 CHAPTER XIX By lunchtime, Trigger was acting almost cordial again. I've got the pre-call job lined up," she reported to Haladi Tate. I'll handle it like I used to whenever I can. When I can't, the kids will shift in automatically. The kids were the five assistants among whom her duties had been divided in her absence. Major Quillen called me up to Mantelish's lab around ten. She went on. They wanted to see Repulsive, so I took him up there. Then it turned out Mantelish wanted to take Repulsive along on a field trip this afternoon. Haladi looked startled. He can't do that, and he knows it. He reached for the desk transmitter. Don't bother, Commissioner. I told Mantelish I'd been put in charge of Repulsive, and that he'd lose an arm if he tried to walk out of the lab with him. Haladi cleared his throat. I see. How did Mantelish react? Oh, he huffed a bit, like he does. Then he calmed down and agreed he could get by without Repulsive out there, so we stood by while he measured and weighed the thing and so on. After that he got friendly and said you'd asked him to fill me in on current plasmoid theory. So I did, said Haladi. Did he? He tried, I think, but it's like you say. I got lost in about three sentences and never caught up. She looked curiously at the Commissioner. I didn't have a chance to talk to Major Quillen alone, so I'm wondering why Mantelish was told the i-fleets in the Vishni area are hunting for planets with plasmoids on them. I thought you felt he was too woolly-minded to be trusted. We couldn't keep that from him very well, Haladi said. He was the boy who thought of it. You didn't have to tell him they'd found some possibles, did you? He did, unfortunately. He's had those plasmoid detectors of his for about a month, but he didn't happen to think of mentioning them. The reason he was to come back to Manon originally was to sort over the stuff the fleets had been sending back here. It's a weird collection of low-grade life-forms as I've ever seen, but not plasmoid. Mantelish went into a temper and wanted to know why the idiots weren't using detectors. Oh Lord, Trigger said. That's what it's like when you're working with him, said the Commissioner. We started making up detectors wholesale and rushing them out there, but the new results haven't come in yet. Well, that explains it. Trigger looked down at the desk a moment, then glanced up and met the Commissioner's eye. She colored slightly. Incidentally, she said, I did take the opportunity to apologize to Major Quillen for clipping him a couple this morning. I shouldn't have done that. He didn't seem offended, said Haladi. No, not really, she agreed. And I explained to him that you had a very good reason to feel disturbed. Thanks, said Trigger. By the way, was he really a smuggler at one time and a hijacker? Yes, very successful at it. It's excellent cover for some phases of intelligence work. As I heard it, though, Quillen happened to scramble up one of the Hub's nastier dope rings in the process and was broken two grades in rank. Broken, Trigger said. Why? Unwarranted interference with the political situation? The scouts are rough about that. You are supposed to see those things. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes you do and go ahead anyway. They may pat you on the back privately, but they also give you the axe. I see, she said. She smiled. Just how far did we get in bringing you up to date yesterday, the commissioner asked. The remains that weren't Dr. Azal, Trigger said. If it hadn't been for the funny business with Trigger, Haladi said, he might have been immediately skeptical about Dr. Azal's supposed demise by plasmoid during a thrombosis-induced spell of unconsciousness. There had been no previous indications that the U-League screening of its scientists, in connection with the plasmoid find, might have been strategically loused up from the start. But as things stood, he did look on the event with very considerable skepticism. Dr. Azal's death, in that particular form, seemed too much of a coincidence. For beside himself, only Azal knew that another person already had suddenly and mysteriously lost consciousness on Harvest Moon. Only Azal, therefore, might expect that the commissioner would quietly inform the official investigators of the preceding incident, thus cinching the accidental death theory in Azal's case much more neatly than the assumed heart attack had done. The commissioner went on from there to the reflection that if Azal had chosen to disappear, it might well have been with the intention of conveying important information secretly back to somebody waiting for it in the hub. He saw to it that the remains were preserved, and that word of what could have happened was passed on to a high Federation official whom he knew to be trustworthy. That was all he was in a position to do, or interested in doing himself. Security men presently came and took the supposed vestiges of Dr. Azal's body back to the hub. It wasn't until some months later, when the works blew up and I was put on this job, that I heard any more about it, Holadi Tate said. It wasn't Azal. It was part of some unidentifiable cadaver which he presumably brought with him for just such a use. Anyway, they had Azal's gene patterns on record, and they didn't jibe. The desk transmitter buzzed, and Trigger took it on in your phone extension. R.G., she said. She listened a moment. All right, coming over. She stood up, replacing the earphone. Off as Tangle, she explained. Guess they feel I'm fluffing, now I'm back. I'll get back here as soon as it straightened out. Oh, by the way. Yes? The Psychology Service ship messaged in during the morning. It'll arrive some time to-morrow, and once a station assigned to it outside the system, where it won't be likely to attract attention. Are they really as huge as all that? I've seen one or two that were bigger, the Commissioner said, but not much. When they're stationed, they'll send someone over in a shuttle to pick me up. The Commissioner nodded. I'll check on the arrangements for that. The idea of the interview still bothering you? Well, I'd sooner it wasn't necessary, Trigger admitted, but I guess it is. She grinned briefly. Anyway, I'll be able to tell my grandchildren some day that I once talked to one of the real eggheads. The Psychology Service woman, who stood up from a couch as Trigger came into the small spaceport lounge next evening, looked startlingly similar to Major Quillen's Dawn City assistant, Gaia. Standing you could see that she was considerably more slender than Gaia. She had all of Gaia's good looks. The name is Pilch, she said. She looked at Trigger and smiled. It was a good smile, Trigger thought, not the professional job she'd expected. And everyone who knows Gaia, she went on, thinks we must be twins. Trigger laughed. Aren't you? Just first cousins. The voice was all right, too, clear and easy. Trigger felt herself relaxed somewhat. That's one reason they picked me to come and get you. We're already almost acquainted. Another is that I've been assigned to take you through the preliminary work for your interview after we get to the ship. We can chat a bit on the way, and that should make it seem less disagreeable. Boats in the speedboat park over there. They started down a short hallway to the park area. Just how disagreeable is it going to be, Trigger asked. Not at all bad in your case. Your condition to the process is more than you know. Your interviewer will just pick up where the last job ended and go on from there. It's when you have to work down through barriers that you have a little trouble. Trigger was still mulling that over as she stepped ahead of Pilch into the smaller of two needle-nosed craft parked side by side. Pilch followed her in and closed the lock behind them. The other's a combat job, she remarked. Our escort. Commissioner Tate made very sure we had one, too. She motion-triggered to a low, soft seat that took up half the space of the tiny room behind the lock, sat down beside her, and spoke at a wall pickup. All set, let's ride. Blue-green tinted sky moved past them in the little room's viewer screen. Then a tilted landscape flashed by and dropped back. Pilch winked at Trigger. Takes off like a scared yazzong, that boy. He'll race the combat job to the ship. About those barriers. Supposing I told you something like this. There's no significant privacy invasion in this line of work. We go directly to the specific information we're looking for and deal only with that. Your private life, your personal thoughts, remain secret, sacred, and inviolate. What would you say? I'd say you're a liar," Trigger said, promptly. Of course. That sort of thing is sometimes told to nervous interviewees. We don't bother with it. But now supposing I told you very sincerely that no recording will be made of any little personal glimpse as we may get. Lying again. Right again," said Pilch. You've been scanned about as thoroughly as anyone ever gets to be outside of a total therapy. Your personal secrets are already on record, and since I'm doing most of the preparatory work with you, I've studied all the significant looking ones very closely. You're a pretty good person for my money. All right? Trigger studied her face uncomfortably. Hardly all right, but... I guess I can stand it. She said, as far as you're concerned, anyway. She hesitated. What's the egghead like? Old Crenadin, said Pilch. You won't mind her a bit, I think. Very motherly old type. Let's get through the preparations first, and then I'll introduce you to her. If you think it would make you more comfortable, I'll just stay around while she's working. I've sat in on her interviews before. How's that? Sounds better, Trigger said. She did feel a good deal relieved. They slid presently into a tunnel-like lock of the space vehicle Houladi Tate had described as a flying mountain. From what Trigger could see of it in the guide-lights on the approach, it did rather closely resemble a very large mountain of the craggier sort. They went through a series of lifts, portals and passages, and wound up in a small and softly lit room with a small desk, a very large couch, a huge wall screen, and a sorted gadgetry. Pilch sat down at the desk and invited Trigger to make herself comfortable on the couch. Trigger laid down on the couch. She had a very brief sensation of falling gently through dimness. Half an hour later she sat up on the couch. Pilch switched on a desk light and looked at her thoughtfully. Trigger blinked. Then her eyes widened, first with surprise, then in comprehension. "'Liar,' she said." "'Hmmm,' said Pilch. Yes. That was the interview. True. Then you're the egghead.' "'Cah,' said Pilch. Well, I believe I can modestly describe myself as being that. Yes. You're another, by the way. We're just smart about different things. That's so very different.' "'You were smart about this,' Trigger said. She swung her legs off the couch and regarded Pilch dubiously. Pilch grinned. "'Took most of the disagreeableness out of it, didn't it?' "'Yes,' Trigger admitted. It did. "'Now what do we do?' "'Now,' said Pilch, I'll explain.' The thing that had caught their attention was a quite simple process. It just happened to be a process the psychology service hadn't observed under those particular circumstances before. "'Here's what our investigators had the last time,' Pilch said. Lines and lines of stuff, of course, but here's a simple continuity which makes it clear. Your mother dies when you're six months old. Then there are a few nurses whom you don't like very much. Good nurses, but frankly, much too stupid for you, though you don't know that, and they don't either, naturally. Next you're seven years old, a bit over, and there's a mud pond on the farm near Sacy where you spend all your vacations. You just love that old mud pond!' Trigger laughed. A smelly old hole, actually. Full of froggy sorts of things. I went out to that farm six years ago just to look around it again. But you're right. I did love that mud pond once.' Right up to