by Anthology
Trigger smiled faintly. "That's a switch! I didn't know you knew how."
"I've followed plenty of orders in my time," the Commissioner said, "when I thought they made sense. And I think these do."
Trigger was silent a moment. "You said a while ago that most of the heat was to go off me tonight. Can you talk about that?"
"Yes, that's all right." He considered. "I'll have to tell you something else again first--why we're going to Manon."
She settled back in her chair. "Go ahead."
"Somebody got the idea that one of the things Gess Fayle might have done is to arrange things so he wouldn't have to come back to the Hub for a while. If he could set up shop on some outworld far enough away, and tinker around with that plasmoid unit for a year or so until he knew all about it, he might do better for himself than by simply selling it to somebody."
"But that would be pretty risky, wouldn't it?" said Trigger. "With just the equipment he could pack on a League transport."
"Not very much risk," said the Commissioner, "if he had an agreement to have an Independent Fleet meet him."
"Oh." She nodded.
"And by what is, at all events, an interesting coincidence," the Commissioner went on, "we've had word that an outfit called Vishni's Fleet hasn't been heard from for some months. Their I-Fleet area is a long way out beyond Manon, but Fayle could have made it there, at League ship speeds, in about twenty days. Less, if Vishni sent a few pilots to meet him and guide him out of subspace. If he's bought Vishni's, he's had his pick of a few hundred uncharted habitable planets and a few thousand very expert outworlders to see nothing happens to him planetside. And Vishni's boys are exactly the kind of crumbs you could buy for a deal like that.
"Now, what's been done is to hire a few of the other I-Fleets around there and set them and as many Space Scout squadrons as could be kicked loose from duty elsewhere to surveying the Vishni territory. Our outfit is in charge of that operation. And Manon, of course, is a lot better point from which to conduct it than the Hub. If something is discovered that looks interesting enough to investigate in detail, we'll only be a week's run away.
"So we've been ready to move for the past two weeks now, which was when the first reports started coming in from the Vishni area--negative reports so far, by the way. I've kept stalling from day to day, because there were also indications that your grabber friends might be getting set to swing at you finally. It seemed tidier to get that matter cleared up first. Now they've swung, and we'll go."
He rubbed his chin. "The nice thing about it all," he remarked, "is that we're going there with the two items the opposition has revealed it wants. We're letting them know those items will be available in the Manon System henceforward. They might get discouraged and just drop the whole project. If they do, that's fine. We'll go ahead with cleaning up the Vishni phase of the operation.
"But," he continued, "the indications are they can't drop their project any more than we can drop looking for that key unit. So we'll expect them to show up in Manon. When they do, they'll be working in unfamiliar territory and in a system where they have only something like fifty thousand people to hide out in, instead of a planetary civilization. I think they'll find things getting very hot for them very fast in Manon."
"Very good," said Trigger. "That I like! But what makes you think the opposition is just one group? There might be a bunch of them by now. Maybe even fighting among themselves."
"I'd bet on at least two groups myself," he said. "And if they're fighting, they've got our blessing. They're still all opposition as far as we're concerned."
She nodded, "How are you letting them know about the move?"
"The mountains around here are lousy with observers. Very cute tricks some of them use--one boy has been sitting in a hollow tree for weeks. We let them see what we want to. This evening they saw you coming in. Later tonight they'll see you climbing into the ship with the rest of the party and taking off. They've already picked up messages to tell them just where the ship's going." He paused. "But you've got a job to finish up here first, Trigger. That'll take about four days. So it won't really be you they see climbing into the ship."
"What!" She straightened up.
"We've got a facsimile for you," he explained. "Girl agent. She goes along to draw the heat to Manon."
Trigger felt herself tightening up slowly all over.
"What's this job you're talking about?" she asked evenly.
"Can't tell you in too much detail. But around four days from now somebody is coming in to Maccadon to interview you."
"Interview me? What about?"
