James H. Schmitz

“ Trigger sat down on a couch beside Gaya to watch. She'd been told that the momentary view of the little demon-shape in the cabin had been deleted from Security's copy of their own sequence and wasn't to be mentioned.
Otherwise there really was not too much to see. What the attacking creature had used to blur the restructure wasn't clear, except that it wasn't a standard scrambler. Amplified to the limits of clarity and stepped down in time to the limit of immobility, all that emerged was a shifting haze of energy, which very faintly hinted at a dwarfish human shape in outline. ”

“ Lyad said.
"A great pity!" Doctor Veetonia 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," Doctor Veetonia said plaintively, "I should like to remember this one! It should be possible, I think."
Small, icy fingers were working up and down Trigger's spine. The Ermetyne gave her a light wink. ”

“ Dubiously, Trigger wriggled and fitted herself into the high fashion item. Even before she went over to the mirror in it, she knew it wouldn't do. Not possibly! Styles on many Hub worlds were rather bold of course, but she was sure this effect wasn't what the Beldon's designers had intended.
She stepped in front of the mirror. Her eyes widened. "Brother!" she breathed.
That Beldon did go with a woman like stripes went with a tiger! After one look, you couldn't quite understand why nature hadn't arranged for it first. But just as obviously there wasn't nearly enough Beldon around at the moment. ”

“ Lyad Ermetyne didn't look more than a few years older than she was herself. Rather small, slender, with delicately pretty features. She wore something ankle-length and long-sleeved in lusterless gray with an odd, smoky quality to it.
"Isn't she the empress of Tranest or something of the sort?" Trigger asked.
Quillan shook his head. "They've had no emperors there, technically, since they had to sign their treaty with the Federation. She just owns the planet, that's all."
"What would she be doing, going to Manon?"
"I'd like to know," Quillan said. "The Ermetyne's a lady of many interests. ”

“ To Trigger, most of the ones that had been collected looked like assorted bugs and worms, though one at least was the size of a small pig.
"No form, no pattern," Mantelish rumbled. "Was the thing practicing? Did it attempt to construct an assistant and set it down here to test it? Well, now!" He went off again to incomprehensibilities, apparently no longer entirely dissatisfied. "Get me 112!" he bellowed. "Then this business will be solved! Meanwhile we now at least have plasmoid material to waste. We can experiment boldly! Come, Lyad, my dear." ”

“ Quillan admitted. "I'd dropped the bat. There you were. Who'd hesitate? I'm not out of my mind."
She did two dance steps of pure rage and spun to face him. She put her hands on her hips. Quillan stopped warily.
"Your mind!" she said. "I'd hate to have one like it. What do you think I am? One of Belchik's houris?"
For a man his size, he was really extremely quick. Before she could move, he was there, one big arm wrapped about her shoulders, pinning her arms to her sides. "Easy, Trigger!" he said softly. ”

“ Trigger asked.
"Oh," Mihul said, "there're all sorts of possibilities, of course." She nodded her head at the guns. "Like yanking the Denton out of my holster and feeding me a dose of the stunner. Or picking up that coffee pot there and tapping me on the skull with it. It's about the right weight."
Trigger said thoughtfully, "I don't think either of those would work."
"They might," Mihul said. "They just might! You're fast. You've been taught to improvise. And there's something eating you. You're edgy as a cat." ”

“ Where was Lyad?
Her eyes shifted about, trying to pierce the darkness. Black-light, she thought. She said, "Lyad?"
"Yes?" Lyad's voice came easily in the dark. She might be standing about thirty 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 Lyad had spoken.
"Pilli won't hurt you, Trigger," the Ermetyne 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. ”

“ Trigger glanced down. The plasmoid lay there some inches from the side of her hand. "You know," she said uncomfortably, "old Repulsive moved again while we were talking! Towards my hand." She drew the hand away.
"I was watching it," Major Quillan said reassuringly from the end of the table. "I would have warned you, but it stopped when it got as far as it is now. That was around five minutes ago."
Trigger reached back and gave old Repulsive a cautious pat. "Very lively character! He does feel pleasant to touch. Kitty-cat pleasant! How did you get a lead through him?" ”