that seventh summer, Pilch said, which was the summer your father's cousin spent her vacation on the farm with you?' Trigger nodded. "'Perhaps. I don't remember the time too well.' "'Well,' Pilch said, she was a brilliant woman, in some ways. She was about the age your mother had been when she died. She was very good-looking. And she was nice. She played games with a little girl, sang to her, told her stories, cuddled her.' Trigger blinked. "'Did she?' "'I don't.' "'However,' said Pilch, she did not play games with, tell stories too, cuddle, etc., little girls who.' Her voice went suddenly thin and edged. "'Coming all filthy and smelly from that dirty, slimy old mud pond!' Trigger looked startled. "'You know,' she said, "'I do believe I remember her saying that, just that way.' "'You remember it,' said Pilch, now. You never saw her again after that summer.' Your father had good sense. He didn't marry her, as he apparently intended to do, before he saw how she was going to be with you. You went back to your old mud pond just once more on your next vacation. She wasn't there.' "'What had you done? You waited around, feeling pretty sad. When you stepped on a sharp stick and cut your foot badly. Sort of a self-punishment.' She flipped over a few pages of some record on her desk. "'Now, before you start asking what's interesting about that, I'll run over a few crossed-in items. Age twelve. There's that mccannon animal like a dry-land jellyfish, a mingo, isn't it, that swallowed your kitten.' "'The mingo!' Trigger said. "'You remember that. I killed it.' "'Right. You kicked it apart and pulled out the kitten. But the kitten was dead and partly digested. You bawled all day and half the night about that.' "'I might have, I suppose. You did. Now those are two centering points. There's other stuff connected with them. No need to go into details.' "'As classes. You've stepped now and then on things that squirmed or squashed. Good smells, etc. How do you feel about plasmoids?' Trigger wrinkled her nose. "'I just think they're unpleasant things. All except—' "'Oops,' she checked herself. "'Repulsive,' said Pilch. "'It's quite all right about repulsive. We've been informed of that super-secret little item you're guarding. If we hadn't been told, we'd know now, of course. Go ahead.' "'Well, it's odd,' Trigger remarked thoughtfully. I just said I thought plasmoids were rather unpleasant. But that's the way I used to feel about them. I don't feel that way now.' "'Except again,' said Pilch, for that little monstrosity on the ship. If it was a plasmoid, you rather suspect it was, don't you?' Trigger nodded. "'That would be pretty bad.' "'Very bad,' said Pilch. "'Plasmoids generally. You feel about them now as you feel about potatoes, rocks, neutral things like that?' "'That's about it,' Trigger said. She still looked puzzled. "'We'll go over what seems to have changed your attitude there in a minute or so. Here's another thing,' Pilch paused a moment, then said. Night before last, about an hour after you'd gone to bed, you had a very light touch of the same pattern of mental blankness you experienced on that plasmoid station. "'While I was asleep?' Trigger said, startled. "'That's right. Comparatively very light, very brief, five or six minutes. Dream activity, etc., smooths out, some blocking on various sense-lines. Then normal sleep until about five minutes before you woke up. At that point there may have been another minute touch of the same pattern. Too brief to be actually definable. A few seconds at most. The point is that this is a continuing process.' She looked at Trigger a moment. "'Not particularly alarmed, are you?' "'No,' said Trigger. "'It just seems very odd.' She added. I got rather frightened when Commissioner Tate was first telling me what had been going on. "'Yes, I know.' End of CHAPTER XIX. CHAPTER XX. OF LEGACY. By James H. Schmitz. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. LEGACY. CHAPTER XX. Pilch was silent for some moments again, considering the wall screen as if thinking about something connected with it. "'Well, we'll drop that for now,' she said finally. "'Let me tell you what's been happening these months, starting with that first amnesia covered blackout on Harvest Moon. The MacCaddon Colonial School has sound basic psychology courses, so there won't be much explaining to do. The connection between those incidents I mentioned and your earlier feeling of disliking plasmoids is obvious, isn't it?' Trigger nodded. "'Good. When you got the first service checkup at Commissioner Tate's demand, there was very little to go on. The amnesia didn't lift immediately. Not very unusual. The blackout might be interesting because of the circumstances. Otherwise, the check showed you were in a good deal better than normal condition. Outside of total therapy processes, and I believe you know that's a long haul, there wasn't much to be done for you, and no particular reason to do it. So an amnesia-resolving process was initiated, and you were left alone for a while. Actually, something already was going on at the time, but it wasn't spotted until your next check. What it's amounted to has been a relatively minor but extremely precise and apparently purposeful therapy process. Your unconscious memories of those groupings of incidents I was talking about, along with various linked groupings, have gradually been cleared up. Now that's nothing remarkable in itself. Any good therapist could have done the same for you, and much more rapidly. Say in a few hours' hard work, spread over several weeks to permit progressive assimilation without conscious disturbances. The very interesting thing is that this orderly little process appears to have been going on all by itself, and that just doesn't happen. You disturbed now? Trigger nodded. A little. Mainly, I'm wondering why somebody wants me to not dislike plasmoids. So am I wondering, said Pilch. Somebody does, obviously. And a very slick somebody it is. We'll find out by and by. Incidentally, this particular part of the business has been concluded. Apparently, somebody doesn't intend to make you wild for plasmoids. It's enough that you don't dislike them. Trigger smiled. I can't see anyone making me wild for the things whatever they tried. Pilch nodded. Could be done, she said, rather easily. You'd be bats, of course, but that's very different from a simple neutralizing process like the one we've been discussing. Now here's something else. You were pretty unhappy about this business for a while. That wasn't somebody's fault. That was us. I'll explain. Your investigators could have interfered with the little therapy process in a number of ways. That wouldn't have taught them a thing, so they didn't. But on your third check they found something else. Again, it wasn't in the least obtrusive. In someone else they mightn't have given it a second look. But it didn't fit at all with your major personality patterns. You wanted to stay where you were. Stay where I was? In the Mannon system. Oh! Trigger flushed a little. Well, I know. Let's go on a moment. We had this inharmonious inclination. So we told Commissioner Tate to bring you to the hub and keep you there, to see what would happen. And on McHaddon, in just a few weeks, you'd begun working that moderate inclination to be back in the Mannon system up to a dandy first-rate compulsion. Trigger licked her lips. I... sure, said Pilch. You had to have a good, sensible reason. You gave yourself one. Well... Oh! You were fond of that young man, all right. Who wouldn't be? Wonderful-looking lug. I'd go for him myself, till I got him on that couch, that is. But that was the first time you hadn't been able to stand a couple of months away from him. It was also the first time you'd started worrying about competition. You now had your justification. And we, Pilch said darkly, had a fine, solid compulsion, with no doubt very revealing ramifications to it to work on. Just one thing went wrong with that, Trigger. You don't have the compulsion any more. Oh! You don't even, said Pilch, have the original moderate inclination. Now one might have some suspicions there, but we'll let them ride for the moment. She did something on the desk. The huge wall screen suddenly lit up. A soft, amber-glowing plane of blankness, with a suggestion of receding depths within it. Last night, shortly before you woke up, Pilch said, you had a dream. Actually, you had a series of eight dreams during the night which seemed pertinent here. But the earlier ones were rather vague preliminary structures. In one way and another, their content is included in this final symbol grouping. Let's see what we can make of them. A shape appeared on the screen. Trigger started, then laughed. What do you make of it? Pilch asked. A little green man, she said. Well, it could be a sort of counterpart to the little yellow thing on the ship, couldn't it? A good little dwarf and a very bad little dwarf. Could be, said Pilch. How do you feel about the notion? Good plasmoids and bad plasmoids? Trigger shook her head. No, it doesn't feel right. What else feels right? Pilch asked. The farmer. The little old man who owned the farm where the mud-pond was. Liked him, didn't you? Very much. He knew a lot of fascinating things. She laughed again. You know, I'd hate to have him find out, but that little green man also reminds me quite a bit of Commissioner Tate. I don't think he'd mind hearing it, Pilch said. She paused a moment. All right, what's this? A second shape appeared. A sort of caricature of a wild, mean horse, Trigger said. She added thoughtfully, There was a horse like that on that farm, too. I suppose you know that. Yes. Any thoughts about it? No. Well, one. The little farmer was the only one who could handle that horse. It was mutated horse, actually. One of the life-bank deals that didn't work out so well. Enormously strong. It could work 48 hours at a stretch without even noticing it. But it was just a plain, mean animal. Crazy mean, observed Pilch, was the dream feeling about it. Trigger nodded. I remember I used to think it was crazy for that horse to want to go around kicking and biting things to pieces, which was about all it really wanted to do. I imagine it was crazy at that. You weren't ever in any danger from it yourself, were you? Trigger laughed. I couldn't have got anywhere near it. You should have seen the kind of place the old farmer kept it when it wasn't working. I did, said Pilch, long, wide, straight-walled pit in the ground. Cover for shade, plenty of food, running water. He was a good farmer. Very high locked fence around it to keep little girls and anyone else from getting too close to his useful monster. Right, said Trigger. She shook her head. When you people look into somebody's mind, you look. We work at it, Pilch said. Let's see what you can do with this one. Trigger was silent for almost a minute before she said in a sub-dude voice, I just get what it shows. It doesn't seem to mean anything. What does it show? Laughing giants stamping on a farm. A tiny sort of farm. It looks like it might be the little green man's farm. No, wait. It's not his. But it belongs to other little green people. How do you feel about that? Well, I hate those giants, Trigger said. They're cruel. But they laugh about being cruel. Are you afraid of them? Trigger blinked at the screen for a few seconds. No, she said in a low, sleepy voice. Not yet. Pilch was silent a moment. She said then, One more. Trigger looked and frowned. Presently she said, I have a feeling that does mean something. But all I get is that it's the faces of two clocks. One of them the hands are going around very fast, and on the other they go around slowly. Yes, Pilch said. She waited a little. No other thought about those clocks? Just that they should mean something? Trigger shook her head. That's all. Pilch's hand moved on the desk again. The wall screen went blank, and the light in the little room brightened slowly. Pilch's face was reflective. That will have to do for now, she said. Trigger, this