 Chapter 9 of Legacy. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Peake. Legacy by James Schmitz. Chapter 9. It was really infernally bad luck. Miehol was going to be the least easy of wardens to get away from. Particularly in time to catch a liner tomorrow night, Miehol knew her much too well. Like to come along and meet your facsimile now, Miehol 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 Miehol. She remembered something then. I believe Major Quillen has my gun. He looked at her thoughtfully, not smiling. No, he said. Gave it to Miehol. That's right, said Miehol. Let's go, kid. They went out through the door that it 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 Miehol came into the room. She gave Trigger a brief impersonal glance, then looked at Miehol. Miehol 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 Miehol, and stood in her underwear, looking at her doubles 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 mask 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. Miehol 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 instead holding the scarf. Miehol 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, Miehol asked. She had gone over to a wall basin and was washing out a tumbler. Why did she walk like that? The little swing in the rear? She studied it. Miehol 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. Miehol 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. Miehol patted her hip with her other hand. Little hip-no-gun here. That's the alternative. What? That's right. Same type of charges 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, said Miehol, and I was watching you the last 20 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 where you're going I want to be sure you'll stay quiet. She still held out the glass 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 I liked this arrangement, Trigger said carefully. I did say I'd go along with it. I will. Isn't that enough? Sure, Miehol said promptly. 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. Miehol 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 solitel 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 Macaddon. They probably still were on the planet. That was where the interview was to take place. But she also could have been sent on a three-day space cruise, which would be a rather good way to make sure a prisoner stayed exactly where you 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. Bare 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 Macaddon. 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? Byla Uplands Gain Preserve. That's the game bird area before you. Meehole appeared in the door frame in an outfit almost a duplicate of triggers in pearl gray tones. Feel all right? Feeling fine, Trigger said. Byla Uplands, the southern tip of the continent. She could make it back to safe in two hours or less. She turned and grinned at Meehole. I also feel hungry. How long was I out? Meehole glanced at a wristwatch. Eight hours, ten minutes. You woke up on schedule. I had breakfast sent up thirty minutes ago. I've already eaten mine. Took one sniff and plunged in. It's good. Meehole's hair, Trigger saw, had been cropped short and a streak of gray added over the right side, and they'd changed the color of her eyes to hazel. She wondered what had been done to her along that line. Want to come in, Meehole said. We can talk while you eat. Trigger nodded. After I freshened up. The bathroom mirror showed they 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 could cause complications. She stripped hurriedly and checked. They hadn't tampered with their 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, Meehole 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 and now you don't business a fifteen or so pounds of baby fat? Meehole 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 around with it in lots 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 am your dear mama. You call me Drura. We're from Slythe Talgon on Everly, here for a few days shooting. Trigger nodded. Do we do any shooting? Meehole pointed a finger at a side table. The Denton lay there, looking like a toy beside a standard slender-barreled sporting pistol. Bet your life, Comteen, she said. I've always been too stingy to try out a first-class reserve 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 die-cart fever. Heard of it? Trigger reflected. Something you pick up in some sections of the Everly tropics, isn't it? Meehole nodded. That's what you did, child. Skipped 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 die-cart fever comas when we brought you in last night. Very clever, Trigger commented acidly. Very. Meehole pursed her lips. The die-cart bug causes temporary derangements, you know, spells during which convalescents talk wildly. Imagine things. Trigger popped another fragment of meat between her teeth and chewed thoughtfully, looking over at Meehole. Very good duck, or whatever she said, like imagining they'd been more or less kidnapped, you mean. Things like that, Meehole agreed. Trigger shook her head. I wouldn't, anyway. You types are bound to have all the legal angles covered. Sure, said Meehole, just thought I'd mention it. Have you used the 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. If you 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 that 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, Meehole 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 a future reference, Meehole said, what's it will be that witch, 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, Meehole said. Anyway, what's it shows up? You have your interview. After that, we do whatever what's it says were to do, as you know. Trigger nodded. Meanwhile, said Meehole, we're here. Very pleasant place to spend three, four days in my opinion, and I think in yours. Very pleasant, Trigger agreed. I've been suspecting it was you who suggested it would be a good place to wait in. No, Meehole 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, Meehole 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, Meehole 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 those would work. They might, Meehole 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, Meehole 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, Meehole 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. Meehole tilted the chair back a little further and studied her a moment. Pretty much like I said before. Everything friendly and casual. Gun 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 Meehole. 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, Meehole said, that's one thing. Something's eating you, and I'm not sure I like the way this matter's been 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, Meehole. You're not going to gun me for keeps to get out of a licking, Meehole said, And that's all the Yule can do. How else will you stop me? Trigger's fingernails drummed the tabletop briefly. She wet her lips. I don't know, she admitted. Of course, said Meehole, 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 chant, she said, the others aren't choices. Fair enough, said Meehole. She stood up and 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. Meehole 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 monstrous skull. She set the pot gently down again. Great idea, she said. And I'm all finished eating. End of Chapter 9 CHAPTER X Half an hour later there still hadn't been any decent openings. Trigger was maintaining a somewhat brooding silence at the moment. Meehole, 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-vue plate before her, while the hopper sorted a thousand feet toward the two-mile square of the 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 seated 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-League's 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 Meehole. 