by Anthology
She glanced at her watch, walked around a scale model of Harvest Moon, the O.G. station, which occupied the center of the Hall, and went on among the exhibits. There were views taken on Manon Planet in one alcove, mainly of Manon's aerial plankton belt and of the giant plasmoids called Harvesters which had moved about the belt, methodically engulfing its clouds of living matter. A whale-sized replica of a Harvester dominated one end of the Hall, a giant dark-green sausage in external appearance, though with some extremely fancy internal arrangements.
"Miss Farn...."
She turned. A League cop, standing at the entrance of a hallway thirty feet away, pitched her the old flourish and followed it up with a bow. Excellent manners these guard boys had!
Trigger gave him a smile.
"Coming," she said.
Junior Scientist Rak and his advisory committee--two other young men and a young woman--were waiting in the conference room for her. They all stood up when she came in. This room marked the border of their territory; they would have violated several League rules by venturing out into the hall through which Trigger had entered.
And that would have been unthinkable.
Rak did the talking, as on the previous occasions when Trigger had met with this group. The advisory committee simply sat there and watched him. As far as Trigger could figure it, they were present at these sessions only to check Rak if it looked as if he were about to commit some ghastly indiscretion.
"We were wondering, Miss Farn," Rak said questioningly, "whether you have the authority to requisition additional University League guards for the Plasmoid Project?"
Trigger shook her head. "I've got no authority of any kind that I know of, as far as the League is concerned. No doubt Professor Mantelish could arrange it for you."
Rak nodded. "Is it possible for you to contact Professor Mantelish?"
"No," Trigger said. She smiled. "Is it possible for you to contact him?"
Rak glanced around his committee as if looking for approval, then said, "No, it isn't. As a matter of fact, Miss Farn, we've been isolated here in the most curious fashion for the past few weeks."
"So have I," said Miss Farn.
Rak looked startled. "Oh!" he said. "We were hoping you would be willing to give us a little information."
"I would," Trigger assured him, "if I had any to give. I don't, unfortunately." She considered. "Why do you feel additional League guards are required?"
"We heard," Rak remarked cautiously, "that there were raiders in the Colonial School area yesterday."
"Grabbers," Trigger said. "They wouldn't bother you. Your section of the project is supposed to be raidproof anyway."
Rak glanced at his companions again and apparently received some undetectable sign of consent. "Miss Farn, as you know, our group has been entrusted with the care of two League plasmoids here. Are you aware that six of the plasmoids which were distributed to responsible laboratories throughout the Hub have been lost to unknown raiders?"
She was startled. "No, I didn't know that. I heard there'd been some unsuccessful attempts to steal distributed plasmoids."
"These six attempts," Rak said primly, "were completely successful. One must assume that the victimized laboratories also had been regarded as raidproof."
Trigger admitted it was a reasonable assumption.
"There is another matter," Rak went on. "When we arrived here, we understood Doctor Gess Fayle was to bring Plasmoid Unit 112-113 to this project. It seems possible that Doctor Fayle's failure to appear indicates that League Headquarters does not consider the project a sufficiently safe place for 112-113."
"Why don't you ask Headquarters?" Trigger suggested.
They stirred nervously.
"That would be a violation of the Principle of the Chain of Command, Miss Farn!" Rak explained.
"Oh," she said. The Juniors were overdisciplined, all right. "Is that 112-113 such a particularly important item?"
"If Doctor Fayle is in personal charge of it," Rak said carefully, "I would say yes."
Recalling her meetings with Doctor Gess Fayle in the Manon System, Trigger silently agreed. He was one of the U-League's big shots, a political scientist who had got himself appointed as Mantelish's chief assistant when that eminent biologist was first sent to Manon to take over League operations there. Trigger had disliked Fayle on sight, and hadn't changed her mind on closer acquaintance.
"I remember that 112-113 unit now," she said suddenly. "Big, ugly thing--well, that describes a lot of them, doesn't it?"
Rak and the others looked quietly affronted. In a moment, Trigger realized, one of them was going to go into a lecture on functional esthetics unless she could head them off--and she'd already heard quite enough about functional esthetics in connection with the plasmoids.
"Now, 113," she hurried on, "is a very small plasmoid"--she held her hands fifteen inches or so apart--"like that; and it's attached to the big one. Correct?"
Rak nodded, a little stiffly. "Essentially correct, Miss Farn."
"Well," Trigger said, "I can't blame you for worrying a bit. How about your Guard Captain? Isn't it all right to ask him about reinforcements?"
Rak pursed his lips. "Yes. And I did. This morning. Before I called you."
"What did he say?"
Rak grimaced unhappily. "He implied, Miss Farn, that his present guard complement could handle any emergency. How would he know?"
"That's his job," Trigger pointed out gently. The Juniors did look badly worried. "He didn't have any helpful ideas?"