ship is working on an urgent job somewhere else. We'll have to go back and finish that job. But I'll be able to return to Manon in about ten days, and then we'll have another session. And I think that we'll get this little mystery cleared up. All of it? All of it, I'd say. The whole pattern seems to be moving into view. More details will show up in the ten-day interval, and one more cautious boost then should bring it out in full. Trigger nodded. That's good news. I've been getting a little fed up with being a kind of walking enigma. Don't blame you at all, Pilch said, sounding almost exactly like Commissioner Tate. Incidentally, you're a busy lady at present. But if you do have half an hour to spare from time to time, you might just sit down comfortably somewhere and listen to your self-thinking. The way things are going, that should bring quite a bit of information to view. Trigger looked doubtful. Listen to my self-thinking? You'll find yourself getting the knack of it rather quickly, Pilch said. She smiled. Just head off in that general direction whenever you find the time, and don't work too hard at it. Are there any questions now before we start back to Manon? Trigger studied her a moment. There's one thing I'd like to be sure about, she said. But I suppose you people have your problems with security, too. Who doesn't, said Pilch. You're secure enough for me. Fire away. All right, Trigger said. Commissioner Tate told me people like you don't work much with individuals. Not as much as we'd like to, that's true. So you wouldn't have been working with me if whatever has been going on weren't somehow connected with the plasmoids. Oh yes, I would, said Pilch. Or old Crenadon. Someone like that. We do give service as required when somebody has the good sense to ask for it. But obviously we couldn't have dropped that other job just now and come to Manon to clear up some individual difficulty. So I am involved with the plasmoid mess? You're right in the middle of it, Trigger. That's definite. In just what way is something we should be able to determine next session? Pilch turned off the desk light and stood up. I always hate to run off and leave something half finished like this, she admitted, but I'll have to run anyway. The plasmoids are nowhere near the head of the Federation's problem list at present. They're just coming up mighty fast. When Trigger reached her office next morning, she learned that the psychology-service ship had moved out of the Manon area within an hour after she'd been returned to the headquarters dome the night before. None of the members of the plasmoid team were around. The commissioner, who had a poor opinion of sleep, had been up for the past three hours. He left where Trigger could reach him, if necessary, in the larger of his two ships, right next to the dome and pre-call port. Presumably he had the ship sealed up and was sitting in the transmitter cabinet, swapping messages with the i-fleets in the Vishni area. He was likely to be at that for hours more. Professor Mantellish hadn't yet got back from his latest field trip, and Major Heslett Quillen just wasn't there. It looked, Trigger decided, not at all reluctantly, like a good day to lean into her pre-call job a bit. She told the staff to pitch everything not utterly routine her way and leaned. A set of vitally important reports from pre-call's giant planet survey squad had been mislaid somewhere around headquarters during yesterday's conferences. She soothed down the GP squad and instituted a check search. A team of hub ecologists, who had decided for themselves that out-world booster shots weren't required on Manon, called in nervously from a polter station to report that their hair was falling out. Trigger tapped the Manon fever button on her desk and suggested two pays. The ecologists were displeased. A medical emergency skipboat zoomed out of the dome to go to their rescue, and Trigger gave its directions while dialing for the medical checker who would allow the visitors to avoid their shots. She had a brief chat with the young man and left him twitching as the GP squad came back on to inquire whether the reports had been found yet. Trigger began to get a comfortable feeling of being back in the good old groove. Then a message from the medical department popped out on her desk. It was addressed to Commissioner Tate and stated that Brühl Inger was now able to speak again. Trigger frowned, sighed, bit her lip and thought a moment. She dialed for Dr. Lehaven. Got your message, she said. How's he doing? All right, the old medic said. Has he said anything? No. He's scared. If he could get up the courage, he'd ask for a personnel lawyer. Yes, I imagine. Tell him this, then, from the Commissioner, not from me. There'll be no charges, but pre-call expects his resignation end of the month. That on the level? Dr. Lehaven demanded incredulously. Of course. The doctor snorted. You people are getting soft-headed, but I'll tell him. The morning went on. Trigger was suspiciously studying a traffic control note, stating that a DeVegas missionary ship had checked in and birthed at the spaceport, when the GC Center's management called in to report, with some nervousness, that the Center's much advertised meteor repellent roof had just flipped several dozen tons of falling moonbelt material into the spaceport area. Most of it, unfortunately, had dropped around and upon a DeVegas missionary ship. Not damaged is it, she asked. The Center said no, but the missionary captain insisted on speaking to the person in charge here. To whom should they refer him? Refer him to me, Trigger said, expectantly. She switched on the vision screen. The missionary captain was a tall, gray-haired, gray-eyed, square-jawed man in uniform. After confirming to his satisfaction that Trigger was indeed in charge, he informed her in chilled tones that the DeVegas Union would hold her personally responsible for the unprovoked outrage unless an apology was promptly forthcoming. Trigger apologized promptly. He acknowledged with a curt nod. The ship will now require new space-paint, he pointed out, unmolefied. Trigger nodded. We'll send a work-squad out immediately. We, the missionary captain said, shall supervise the work. Only the best grade of paint will be acceptable. The very best only, Trigger agreed. He gave her another curt nod and switched off. As, she said, she cut in the Don't Distur barrier and dialed Holadi's ship. It took a while to get through. He was probably busy somewhere in the crate. Like Belchick Pluley, the commissioner, while still a very wealthy man, would have been a very much wealthier one if it weren't for his hobby. In his case the hobby was ships, of which he now owned two. What made them expensive was that they had been tailor-made to the commissioner's specifications, and his specifications had provided him with two rather exact duplicates of the two types of scout fighting ships in which squadron commander Tate had made space hideous for evildoers in the good old days. Nobody as yet had got up the nerve to point out to him that private battlecraft definitely were not allowable in the manning system. He came on, finally. Commander told him about the de Vegas. Did you know those characters were in the area? She asked. The commissioner knew. They'd stopped in at the system check station three days before. The ship was clean. Their missionaries all go armed, of course, but that's their privilege by treaty. They've been browsing around and going hither and yon in skiffs. The ship's been in orbit till this morning. Think they're here in connection with whatever Belmorton is up to, trigger-enquired. We'll take that for granted. Belmorton, by the way, attended a big shindig on the Pooley yacht yesterday. Aless is tail-goofed, he's still up there, apparently, staying on as a guest. Are you having these other de Vegas watched? Not individually, too many of them, and they're scattered all over the place. Mantellish got back, he checked in an hour ago. You mean he's upstairs in his quarters now? She asked. Right. He had a few more crates hauled into the lab, and he's locked himself in with them and spy-blocked the place. May have got something important, and may just be going through one of his secrecy periods again. We'll find out by and by. Oh, and here's a special note. The first lady of Trennest is shopping in the Grand Commerce Center this morning. Well, that should boost business, said trigger. Are you going to be back in the dome by lunchtime? I think so. Might have some interesting news, too, incidentally. Fine, she said. See you then. Twenty minutes later the desk transmitter gave her the to be shielded signal. I'll point the barrier again. Major Quillen's face looked out at her from the screen. He was, trigger saw, in Mantellish's lab. Mantellish stood at a workbench behind him. Hi, he said. Hi, yourself. When did you get in? Just now. Could you pick up the hussis and witchies and bring it up here? Right now? If you can, Quillen said. The professor's got something new, he thinks. I'm on my way, said trigger. Take about five minutes. She hurried down to her quarters, summoned repulsive's container into the room, and slung the strap over her shoulder. Then she stood still a moment, frowning slightly. Something, something like a wisp of memory, something she should be remembering, was stirring in the back of her mind. Then it was gone. Trigger shook her head. It would keep. She opened the door and stepped out into the hall. She fell down. As she fell, she tried to give the bag the send-off squeeze, but she couldn't move her fingers. She couldn't move anything. There were people around her. They were doing things swiftly. She was turned over on her back, and for a few moments then she saw her own face smiling down at her from just a few feet away. End of Chapter 20 CHAPTER XXI OF LEGACY by James H. Schmitz. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. LEGACY CHAPTER XXI. He was suddenly in a large room, well lit, with elaborate furnishings, sitting leaned back in a soft chair before a highly polished little table. On the opposite side of the table two people sat looking at her with expressions of mild surprise. One of them was Lyad Emmertine. The other was a man she didn't know. The man glanced aside at Lyad. Very fast snap back, he said. He looked again at Trigger. He was a small man with salt and pepper hair, a deeply lined face, beautiful liquid black eyes. Very, Lyad said. We must remember that. Hello, Trigger. Hello, Trigger said. Her glance went once around the room and came back to Lyad's amably observant face. Lyad's container was nowhere around. There seemed to be nobody else in the room. An ornamental comm-web stood against one wall. Two of the walls were covered with heavy hangings, and a great gold-brokaded canopy bellied from the ceiling. No doors or portals in sight. They might be camouflaged or behind those hangings. Any number of people could be in call range, and a few certainly must be watching her right now because that small man was no rough-and-tumble type. The small man was regarding her with something like restrained amusement. A cool one, he murmured. Very cool. Trigger looked at him a moment, then turned her eyes back to Lyad. She didn't feel cool. She felt tense and scared cold. That was probably very bad. What did you want to see me about? She asked. Lyad smiled. A business matter. Do you know where you are? Not on your ship, first lady. The light amber eyes barely narrowed. But Lyad had become, at that moment, very alert. Why do you think so? She asked pleasantly. This room, said Trigger. You don't gush, I think. What was the business matter? In a moment, Lyad said. She smiled again. Where else might you be? Trigger thought she could guess, but she didn't intend to. Not out loud. She shrugged. It's no place I want to be. She settled back a little in her chair. Her right hand brushed the porgy-pouch. The porgy-pouch. It would have been like Emmertine to investigate the pouch carefully, take out the