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 Meehole 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 Meehole again. Good friend Meehole never before had looked quite so large, live, alert and generally fit for a rough and tumble. That un-incentive idea was fiendishly 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 Meehole who had fancied the looks of some shrub-recluttered ravines ahead, Trigger opened the door on her side. The gun-pup leapt lightly across the seat and came out behind her. He turned to look over his huntresses and gave them a wag, a plight but perfunctory one. Then he stood waiting for orders. Meehole 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 tern 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, whirred 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 things seemed to be going on within the next four or five seconds. Meehole 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 speedy, soaring featherballs to Meehole, watched the tall woman straighten for an overhead shot, left hand grasping right wrist to study the lightweight dentin, and in that particular instant, Trigger knew exactly what was going to happen next. The dentin flicked forth one bolt. Meehole stretched a little more for the next shot. Trigger wheeled matter-of-factly, dropping the yule, left elbow close into her side. Her left fist rammed solidly into Meehole'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 Meehole. She dropped forward, doubling up and struggling 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 Meehole have it between the shoulder blades. Meehole jerked forward and went limp. Trigger stood there, shaking violently, looking down at Meehole and fighting the irrational conviction that she had just committed cold-blooded murder. The gun-pup trotted up with a one-downed bird. He placed it reverently by Meehole's outflung hand, and 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 the hunting casualty. The story Trigger babbled into the hopper's communicator a minute later was that Dura-Lod 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 preserve 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 Meehole and Trigger at emergency speeds toward a small upland city behind the mountains. Trigger never found out the city's name. Three minutes after she'd followed Meehole's floating stretcher into the hospital, she quietly left the building again by a street entrance. Meehole'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 Sace 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 scouts had been able to put that trace immaterial idea to immediate use. In Sace, a short two hours after she'd felled Meehole, Trigger called the interstellar spaceport and learned that the dawn city was open to passengers and their guests. Bernadryl Ganoth picked up her tickets and went on board, mingling unauthenticiously with a group in a mood of festive leave-taking. She went, fading even more unauthenticiously down a hallway when the group stopped cheerfully to pose for a solidopic girl for one of the news agencies. She 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 van which passed here for a bunk and stretched out. She lay there a while, blinking at the ceiling and worrying a little about Meehole. Even theoretically a stunner max blast couldn't cause Meehole the slightest permanent damage, it might, however, leave her in a fairly peevish mood after the groggyness wore off, since the impact wasn't supposed to be pleasant. But Meehole 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 Don City would be some hours on its way before Meehole 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. McAdon was her homeworld after all. If she just wanted to hold up, that was where she would have had the best chance to do it successfully. Evilly, the first hub stop, was only nine hours flight away. Garth lay less than five hours beyond Evilly. 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 at 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 Don 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 above 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 stirrer of far-off, barely audible music. The don't disturb signs 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 recording Miss Jelganath, 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 Jelganath, said the voice. For the duration of the 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 Jelganath. 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 Jelganath, 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 Jelganath. Yes, it's because of the misapprehensions, 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 eyes 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, not having discovered anything Berna Jelganath'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 Sase Port, but it hadn't yet cleared the subspace nets, which created interlocking and impenetrable fields of energy about the Macadone 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 diagramed route ahead. Evilly Garth, a tiny green spark in the far remoteness of space beyond him, represented man and sun. Eleven days or so. With the money to afford a rescue call, 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 a review of the dawn city's passenger facilities, and was informed that everything would remain at the disposal of waking passengers throughout all the dives. She glanced over the bars, fashion shows, dining and gaming rooms, the cascade plunge, from the wicks of it would have been something for me whole, our large staff of travellers' companions, just what she needed, the solito auditorium, and the inferno, our sensations unlimited hall. A dulcet voice informed her regretfully that federation law did not permit the transmission of full SU effects to individual cabinets. 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 rescuables, 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 all that expensive. Twelve hundred forty-two federation credits, she repeated evenly a minute later. I see. Came to roughly eight hundred fifty Macaddon 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. But 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 a 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 greeting, or beckoning gesture, as Trigger turned. She repeated the gesture now. Come here, girl! she called aimably in a quaver-y 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 tripped 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 ascob of Elfkund. Oh, said Trigger in the tone of one who was impressed. Elfkund hadn't 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. Did you mean, the green one asked carefully, that you are not a retainer? Trigger nodded, I'm from Macadone, she explained. The name is Bernadruganoth. Macadone, the pink one repeated. You are a commoner, then, young Berna. Of course she is, the green one looked offended. Macadone! She got out of her chair with remarkable spryness 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 her RADO 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. The Don City's passenger areas 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 to continuously 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 heartier 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 Don City's employees naturally would be inert to subspace effects. From the scraps of talk she could pick up, the stakes seemed uniformly high. A swirl 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 blacklight screen in the doorway. On the other side was bottled sunshine. She found herself on a long balcony which overlooked a formal garden enclosure 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 sand path 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. Then 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 blacklight 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 gravitic disturbances and proceed the rest of the way heavily in normal space, arriving approximately five hours behind schedule. Rescubical 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 through 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 tut-tutting 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 and man and 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 and Toto went on calculating the odds for various possible play combinations. She developed her first bedding 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 mightn't arouse more than passing interest in the searchers. Her gun was a different matter. Discrete inquiries regarding a female passenger who carried a double-barreled sporting dentin might be one of the check methods used by the scout intelligence boys if they started thinking of liners which had recently left a macadon 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 Bernadryl Ganath 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 got himself murdered. She reached the cabin too late. A