"None," said Rak. "He said that if someone wanted to put up the money to hire a battle squad of Special Federation Police, he could always find some use for them. But that's hopeless, of course."
Trigger straightened up. She reached out and poked Rak's bony chest with a finger tip. "You know something?" she said. "It's not!"
The four faces lit up together.
"The fact is," Trigger went on, "that I'm handling the Project budget until someone shows up to take over. So I think I'll just buy you that Federation battle squad, Rak! I'll get on it right away." She stood up. The Juniors bounced automatically out of their chairs. "You go tell your guard Captain," she instructed them from the hall door, "there'll be a squad showing up in time for dinner tonight."
* * * * *
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.
Trigger felt quite cheerful for a while.
Then she had a call from Precol's Maccadon office. She was requested to stand by while a personal interstellar transmission was switched to her ComWeb.
It looked like her day! She hummed softly, waiting. She knew just one individual affluent enough to be able to afford personal interstellar conversations; and that was Commissioner Tate. Fast work, Plemp, she thought approvingly.
But it was Brule Inger's face that flashed into view on the ComWeb. Trigger's heart jumped. Her breath caught in her throat.
"Brule!" she yelled then. She shot up out of her chair. "Where are you calling from?"
Brule's eyes crinkled around the edges. He gave her the smile. The good old smile. "Unfortunately, darling, I'm still in the Manon System." He blinked. "What happened to your hair?"
"Manon!" said Trigger. She started to settle back, weak with disappointment. Then she shot up again. "Brule! Lunatic! You're blowing a month's salary a minute on this! I love you! Switch off, fast!"
Brule threw back his head and laughed. "You haven't changed much in two months, anyway! Don't worry. It's for free. I'm calling from the yacht of a friend."
<
br /> "Some friend!" Trigger said, startled.
"It isn't costing her anything either. She had to transmit to the Hub today anyway. Asked me if I'd like to take over the last few minutes of contact and see if I could locate you.... Been missing me properly, Trigger?"
Trigger smiled. "Very properly. Well, that was lovely of her! 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."
"Right you are!"
"When are you coming back?"
She shook her head glumly. "Don't know."
He was silent a moment. "I've had to take a bit of chitchat now and then," he remarked, "about you and old Tate vanishing together."
Trigger felt herself coloring. "So don't take it," she said shortly. "Just pop them one!"
The smile returned. "Wouldn't be gentlemanly to pop a lady, would it?"
She smiled back. "So stay away from the ladies!" Somehow Brule and Holati Tate never had worked up a really warm regard for each other. It had caused a little trouble before.
"Okay to tell me where you are?" he asked.
"Afraid not, Brule."
"Precol Home Office apparently knows," he pointed out.
"Apparently," Trigger admitted.
They looked at each other a moment; then Brule grinned. "Well, keep your little secret!" he said. "All I really want to know is when you're getting back."
"Very soon, I hope, Brule," Trigger said unhappily. Then there was a sudden burst of sound from the ComWeb--gusts of laughing, chattering voices; a faint wash of music. Brule glanced aside.
"Party going on," he explained. "And here comes Nelauk! She wanted to say hello to you."
A dozen feet behind him, a figure strolled gracefully into view on the screen and came forward. A slender girl with high-piled violet hair and eyes that very nearly matched the hair's tint. She was dressed in something resembling a dozen blossoms--blossoms which, in Trigger's opinion, had been rather carelessly scattered. But presumably it was a very elegant party costume. She was quite young, certainly not yet twenty.
Brule laid a brotherly hand on a powdered shoulder. "Meet Trigger, Nelauk!"
Nelauk murmured it was indeed an honor, one she had long looked forward to. The violet eyes blinked sleepily at Trigger.
Trigger gave her a great big smile. "Thanks so much for arranging for the call. I've been wondering how Brule was doing."
Wrong thing to say, probably, she thought. She was right. Nelauk reached for it with no effort.
"Oh, he's doing wonderfully!" she assured Trigger without expression. "I'm keeping an eye on him. And this small favor--it was the very least I could do for Brule. For you, too, of course, Trigger dear."
Trigger held the smile firmly.
"Thanks so much, again!" she said.
Nelauk nodded, smiled back and drifted gracefully off the screen. Brule blew Trigger a kiss. "They'll be cutting contact now. See you very, very soon, Trigger, I hope."
His image vanished before she could answer.
She paced her office, muttering softly. She went over to the ComWeb once, reached out toward it and drew her hand back again.
Better think this over.
It might not be an emergency. Brule didn't exactly chase women. He let them chase him now and then. Long before she left Manon, Trigger had discovered without much surprise, that the wives, daughters and girl friends of visiting Hub tycoons were as susceptible to the Inger charm as any Precol clerks. The main difference was that they were a lot more direct about showing it.