gun, and put the pouch back. But they might not have. Somebody was bound to be watching. She couldn't find out, not until the instant after she decided to try the dentin. I can believe that, Lyad said. Forgive me the discourtesy of so urgent an invitation, Trigger. A quite recent event made it seem necessary. As to the business. As a start, this gentleman is Dr. Vitonia. He is an investigator of extraordinary talents along his line. At the moment, he is a trifle tired because of the very long hours he worked last night. Dr. Vitonia turned his head to look at her. I did, First Lady. Well, that does explain this odd weariness. Did I work well? Splendidly, Lyad assured him. You were never better, Doctor. He nodded, smiled vaguely, and looked back at Trigger. This must go on, too, I suppose. I'm afraid it must, Lyad said. A great pity, Dr. Vitonia said. A great pity. It would have been a pleasant memory, this very cool one. The vague smile shifted in the lined face again. You are so beautiful, child, he told Trigger, in your anger and terror and despair, and above it still the gauging purpose, the strong, quick thinking. You will not give in easily, oh no, not easily at all. First Lady, Dr. Vitonia said plaintively, I should like to remember this one. It should be possible, I think. All icy fingers were working up and down Trigger's spine. The amortine gave her a light wink. I'm afraid it isn't, Doctor, she said. There are such very important matters to be discussed. Besides, Trigger Argey and I will come to an amicable agreement very quickly. No, Dr. Vitonia's face had turned very sullen. No, said Lyad. She will agree to nothing. Any fool can see that. I recommend, then, a simple chemical approach. Your creatures can handle it. Drain her, throw her away. I will have nothing to do with the matter. Oh, but Doctor, the amortine protested, that would be so crude, and so very uncertain. Why, we might be here for hours still. He shook his head. Lyad smiled. He stroked the line cheek with light fingertips. Have you forgotten the palace at Hamel Lake? She asked. The great library? The laboratories? Haven't I been very generous? Dr. Vitonia turned his face toward her. He smiled thoughtfully. Now that is true, he admitted, for the moment I did forget. He looked back at Trigger. The first lady gives, he told her, and the first lady takes away. She has given me wealth and much leisure. She takes from me now and then a memory. Very skillfully, since she was my pupil. But still, the mind must be dim by a little each time it is done. His face suddenly grew concerned. He looked at Lyad again. Two more years only, he said. In two years I shall be free to retire, Lyad. Lyad nodded. That was our bargain, doctor. You know I keep bargains. Dr. Vitonia said, Yes, you do. It is strange in an emmertyne. Very well, I shall do it. He looked at Trigger's face. The black liquid eyes blinked once or twice. She is almost certain she is being watched, he said, but she has been thinking of using the comm-web. The child, I believe, is prepared to attack us at any opportune moment. He smiled. Show her first why her position is hopeless. Then we shall see. Why, it's not in the least hopeless, Lyad said. And please, feel no concern about the doctor, Trigger. His methods are quite painless and involve none of the indignities of a chemical investigation. If you are at all reasonable, we'll just sit here and talk for twenty minutes or so. Then you will tell me what sum you wish to have deposited for you in what bank and you will be free to go. What will we talk about? Trigger said. Well, for one, said the emmertyne, there is that rather handsome little purse you've been carrying about lately. My technicians inform me there may be some risk of damaging its contents if they attempt to force it open. We don't want that. So we'll talk a bit about the proper way of opening it. She gave Trigger her little smile. And Dr. Vetonia will verify the accuracy of any statements made on the matter. She considered. Oh, and then I shall ask a few questions, not many, and you will answer them. It really will be quite simple. But now let me tell you why I so very much wanted to see you today. We had a guest here last night, a gentleman whom you've met, Balmorden. He was mind-blocked on some quite important subjects. And so, though the doctor and I were very patient and careful, he died in the end. But before he died he had told me as much as I really needed to know from him. Now with that information, she went on, and with the contents of your purse and with another little piece of information which you possess, I shall presently go away. For Naredo, a few hours later, Trinest's ambassador will have a quiet talk with some members of the Federation Council. And that will be all really. She smiled. No dramatic pursuit, no hue and cry, a few treaties will be considerably revised, and the whole hubbub about the plasmoids will be over. She nodded. Because they can be made to work, you know, and very well. Dr. Vittonia hadn't looked away from Trigger while Lied was speaking. He said now, �My congratulations, First Lady! But the girl has not been convinced in the least that she should cooperate. She may hope to be rescued before the information you want can be forced from her.� The Emmertyne sighed, �Oh, really now, Trigger?� She very nearly pouted. �Well, if I must explain about that to you, too, I shall.� She considered a moment. �Did you see your facsimile?� Trigger nodded. �Very briefly.� Lied smiled. �How she and my other people passed in and out of that dome, and how it happened that your room-guards were found unconscious and were very hurriedly taken to the medical department's contagious ward makes an amusing little story. But it would be too long in the telling just now. Your facsimile is one of Trennest's finest actresses. She's been studying and practicing being you for months. She knows where to go and what to do in that dome to avoid contact with people who know you too intimately. If it seems that discovery is imminent, she needs only a minute by herself to turn into an entirely different personality. So hours might pass without anyone even suspecting you were gone. �But, on the other hand,� Lied admitted fairly, �your double might be caught immediately or within minutes.� She would not be conscious then, and I doubt your fierce little commissioner would go to the unethical limits of dead-braining a live woman. If he did, of course, he would learn nothing from her. �Let's assume, nevertheless, that for one reason and another your friends suspect me immediately and only me. At the time you were being taken from the dome, I was observed leaving the grand commerce-center. I shopped rather freely. A number of fairly large crates and so forth were loaded into my speedboat, and we were observed returning to the aurora. �Not bad,� Trigar admitted, �another facsimile, I suppose.� �Of course.� The emertine glanced at a small jeweled wrist-watch. Now the aurora, if my orders were being followed, and they were, dived approximately five minutes ago, unless somebody who might be your wrathful rescuers approached her before that time, in which case she dived then. In either case the dive was seen by the commissioner's watchers, and the proper conclusions sooner or later will be drawn from that. �Supposing they dive after her and run her down,� Trigar said. �They might. The aurora is not an easy ship to run down in subspace, but they might. After some hours it would be of no consequence at all, would it?� The amber eyes regarded Trigar with very little expression for a moment. �How many hours or minutes do you think you could hold out here, Trigar Argi, if it became necessary to put on real pressure?� �I don't know,� Trigar admitted. She moistened her lips. �I could give you a rather close estimate, I think,� the emertine said. �But forgive me for bringing up that matter. It was an unnecessary discourtesy. Let's assume instead that the rather clever people with whom you've been working are quite clever enough to see through all these little maneuverings. Let's assume further that they are even able to conclude immediately where you and I must be at the moment. We are, as it happens, on the griffin, which is Belchik Ploely's outsize yacht, and which is orbiting Manon at present. This room is on a sealed level of the yacht, where Belchik's private life normally goes on undisturbed. I persuaded him two days ago to clear out this section of it for my own use. There is only one portal entry to the level, and that entry is locked and heavily guarded at the moment. There are two portal exits. One of them opens into a special lock in which there is a small speedboat of mine prepared to leave. It's a very fast boat. If there have been faster ones built in the hub, I haven't heard of them yet. And it can dive directly from the lock. She smiled at Trigger. You have the picture now, haven't you? If your friends decide to board the griffin, they'll be able to do it without too much argument. After all, we don't want to be blown up accidentally. But they'll have quite a time working their way into this level. If a boarding-party is reported, we'll just all quietly go away together with no fuss or hurry. I guarantee that no one is going to trace or overtake that boat. You see? Yes, Trigger said disconsolently, slumping back a little. Her right hand dropped to her lap. Well, she thought, last chance. Dr. Vittonia frowned. First, he began, Trigger slapped the porgy-pouch, and the dentin soundless blast slammed the talented investigator back and over in his chair. Gun, Trigger explained unnecessarily. The Emytine's face had turned white with shock. She flicked a glance down at the man, then looked back at Trigger. There are guns on me, too, I imagine, Trigger said. But this one goes off very easily, First Lady. It would take hardly any jolt at all. Lied nodded slightly. There no fools. They won't risk shooting. Don't worry. Her voice was careful, but quite even. A tough cookie, as the commissioner had remarked. We won't bother about them at the moment, Trigger said. Let's stand up together. They stood up. We'll stay about five feet apart, Trigger went on. I don't know if you're the gun-grabbing type. The ermitine almost smiled. I'm not, she said. No point in taking chances, Trigger said. Five feet. She gave Dr. Vittonia a quick glance. He did look very unpleasantly dead. We'll go over to that comm-web in a moment, she told Lied. I imagine you wouldn't have left it on open circuit. Lied shook her head. Calls go through the ship's communication office. Your own people on duty there? No, Plulies. Will they take your orders? Certainly. Can they listen in? Trigger asked. Not if we seal the set here. Trigger nodded. You'll do the talking, she said. I'll give you Commissioner Tate's personal number. Tell them to dial it. The pre-call transmitters pick up comm-web circuits. Switch on the screen after the call is in. He'll want to see me. When he comes on, just tell him what's happened, where we are, what the layout is. He's to come over with a squad to get us. I won't say much, if anything. I'll just keep the gun on you. If there's any fumble, we both get it. There won't be any fumble, Trigger, Lied said. All right. Let's set up the rest of it before we move. After the Commissioner signs off, he'll be up here in three minutes flat, or less. How about this ship's officers? Do they take your orders, too? With the obvious exception of yourself, Lied said, everyone on the griffon takes my orders at the moment. Then just tell whoever's in charge of the yacht to let the squad in before there's any shooting. The Commissioner can get awfully short-tempered. Then get the guards away from that entry portal. That's for their own good. The amortine nodded. We'll do. All right, that covers it, I think. They looked at each other for a moment. With the information you got from Belmorton, Trigger remarked, you should still be able to make a very good dicker with the Council, First Lady. I understand they're very eager to get the plasmoid mess straightened out quietly. Lied lifted one shoulder in a brief shrug. Perhaps, she said. Let's move, said Trigger. They walked toward the comm-web rather edgily, not very fast, not very slow, Trigger four or five steps behind. There had been no sound from the walls and no other sign of what must be very considerable excitement nearby. Trigger's spine kept tingling. A needle-beam and a good marksman could pluck away the dentin and her hand along with it without much real risk to amortine. But probably even the smallest of risks was more than the trenesque people would be willing to take when the First Lady's person was involved. Lied reached the comm-web and stopped. Trigger stopped too, five feet away. Go ahead, she said quietly. Lied turned to face her. Let me make one last, well, call it an appeal, she said. Don't be an over-ethical fool, Trigger R.G. The arrangement I've planned will do no harm to anybody. Come in with me and you can write your own ticket for the rest of your life. No ticket, Trigger said. She waggled the dentin slightly. Go ahead, you can talk to the council later. Lied shrugged resignally, turned again, and reached toward the comm-web. Trigger might have relaxed just a trifle at that moment, or perhaps there was some other cue that Pilly could pick up. There came no sound from the ceiling canopy. What she caught was a sense of something moving above her. Then the great golden bulk landed with a terrifying lightness on the thick carpet between Lied and herself. The eyeless nightmare head wasn't three feet from her own. The lights in the room went out. Trigger flung herself backwards, rolled six feet to one side, stood up, backed away, and stopped again. End of Chapter XXI. Chapter XXII of Legacy by James H. Schmitz. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Legacy, Chapter XXII. The blackness in the room was complete. She spun the dentin to kill. There was silence around her, and then a soft rustling at some distance. It might have been the cautious shuffle of a heavy foot over thick carpeting. It stopped again. Where was Lied? Her eyes shifted about, trying to pierce the darkness. Black light, she thought. She said, Lied? Yes. Lied's voice came easily in the dark. She might be standing about 30 feet away at the far end of the room. Call your animal off, Trigger said quietly. I don't want to kill it. She began moving in the direction from which Lied had spoken. Pilly won't hurt you, Trigger, the ermatine said. He's been sent in to disarm you, that's all. Throw your gun away, and he won't even touch you. She laughed. Don't bother shooting in my direction, either. I'm not in the room any more. Trigger stopped. Not because of what that hateful, laughing voice had said. But because in the dark about her, a fresh, pungent smell was growing. The smell of ripe apples. She moistened her lips. She whispered, Pilly, keep away. Eyeless, the dark would mean nothing to it. Seconds later, she heard the thing breathing. She faced the sound. It stopped for a moment, then it came again. A slow animal breathing. It seemed to circle slowly to her left. After a little, it stopped. Then it was coming toward her. She said softly, almost pleadingly, Pilly, stop, go back, Pilly. Silence. Pilly's odor lay heavily all around. Trigger heard her blood drumming in her ears. And for a second then, she imagined she could feel, like a tangible fog, the body warmth of the monster standing in the dark before her. It wasn't imagination. Something like a smooth, heavy pad of rubber closed around her right wrist and tightened terribly. The dentin went off two, three, four times before she was jerked violently sideways, flung away, sent stumbling backward against some low piece of furniture and sprawling over it. The gun was lost. As she scrambled dizzily to her feet, Pilly screamed. It was a thin, high breathless sound, like the screaming of a terrified human child. It stopped abruptly. And as if that had been a signal, the room came full of light again. Trigger blinked daisily against the light. Varad stood before her, looking at her, a pair of opaque yellow goggles shoved up on his forehead. Black light glasses. The golden-haired thing lay in a great shapeless huddle on the floor, twenty feet to one side. She couldn't see her gun. But Varad held one, pointing at her. Varad's other hand moved suddenly. Its palm caught the side of her face in a hefty slap. Trigger staggered dumbly sideways, got her balance, and stood facing him again. She didn't even feel anger. Her cheek began to burn. Stop amusing yourself, Varad! It was Lyad's voice. Trigger saw her, then, standing in a small, half-open door across the room, where a wall-hanging had been folded away. She appeared to be in shock, First Lady. Varad explained, blandly. Is Pilly dead? Yes, I have her gun. He got it from her. Varad slapped a pocket of his jacket, and some part of Trigger's mind noted the gesture, and suddenly came awake. So I saw. Well, too bad about Pilly. But it was necessary. Bring her here, then, and be reasonably gentle. Lyad still sounded unruffled. And put that gun in a different pocket, fool, or she'll take it away from you. She looked at Trigger impersonally, as Varad brought her to the little door, and left hand clamped on her arm just above the elbow. She said, Too bad you killed my expert, Trigger. We'll have to use a chemical approach now. Flam and Varad are quite good at that, but there will be some pain. Not too much, because I'll be watching them. But it will be rather undignified, I'm afraid, and it will take a great deal longer. Tand, tall, sinuous flam, stood in the small room beyond the door. Trigger saw a long, low plastic-covered table, clamps, and glittering gadgetry. That would have been where cold-fish bellmorton hadn't been able to make it against his mind-blocks, finally. There was still one thing she could do. The yacht was orbiting. That sort of thing won't be at all necessary, she said, shakily. Her voice shook with great ease, as if it had been practising it all along. No, Liad said. You've won, Trigger said, resignedly. I'll play along now. I'll show you how to open that handbag to start with. Liad nodded. How do you open it? You have to press it in the right places. Have them bring it here, I'll show you. Liad laughed. You're a little too eager, and much too docile, Trigger. Considering what's in that handbag, it's not at all likely it will detonate if we brightly hand it to you and let you start pressing. But something or other of a very undesirable nature would certainly happen. Flam, the tall redhead nodded and smiled. She went over to a wall-cabinet, unlocked it, and took out repulsive's container. Liad said. Put it on that shelf for the moment. Then bring me Varaz's gun and hers. I'm afraid you'll have to go up on that table now, Trigger, she said. If you really decided to cooperate, it won't be too bad. And, by and by, you'll start telling us very exactly what should be done with that handbag and a few other things. She might have caught Trigger's expression then. She added, dryly. I was informed a few nights ago that you're quite an artist in rough and tumble tactics. So are Varad and Flam. So, if you want to give Varad an opportunity to amuse himself a little, go right ahead. At that point, the graceful thing undoubtedly would have been to just smile and get up on the table. Trigger discovered she couldn't do it. She gave them a fast, silent, vicious tussle, mouth clenched, breathing hard through her nose. It was quite insanely useless. They weren't letting her get anywhere near Lyad. After Varad had amused himself a little, he picked her up and plunked her down on the table. A minute later, she was stretched out on it, face down, wrists and ankles secured with padded clamps to its surface. Flam took a small knife and neatly slit the back of the pre-call uniform open along the line of her spine. She folded the cloth away. Then Trigger felt the thin, icy touches of some vanilla-smelling spray walk up her, ending at the base of her skull. It wasn't so very painful. Lyad had told the truth about that. But presently it became extremely undignified. Then her thoughts were speeding up and slowing down and swirling around in an odd, confusing fashion. And at last her voice began to say things she didn't want it to say. After this there might have been a pause. She seemed to be floating up out of a small pool of sleep when Lyad's voice said somewhere with cold fury in it, there's nothing inside. A whole little series of memory pictures popped up suddenly then, like a chain of firecrackers somebody had set off. They formed themselves into a pattern and there the pattern was in Trigger's mind. She looked at it. Her eyes flew open in surprise. She began to laugh weakly. Light footsteps came quickly over to her. Where's that plasmoid Trigger? The ermatine was in a fine, towering rage. She'd better say something. As the commissioner, she said, mumbling a little. It's wearing off first lady, said Flam, shall I? Trigger's thoughts went eddying away for a moment and she didn't hear Lyad's reply. But then the vanilla smell was there again and the thin, icy touches. This time they stopped abruptly halfway. And then there was a very odd stillness all around Trigger. As if everybody and everything had stopped moving together. A deep, savage voice said, I hope there'll be no trouble, folks. I just want her a lot worse than you do. Trigger frowned in puzzlement. Next came an angry roar, some thumping sounds, a sudden crack. Oops, the deep voice said happily. A little too hard, I'm afraid. Why, of course, Trigger thought. She opened her eyes and twisted her head around. Still awake, Trigger? Quillen asked from the door of the room. He looked pleasantly surprised. There was a very large, bell-mouthed gun in his hand. That was an odd-looking little group in the doorway, Trigger felt. On his knees before Quillen was a fat, elderly man, blinking daisily at her. He wore a brilliantly purple bath-towl, nodded about his loins, and nothing else. It was a moment before she recognized Belchick Plule. Old Belchie. And on the floor before Belchie, motionless as if in devout prostration, Virad lay on his face. Dead, no doubt. He shouldn't have got gay with Quillen. Yes, Trigger said then, remembering Quillen's question. I've got a very fast snapback, but they fed me a fresh load of dope just a moment ago. So I saw, said Quillen. His glance shifted beyond Trigger. Liad, he said, almost gently. Yes, Quillen? Liad's voice came from the other side of Trigger. Trigger turned her head toward it. Liad and Flam both stood at the far side of the room. Their expressions were unhappy. I don't like it all, Quillen said. What's been going on here? Not one bit. Which is why Big Boy got the neck broken finally. Can the rest of us take a hint? Certainly, the ermitine said. So the Flam girl quits ogling those guns on the shelf and stays put, or they'll amputate a leg. First lady, you come up to the table and get Trigger unclamped. Trigger realized her eyes had fallen shut again. She left them that way for a moment. There was motion near her, and the wrist clamps came off in turn. Liad moved down to her feet. The fancy-looking gun is Trigger's? Quillen inquired. Yes, said Liad. Is that what happened to Pilly and the other gent out there? Yes. Imagine, said Quillen thoughtfully. Ah, got something to seal up the clothes? Yes, Liad said. Bring it here, Flam. Toss it, Flam, cautioned Quillen. Remember the leg. Liad's hands did things to the clothes at her back. Then they went away. You can set up now, Trigger. Quillen's voice informed her loudly. Sort of slide down easy off the table and see if you can stand. Trigger opened her eyes, twisted about, slid her legs over the edge of the table, came down on her feet, stood. I went my gun and the handbag, she announced. She saw them again then, on the shelf, walked over and picked up the plasmoid container. She looked inside, snapped it shut, and slung the strap over her shoulder. She