn City's first captain. The ladies he's escorting into the lounge is Lyad Ermitine. The Ermitine. You've heard of the Ermitines. The Ermitine Wars? Trinest? Trigger said doubtfully. There the ones. Lyad is the current head of the clan. The history of hub systems other than one's own became so involved so rapidly that its detailed study was engaged in only by specialists. Trigger wasn't one. Trinest is one of the restricted planets now, isn't it? She ventured. It is. Restriction is supposed to be a handicap, but Trinest is also one of the wealthiest individual worlds in the hub. Trigger watched the woman with some interest as the party moved along in a dim corridor followed by the viewer's circuit's invisible pick-up. Lyad Ermitine didn't look more than a few years older than she was herself. Rather small, slender, with delicately pretty features. She wore something ankle-length and long-sleeved in lustrous gray with an odd, smoky quality to it. Isn't she the Empress of Trinest or something of the sort? Trigger asked. Quillen shook his head. They've had no emperors there, technically, since they had to sign their treaty with the Federation. She just owns the planet, that's all. What would she be doing going to Manon? I'd like to know, Quillen said. The Ermitine's a lady of many interests. Now, see the plump elderly man just behind her? The ugly one with the big head who sort of keeps blinking? That one? He's Belchick Pluley. And, Pluley? Trigger interrupted. The Pluley lines? Yes, why? Oh, nothing really. I heard... a friend of mine. Pluley's got a yacht out in the Manon system. And a daughter. Quillen nodded. Nelok. How do you know? I've met her. Quite a girl, that Nelok. Every child of Pluley's old age, and he dotes on her. Anyway, he's been on the verge of being blacklisted by grand commerce off and on through the past three decades. But nobody's ever been able to pin anything more culpable on him than that he keeps skimming extremely close to the limits of a large number of laws. He's very rich, I imagine, Trigger said thoughtfully. Very. He'd be much richer even if it weren't for his hobby. What's that? Harams. The Pluley harams rate among the most intriguing and best educated in the hub. Trigger looked at Pluley again. Ugg, she said faintly. Quillen laughed. The Pluley salaries are correspondingly high. Viewers dropping the group now, so there's just one more I'd like you to notice. The tall girl with black hair, in orange. Trigger nodded. Yes, I see her. She's beautiful. So she is. She's also space scout intelligence. Gaia. Comes from Farnhart where they use the single name system. A noted horsewoman, very wealthy, socially established. Which is why we like to use her in situations like this. Trigger was silent a moment. Then she said, What kind of situation is it? I mean, what's she doing with Lied Ermitein and the others? She's probably attached herself to the group as soon as she discovered Lied had come on board. Which, Quillen said, is exactly what I would have told Gaia to do if I'd spotted Lied first. Trigger was silent a little longer this time. Were you thinking this Lied could be... one of our suspects? Well, said Quillen judiciously. Let's say Lied has all the basic qualifications. Since she's come on board, we'd better consider her. When something's going on that looks more than usually tricky, Lied is always worth considering. And there's one point that looks even more interesting to me now that it did it first. What's that? Those two little old ladies I eased out of their rightful cabin. Trigger looked at him. What about them? This about them. The ask-hab of Elfgund is, you might say, one of the branch managers of the ermitein interests in the hub. He is also a hard-working heel in his own right. But he's not the right size to be one of the people we're thinking about. Lied is. He might have been doing a job for her. Job, she asked. She laughed. Not with those odd little grannies. We know the odd little grannies. They're the ask-hab's poisoners and pretty slick at it. They were sizing you up while you were having that little chat, doll. Probably not for a coffin this time. You were just getting the equivalent of a pretty thorough medical check-up. Presumably though, for some sinister ultimate purpose. How do you know? Trigger asked, very uncomfortably. One of those little suitcases in their cabin was a diagnostic recorder. It would have been standing fairly close to the door while you were there. If they didn't take your recordings out before I got there, they're still inside. They're being watched and they know it. It seemed like a good idea to keep the ask-hab feeling fairly nervous until we found out whether those sweet hearts of his have been parked next door to you on purpose. Apparently they were, Trigger admitted. Nice bunch of people. Oh, they're not all bad. Lyad has her points. And old Belchick, for example, isn't really a heel. He just had no ethics, or morals, and revolting habits. Anyway, all this brings up the matter of what we should do with you now. Trigger set her glass down on the table. Refill, Quillen inquired. He reached for the iced crystal pitcher between them. No, she said. I just want to make a statement. Stayed away. He refilled his own glass. For some reason, said Trigger, I've been acting lately, the last two days, in a remarkably stupid manner. Quillen choked. He set his glass down hastily, reached over and patted her hand. Dahl, he said, touched. It's come to you, at last. She scowled at him. I don't usually act that way. That, said Quillen, was what had me so baffled. According to the commissioner and others, you're as bright in the head as a diamond usually. And frankly, I know it, Trigger said dangerously. Let's rub it in. I apologize, said Quillen. He patted her other hand. At any rate, Trigger said, drawing her hands back, now that I've realized it, I'm going to make up for it. From here on out, I'll cooperate. To the hilt? She nodded. To the hilt. Whatever that is. You can't imagine, said Quillen, how much that relieves me. He refilled her glass, giving her a relieved look. I had definite instructions, of course, not to do anything like grabbing you by the back of the neck, flinging you into a res cubicle and sitting on it, guns drawn until we birthed in Pre-Call Port. But I was tempted, I can tell you. He paused and thought. You know, he began again, that really would be the best. No, Trigger said indignantly. When I said cooperate, I meant actively. Bihul said I'm considered one of the gang in this project. From now on, I'll behave like one. And I'll also expect to be treated like one. Hmm, said Quillen. Well, there is something you can do all right. What's that? Go on display here, now. What for, she asked. As bait, you sweet nanny. If the boss-grabber is on this ship, we should draw a new nibble from him. He appraised the green dress in the mirror again. His expression grew absent. It might be best, Trigger suspected, a trifle uneasily, to keep Major Quillen's thoughts turned away from things like nibbling. All right, she said briskly. Let's do that. But you'll have to brief me. End of Chapter 12