He hesitated a moment. "There's a theory," he said, "that you might have information you don't know you have. And that the people who sent grabbers after you want that information. If it's true, the interview will bring it out."
Her mouth went dry suddenly. She turned her head to Quillan. "Major," she said, "I think I'd like that cigarette now."
He came over and lit one for her. Trigger thanked him and puffed. And she'd almost spilled everything, she was thinking. The paid-up reservation. Every last thing.
"I'd like to get it straight," she said. "What you're talking about sounds like it's a mind-search job, Holati."
"It's in that class," he said. "But it won't be an ordinary mind-search. The people who are coming here are top experts at that kind of work."
She nodded. "I don't know much about it.... Do they think somebody's got to me with a hypno-spray or something? That I've been conditioned? Something like that?"
"I don't know, Trigger," he said. "It may be something in that line. But whatever it is, they'll be able to handle it."
Trigger moistened her lips, "I was thinking, you know," she said. "Supposing I'm mind-blocked."
He shook his head. "I can tell you that, anyway," he said. "We already know you're not."
Trigger was silent a moment. Then she said, "After that interview's over, I'm to ship out to Manon--is that it?"
"That's right."
"But it would depend on the outcome of that interview too, wouldn't it?" Trigger pointed out. "I mean you can't really be sure what those people might decide, can you?"
"Yes, I can," he said. "This thing's been all scheduled out, Trigger. And the next step of the schedule for you is Manon. Nothing else."
She didn't believe him in the least. He couldn't know. She nodded.
"Guess I might as well play along." She looked at him. "I don't think I really had much choice, did I?"
"Afraid not," he admitted. "It's one of those things that just have to be done. But you won't find it all bad. Your companion, by the way, for the next three days will be Mihul."
"Mihul!" Trigger exclaimed.
"Right there," said Mihul's voice. Trigger swung around in her chair. Mihul stood in a door which had appeared in the full wall of the room. She gave Trigger a smile. Trigger looked back at the Commissioner.
"I don't get it," she said.
"Oh, Mihul's in Scout Intelligence," he said, "wouldn't be here if she weren't."
"Been an agent for eighteen years," Mihul said, coming forward. "Hi, Trigger, surprised?"
"Yes," Trigger admitted. "Very."
"They brought me into this job," Mihul said, "because they figured you and I would get along together just fine."
9
It was really infernally bad luck! Mihul was going to be the least easy of wardens to get away from ... particularly in time to catch a liner tomorrow night. Mihul knew her much too well.
"Like to come along and meet your facsimile now?" Mihul inquired. She grinned. "Most people find the first time quite an experience."
Trigger stood up resignedly. "All right," she said. They were being polite about it, but it was clear that it was still a cop and prisoner situation. And old friend Mihul! She remembered something then. "I believe Major Quillan has my gun."
He looked at her thoughtfully, not smiling. "No," he said. "Gave it to Mihul."
"That's right,"
said Mihul. "Let's go, kid."
They went out through the door that had appeared in the wall. It closed again behind them.
The facsimile stood up from behind a table at which she had been sitting as Trigger and Mihul came into the room. She gave Trigger a brief, impersonal glance, then looked at Mihul.
Mihul performed no introductions.
"Dress, robe and scarf," she said to the facsimile. "The shoes are close enough." She turned to Trigger. "She'll be wearing your street clothes when she leaves," she said. "Could we have the dress now?"
Trigger pulled the dress over her head, tossed it to Mihul and stood in her underwear, looking at her double slip out of her street clothes. They did seem to be a very close match in size and proportions. Watching the shifting play of slim muscles in the long legs and smooth back, Trigger decided the similarity was largely a natural one. The silver-blonde hair was the same, of course. The gray eyes seemed almost identical--and the rest of the face was a little too identical! They must have used a life-mask there.
It was a bit uncanny. Like seeing one's mirror image start moving about independently. If the girl had talked, it might have reduced the effect. But she remained silent.