“ Last year a bunch of our students smuggled the stuffed restructured mastodon out and left it in the back garden of the mayor of Ceyce, just for laughs. Too many exits. And Trigger was a trickier monkey than most that way, when she felt like it. She'll fade out of here whenever she wants to."
"It's those damn tube portal systems!" said Quillan, with feeling. "Most gruesome invention that ever hit the tailing profession." He sighed. "You win, Mihul! The Commissioner isn't in at the moment. ”

“ I am your dear mama. You call me Drura. We're from Slyth-Talgon on Evalee, here for a few days shooting."
Trigger nodded. "Do we do any shooting?"
Mihul pointed a finger at a side table. The Denton lay there, looking like a toy beside a standard slender-barrelled sporting pistol. "Bet your life, Comteen!" she said. "I've always been too stingy to try out a first-class preserve on my own money. And this one is first class." She paused. "Comteen and Drura Lod really exist. We're a very fair copy of what they look like, and they'll be kept out of sight till we're done here. ”

“ Holati's stand-in, Acting Commissioner Chelly, apparently hadn't been too successful at keeping up personnel discipline.
She hadn't said anything. It was true that Manon was still a precolonial planet only as a technicality. They didn't know quite as much about it as they had to know before it could be officially released for unrestricted settling, but by now there was considerable excuse for loosening up on many of the early precautionary measures. For one thing, there were just so many Hub people around nowadays that it would have been a practical impossibility to enforce all Precol rules. ”

“ In the screens of Commissioner Tate's Precol offices, Trigger could see both the new metropolitan-sized spaceport on which the Dawn City had set down that morning, and the towering glassy structures of the giant shopping and recreation center, which had been opened here recently by Grand Commerce in its bid for a cut of prospective outworld salaries. The salaries weren't entirely prospective either.
Ten miles away on the other side of Headquarters dome, new squares of living domes were sprouting up daily. At this morning's count they housed fifty-two thousand people. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Trigger frowned. "But what could be the connection—"
Quillan reached across the table and patted her hand. "You've got it!" he said with approval. "Exactly! No connection. Some day I'm going to walk down those rows and give them each a blast where it will do the most good. It will be worth being broken for."
Trigger said, "I thought that catassin planet was being guarded."
"It is. It would be very hard to sneak one out nowadays. But somebody's breeding them in the Hub. Just a few. Keeps the price up." ”

“ We tell Mantelish just as little as we can. To tell you the truth, Trigger, the professor is a terrible handicap on an operation like this. I understand he was a great friend of your father's."
"Yes," she said. "Going over for visits to Mantelish's garden with my father is one of the earliest things I remember. I can imagine he's a problem!" She shifted her gaze curiously from one to the other of the two men. "What are you people doing? Looking for Gess Fayle and the key unit?"
Holati Tate said, "That's about it. We're one of a few thousand Federation groups assigned to the same general job. ”

“ Lyad said. "And I'm sorry that I believed it necessary to—"
Mantelish snorted. "Sorry! Necessary! Just to be certain it doesn't happen again, I shall make up a batch of antihypno pills. If I can remember the prescription."
"I happen," the Ermetyne ventured, "to know a very good prescription for the purpose, Professor. If you will permit me!"
Mantelish stood up. "I'll accept no prescriptions from you!" he said icily. He looked at Trigger as he turned to walk out of the cabin. "Or drinks from you either, Trigger Argee!" he growled. "Who in the great spiraling galaxy is there left to trust!" ”

“ Major Quillan looked broodingly at his drink for a moment. "There they sit," he remarked suddenly, "with their stupid plastic faces hanging out! Rows of them. You feed them something you don't understand. They don't understand it either. Nobody can tell me they can. But they kick it around and giggle a bit, and out comes some ungodly suggestion."
"So they helped you find me?" she said cautiously. It was clear that the major had strong feelings about computers. ”

“ Lyad had smiled after them as they left. "Aren't men disgusting?" she said tolerantly.
That reflected on her, didn't it? She was supposed to be very good friends with somebody like that! Of course Quillan must have some bit of Intelligence business in mind with Pluly, but there should be other ways of going about it. And later, when she'd been just a little stiff with him, Quillan had had the nerve to tell her not to be a prude, doll!
Trigger shoved the solidopic under the pillow. Then she rolled on her side and blinked at the wall. ”