picked up the dentin, looked at its setting, spun it, and turned. First lady, she said. Liad went white around the lips. Quillen made some kind of startled sound. Trigger shot. Flam ran at her then, screaming, arms waving, eyes wild and green like an animal. Trigger half turned and shot again. She looked at Quillen. Just stunned, she explained. She waited. Quillen let his breath out slowly. Glad to hear it. He glanced down at Pluley. Purse was open. He remarked significantly. Uh-huh, Trigger agreed. How's the doohinkus? She laughed. Safe and sound, believe me. Good, he said. He still looked somewhat puzzled. Put the eye on Belchik for a few seconds, then. We're taking Liad along. I'll have to carry her now. Right, Trigger said. She felt rather jaunty at the moment. She put the eye on Belchik. Belchik moaned. They started out of the little room, Pluley in the van, clutching his towel. The ermatine, dangling loosely over Quillen's left shoulder, looked fairly gruesomely dead. You walk this side of me, Trigger, Quillen said. Still all right? She nodded. Yes. Actually, she wasn't quite. It was mainly a problem with her thoughts, which showed a tenancy to move along in odd little leaps and bounds, with short stops in between, as if something were trying to freeze them up. But if it was going to be like the first time, she should last till they got to wherever they were going. Halfway across the room, she saw the golden thing like a huge furry sack on the carpet and shivered. Poor Pilly, she said. Alas, Quillen said politely. I gather you didn't just stun Pilly. She shook her head. Couldn't, she said, too big, too fast. How about the other one? Oh, him, stunned. He's an investigator. They thought he was dead, though. That's what scared Liad and Flam. Yeah, Quillen said thoughtfully, made wood. Another section of wall-hanging had folded aside, and a wide door stood open behind it. They went through the door and turned into a mirrored passageway, ploughly still tottering rapidly ahead. Might keep that gun ready, Trigger, Quillen warned. We just could get jumped here. Don't think so, though. They'd have to get past the commissioner. Oh, he's here, too? He didn't hear what Quillen answered, because things faded out around then. When they faded in again, the passageway with the mirrors had disappeared, and they were coming to the top of a short flight of low, wide stairs, and into a very beautiful room. This room was high and long, not very wide. In the center was a small square swimming-pool, and against the walls on either side was a long row of tall square crystal pillars, through which strange lights undulated slowly. Trigger glanced curiously at the nearest pillar. She stopped short. "'Galaxy,' she said, startled. Quillen reached back and grabbed her arm with his gun-hand. Keep moving, girl. That's just how Belcha keeps his harem grouped around him when he's working. Not too bad an idea. It does cut down the chatter. This is his office. Then she saw the large business desk with prosaic standard equipment which stood on the carpet on the other side of the pool. They moved rapidly past the pool, Quillen still hauling at her arm. Trigger kept staring at the pillars they passed. Long-limbed, supple and languid, they floated in their crystal cages, intended shifting lights, eyes closed, hair drifting about their faces. "'Awesome, isn't it?' Quillen's voice said. "'Yes,' said Trigger. "'Awesome. One in each. He's a pig. They look drowned.' "'He is, and they aren't,' said Quillen. "'Very lively girls when he lets them out. Now around this turn and—oops! Pooley had reached the turn at the end of the row of pillars, moaned again and fallen forwards.' "'Fated,' Quillen said. "'Well, we don't need him any more. Watch your step-trigger. Dead one just behind Pooley.' Trigger stretched her stride and cleared the dead one behind Pooley neatly. There were three more dead ones lying inside the entrance to the next big room. She went past them, feeling rather dreamy. The sight of a squat, black sub-tub parked squarely on the thick purple carpeting ahead of her, with its canopy up, didn't strike her as unusual. Then she saw that the man leaning against the canopy, a gun in one hand, was Commissioner Tate. She smiled. She waved her hand at him as they came up. "'Hi, Holadi.' "'Hi, yourself,' said the Commissioner. He asked Quillen. How's she doing?' "'Not bad,' Quillen said, a bit ta-ta at the moment. Double dose of ciridum by the smell of it. Had a little trouble here, I see. A little,' the Commissioner acknowledged, they went for their guns. "'Very uninformed gentleman,' said Quillen. He let Lyad's limp form slide off his shoulder and bent forward to lower her into the sub-tub's back seat. Trigger had been waiting for a chance to get into the conversation. "'Just who?' she demanded now, frowning, is a bit ta-ta at the moment. "'You,' said Quillen. "'You're doped, remember? You'll ride up front with the Commissioner. Here.' He picked her up, plasmoid person all, and set her down on the front seat. Holadi Tate, she discovered then, was already inside. Quillen swung down into the seat behind her. The canopy snapped shut above. The Commissioner shifted the tub's controls. In the screens, the room outside vanished. A darkness went rushing downwards past them. A thought suddenly popped to mind again, and Trigger burst into tears. The Commissioner glanced over at her. "'What's the matter, Trigger-girl?' "'I'm so sorry I killed Pilly!' He screamed.' Then her mind froze up with a jolt, and thinking stopped completely. Quillen reached over the back of the seat and eased her over on her side. Got to her finally, he said. He sat down again. He brooded a moment. "'She shouldn't get so disturbed about that Pilly thing,' he remarked then. He couldn't have lived any way. "'Eh?' the Commissioner said absolutely, watching the screens. Why not?' "'Its brains,' Quillen explained, were too far apart.' The Commissioner blinked. "'It's getting to you, too, son,' he said. End of Chapter 22. Chapter 23. Of Legacy. By James H. Schmitz. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. Legacy. Chapter 23. Trigger came out of this serendim trance hours before Lyot awoke from the stunner blast she'd absorbed. The Commissioner was sitting in a chair beside her bunk, napping. She looked around a moment, feeling very comfortable and secure. This was her personal cabin on Commissioner Tate's ship, the one he referred to as the Big Job, modeled after the long-range patrol ships of the space scouts. It wasn't actually very big, but six or seven people could go traveling around in it very comfortably. At the moment it appeared to be howling through subspace at its hellish rate again, going somewhere. Well, that could keep. Trigger reached out and poked the Commissioner's knee. "'Hey, Holari,' she whispered. Wake up!' His eyes opened. He looked at her and smiled. "'Back again, eh?' he said. Trigger motioned at the door. "'Close it,' she whispered. "'Got something to tell you.' "'Talk away,' he said. Quillen's piloting, the first lady's out cold, and Mantellish got dive-sick and I doped him. Somebody else on board!' Trigger laid back and looked at him. "'This is going to sound pretty odd,' she warned him. Then she told him what repulsive had done and what he was trying to do. The Commissioner looked badly shaken. "'You sure of that, Trigger?' "'Sure, I'm sure.' "'Trying to talk to you?' "'That's it.' He blinked at her. I looked in the bag and the thing was gone. My ad knows it was gone,' Trigger said. So, in case she gets a chance to blab to someone, we'll say you had it.' He nodded and stood up. "'You stay here,' he said. Prescription for the kind of treatment you've had is a day of bed rest. "'Where are you going?' "'I'm going to talk to that psychology ship,' he said, and just let him try to stall me this time.' He went off up the passage toward the transmitter cabinet in the forward part of the ship. Some minutes passed. Then Trigger suddenly heard Commissioner Tate's voice raised in great wrath. She listened. It appeared the psychology service had got off on the wrong foot by advising him once more to stay calm. He came back presently and sat down beside the bunk, still a little red in the face. "'They're going to follow us,' he said. "'If they hadn't, I would have turned back and gunned her away on board that lopsided disgrace of theirs.' "'Follow us? Where?' He grunted. A place called Luscious. We'll be there in under a week. It'll take them about three, but they're starting immediately.' Trigger blinked. "'Looks like the plasmoids have made it to the head of the problem list.' "'I wouldn't be surprised,' said the Commissioner. "'I was put through to that pilch after a while. She said to remind you to listen to your thinking whenever you can get around to it. Know what she meant?' "'I'm not sure I do,' Trigger said hesitantly. But she's mentioned it. I'll give it a whirl. "'Why are we going to Luscious?' Ceylon's fleet found plasmoids on it. It's in the Vishni area. "'What kind of plasmoids?' He shrugged. "'They don't amount to much from what I heard. Small stuff. But definitely plasmoid. It looks like somebody might have done some experimenting there for a while, and not long ago. Did they find the big one? Not yet. No trace of any people on Luscious, either. He chewed his lip thoughtfully for a moment. "'About an hour after we pick you and Laiad up,' he said. "'We had a Council order transmitted to the ship. Told us to swing off course a bit and rendezvous with a fast courier boat of theirs. What for?' The order said the courier was to take Laiad on board and head for the hub with her. Some diplomatic business.' He scratched his chin. "'It also instructed us to treat the First Lady of Trenest with the courtesy due her station, meanwhile.' "'Brother,' Trigger said, outraged. "'Just too bad I couldn't read that message,' said Hulati Tate. Some gravidic disturbance. No points hours behind us. They'll never catch up.' "'Ho-ho!' said Trigger. But that's being pretty insubordinate, Hulati.' It was till just now,' he said. "'I mentioned that we had Laiad on board to that Pilch person. She said she'd speak to the Council. Where to hang on to Laiad, and when Pilch gets to Luscious she'll interview her?' Trigger grinned. "'Now that,' she remarked, gives me a feeling of great satisfaction somehow. When Pilch gets her little mitts on someone there isn't much left out.' I had that impression. "'Meanwhile we'll put the ermatine through a routine questioning ourselves when she gets over being groggy. Courtesy will be on the moderate side. She'll probably spill part of what she knows, especially if you sit there and hand her the beady stare from time to time. But,' Trigger assured him, will be hardly at effort at all. "'I can imagine. You're pretty sure that thing will show up again?' Trigger nodded. "'Just leave the handbag with me.' "'All right,' he stood up. "'I've got a hot lunch prepared for you. I'll bring the bag along. Then you can tell me what happened after they grabbed you.' "'How did you find out I was gone?' Trigger asked. "'Your fact,' he said. "'The girl was darn good, actually. I talked to you, her, on office transmitter once and didn't spot a sour note. Mostly, she just kept out of everybody's way. Very slick at it.' "'We would have got her fairly fast because we were preparing for takeoff to Luscious by then. But she spilled it herself. How?' "'I located her finally again on transmitter screen. There was no one on her side to impress. She took a sniff of Porgy.' Trigger laughed delightedly. Good old Porgy pouch. It beat them twice. "'But how did you know where I was?' "'No problem there. We knew Lyad had strings on Pluley. Quillen knew about that sealed level on Pluley's yacht and got Pluley to invite him over to admire the harem right after the dawn city arrived. While he was admiring, he was also recording floor patterns for a sub-tub jump. That gimmick's pretty much of a spilled secret now. But on a swap for you and Lyad, it was worth