couple of young security men were already 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 then toward the cabin occupied by the ancient retainers of the ash-cab 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 quavering outcries subsided. It looked as if security had been obliged to call on someone higher up in the Elfkund in entourage to come to its aid. Trigger went back to the cabin to its aid. Trigger closed her door, grinning. On the screen of her secluded library she presently watched a great porch shuttle swing in from Everly to meet the hovering Don 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 Macedon to Everly in style. Solitipic operators were quite likely to be on the shuttle so she had decided to just 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 until 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, Triggers, Major Quillen said. He was in civilian clothes, a rather dutish cut. Trigger swallowed. There was, too obviously, no place to bolt to. How did you find me? He shrugged. Longish story. You're not under arrest. I'm not. No, Sid Quillen. When we get to Mann and the commissioner we'll have a suggestion to make to you. Suggestion, Triggers said warily. I believe you're to take back your old prequel job on Mann and, 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 writing your own ticket from here on out. Triggers 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, Sid Quillen, am to make damn sure you get to Mann and I brought a few people with me. Me whole, too, Trigger asked, a shade diffidently. No, she's on Macadone. 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 me whole successfully. In her cock-eyed way she seemed pretty proud of her student. Trigger felt the flesh deepen. I got her off guard, she said. Obviously, Sid Quillen, in any ordinary argument you 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, knotted, 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 prequel paid to date. I had it picked up on Evely this morning. Seven hundred twenty-eight F.C. 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'd brought everything along, there was a dress in one of those suitcases that would have been a little too daring for Macadone. It should, therefore, be just about right for a cocktail lounge on the Don City, and 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? Freshening up her make-up, she wondered how he had induced the Elfkund 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 pole. End of CHAPTER XI. 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, fading 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 reconstructed scrambler which Quillen had switched on at their entry. I'll leave us out of the viewer circuit, he remarked, until you've 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'd 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. Trigger let that ride too. A group had materialized at an oblog 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-dialogue she didn't know. None of those people can see or hear us, then, she asked. Not until we want them to. Fewer gives you as much privacy as you like. Most of the crowd here just doesn't see much point to privacy, like those do. Trigger followed his glance. At a tilted angle above them a matched pair of black-haired, black-gowned young siren sat at a small table, sipping their drinks, looking languidly around. Twins, Trigger said. No, Sid Quillen. That's Blenton Company. Oh? Blent's a lady of leisure in 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. Blent, whichever it is, is never without her fac. 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. Hey, Sid Quillen. Trigger turned to regard herself in the wall-mirror on the right, which she had noticed remained carefully unobscured by drifting viewers and viewies. 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 say-stick lay window. Trigger's eyes narrowed a little. The major had appraised the dress in detail before. It's about as sharp a little outfit as you could get for around 150 credits, he remarked. Most of the items the girls are sporting here are personality conceptions. That starts at around 10 to 20 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 want 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 a freighter down for you. Plenty of tramp cabins 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 have 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 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. Don City reports back a couple of murders. Don 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 debt, he said somewhat accusingly, was that you were on 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 pat at 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 them each 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 bringing 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 die 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? Catastens 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 Macadon 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 our street comm-web and one from the bank. If they had already spotted me by that tracing 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 there's somebody important, she said. Do you know them? Some of them. That gentleman who looks like he almost has to be Dawn City's first captain. Really is Dawn City's first captain. The lady he's escorting into the lounge is Lyad Emertine. The Emertine. You've heard of the Emertines. The Emertine Wars, Trannist? Trigger said doubtfully. They're the ones. Lyad is the current head of the clan. The history of the 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. Trannist is one of the restricted planets now, isn't it? She ventured. It is. Restriction is supposed to be a handicapped, but Trannist is also one of the wealthiest individual worlds in the hub. Trigger watched the woman with some interest as the party moved along a dim corridor, followed by the viewer's circuit's invisible pickup. Lyad Emertine 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 a lusterless gray, with an odd, smoky quality to it. Isn't she the empress of Trannist or something of the sort, Trigger asked? Quillen shook his head. They've 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 Emertine'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. Nay, Luke. How did you know? I've met her. Quite a girl, that Nay, Luke. Only 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. Oh, 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 Liat-Emmerteen and the others? She probably attached herself to the group as soon as she discovered Liat had come on board, which, Quillen said, is exactly what I would have told Gaia to do if I'd spotted Liat first. Trigger was silent a little longer this time. Were you thinking this Liat could be one of our suspects? Well, said Quillen judiciously, let's say Liat 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, Liat is always worth considering. And there's one point that looks even more interesting to me now than it did at 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 ass-cab of Elfkund is, you might say, one of the branch managers of the ermatine 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. Liat 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 ass-cab'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 ass-cab fairly nervous until we found out whether those sweethearts of his had been parked next door to you on purpose. Apparently they were, Trigger admitted. Nice bunch of people. Oh, they're not all bad. Liat has her points, and old Belchek, 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 ice-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. Doll, 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. Don't 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 filled 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 rest cubicle and sitting on it, guns drawn, till we'd birthed in the 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. Meehole 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. 