“ Right there on Harvest Moon!"
"They did," he said. "It was Fayle."
"Oh! Pretty embarrassing." Trigger was silent a moment. "Holati, could those things ever become as valuable as people keep saying? It's all sounded a little exaggerated to me."
The Commissioner said he'd wondered about it too. "I'm not enough of a biologist to make an educated guess. What it seems to boil down to is that they might. Which would be enough to tempt a lot of people to gamble very high for a chance to get control of the plasmoid process—and we know definitely that some people are gambling for it." ”

“ Doctor Veetonia frowned. "First—" he began.
Trigger slapped the porgee pouch. And the Denton's soundless blast slammed the talented investigator back and over in his chair.
"Gun," Trigger explained unnecessarily.
The Ermetyne's face had turned white with shock. She flicked a glance down at the man, then looked back at Trigger.
"There're 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."
Lyad nodded slightly. "They're no fools! They won't risk shooting. Don't worry." Her voice was careful but quite even. ”

“ Someone I know?"
"Hardly," said Brule. "Nelauk arrived a week or so after you left. Nelauk Pluly. Her father's the Pluly Lines. Let's talk about you. What's the silver-haired idea?"
"Got talked into it," she told him. "It's all the rage again right now." He surveyed her critically. "I like you better as a redhead."
"So do I." Oops, Trigger thought. Security, girl! "So I'll change back tonight," she went on quickly. "Golly, Brule. It's nice to see that homely old mug again!"
"Be a lot nicer when it won't have to be over a transmitter." ”

“ Grand Commerce had opened its first business and recreation center on Manon, not ten miles from the Precol Headquarters dome where Trigger recently had been working. The subspace net which was being installed about the Old Galactic base was very nearly completed. The permanent Hub population on Manon Planet had just passed the forty-three thousand mark. There had been, Trigger recalled, a trifle nostalgically, barely eight hundred Precol employees, and not another human being, on that world in the days before Holati Tate announced his discovery. ”

“ Pilli might weigh around four hundred pounds.
He started silently forward and Trigger felt a tingle of alarm. But he stopped six feet away. She looked at him. "Do I say something to Pilli?"
Lyad looked pleased. "No. He's a biostructure. A very intelligent one, but speech isn't included in his pattern."
Trigger kept looking at the golden-furred nightmare. "How can he see to guard you through all that hair?"
"He doesn't see," Lyad said. "At least not as we do. Pilli's part of one of our Tranest experiments—the original stock came from the Maccadon life banks, a small golden-haired Earth monkey. ”

“ The Federation Police Office in Ceyce informed Trigger that a Class A Battle Squad—twenty trained men with full equipment—would report for two months' duty at the Colonial School during the afternoon. She made them out a check and gave it the Ruya Farn signature via telewriter. The figure on that check was going to cause some U-League auditor's eyebrows to fly off the top of his head one of these days; but if the League insisted on remaining aloof to the problems of its Plasmoid Project, a little financial anguish was the least it could expect in return. ”

“ We'll go ahead with cleaning up the Vishni phase of the operation.
"But," he continued, "the indications are they can't drop their project any more than we can drop looking for that key unit. So we'll expect them to show up in Manon. When they do, they'll be working in unfamiliar territory and in a system where they have only something like fifty thousand people to hide out in, instead of a planetary civilization. I think they'll find things getting very hot for them very fast in Manon."
"Very good," said Trigger. "That I like! But what makes you think the opposition is just one group? ”

“ Some passengers prefer the experience of staying awake during a subspace dive." He smiled—rather sadistically, Trigger felt—and added, "Till they've lived through one of them, that is."
Trigger nodded. She'd lived through quite a few of them. She didn't like subspace particularly—nobody did—but except for an occasional touch of nausea or dizziness at the beginning of a dive, it didn't bother her much. Many people got hallucinations, went into states of panic or just got very sick. ”

“ The sequence ended with the short blaze of heat which had set off the extinguishers.
Then they ran the restructure of the preceding double killing. Trigger watched, gulping a little, till it came to the point where the haze shape actually was about to touch its victims. Then she studied the carpet carefully until Gaya nudged her to indicate the business was over. Catassins almost invariably used their natural equipment in the kill; it was a swift process, of course, but shockingly brutal, and Trigger didn't care to remember what the results looked like in a human being. ”