She put on the dress Trigger had been wearing and smoothed it down. Mihul surveyed the result. She nodded. "Perfect." She took Trigger's robe and scarf from the back of a chair where someone had draped them and handed them over.
"You won't wear the scarf," she said. "Just shove it into a pocket of the coat."
The girl slung the cloak over her shoulder and stood holding the scarf. Mihul looked her over once more. "You'll do," she said. She smiled briefly. "All right."
The facsimile glanced at Trigger again, turned and moved attractively out of the room. Trigger frowned.
"Something wrong?" Mihul asked. She had gone over to a wall basin and was washing out a tumbler.
"Why does she walk like that?"
"The little swing in the rear? She's studied it." Mihul half filled the tumbler with water, fished a transparent splinter of something out of a pocket and cracked the splinter over the edge of the glass. "Among your friends it's referred to as the Argee Lilt. She's got you down pat, kid."
Trigger didn't comment. "Am I supposed to put on her clothes?"
"No. We've got another costume for you." Mihul came over, holding out the glass. "This is for you."
Trigger looked at the glass suspiciously. "What's in it?"
The blue eyes regarded her mildly. "You could call it a sedative."
"Don't need any. Thanks."
"Better take it anyway." Mihul patted her hip with her other hand. "Little hypo gun here. That's the alternative."
"What!"
"That's right. Same type of charge as in your fancy Denton. Stuff in the glass is easier to take and won't leave you groggy."
"What's the idea?"
"I've known you quite a while," said Mihul. "And I was watching you the last twenty minutes in that room through a screen. You'll take off again if you get the least chance. I don't blame you a bit. You're being pushed around. But now it's my job to see you don't take off; and until we get to where you're going, I want to be sure you'll stay quiet."
She still held out the glass, in a long, tanned, capable hand. She stood three inches taller than Trigger, weighted thirty-five pounds more. Not an ounce of that additional thirty-five pounds was fat. If she'd needed assistance, the hunting lodge was full of potential helpers. She didn't.
"I never claimed I liked this arrangement," Trigger said carefully. "I did say I'd go along with it. I will. Isn't that enough?"
"Sure," Mihul said promptly. "Give word of parole?"
There was a long pause.
"No!" Trigger said.
"I thought not. Drink or gun?"
"Drink," Trigger said coldly. She took the glass. "How long will it put me out?"
"Eight to nine hours." Mihul stood by watchfully while Trigger emptied the tumbler. After a moment the tumbler fell to the floor. She reached out and caught Trigger as she started down.
"All right," she said across her shoulder to the open doorway behind her. "Let's move!"
* * * * *
Trigger awoke and instantly went taut with tension. She lay quiet a few seconds, not even opening her eyes. There was cool sunlight on her eyelids, but she was indoors. There was a subdued murmur of sound somewhere; after a moment she knew it came from a news viewer turned low, in some adjoining room. But there didn't seem to be anybody immediately around her. Warily she opened her eyes.
She was on a couch in an airy, spacious room furnished in the palest of greens and ivory. One entire side of the room was either a window or a solido screen. In it was a distant mountain range with many snowy peaks, an almost cloudless blue sky. Sun at midmorning or midafternoon.
Sun and all had the look of Maccadon--they probably still were on the planet. That was where the interview was to take place. But she also could have been sent on a three-day space cruise, which would be a rather good way to make sure a prisoner stayed exactly where you wanted her. This could be a spaceliner suite with a packaged view of any one of some hundreds of worlds, and with packaged sunlight thrown in.
There was one door to the room. It stood open, and the news viewer talk came from there.
Trigger sat up quietly and looked down at the clothes she wore. All white. A short-sleeved half-blouse of some soft, rather heavy, very comfortable unfamiliar stuff. Bare midriff. White kid trousers which flared at the thighs and were drawn in to a close fit just above the knees and down the calves, vanishing into kid boots with thick, flexible soles.