It hadn't really worried her. In fact, she found Brule's slightly startled reports of maneuverings of various amorous Hub ladies very entertaining. But she had put in a little worrying about something else. Brule's susceptibility seemed to be more to the overwhelming mass display of wealth with which he was suddenly in almost constant contact. Many of the yachts he went flitting around among as Precol's representative were elaborate spacegoing palaces, and it appeared Brule Inger was soon regarded as a highly welcome guest on most of them.
Brule talked about that a little too much.
Trigger resumed her pacing.
Little Nelauk mightn't be twenty yet, but she'd flipped out a challenge just now with all the languid confidence of a veteran campaigner. Which, Trigger thought cattily, little Nelauk undoubtedly was.
And a girl, she added cattily, whose father represented the Pluly Lines did have some slight reason for confidence....
"Miaow!" she reproved herself. Nelauk, to be honest about it, was also a dish.
But if she happened to be serious about Brule, the dish Brule might be tempted by was said Pluly Lines.
Trigger went over to the window and looked down at the exercise quadrangle forty floors below.
"If he's that much of a meathead!" she thought.
He could be that much of a meathead. He was also Brule. She went back to her desk and sat down. She looked at the ComWeb. A girl had a right to consider her own interests.
And there was the completely gruesome possibility now that Holati Tate might call in at any moment, give her an entirely reasonable, satisfactory, valid, convincing explanation for everything that had happened lately--and then show her why it would be absolutely necessary for her to stay here a while longer.
If it was a choice between inconveniencing Holati Tate and losing that meathead Brule--
Trigger switched on the ComWeb.
4
The head of the personnel department of Precol's Maccadon office said, "You don't want me, Argee. That's not my jurisdiction. I'll connect you with Undersecretary Rozan."
Trigger blinked. "Under--" she began. But he'd already cut off.
She stared at the ComWeb, feeling a little shaken. All she'd done was to say she wanted to apply for a transfer! Undersecretary Rozan was one of Precol's Big Four. For a moment, Trigger had an uncanny notion. Some strange madness was spreading insidiously through the Hub. She shook the thought off.
A businesslike blonde showed up in the screen. She might be about thirty-five. She smiled a small, cold smile.
"Rozan," she said. "You're Trigger Argee. I know about you. What's the trouble?"
Trigger looked at her, wondering. "No trouble," she said. "Personnel just routed me through to you."
"They've been instructed to do so," said Rozan. "Go ahead."
"I'm on detached duty at the moment."
"I know."
"I'd like to apply for a transfer back to my previous job. The Manon System."
"That's your privilege," said Rozan. She half turned, swung a telewriter forward and snapped it into her ComWeb. She glanced out at Trigger's desk. "Your writer's connected, I see. We'll want thumbprint and signature."
She slid a form into her telewriter, shifted it twice as Trigger deposited thumbprint and signature and drew it out. "The application will be processed promptly, Argee. Good day."
Not a gabby type, that Rozan.
If not gabby, the Precol blonde was a woman of her word. Trigger had just started lunch when the office mail-tube receiver tinkled brightly at her. She reached in, took out a flat plastic carrier, snapped it open. The paper that unfolded itself in her hand was her retransfer application.
At the bottom of the form was stamped "Application Denied," followed by the signature of the Secretary of the Department of Precolonization, Home Office, Evalee.
Trigger's gaze shifted incredulously from the signature to the two words, and back. They'd taken the trouble to get that signature transmitted from Evalee just to make it clear th
at there were no heads left to be gone over in the matter. Precol was not transferring her back to Manon. That was final. Then she realized that there was a second sheet attached to the application form.
On it in handwriting were a few more words: "In accordance with the instructions of Commissioner Tate." And a signature, "Rozan." And three final words: "Destroy this note."
Trigger crumpled up the application in one hand. Her other hand darted to the ComWeb.
Then she checked herself. To fire an as-of-now resignation back at Precol had been the immediate impulse. But something, some vague warning chill, was saying it might be a very poor impulse to follow.
She sat back to think it over.
It was very probable that Undersecretary Rozan disliked Holati Tate intensely. A lot of the Home Office big shots disliked Holati Tate. He'd stamped on their toes more than once--very justifiably; but he'd stamped. The Home Office wouldn't go an inch out of its way to do something just because Commissioner Tate happened to want it done.
So somebody else was backing up Commissioner Tate's instructions.
Trigger shook her head helplessly.
The only somebody else who could give instructions to the Precolonization Department was the Council of the Federation!
And how could the Federation possibly care what Trigger Argee was doing? She made a small, incredulous noise in her throat.
Then she sat there a while, feeling frightened.
The fright didn't really wear off, but it settled down slowly inside her. Up on the surface she began to think again.
Assume it's so, she instructed herself. It made no sense, but everything else made even less sense. Just assume it's so. Set it up as a practical problem. Don't worry about the why....
The problem became very simple then. She wanted to go to Manon. The Federation--or something else, something quite unthinkable at the moment but comparable to the Federation in power and influence--wanted to keep her here.