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 guinea. If the boss grabber is on the 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 to 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 XII She had felt somewhat self-conscious for the first two or three minutes, but it helped when she caught a glimpse of their own table drifting among the others and realised that the smiling red-headed viewer image over there looked completely at her ease. It helped, too, that Major Quillen turned suddenly into the light but ardent conversation type of companion. In the short preceding briefing he had pointed out that a bit of flirting, etc., was a necessary, or at least nearly necessary, part of the act. Trigger was going along with the flirting. He could be right about that. She intended to stay on the alert for the, etc. They got nibbles very promptly, but not quite the right kind. The concealed table-com-web murmured, a caller requests to be connected with Major Quillen. Is it permitted? Oh, Quillen said poisonously. I suspected we should have stayed off-circuit. Who's the caller? The name given is Kefdebel. Quillen laughed. Give the little wolf Major Quillen's regards and tell him it was a good try. I'll look him up tomorrow. He gave Trigger a gentle wink. Let him pant, he said, at a distance. She smiled uncertainly. If he had a mustache, she thought, he'd be twirling it. There were two more calls in the next few minutes of similar nature. Quillen rebuffed them cheerfully. It was rather flattering in a way. She wondered how so many people in the cocktail lounge happened to know Quillen by name. When the comm-web reported the fourth caller, it sounded odd. The name given is the Lady Lyad Armentine, it said. Quillen beamed. Lyad, bless her heart, a pleasure. Put her through. A screen shaped itself on the wall mirror to the right. Lyad Armentine's face appeared in it. Heslit Quillen, she smiled. So you aren't permanently lost to your friends after all. It was a light liquid voice. It suited her appearance perfectly. Only to the frivolous ones, Quillen said. His thick black brows went up. His face took on a dedicated look. I'm headed for Manin on duty. She nodded. Still with the subspace engineers. And with the rank of major by now, Quillen said. Congratulations, but I'd already observed that your fabulous good fortune hasn't deserted you in the least. Lyad's glance switched to trigger. She smiled again. It was a pleasant easy smile that showed white teeth. Would you shield your comm-web, Quillen? Shield it. Quillen looked surprised. Why, certainly. He reached under the edge of the table. The drifting viewer images vanished. Go ahead. Lyad's eyes turned back to trigger. They were off-color eyes like amber or light wine, fringed with long black lashes. Very steady, very knowing eyes. Trigger felt herself tensing. Forgive me the discurdicy of inquiring directly, the light voice said. But you are a trigger argy, aren't you? Quillen's hand slapped the table. He looked at Trigger and laughed. Better give up, Trigger. I told you you were much more widely known than you believed. Well, Brule, Trigger muttered, mootily to the solidific propped upright against the pillow before her. You'd bug those pretty blue eyes out if you know who's invited me to dinner. Brule smiled back, winningly. She lay in her cabin's bed, a chin on her crossed arms, eyes a dozen inches from the pretty blue ones. She studied Brule's features soberly. Major Heslett Quillen, she announced suddenly in cold, even tones, is a completely impossible character. It was no more than the truth. She didn't mind so much that Quillen wouldn't tell her what he thought of Lied Ermentine standing on the suspect list now. There hadn't really been much opportunity for open conversation so far, but he and that unpleasant Belchick Pluley had engaged in some jovial back slapping and rib-punching when he and Trigger went over to join Lied's party at her request. And Quillen cried out merrily that he and Belchick had long had one great interest in common, ha-ha-ha, than those two great buddies vanished together for a full hour to take in some very special, not publicly programmed, sensations unlimited in the Dawn City's inferno. Lied had smiled after them as they left. Aren't men disgusting, she said tolerantly. That reflected on her, didn't it? She was supposed to be very good friends with somebody like that. Of course, Quillen must have some bit of intelligence business in mind with Pluley, but there should be other ways of going about it. And later, when she'd been just a little stiff with him, Quillen had had the nerve to tell her not to be a prude doll. Trigger shoved the solitopic under the pillow. Then she rolled on her side and blinked at the wall. Naturally Major Quillen's personal habits were none of her business. It was just that in less than an hour he was to pick her up and take her to the ermatine suite for that dinner. She was wondering how she should behave towards him. Reasonably pleasant, but cool, she decided. But again, not too cool, since she'd obligated herself to help him find out what the trannous tycooness was after. Any obvious lack of friendliness between them might make the job more difficult. Trigger sighed. Things were getting complicated again. While Quillen was indulging his baser nature among the questionable attractions of the infernal, she'd shot three hundred of her prequel credits on a formal black gown, on what yesterday she would have considered a rather unbelievable gown. Even at an ermatine dinner she couldn't actually look dowdy in it. And then, accompanied by Gaia, who had turned out to be a very pleasant, but not very communicative, companion, she'd headed for a gambling room to make back the price of the gown. It hadn't worked out. The game she'd particularly study up on turned out to have a five hundred minimum play, which finished that scheme. The system she'd planned to use looked very sound, but she needed more than one chance to try it in. She and Gaia sat down at another table with a different game, where you could get in for fifty credits. In eight minutes, Trigger lost a hundred and twenty and quit. Gaia won seventy-five. It had been an interesting day, but with some unsatisfactory aspects to it. She hauled the solita-pick out from under the pillow again. And you, she told Brule, warningly, seemed to be playing around with some very bad company, my friend. Just luck I'm coming to see you don't get into serious trouble. She'd showered and was studying the black gown's effect before the mirror when the comm-web chimed. Permission for audio intrusion granted, Trigger said casually, without looking around. She was getting used to this sort of thing. Thank you, Mr. Organoth, said the comm-web. A package from the Belden shop has been deposited in your mail transmitter. It signed off. Belden shop, Trigger frowned, laid the gown across a chair and went over to the transmitter receptacle. She opened it. A small, flat, green package marked the styles of Belden slid out. A delicate scent came trailing along with it. A small white envelope clung to the package's top. Inside the envelope was a card. It read, A peace offering. Would you wear it to dinner in a token of forgiveness? Very humbly, queue. Trigger found herself smiling and wiped off the smile. Then she let it come back, no point in staying grim with a character. She pulled the package tap and it opened up. There were three smaller packages inside. She opened the first of these and for a moment gazed doubtfully at four objects like green leaf buds, each the size of her thumb. She laid them down and opened the second package. This one contained a pair of very fancy high heels, green and pale gold. Out of the third flowed something which was, at all events, extraordinarily beautiful material of some kind, velvety green, shimmeringly alive. Its touch was a caress, its perfume was like soft whispers. Lifting one end with great care between thumb and finger Trigger let it unfold itself to the floor. Tilting her head to the side she studied the shimmering featherweight cat's cradle of jewel-green ribbons that hung there. Wear it! What was it? She reflected, found her dressing gown in one of the suitcases, slipped it on, sat down before the commwib with the mysterious ribbon arrangement, and dialed Gaye's number. The intelligent girl was in her cabin and obviously had been napping, but she was wide awake now. Shealed it here, she said quickly, as soon as her image cleared. Go ahead. It's nothing important, Trigger said hastily. Gaye relaxed. It's just—she held up the ribbons. Major Quillen sent me this. Gaye uttered a small squeal. Oh, beautiful, a beldon! That's what it says! Gaye smiled. He must like you. Oh, said Trigger. She hesitated. Gaye's face grew questioning. She asked, Is