by Anthology
"He's hunting for some theoretical creatures he calls wild plasmoids."
"Wild plasmoids?"
"Uh-huh. His idea is that some of the plasmoids the Old Galactics were using on Manon might have got away from them, or just been left lying around, so to speak, and could have survived till now. He thinks they might even be reproducing themselves. He's looking for them with a special detector he built."
Trigger held up a finger on which was a slim gold ring with a small green stone in it. "Like this one?" she asked.
"He's got a large version of that type of detector with him too. But he thinks that if any wild plasmoids are around, they're likely to be along the lines of 113-A. So he's also constructed a detector which reacts to 113-A."
"I see." Trigger was silent a moment. "Does Mantelish have any idea why Repulsive is the only plasmoid known to which our ring detectors don't react?"
"Apparently he does," Holati said. "But when he starts in on those subjects, I find him difficult to follow." He looked soberly at Trigger. "There are times," he confessed, "when I suspect Professor Mantelish is somewhat daft. But probably he's just so brilliant that he keeps fading beyond my mental range."
Trigger laughed. "My father used to come home from a session with Mantelish muttering the same sort of thing." She glanced at the ring again. "By the way, have any plasmoids actually been stolen around here for us to detect?"
He nodded. "Quite a few have been snitched from Harvest Moon and various storage points by now. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them turn up here in the dome eventually. Not that it's a serious loss. What the thieves have been getting away with is small stuff--plasmoid nuts and bolts, so to speak. Still, each of those would still fetch around a hundred thousand credits, if you offered them to the right people. Incidentally, if asking you to this conference has interfered with any personal plans, just say so. We can put it off till tomorrow. Especially since it's beginning to look as if Mantelish won't make it here either."
"Either?" Trigger said.
"Quillan's already had to cancel. He got involved with something during the afternoon."
"Oh," she said coolly. She looked at her watch. "I do have a dinner date with Brule Inger in an hour and a half. But you said this meeting wasn't to take more than an hour anyway, didn't you?"
He nodded.
"Then I'm free. My quarters are arranged, and I'm ready to go back on my old job in the morning."
"Fine," said the Commissioner. "There are things I wanted to discuss with you privately anyway. If we can't get through to Mantelish in another ten minutes, we'll go ahead with that. I would have liked to have Quillan here to fill us in with data about some of the top-level crooks in the Hub. They're a specialty of his. I don't know too much about them myself."
He paused. "That Lyad Ermetyne now," he said, "looks as if she either already is part of the main problem or is working very hard to get there. She's had a Tranest warship stationed here for the past two weeks. A thing called the Aurora."
Trigger was startled. "But warships aren't allowed in Manon System!"
"It isn't in the system. It's stationed a half light-year away, where it has a legal right to be. Nothing to worry about as such. It's just a heavy armed frigate, which is the limit Tranest is allowed to build. Since it's Lyad's private boat, I imagine it's been souped up with everything they could throw in. Anyway, the fact that she sent it here ahead of her indicates she isn't just dropping in for a casual visit."
"She made that pretty clear herself!" Trigger said. "Why do you think she's being so open about it?"
He shrugged. "Might have a number of reasons. One could be that she'd get the beady eye anyway as soon as she showed up here. When Lyad goes anywhere, it's usually on business. After Quillan reported on your dinner party, I got all the information I could on her. The First Lady stacks up as a tough cookie! Also smart. Most of those Ermetynes wind up being dead-brained by some loving relative, and apparently they have to know how to whip up a sharp brew of poison before they're let into kindergarten. Lyad's been top dog among them since she was eighteen--"
His head turned. A bell had begun pinging in the next room. He stood up.
"Probably Mantelish's outfit on the transmitter," he said. "I told them to call as soon as they located him." He stopped at the door. "Care for a drink, Trigger girl? You know where the stuff is."
"Not just now, thanks."
The Commissioner came back in a couple of minutes. "Darn fool got lost in a swamp! They found him finally, but he's too tired to come over now."
He sat down and scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Do you remember the time you passed out on the Harvest Moon?" he asked.
Trigger looked at him, puzzled. "The time I what?"
"Passed out. Fainted. Went out cold."
"I? You're out of your mind, Holati! I never fainted in my life."
"Reason I asked," he said, "is that I've been told a spell in a rest cubicle--same thing as a rest cubicle anyway, only it's used for therapy--sometimes resolves amnesias."
"Amnesias! What are you talking about?"
The Commissioner said. "I'm talking about you. This is bound to be a jolt, Trigger girl. Might have been easier after a drink. But I'll just give it to you straight. About a week after Mantelish and his U-League crew first arrived here, you did pass out on one occasion while we were on the Harvest Moon with them. And afterwards you didn't remember doing it."
"I didn't?" Trigger said weakly.
"No. I thought it might have cleared up, and you just had some reason for not wanting to mention it." He got to his feet. "Like that drink now--before I go on with the details?"
She nodded.
17
Holati Tate brought her the drink and went on with the details.