it. We came aboard five minutes after we'd nabbed your faq.' "'The ermatine figured you'd go chasing after the aurora,' Trigger said. "'Well,' the commissioner said, tolerantly, the ermatine's pretty young. The aurora was a bit obvious.' "'How come Quillen didn't start wondering when I didn't show up in Mantellish's lab with repulsive?' "'So that's what he was for,' Holadde said. He rubbed the side of his jaw. I was curious about that angle. That wasn't Quillen. That was Quillen's faq.' "'In Mantellish's lab?' Trigger said, startled. "'Sure. That's how they all got in.' "'In those specimen crates Mantellish has been lugging into the dome the past couple of days. It looks like the prof spent hypnotize up to his ears for months. The last five hours of her day of recuperative rest Trigger spent asleep, her cabin door locked, and the plasmoid purse open on the bunk beside her. Holadde had come by just before to report that the ermatine was now awake but very groggy, apparently more than a little shocked, and not yet quite able to believe she was still alive. She'd dozer with this and that, and interrogations would be postponed until everybody was on their feet. When Trigger woke up from her five-hour nap the purse was shut. She opened it and looked inside. Repulsive was down there, quietly curled up. "'Smart little bugger, aren't you?' she said, not entirely with approval. Then she reached in and gave him a pat. She locked the purse, got dressed, and went up to the front of the ship carrying repulsive along. All four of the others were up in the lounge area which included the partition control section. The partition had been slid into the wall and the commissioner, who was at the controls at the moment, had swung his seat half around toward the lounge. He glanced at the plasmoid purse as Trigger came in, grinned and gave her a small wink. "'Come in and sit down,' he said. "'We've been waiting for you.'" Trigger sat down and looked at them. Something apparently had been going on. Quillen's tanned face was thoughtful, perhaps a trifle amused. Mantellish looked very red and angry. His shock of white hair was wildly rumbled. The ermatine appeared a bit wilted. "'What's been going on?' Trigger asked. It was the wrong question. Mantellish took a deep breath and began bellowing like a wounded thunder-orc. Trigger listened with some admiration. It was one of the best jobs of well-verbalized huffing she'd heard, even from the professor. He ran down in less than five minutes, though. Apparently he'd already let off considerable steam. Lyad had dehypnotized him at the commissioner's suggestion. It had been a lengthy job requiring a couple of hours, but it was a complete one, which was understandable, since it was the first lady herself, Trigger gathered gradually from the noise, who had put Mantellish under the influence back in his own garden on McHaddon, and within two weeks after his first return from Harvest Moon. It was again Lyad, who had given Mantellish his call to bemuse duty via a transmitted verbal cue on her arrival in Manon, and instructed him to get lost from his league guards for a few hours in Manon's swamps. There she had met and conferred with him and pumped him of all he could tell her. As the final outrage, she had instructed him to lug her crated cohorts, preserved like Pluley's harem ladies, into the precall dome, to care for them tenderly there and at the proper cued moment to release them for action, all under the illusion that they were priceless biological specimens. Mantellish wasn't in the least appease by the fact that, again at the commissioner's suggestion, Lyad had installed one minor new hypno-command, which, she said, would clear up permanently his tenancy toward attacks of dive sickness. Body just ran down finally and sat there, glowering at the emeritine now and then. Well, the commissioner remarked, this might be as good a time as any to ask a few questions. Got your little quizzer with you, Quillen? Quillen nodded. Lyad looked at both of them in turn and then, briefly and for the first time, glanced in Trigger's direction. It wasn't exactly an appealing glance. It might have been a questioning one, and Trigger discovered suddenly that she felt just a little sympathy for Lyad. Lyad had lost out on a very big gamble. And each in his own way there were three very formidable males among whom she was sitting. None of them was friendly. Two were oversized, and the undersized one had a fairly blood chilling record for anyone on the wrong side of law and order. Trigger decided to forget about the beady stairs for the moment. Cheer up, Lyad, she said. Nobody's going to hurt you, just give him the answers. She got another glance. Not a grateful one, exactly. Not an ungrateful one, either. Temporary support had been acknowledged. Commissioner Tate has informed me, the ermatine said, that this group does not recognize the principle of diplomatic immunity in my case. Under the circumstances I must accept that. And so I shall answer any questions I can. She looked at the pocket-quizzer Quillen was checking over unhurriedly. But such verification instruments are of no use in questioning me. Why not?" Quillen asked idly. I'd been conditioned against them, of course, Lyad said. I'm an ermatine of Trenest. By the time I was twelve years old, that toy of yours couldn't have registered a reaction from me that I didn't want it to show. Quillen slipped the toy back in his pocket. "'True enough, First Lady,' he said, and that's one small strike in your favour. We thought you might try to gimmick the gadget. Now we'll just pitch you some questions. The recorder's on. Don't stall on the answers." And he and the commissioner started flipping out questions. The ermatine flipped back the answers. So far as Trigger could tell, there wasn't any stalling, or any time for it. Azal. Dr. Azal had been her boy from the start. He was now on Trenest. The main item in his report to her had been the significance of the 112-113 Plasmoid unit. He'd also reported that Trigger R.G. had become unconscious on Harvest Moon. They'd considered the possibility that somebody was controlling Trigger R.G., or attempting to control her, because of her connections with the plasmoid operations. Guess Fail. Lyad had been looking for Dr. Fail as earnestly as everyone else after his disappearance. She had not been able to buy him. So far as she knew, nobody had been able to buy him. Dr. Fail had appeared to intend to work for himself. He was at present well outside the hub's area of space. He still had 112-113 with him. Yes, she could become more specific about the location, with the help of Star Maps. Let's get them out, said Commissioner Tate. They got them out. The ermatine presently circled a largest section of the Vishni Fleet's area. The questions began again. 113A. Professor Mantelish had told her of his experiments with this plasmoid. There was an interruption here while Mantelish huffed reflexively. But it was very brief. The Professor wanted to learn more about the first lady's depravities himself. And its various possible associations with the main unit. But by the time this information became available to her, 113A had been placed under heavy guard. Professor Mantelish had made one attempt to smuggle it out to her. Huff, huff. But had been unable to walk past the guards with it. Trenest agents had made several unsuccessful attempts to pick up the plasmoid. She knew that another group had made similarly unsuccessful attempts, the Devegas. She did not yet know the specific nature of 113A's importance. But it was important. Trigger. Trigger R.G. might be able to tell them why Trigger was important. Doctor Fail certainly could. So could the top ranks of the Devegas hierarchy. Liad, at the moment, could not. She did know that Trigger R.G.'s importance was associated directly with that of plasmoid 113A. This information had been obtained from a Devegas operator, now dead, not Balmorton. The operator had been in charge of the attempted pick-up on Iveli. The much more elaborate affair at the Colonial School had been a Trenest job. A Devegas group had made attempts to interfere with it, but had been disposed of. Pluley. Liad had strings on Belchick. He was afraid of the Devegas, but somewhat more terrified of her. His fear of the Devegas was due to the fact that he and an associate had provided the hierarchy with a very large quantity of contraband materials. The nature of the materials indicated that the Devegas were constructing a major fortified outpost on a world either airless or with poisonous atmosphere. Pluley's associate had since been murdered. Pluley believed he was next in line to be silenced. Balmorton. Balmorton had been a rather high-ranking Devegas intelligence agent. Liad had heard of him only recently. He had been in charge of the attempts to obtain 113A. Liad had convinced him that she would make a very dangerous competitor in the Manin area. She also had made information regarding her activities there available to him. So Balmorton and a select group of his gunmen had attended Pluley's party on Pluley's yacht. They had been allowed to force their way into the sealed level and were there caught in a black light trap. The gunmen had been killed, Balmorton had been questioned. The questioning revealed that the Devegas had found Dr. Failed and the 112-113 unit almost immediately after Fail's disappearance. They had succeeded in creating some working plasmoids. To go into satisfactory operation they still needed 113A. Balmorton had not known why. But they no longer needed Trigger RG. Trigger RG was now to be destroyed at the earliest opportunity. Again Balmorton had not known why. Fail and his unit were in the fortress dome the Devegas had been building. It was in the area Liad had indicated. It was supposed to be very thoroughly concealed. Balmorton might or might not have known its exact coordinates. His investigators made the inevitable slip finely and triggered a violent mind-block reaction. Balmorton had died. Redbraining him had produced no further relevant information. The little drumfire of questions ended abruptly. Trigger glanced at her watch. It had been going on for only fifteen minutes, but she felt somewhat dizzy by now. The ermitine just looked a little more wilted. After a minute Commissioner Tate inquired politely whether there was any further information the First Lady could think of to give them at this time. She shook her head, no. New Professor Mantelish believed her. But the interrogation was over, apparently. End of Chapter 23 CHAPTER 24 Quillen took over the ship controls, and the Commissioner and Trigger went with the recorder into the little office back of the transmitter cabinet to slam out some fast reports to the hub and other points. Liad was apologizing profoundly to Mantelish as they left the lounge. The Professor was huffing back at her, rather mildly. A little while later Liad, showing indications of restrained surprise, was helping Trigger prepare dinner. They took it into the lounge. Quillen remained at the controls while the others started eating. Trigger fixed up a tray and brought it to him. "'Thanks for the rescue, Major,' she said. He grinned up at her. It was a pleasure." Trigger glanced back at the little group in the lounge. Think she was fibbing a bit? Sure! Mainly she decided in advance how much to tell and how much not. She thinks fast in action, though, no slips. What she told of what she knows makes a solid story, and with angles we can check on fast, so it's bound to have plenty of information in it. It'll do for the moment. "'She's already started buttering up Mantelish,' said Trigger. "'She'll do that,' Quillen said. By the time we reach Luscious the prof probably might as well be back in the trances. The Commissioner intends to give her a little rope, I think. How close is Luscious to that area, she showed? Quillen flicked on their core screen and superimposed the map Lyad had marked. "'Red dots well inside,' he pointed out. That bit was probably quite solid info.' He