something the matter? Probably not, said Trigger. She considered. If you laugh, she warned, I'll hate you. She indicated the ribbons again. What is that beldon, really? Gaye blinked. You haven't been around our deck and in circles long enough, she said soberly. Then she did laugh. Don't hate me, Trigger. Anyway, it's very high fashion. It's also— Her glance went quickly over Trigger. In excellent taste, in this case, it's a beldon gown. A gown? Some of the beautiful ribbons were wider than others. None of them looked as wide as they should have been. Not for a gown. Dubiously, Trigger wriggled and fitted herself into the high fashion item. Even before she went over to the mirror in it, she knew it wouldn't do. Not possibly. Styles on many hub worlds were rather bold, of course. But she was sure this effect wasn't what the beldon's designers had intended. She stepped in front of the mirror. Her eyes widened. Brother, she breathed. That beldon did go with a woman like Stripes went with a tiger. After one look, you couldn't quite understand why nature hadn't arranged for it first. But just as obviously there wasn't nearly enough beldon around at the moment. Trigger checked the time and began to feel hurried. Probably she'd wind up wearing the black gown anyway, but at least she wanted to get this matter worked out before she decided. She dialed for a drink, took two swallows, and reflected that she might have put the thing on backwards, or upside down. Five minutes later she sat at the dresser, tapping her fingers on its glassy surface, gazing at the small pile of green ribbons before her and whistling softly. There was a thoroughly bared look on her face. Suddenly she stood up and went back to the comm-web. Ribbons, said the lady who was the beldon-chops manager, that would be 741, a delightful little creation. Delightful, said Trigger. May I see it on the model? Immediately, madam. A few moments later a long-limbed model strolled into the view-screen, displaying an exquisite arrangement of burnt sienna ribbons plus four largest leaf-like designs. Trigger glanced quickly back to the table where she put down the strange green buds. They had quietly opened out, meanwhile. She thanked the manager, switched off the comm-web, got into the beldon again, and attached her leaf designs where the model had carried them. They had here softly molding themselves to her, neatly completing the costume. She stepped into the high heels and looked in the mirror again. She breathed brother again. Macaddon wouldn't have approved. She wasn't sure she approved, either. But one thing was certain. There wasn't the remotest suggestion of doubtiness about a beldon. Objectively, impersonally considered, the effect was terrific. Feeling Tawny and Feline, Trigger slowly lifted one shoulder and lowered it again. She turned and strolled toward the full-length mirror across the cabin, admiring the shifts of the beldon effect in the flow of motion. Terrific. With another drink she could do it. She dialed another drink, and settled down with it beneath the mechanical stylist for a readjustment in the hairdo department. This time the stylist purred as it surveyed and hummed while it worked, and when the hairdo was done and Trigger moved to get up, its flexible little tool-pads pulled her back gently into the seat and tilled it up her chin. For a moment she was startled. Then she saw that the stylist had produced a shining makeup kit and was opening it. This time she was getting the works. Twenty minutes later Quillen's voice informed her via the comm-web that he could be outside her cabin any time she was ready. Trigger told him cheerily to come right over, picked up her purse, and swaggered toward the door, smiling a cool feline smile. Prude, eh, she muttered. She opened the door. Yah! cried Quillen, shaken. End of Chapter 13 They were out on a terrace near the top of an illusion-mountainside in a beautiful evening. Dinner had been old-style and delicious, served by its creators two slim, brown-skinned, red-lipped girls who looked much too young to have acquired such skills. They were natives of Trannist, Liad said proudly, and two of the finest food technicians in the hub. They were, at all events, the two finest food technicians Trigger had run into as yet. The brandy which followed the dinner seemed to represent no letdown to the connoisseurs around Trigger. She went at it cautiously, though she had swallowed a couple of wake-up capsules just before they walked into the ermantine suite. The capsules took effect in the middle of the first course, and what she woke up to was a disconcerting awareness of being the center of much careful attention. The boys were all giving her plus the bell in the eye, intensively. Even Liad's giant-sized butler, or Major Domo, or whatever she'd called him, named Virad, googled coldly out of the background. Trigger gave them the eye back, one after the other in turn, and that stopped it. Liad, beautifully wearing something which would have passed muster at the U League's annual Presidential Dinner-in-Sace, looked amused. It wasn't till the end of the second course that Trigger began to feel at ease again. After that she forgot, more or less, about the bellden. The talk remained light during dinner. When they switched off the illusion background for a look at the goings-on during the garth stop-over, she took the occasion to study her companions in more detail. There were three men at the table, Liad and herself. Quillen sat opposite her, Belchick Pluley's unseemly person in a black silk robe which left his plump arms bare from the elbows down was unquillen's right. The third man fascinated her. It was as if some strange cold creature had walked up out of a polar sea to come on board their ship. It wasn't so much his appearance, though the green tip of a Vethi sponge lying coiled lightly about his neck probably had something to do with the impression. Trigger knew about Vethi sponges and their attics, though she hadn't seen either before. It wasn't so serious an addiction, except perhaps in the fact that it was rarely given up again. The sponges soothed jangled nerves, stabilized unstable emotions. Balmorden didn't look like a man who needed one. He was big, not as tall as Quillen, but probably heavier, with strong features, a boldly jutting nose, bleak, pale eyes. He was about fifty and wore a richly ornamented blue shirt and trousers. The shirt hung loose, perhaps to conceal the flattened contours of his odd companion's body. Lyad had introduced him as a Degavus scientist and in a manner which indicated he was a man of considerable importance. That meant he was almost certainly a member of the Degavus hierarchy, which in itself would have made him very interesting. Trigger had run into some of the oddball missionaries the Degavus kept sending about the hub, and she'd sometimes speculated curiously regarding the leaders of that chronically angry unpredictable nation which, on its twenty-eight restricted worlds, formed more than six percent of the population of the hub. The Degavus seemed to like nobody, and certainly nobody liked them. Balmorden didn't fit her picture of a Degavus leader too badly. His manner and talk were easygoing and agreeable, but his particular brand of Oogle, when she first became aware of it, had been disquieting. Rather like a biologist planning the details of an interesting vivisection. Of course, he was a biologist. But Trigger kept wondering why Lyad had invited him to dinner. She was positive, for one thing, that Belchick Pluley wasn't at all happy about Balmorden's presence. Dinner was over before the Garth takeoff, and they switched themselves back to the mountainside and took other chairs. A red-haired, green-eyed, tanned, sinuous young woman called Flam appeared from time to time to renew brandy glasses and passed iced fruits around. She gave Trigger a coolly speculative looks now and then. Then Virad showed up again with a flat tray of what turned out to be a very special brand of tobacco. Trigger declined. The men made connoisseur-type sounds of high appreciation, and everybody, including Lyad, lit up small pipes of a very special brand of coral and puffed away happily. Quillen looked up at Virad. Hi, big boy, he said pleasantly. How's everything been with you? Virad, in a wide-sleeved scarlet jacket, increased black trousers about his shaved bullet head very slightly. Everything's been fine, Major Quillen, he said. Thank you. He turned and went out