Trigger and he and a dozen or so of the first group of U-League investigators had been in what was now designated as Section 52 of Harvest Moon. The Commissioner was by himself, checking over some equipment which had been installed in one of the compartments. After a while Doctor Azol joined him and told him Mantelish and the others had gone on to another section. Holati and Azol finished the check-up together and were about to leave the area to catch up with the group, when Holati saw Trigger lying on the floor in an adjoining compartment.
"You seemed to be in some kind of coma," he said. "We picked you up and put you into a chair by one of the survey screens, and were trying to get out a call on Azol's suit communicator to the ambulance boat when you suddenly opened your eyes. You looked at me and said, 'Oh, there you are! I was just going to go looking for you.'"
"It was obvious that you didn't realize anything unusual had happened. Azol started to say something, but I stepped on his foot, and he caught on. In fact, he caught on so fast that I became a little suspicious of him."
"Poor Azol!" Trigger said.
"Poor nothing!" the Commissioner said cryptically. "I'll tell you about that some other time. I cautioned Doctor Azol to say nothing to anybody until the incident had been clarified, in view of the stringent security precautions being practiced ... supposedly being practiced," he amended. Then he'd returned to Manon Planet with Trigger immediately, where she was checked over by Precol's medical staff. Physically there wasn't a thing wrong with her.
"And that," said Trigger, feeling a little frightened, "is something else I don't remember!"
"Well, you wouldn't," the Commissioner said. "You were fed a hypno-spray first. You went out for three hours. When you woke up, you thought you'd been having a good nap. Since the medics were sure you hadn't picked up some odd plasmoid infection, I wanted to know just what else had happened on Harvest Moon. One of those scientific big shots might also have used a hypno-spray on you, with the idea of turning you into a conditioned assistant for future shenanigans."
Trigger grinned faintly. "You do have a suspicious mind!" The grin faded. "Was that what they were going to find out in that mind-search interview on Maccadon I skipped out on?"
"It's one of the thin
gs they might have looked for," he agreed.
Trigger gazed at him very thoughtfully for a moment. "Well, I loused that deal up!" she remarked. "But why is everybody--" She shook her head. "Excuse me. Go on."
The Commissioner went on. "Old Doc Leeharvis was handling the hypnosis herself. She hit what she thought might be a mind-block when she tried to get you to remember what happened. We know now it wasn't a mind-block. But she wouldn't monkey with you any farther, and told me to get in an expert. So I called the Psychology Service's headquarters on Orado."
Trigger looked startled, then laughed. "The eggheads? You went right to the top there, didn't you?"
"Tried to," said Holati Tate. "It's a good idea when you want real service. They told me to stay calm and to say nothing to you. An expert would be shipped out promptly."
"Was he?"
"Yes."
Trigger's eyes narrowed a little. "Same old hypno-spray treatment?"
"Right," said Commissioner Tate. "He came, sprayed, investigated. Then he told me to stay calm, and went off looking puzzled."
"Puzzled?" she said.
"If I hadn't known before that experts come in all grades," the Commissioner said, "I'd know it now. That first one they sent was just sharp enough to realize there might be something involved in the case he wasn't getting. But that was all."
Trigger was silent a moment. "So there've been more of those investigations I don't know about!" she observed, her voice taking on an edge.
"Uh-huh," the Commissioner said cautiously.
"How many?"
"Seven."
Trigger flushed, straightened up, eyes blazing, and pronounced a very unladylike word.
"Excuse me," she added a moment later. "I got carried away."
"Perfectly all right," said the Commissioner.
"I've been getting just a bit fed up anyway," Trigger went on, voice and color still high, "with people knocking me for a loop one way or another whenever they happen to feel like it!"
"Don't blame you a bit," he said.
"And please don't think I don't appreciate your calling in all those experts. I do. It's just their sneaky, underhanded, secretive methods I don't go for!"
"Exactly how I feel about it," said the Commissioner.
Trigger stared at him suspiciously. "You're a pretty sneaky type yourself!" she said. "Well, excuse the blowup, Holati. They probably had some reason for it. Have they found out anything at all with all the spraying and investigating?"
"Oh, yes. They seem to have made considerable progress. The last report I had from them--about a month ago--shows that the original amnesia has been completely resolved."
Trigger looked surprised. "If it's been resolved," she said reasonably, "why don't I remember what happened?"
"You aren't supposed to become conscious of it before the final interview--I don't know the reason for that. But the memory is available now. On tap, so to speak. They'll give you a cue, and then you'll remember it."
"Just like that, eh?" She paused. "So the Psychology Service is Whatzzit."
"Whatzzit?" said the Commissioner.
She explained about Whatzzit. He grinned.
"Yes," he said. "They're the ones who've been giving the instructions, as far as you're concerned."
Trigger was silent a moment. "I've heard," she said, "the eggheads have terrific pull when they want to use it. You don't hear much about them otherwise. Let me think just a little."
"Go ahead," said Holati.
A minute ticked away.
"What it boils down to so far," Trigger said then, "is still pretty much what you told me on Maccadon. The Psychology Service thinks I know something that might help clean up the plasmoid problem. Or at least help explain it."
He nodded.
"And the people who've been trying to grab me very probably are doing it for exactly the same reason."
He nodded again. "That's almost certain."
"Do you think the eggheads might already have figured out what the connection is?"