looked up at her. "'Did it bother you much to hear that a Vegas have dropped the grab idea and are out to do you in?' Trigger shook her head. "'Not really,' she said. "'Would make much difference one way or the other, would it?' "'Very little,' he patted her hand. "'Well, they're not going to get you, doll, one way or the other.' Trigger smiled. "'I believe you,' she said. "'Thanks.'" She looked back into the lounge again. Just at present she did have a feeling of relaxed, unconcerned security. It probably wasn't going to last, though. He glanced at Quillen. "'Those computers of yours,' she said. "'What did they have to say about that not-catacin you squashed?' "'The crazy things claim now it was a plasmoid,' Quillen said. Revolting notion. But it makes some sense for once. Checks with some of the things Lyad told us, too. Do you remember that vethy sponge Balmorton was carrying?' "'Yes.' "'It didn't come off the ship with him. He checked it out as having died en route.' "'That is a revolting notion,' Trigger said after a moment. "'Well, at least we've got detectors now.' But the feeling of security had faded somewhat again." Before dinner was half over, the long-range transmitters abruptly came to life. For the next thirty minutes or so messages rattled in incessantly, as assorted headquarters here and there reacted to the Embertine's report. The commissioner sat in the little office and sorted over the incoming information. Trigger stayed at the transmitters, feeding it to him as it arrived. None of it affected them directly. They were already headed for the point in space a great many other people would now start heading for very soon. Then business dropped off again almost as suddenly as it had picked up. A half-dozen low-priority item straggled in, in as many minutes. The transmitters purred idly. Then the person-to-person buzzer sounded. Trigger punched the screen-button. A voice pronounced the ship's dial number. "'Acknowledging,' Trigger said. Who is it?' "'Oredo Comweb Center,' said the voice. Stand by for contact with Federation Councilman Rodegear.' Trigger whacked the panic-button. Rodegear was a name. "'Standing by,' she said. Her tate came in through the door and slipped into the chair she'd already vacated. Trigger took another seat a few feet away. She felt a little nervous, but she'd always wanted to see a high-powered diplomat in action. The screen lit up. She recognized Rodegear from his picks. Tall, fine-looking man of the silvered sideburns type. He was in an armchair in a very plush office. "'Congratulations, Commissioner,' he said, smiling. I believe you're aware by now that your latest report has set many wheels spinning rapidly. I rather expected it would,' the Commissioner admitted. He also smiled. They pitched it back and forth a few times, very chummy. Rodegear didn't appear to be involved in any specific way with the operations which soon would center about luscious. Trigger began to wonder what he was after. "'A few of us are rather curious to know,' Rodegear said. Why you didn't acknowledge the last Council order sent you?' Trigger didn't quite start nervously. "'When was this?' asked the Commissioner. Rodegear smiled softly and told him. "'Got a record here of some scrambled item that arrived about then,' the Commissioner said. "'Very good of you to call me about it, Councilman. What was the order content?' "'It's dated now as it happens,' Rodegear said. Actually, I'm calling about another matter. The First Lady of Trennest appears to have been very obliging about informing you of some of her recent activities.' The Commissioner nodded. "'Yes, very obliging.' "'And in so short a time after her, ah, detainment, you must have been very persuasive.' "'Well,' Holdoddy Tate said, "'no more than usually.' "'Yes,' said Councilman Rodegear. "'Now, there's been some slight concern expressed by some members of the Council. "'Well, let's say they'd just like to be reassured that the amenities one observes in dealing with a head of state actually are being observed in this case. I'm sure they are, of course.' The Commissioner was silent a moment. "'I was informed a while ago,' he said. "'That full responsibility for this head of state has been assigned to my group. Is that correct?' The Councilman readened very slightly. "'Quite,' he said. "'The official Council order should reach you in a day or so.' "'Well, then,' said the Commissioner. "'I'll assure you, and you can assure the Councilman, who are feeling concerned that the amenities are being observed. "'Then everybody can relax again. Is that all right?' "'No, not quite,' Rodegear said, annoyedly. "'In fact, the Councilman would very much prefer it, Commissioner, if I were given an opportunity to speak to the First Lady directly to reassure myself on the point.' "'Well,' Commissioner Tate said. "'She can't come to the transmitters right now. She's washing the dishes.' The Councilman readened very considerably this time. He stared at the Commissioner a moment longer. Then he said, in a very soft voice, "'Oh, the hell with it!' He added, "'Good luck, Commissioner. You're going to need it some time.' The screen went blank. The scouts of Seelon's independent fleet, who had first looked this planet over and decided to call it Luscious, had selected a name, trigger thought, which probably would stick, because that was what it was, at least in the area where they were camping. She rolled over from her side to her face, and gave herself a push away from the rock she'd been regarding contemplatively for the past few minutes. Feet first she went drifting out into a somewhat deeper section of Plasmoid Creek. None of it was very deep. There were pools here and there, in the stretch of the creek she usually came to, where she could stand on her toes in the warm clear water, and, arm stretch straight up, barely tickle the surface with her fingertips. But along most of the stretch the bigger rocks weren't even submerged. She came sliding over the sand to another rock, turned on her back and leaned up against the rock, blinking at sun reflections along the water. Camp was a couple of hundred yards down the valley, its sounds cut off by a rise of the ground. The commissioner's ship was there, plus a half-dozen tents, plus a sizable i-fleet unit with lab facilities which Sealan's outfit had loaned Mantelish for the duration. There were some fifteen, twenty people in all about the camp at the moment. They knew she was loafing around in the water up here and wouldn't disturb her. Strictly speaking, of course, she wasn't loafing. She was learning how to listen to herself think. She didn't feel she was getting the knack of it too quickly, but it was coming. The best way seemed to be to let go mentally as much as possible, to wait without impatience, really to more or less listen quietly within yourself as if you were looking around in some strange forest, letting whatever wanted to come to view come and fade again as something else rose to view instead. The main difficulty was with the business of relaxing mentally, which wasn't at all her natural method of approaching a problem. But when she could do it, information of a kind that was beginning to look very interesting was likely to come filtering into her awareness. Whatever was at work deep in her mind, and she could give a pretty fair guess at what it was now, seemed as weak and slow as the psychology service people had indicated. The traces of its work were usually faint and vague, but gradually the traces were forming into some very definite pictures. Lazing around in the waters of Plasmoid Creek for an hour or so every morning had turned out to be a helpful part of the process. On the flashing, all outrun to luscious, subspace all the way, with the commissioner and Quillen spelling each other around the clock at the controls, the transmitters clattering for attention every half hour, the ship's housekeeping had to be handled, and somebody besides Mantelish needed to keep a moderately BDI on the Irmutine, she hadn't even thought of acting on Pilge's suggestion. But once they'd landed, there suddenly wasn't much to keep her busy, and she could shift priority to listening to herself think. It was one of those interim periods where everything was being prepared and nothing got started. As a Plasmoid planet, luscious was pretty much of a bust. It was true that Plasmoids were here. It was also true that until fairly recently Plasmoids were being produced here. By the simple method of looking where they were thickest, Seedland's people even had located the Plasmoid which had been producing the others, several days before Mantelish arrived to confirm their find. This one, by the Plasmoid standards of luscious, was a regular monster, some twenty-five inches high. A gray, mummy-like thing, dead and half rotted inside. It was the first Plasmoid, with the possible exception of whatever had flattened itself out on Quillen's gravity mine, known to have died. There had been very considerable excitement when it was first discovered, because the description made it sound very much as if they'd finally located 112, 113. They hadn't. This one, if Trigger had followed Mantelish correctly, could be regarded as a cheap imitation of 112, and its productions, compared with the working plastic life of Harvest Moon, appeared to be strictly on a kindergarten level, nuts and bolts, and less than that. To Trigger, most of the ones that had been collected look like assorted bugs and worms, though one at least was the size of a small pig. No form, no pattern, Mantelish rumbled. Was the thing practicing? Did it attempt to construct an assistant and set it down here to test it? Well, now. He went off again to incomprehensibilities, apparently no longer entirely dissatisfied. Get me 112, he bellowed, then this business will be solved. Meanwhile, we now at least have Plasmoid material to waste. We can experiment boldly. Come, Liad, my dear." And Liad followed him into the lab unit, where they went to work again, dissecting, burning, stimulating, inoculating, and so forth, great numbers of more or less pancake-sized subplasmoids. This morning Trigger wasn't getting down to the best semi-drowsy level at all readily. And it might very well be that Liad, my dear business. No, she had told the commissioner thoughtfully the day before. By the time we're done, Liad will know more about plasmoids than anyone in the hub except Mantelish. He didn't look concerned. Won't matter much. By the time we're done, she and the rest of the ermatines will have had to cough up control of Trenest. They've broken treaty with this business. Oh! Trigger said. Does Liad know that? Sure. We also know she's getting off easy. If she were a Federation citizen, she'd be up for a compulsory rehabilitation right now. She'll try something if she gets half a chance," Trigger warned. Sure she will, the commissioner said absently. He went on with his work. It didn't seem to be Liad that was bothering. Trigger lay flat on her back in the shallow sandbar, arms behind her head, feeling the sun's warmth on her closed eyelids. She watched her thoughts drifting by slowly. It just might be Quillen. Old Major Quillen, the rescuer in time of need, the not-catacin smasher. Quite a guy! The water murmured past her. On the right out here they'd run by one another now and then, going from job to job. After they'd arrived, Quillen was gone three quarters of the time, helping out in the hunt for the concealed De Vegas fortress. It was still concealed. They hadn't yet picked up a trace. But every so often he made it back to camp, and every so often, when he was back in camp and didn't think she was looking, he'd be sitting there looking at her. Trigger grinned happily. Old Major Quillen, being bashful. Well now. And that did it. She could feel herself relaxing, slipping down and away, drifting down through her mind, farther, deeper, toward the tiny voice that spoke in such a strange language and was still becoming daily more comprehensible. Uh, say, Trigger. End of Chapter 24.