of the place. Trigger glanced after him. Virad awed her a little. He was really huge. Moving about among them, he had seemed like a softly padding elephant, and there was an elephant-steady deafness in the way he held out the tiny tobacco trays. The ermantine winked at Quillen. Quillen wrestled Virad to a pin-down once, she said to Trigger. A fifty-seven minute round, wasn't it? Thereabouts, Quillen said, he added. Trigger doesn't know yet that I was a sports-bomb in my youth. Really, Trigger said. He nodded. Come from a long line of sports-bombs, as a matter of fact, but I broke tradition when into business for myself, finally. Nowadays I'm old and soft, eh, Belchy? The two great pals sitting side by side dug elbows at each other and ha-ha-ha'd, Trigger winced. Still in the same line of business on the side, Lyad inquired. Quillen looked steadily at her and grinned. More or less, he said. We might, Lyad said thoughtfully. Come back to that later. As for that match with Virad, she went on to Trigger. It was really a terrific event. Virad was a trannist arena professional before I took him into my personal employ, and he's very, very rarely been beaten in any such contest. She laughed. And before such a large group of people, too, I'm afraid he's never quite forgiven you for that, Quillen. I'll keep out of his way, Quillen said easily. Did you people know, Lyad said, that the trouble on the way between McAdon and Everly was caused by a catacin killing? There was a touch of mischief in the question, Trigger thought. There were assorted, startled responses. The ermantine went briefly over some of the details Quillen had told. Essentially, it was the same story. And do you know, Belchick, what the creature was trying to do? It was trying to get into the rest cubical vaults. Just think, it might have been sent after you. It was rather cruel. Pluelly's head jerked, and he blinked rapidly at Lyad, saying nothing. He was a badly scared little man at that moment. Trigger felt a little sorry for him, but not too sorry. Belchick's ogle had been of the straightforward, loose-lipped, drooling variety. You're safe when you're in one of those things, Belchick, Quillen said reassuringly. Wouldn't you feel a little safer there yourself, Lyad? If you say they're not even sure they've killed the creature. I probably shall have a cubicle set up here, Lyad said, but not as protection against the catacin. It would never get past Pilly for one thing. She looked at Trigger. Oh, I forgot. You haven't met Pilly. Virrod, she called. Virrod appeared at the far end of the terrace. Yes, First Lady? Bring in Pilly, she told him. Virrod bowed. Pilly is in the room, First Lady. He glanced about, went over to a massive easy-chair a few feet away, and swung it aside. Something like a huge ball of golden fur behind it moved and sat up. It was an animal of some sort. Its head seemed turned toward the group, but whatever features it had remained hidden under the fur. Then an arm like the arm of a bear reached out and Trigger saw a great furred hand that in shape seemed completely human, clutched the chair's edge. He was resting, Lyad said. Not sleeping. Pilly doesn't sleep. He is a perfect guardian. Come here, Pilly. Meet Trigger Archie. Pilly swung up on his feet. It was an impressively effortless motion. There was a thick wide torso on short, thick legs into the golden fur. The structure was gorilla-like. Pilly might weigh around four hundred pounds. He started silently forward and Trigger felt a tingle of alarm, but he stopped six feet away. She looked at him. Do I say something to Pilly? Lyad looked pleased. No, he's a biostructure, a very intelligent one, but speech isn't included in his pattern. Trigger kept looking at the golden fur nightmare. How can he see to guard you through all that hair? He doesn't see, Lyad said, at least not as we do. Pilly's part of one of our trannest experiments. The original stock came from the Macaddon Lifebanks, a small golden-heared earth monkey. The present level of the experiment is on the fancy side. It has four hearts, for example, and what amounts to a second brain at the lower half of its spine. But it doesn't come equipped with visual organs. Pilly is one of twenty-three of the type. They have compensatory perception of a kind that is still quite mysterious. We hope to breed them past the speech barrier, so they can tell us what they do instead of seeing. All right, Pilly, run along, she said to Balmorton. I believe he doesn't like that vethy thing of yours very much. Balmorton nodded. I had the same impression. Perhaps, trigger thought, that was why Pilly had been looking so close to them. She watched the biostructure move off down the terrace, grotesque and huge. She had got it sent as it went past her, a fresh rather pleasant whiff like the smell of ripe apples, and almost amiable sort of nightmare figure Pilly was. The apple scent went with that, seemed to fit it. But nightmare was there, too. She found herself feeling rather sorry for Pilly. In a way, Wyatt said, Pilly brings us to that matter of business I mentioned this afternoon. The group's eyes shifted over to her. She smiled. We have good scientists untranessed, she said, as Pilly I think demonstrates. She nodded at Balmorton. There are good scientists in the Degavus Union, and everyone here is aware that the treaties of restriction imposed on both our governments have made it impossible for our citizens to engage seriously in plasmoid research. Trigger nodded briefly as the light amber eyes paused in her for a moment. Quillen had cautioned her not to show surprise at anything the ermantine might say or do. If Trigger didn't know what to say, she was merely to look inscrutable. I'll screw it, he explained. The others won't. I'll take over then, and you just follow my lead. Get it? Balmorton, Lee had said. I understand you are going to Manin to attend the seminars and demonstrations on the plasmoid station. That is true, First Lady, said Balmorton. Now I, Lee had told the company, shall be more honest. The information released in those seminars is of no value whatever. He, she nodded at the Degavus scientist, and I, are going to Manin with the same goal in mind. That is to obtain plasmoids for our government laboratories. Balmorton smiled amiably. Trigger asked, How do you intend to obtain them? By offering very large sums of money, or equivalent inducements, to people who are in a position to get them for me, said Lyad. Quillen tut-tutted disbroomingly. The First Lady's mind, he told Trigger, turned readily to illegal methods. When necessary, Lyad said, undisturbed, as it is here. How about you, sir? Quillen asked Balmorton. Are we to understand that you also would be interested in the purchase of a middling plasmoid or two? I would be, naturally, Balmorton said, but not at the risk of causing trouble for my government. Of course not, Quillen said. He thought a moment. You, Belchy, he asked. Pluley looked alarmed. No, no, no, he said hastily. He blinked wildly. I'll stick to the shipping business. It's safer. Quillen patted him fondly on the shoulder. That's one law-abiding citizen in this group, he winked at Trigger. Trigger is wondering, he told Lyad, why she and I are being told these things. Well, obviously, Lyad said, Trigger and you are in an excellent position, or will be very soon, to act as middlemen in the matter. What? Trigger began astounded. Then, as all eyes swivelled over to her, she checked herself. Did you really think, she asked Lyad, that we'd agree to such a thing? Certainly not, said Lyad. I don't expect anyone to agree to anything tonight, though it's a safe assumption I'm not the only one here who has made sure this conversation is not being recorded and will not be available for reconstruction. Well, Quillen, she smiled. All right, you are, first lady, Quillen said. He tapped a breast pocket. Scrambler and distorted her present hand in action. And you, Balmorton? I must admit, Balmorton said pleasantly, that I thought it wise to take certain precautions. Very wise, said Lyad. Her glance shifted with some amusement in it to ploughly. Belchick? You're a nerve-wracking woman, Lyad, Belchick said unhappily. Yes, I'm scrambling, of course, he shuddered. I can't afford to take chances, not when you're around. Of course not, and even so, said Lyad, there are still reasons why an unconsidered word might be embarrassing in this company. So, no trigger, I'm not expecting anybody to agree to anything