Sporting outfit.... That meant Maccadon!
She pulled a handful of hair forward and looked at it. They'd recolored it--this time to a warm mahogany brown. She swung her legs off the couch and stood up quietly. A dozen soft steps across the springy thick-napped turf of ivory carpet took her to the window.
The news viewer clicked and went silent.
"Not bad," Trigger said. She saw a long range of woodlands and open heath, rising gradually into the flanks of the mountains. On the far right was the still, silver glitter of two lakes. "Where are we?"
"Byla Uplands Game Preserve. That's the game bird area before you." Mihul appeared in the doorframe, in an outfit almost a duplicate of Trigger's, in pearl-gray tones. "Feel all right?"
"Feeling fine," Trigger said. Byla Uplands--the southern tip of the continent. She could make it back to Ceyce in two hours or less! She turned and grinned at Mihul. "I also feel hungry. How long was I out?"
Mihul glanced at her wrist watch. "Eight hours, ten minutes. You woke up on schedule. I had breakfast sent up thirty minutes ago. I've already eaten mine--took one sniff and plunged in. It's good!" Mihul's hair, Trigger saw, had been cropped short and a streak of gray added over the right side; and they'd changed the color of her eyes to hazel. She wondered what had been done to her along that line. "Want to come in?" Mihul said. "We can talk while you eat."
Trigger nodded. "After I've freshened up."
The bathroom mirror showed they'd left her eyes alone. But there was a very puzzling impression that she was staring at an image considerably plumper, shorter, younger than it should be--a teen-ager around seventeen or eighteen. Her eyes narrowed. If they'd done flesh-sculpting on her, it could cause complications.
She stripped hurriedly and checked. They hadn't tampered with her body. So it had to be the clothes; though it was difficult to see how even the most cunning cut could provide such a very convincing illusion of being more rounded out, heavier around the thighs, larger breasts--just missing being dumpy, in fact. She dressed again, looked again, and came out of the bathroom, still puzzled.
"Choice of three game birds for breakfast." Mihul announced. "Never heard of any of them. All good. Plus regular stuff." She patted her flat midriff. "Ate too much!" she admitted. "Now dig in and I'll brief you."
Trigger dug in. "I had a look at myself in the mirror," she remarked. "What's this now
-you-see-it-now-you-don't business of fifteen or so pounds of baby fat?"
Mihul laughed. "You don't really have it."
"I know that too. How do they do it?"
"Subcolor job in the clothes. They're not really white. Anyone looking at you gets his vision distorted a little without realizing it. Takes a wider view of certain areas, for example. You can play it around in a lot of ways."
"I never heard of that one," Trigger said. "You'd think it would be sensational in fashions."
"It would be. Right now it's top secret for as long as Intelligence can keep it that way."
Trigger chewed a savory morsel of something. "Then why did you tell me?"
"You're one of the gang, however reluctant. And you're good at keeping the mouth shut. Your name, by the way, is now Comteen Lod, just turned eighteen. I 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. Now--"
She leaned back comfortably, tilting the chair and clasping her hands around one knee. "Aside from the sport, we're here because you're a convalescent. You're recovering from a rather severe attack of Dykart Fever. Heard of it?"
Trigger reflected. "Something you pick up in some sections of the Evalee tropics, isn't it?"
Mihul nodded. "That's what you did, child! Skipped your shots on the last trip we took--and six months later you're still paying for it. You were in one of those typical Dykart fever comas when we brought you in last night."
"Very clever!" Trigger commented acidly.
"Very." Mihul pursed her lips. "The Dykart bug causes temporary derangements, you know--spells during which convalescents talk wildly, imagine things."
Trigger popped another fragment of meat between her teeth and chewed thoughtfully, looking over at Mihul. "Very good duck or whatever!" she said. "Like imagining they've been more or less kidnapped, you mean?"