The Commissioner shook his head. "If they had, we'd be doing something about it. The Federation Council is very nervous!"
"Well...." Trigger said. She pursed her lips. "That Lyad...." she said.
"What about her?"
"She tried to hire me," said Trigger. "Major Quillan reported it, I suppose?"
"Sure."
"And it wouldn't be just to steal some stupid plasmoid. Especially since you say a number of small ones are already available. Then there're the ones that raiders picked up in the Hub. She probably has a collection by now."
He nodded. "Probably."
"She seems to know quite a bit about what's been going on...."
"Very likely she does."
"Let's grab her!" said Trigger. "We can do it quietly. And she's too big to be mind-blocked. We'd get part of the answer. Perhaps all of it!"
Something flared briefly in the Commissioner's small gray eyes. He reached over and patted her knee.
"You're a girl after my own heart, Trigger girl," he said. "I'm for it. But half the Council would have fainted dead away if they'd heard you make that suggestion!"
"They're as touchy as that?" she asked, disappointed.
"Yes--and you can't quite blame them. Fumbles could be pretty bad. When it comes to someone around Lyad's level, our own group is restricted to defensive counteraction. If we get evidence against her, it'll be up to the diplomats to decide what's to be done about it. Tactfully. We wouldn't be further involved."
Trigger nodded, watching him. "Go on."
"Well, defensive counteraction can cover a lot of things, of course. If we actually run into the First Lady while we're engaged in it, we'll hold her--as long as we can. And from all accounts, now that she's showed up to take personal charge of things around here, we can expect some very fast, very direct action from Lyad."
"How fast?"
"My own guess," said the Commissioner, "would be around a week. If she hasn't moved by then, we might help things along a little."
"Make a few of those openings for her, eh? Well, that doesn't sound too bad." Trigger reflected. "Then there's Point Number Two," she said.
"What's that?"
She grimaced. "I'm not real keen on it," she confessed, "but I think we'd better do something about that interview with Whatzzit I ducked out of. If they still want to talk to me--"
"They do. Very much so."
"What's that business about their saying it was okay now for me to go on to Manon?"
Commissioner Tate tugged gently at his left ear lobe. "Frankly," he said, "that's something that shook me a little."
"Shook you? Why?"
"It's that matter of experts coming in grades. The upper ranks in the Psychology Service are extremely busy people, I understand. After your first interview we were shifted upward promptly. A couple of middling high-bracket investigators took over for a while. But after the fourth interview I was told I'd have to bring you to the Hub to let somebody really competent handle the next stage of whatever they've been doing. They said they couldn't spare anybody of that caliber for a trip to Manon."
"Was that the real reason we went to Maccadon?" Trigger asked, startled.
"Sure. But we still hadn't got anywhere near the Service's top level then. As I get it, their topnotchers don't spend much time on individual cases. They keep busy with things on the scale of our more bothersome planetary cultures--and there are supposed to be only a hundred or so of them in that category. So I was more than a little surprised when the Service informed me finally one of those people was coming to Maccadon to conduct your ninth interview."
"One of the real eggheads!" Trigger smiled nervously. "And then I just took off! They can't have too good an opinion of me at the moment, you know."
"Apparently that didn't upset them in the least," the Commissioner said. "They told me to stay calm and make sure you got to Manon all right. Then they said they had a ship operating in this area, and they'd route it over to Manon
after you arrived here."
"A ship?" Trigger asked.
"I've seen a few of their ships--they looked like oversized flying mountains. Camouflage jobs. What they actually are is spacegoing superlaboratories, from what I've heard. This one has a couple of those topnotchers on board, and one of them will take you on. It's due here in a day or so."
Trigger had paled somewhat. "You know," she said, "I feel a little shaken myself now."
"I'm not surprised," said the Commissioner.
She shook her head. "Well if they're topnotchers, they must know what they're doing." She gave him a smile. "Looks like I'm something extremely unusual! Like a bothersome planetary culture.... Weak joke," she added.
The Commissioner ignored the weak joke. "There's another thing," he said thoughtfully.
"What's that?"
"When I mentioned your reluctance about being interviewed, they told me not to worry about it--that you wouldn't try to duck out again. That's why I was surprised when you brought up the matter of the interview yourself just now."
"Now that is odd," Trigger admitted after a pause. "How would they know?"
"Right," he said. He sighed. "Guess we're both a little out of our depth there. I've come close to getting impatient with them a few times--had the feeling they were stalling me off and holding back information. But presumably they do know what they're doing." He glanced at his watch. "That hour's about up now, by the way."
"Well, if there's something else that should be discussed I can break my dinner date," Trigger said, somewhat reluctantly. "I had a chance to talk with Brule at the spaceport for a while, when we came in this morning."
"I wasn't suggesting that," said Holati. "There still are things to be discussed, but a few hours one way or the other won't make any difference. We'll get together again around lunch tomorrow. Then you'll be filled in pretty well on all the main points of this business."
Trigger nodded. "Fine."
"What I had in mind right now was that the Service people suggested having you look over their last report on you after your arrival. You'd have just enough time for that before going to keep your date. Care to do it?"