tonight. I'm merely mentioning that I'm interested in the purchase of plasmoids. Incidentally, I'd be very much more interested even in seeing you and Quillen enter my employee directly. Yes, Belchick? Ploughly had begun giggling wildly. I was having the same idea, he gasped, about one of them anyway. He jerked and came to an abrupt stop, transfixed by Trigger's stare. Then he reached for his glass, blinking at top speed. Excuse me, he muttered. Hardly, Belchick said, Lyad, she gave Trigger a small wink. But I can assure you, Trigger R.G., that you'd find my pay and working conditions very attractive indeed. It seemed a good moment to look inscrutable. Trigger did. Serious about that, Lyad, said Quillen. The ermantine said, certainly I'm serious. Both of you could be of great value to me at present. She looked at him a moment. Did you ever happen to tell Trigger about the manner in which you re-established the family fortune? Not in any great detail, Quillen said. A very good hijacker and smuggler went to waste when you signed up with the engineers, Lyad said. But perhaps not entirely to waste. Perhaps not, I acknowledged Quillen, he grinned. But I'm a modest man, one fortunes enough for me. There was a time, you know, Lyad said, when I was rather afraid it would be necessary to have you killed. Quillen laughed. There was a time, he admitted, when I suspected you might be thinking along those lines, First Lady. Didn't lose too much, did you? I lost enough, Lyad said. She wrinkled her nose at him. But that's all over and done with, and now no more business tonight. I promise. She turned her head a little. Flam, she called. Yes, First Lady, said the voice of the red-headed girl. Bring us Miss Argy's property, please. Flam brought in a small package of flat disks taped together. Lyad took them. Sometimes, she told Quillen, the ass-cab becomes a little independent. He's been spoken to. Here, you keep them for trigger. She tossed the package lightly over to them. Quillen put out a hand and caught it. Thanks, he said. He put the package in a pocket. I'll call off my beagles. Suit yourself as to that, said the ermantine. It won't hurt the ass-cab to stay frightened a little longer. She checked herself, the room's comm-web was signalling. Virad went over to it. A voice came through. The garth-menon subspace run begins in one hour. Rescubicles have been prepared. That means me, Belchick, Ploely, said. He climbed hastily to his feet. Can't stand dives, get hallucinations nasty ones. He staggered a little then, and trigger realized for the first time that Belchick had gotten pretty thoroughly drunk. Better give our guest a hand, Virad, Lyad called over her shoulder. Happy dreams, Belchick. Are you going by rest, trigger? No? You're not, of course, Quillen. Balmorden? The dig of a scientist also shook his head. Then by all means, Lyad said, let's stay together a little while longer. End of Chapter 14 Chapter 15 of Legacy This LibriVox recording is in the pubic domain. Recording by Peake Legacy by James Schmitz Chapter 15 She, said, trigger, is a remarkable woman. Yeah, said Quillen, remarkable. May I ask you, finally, a few pertinent questions? Trigger inquired himbly. Not here, sweet stuff, said Quillen. You're a bossy sort of slob, has that Quillen, she said, equally? Quillen didn't answer. They had come down the stairway to the storerooms level, and were walking along the big, lit hallway toward the cabins. Trigger felt pleasantly relaxed, but she did have a great many pertinent questions to ask Quillen now, and she wanted to get started on him. Oh, she said suddenly. Just as suddenly Quillen's hand was on her shoulder, moving her along. Hush now, he said, and keep walking. But you saw it, didn't you? Trigger asked, trying to look back at the small open door into the storerooms they just passed. Quillen sighed. Certainly, he said. Guy in space armor. But what's he doing here? Checking something, I suppose? His hand left her shoulder, and for just a moment his finger rested lightly across her lips. Trigger glanced up at him. He was walking on beside her, not looking at her. All right, she thought. She could take a hint. But she felt tense and uncomfortable now. Something was going on again, apparently. They turned into the side passage and came up to her cabin. Trigger started to turn to face him, and Quillen picked her up and went on without a noticeable break in his stride. Closed to her ear, his voice whispered, Explain in a moment. Dangerous here. As the door to the end cabin closed behind them, he put her back on her feet. He looked at his watch. We can talk here, he said. But there may not be much time for conversation. He gestured toward a table against the wall. Take a look at the setup. Trigger looked. The table was littered with instruments, like an electronic workbench. A visual screen showed a view of both her own cabin and a section of the passage outside it, up to the point where it entered the big hall. What is it, she asked uncertainly. Essentially, said Quillen, we've set up a catacent trap. Catacent, Trigger squeaked. That's right. Don't get too nervous though, I've caught them before. Used to be sort of a specialty of mine. And there's one thing about them. They'll blab their pointed little heads off if you can get one alive and promise it it's catnip. He chucked off his jacket and taken out of it a very large handgun with a bell-shaped mouth. He laid the gun down next to the view screen. In case, he said, unreassuringly. Now, just a moment. He sat down in front of the view screen and did something to it. All right, he said then. We're here and set. Probability period starts in three minutes, continues her sixty, signal on any blip, otherwise no gabbing, and remember, they're fast. Don't get sappy. There was no answer. Quillen did something else to the screen and stood up again. He looked broodingly at Trigger. It's those damn computers again, he said. I don't see any sense in it. In what? she asked shagely. Everything that's happening around here is being fed back to them at the moment, he said. When they heard about our invite to Eliad's dinner party and who was to be present, they came up with a honey. In the time period I mentioned, a catacin is supposed to show up at your cabin. They gave it a pretty high probability. Trigger didn't say anything. If she had, she probably would have squeaked again. Now, don't worry, he said, squeezing her shoulder reassuringly between a large thumb and four slightly less large fingers. Nice muscle, he said absently. The cabin's trapped and I have taken some other precautions. He massaged the muscle gently. Probably the only thing that will happen is that we'll sit around here for an hour or so, and then we'll have a hearty laugh together at those foolish computers. He smiled. I thought, Trigger said without squeaking, that everybody was pretty sure it was dead. Quill unfriined. Well, that's something else again. There are at least two ways I know of to sneak it past that search. Jump it out and in with a sub-tub as one. They could have done that from their own cabin as soon as they had its pattern. So I don't really think it's dead. It's just Quillin, a tiny voice said from the viewer. He turned and took two steps and sat down fast before the viewer. Go ahead. Fast motion in B-section, going your way. Fast motion. A thought flicked up. Quillin, Trigger began. He raised a shushing hand. Get a silhouette, he asked. His hands went to a set of control switches and stayed there. No. Pick-up shows a haze, like in the Reconstruction. An instance pause. Leaving B-section. Motion in C-section, said another voice. Quillin said, All right, it's coming. No more verbal reports unless it changes direction. If you want to stay alive, don't move unless you're an armor. There was silence. Quillin sat unmoving, eyes fixed on the screen. Trigger stood just behind him. Her legs had begun to tremble. She'd better tell him. Quillin. For an instant in the screen there was something like heat shimmer at the far end of the passage. Then she saw her cabin door pop open. The interior of the cabin showed in a brief flare of blue light. In it was a shape. It vanished instantly again. She heard Quillin make a shocked, incredulous sound. His left hand slashed at a switch on the panel. Twenty feet from them, just behind the closed door to the passage, was a splatting noise, like a tremendous slap. Then another noise, strangely like a brief cloudburst. Then silence again. She realized Quillin was on his feet beside her, the oversized gun in his hand. It was pointed at the door. His eyes switched suddenly from the door to the screen, and back again. She felt him relaxing slowly. Then she discovered she was clutching a handful of his shirt along with a considerable chunk of tough skin. She went on clutching it. Flyswatter got it, he said. He looked down and padded into the clutching hand. No potassium. The trap in the cabin just wasn't fast enough. Had a gravity mind outside our door, just in case that was barely fast enough. For once, Quillin looked almost odd. Like Trigger began, she tried again, like a little yellow man. You saw it in the cabin? Yes. Never saw anything just like it before. Trigger pressed her lips together to make them stay steady. I have, she said. That's what I was trying to tell you. Quillin stared at her for an instant. You'll tell me about it in a couple of minutes. I've got some quick work to do first. He checked himself. A wide grin spread suddenly over his face. Know something, doll? What? The damn computers, Major Quillin said happily. They goofed! The gravity mind would have reduced almost any life form which moved into its field to a rather thin smear. But there wasn't even that left of the yellow demon shape. Something, presumably something it was carrying, had turned it into a small blaze of incandescent energy as the mind flattened it out, which explained the sound like a cloud burst. That had been the passage's automatic fire extinguishers going into brief but correspondingly violent action. Quillin's group stayed out of sight for the time being. He'd barely got the mind put away, along with a handful of warped metal slugs which was what the mind had left of their attacker's mechanical equipment, and Trigger's door-cabin locked again, when three visitors came zooming down the storeroom's hall in a small car. A ship's engineer and two assistants had arrived to check out what had started the extinguishers. They may, Quillin said hopefully, just go away again. He and Trigger were watching the engineers through the viewer which had been extended to cover their end of the passage. They didn't just go away again. They checked the extinguishers, looked at the floor, still wet but rapidly absorbing the last drops of the brief deluge, they exchanged puzzled comment. They checked everything once more. Finally the leader made use of the door announcer and asked if he might intrude. Quillin switched off the viewer. Come in, he said, resignedly. The door opened. The three glanced at Quillin, then at Trigger plus Belden. Their eyes widened only slightly. Duty on the dawn city produced hardened men. Neither Quillin nor Trigger could offer the slightest explanation as to what had started the extinguishers. The engineers apologized and withdrew. The door closed again. Quillin switched on the viewer. Their voices came back into the cabin as they climbed into their car. So that's how it happened, one of the assistants was saying reflectively. Right, said the ship's engineer, like to burst into flames myself. They drove off. Trigger flushed. She looked at Quillin. Perhaps I ought to get into something else, she said. Now that the party's over. Perhaps, Quillin admitted. I'll have Gaia bring something down. We want to stay out of your cabin for an hour or so, till everything's been checked. There'll be a few conferences to go through now. Gaia arrived next with clothes. Trigger retired to the cabin's bathroom with them and came out a few minutes later dressed again. Meanwhile the dawn city's first security officer also had arrived and was setting up a portable restructure stage in the center of the cabin. He looked rather grim, but he also looked like a very much relieved man. I suggest we run your sequence off first, major, he said. Then we can put them together and compare them. Trigger sat down on a couch beside Gaia to watch. She had been told that the momentary view of the little demon shape in the cabin had been deleted from security's copy of their own sequence and wasn't to be mentioned. Otherwise there really was not too much to see. What the attacking creature had used to blur the restructure wasn't clear, except that it wasn't a standard scrambler. Amplified to the limits of clarity and stepped down in time to the limit of immobility, all that emerged was a shifting haze of energy, which very faintly hinted at a dwarfish human shape and outline. A rather unusually small and heavy catacin and the security chief pointed out would present such an outline that something quite material was finally undergoing devastating structural disorganization on the gravity line was unpleasantly obvious, but it produced no further information. The sequence ended with a short blaze of heat which had set off the extinguishers. Then they ran the restructure of the proceeding double killing. Trigger watched, gulping a little, till it came to the point where the haze shape actually was about to touch its victims. Then she studied the carpet carefully until Gaia nudged her to indicate the business was over. Catacins almost invariably used their national equipment in the kill. It was a swift process of course, but shockingly brutal and Trigger didn't care to remember what the results looked like in a human being. Both men had been killed in the same manner and the purpose obviously was to conceal the fact that the killer was not a catacin, but something even more efficient along those lines. It didn't occur to the security chief to question Trigger. A temporal restructure of a recent event was a far more reliable witness than any set of human senses and memory mechanisms. He left presently, reassured that the catacin incident was concluded. It startled Trigger to realize that security did not seem to be considering seriously the possibility of discovering the human agent behind the murders. Quillen shrugged. Whoever did it has covered three ways in every direction. The chief knows it. He can't psych 4,000 people on general suspicions and he'd hit mind blocks in every twentieth passenger presently on board if he did. Anyway, he knows we're on it and that we have a great deal better chance of nailing the responsible characters eventually. More information for the computers, Trigger said. Ah, you got this little chunk the hard way, I feel, she observed. True, Quillen admitted, but we have to get it any way we can till we get enough to move on. Then we move. He looked at her with an air of regarding a new idea. You know, he said. You didn't do badly for an amateur. She doesn't do badly, Gaia's voice said behind Trigger, for anybody. How do your people feel about a drink? I thought I could use one myself after looking at the chief's restructure. Trigger felt herself coloring. Praise from the cloak and dagger experts. For some reason it pleased her immensely. She turned her head to smile at Gaia, standing there with three glasses on a tray. Thanks, she said. She took one of the glasses. Gaia held the tray out to Quillen and took the third glass herself. It was some five minutes later when Trigger remarked, You know, I'm getting sleepy. Quillen looked around the viewer equipment he and Gaia were dismantling. Why not hit the couch over there and take a nap, he suggested. It'll be about an hour before the boys can get down here for the real conference. Good idea. Trigger yawned, finished her drink, put the glass on the table and wandered over to the couch. She stretched out on it. A drowsy somnolence enveloped her almost instantly. She closed her eyes. Ten minutes later, Gaia, standing over her, announced, Well, she's out. Fine, said Quillen, packaging the rest of the equipment. Tell them to haul in the rest cubicle. I'll be done here in a minute. Then you and the Lady Warden can take over. Gaia looked down at Trigger. There was a trace of regret in her face. I think, she said, she's going to be fairly displeased with you when she wakes up and finds she's on Manon. Wouldn't doubt it, said Quillen. But from what I've seen of that chick, she's going to get fairly displeased with me from time to time on this operation anyway. Gaia looked at his back. Major Quillen, she said, would you like a tip from a keen-eyed operator? Go ahead, old keen-eyed op, Quillen said in kindly tones. Not that you don't have it coming, boy, said Gaia. But watch yourself. This one is dangerous. This one could sink you for keeps. You're going out of your mind, all, said Quillen.