by Anthology
"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?"
"I certainly would!" Trigger said.
The transmitter signaled for attention while she was studying the report. Holati Tate went off to answer it. The report was rather lengthy, and Trigger was still going over it when he got back. He sat down again and waited.
When she looked up finally, he asked, "Can you make much sense of it?"
"Not very much," Trigger admitted. "It just states what seems to have happened. Not how or why. Apparently they did get me to develop a total recall of that knocked-out period in the last interview--I even reported hearing you and Doctor Azol moving around and talking in the next compartment."
He nodded. "I remember enough of my conversation with Azol to be able to verify that part of it."
"Then, some time before I actually fell down," said Trigger, "I was apparently already in that mysterious coma. Getting deeper into it. It started when I walked away from Mantelish's group, without having any particular reason for doing it. I just walked. Then I was in another compartment by myself and still walking, and the stuff kept getting deeper, until I lost physical control of myself and fell down. Then I lay there a while until you came down that aisle and saw me. And after you'd picked me up and put me in that chair--just like that, everything clears up! Except that I don't remember what happened and think I've just left Mantelish to go looking for you. I don't even wonder how I happen to be sitting there in a chair!"
The Commissioner smiled briefly. "That's right. You didn't."
Her slim fingers tapped the pages of the report, the green stone in the ring he'd given her to wear reflecting little flashes of light. "They seem quite positive that nobody else came near me during that period. And that nobody had used a hypno-spray on me or shot a hypodermic pellet into me--anything like that--before the seizure or whatever it was came on. How do you suppose they could be so sure of that?"
"I wouldn't know," Holati said. "But I think we might as well assume they're right."
"I suppose so. What it seems to boil down to is they're saying I was undergoing something like a very much slowed-down, very profound emotional shock--source still undetermined, but profound enough to knock me completely out for a while. Only they also say that--for a whole list of reasons--it couldn't possibly have been an emotional shock after all! And when the effect left, it went instantaneously. That would be just the reverse to the pattern of an emotional shock, wouldn't it?"
"Yes," he said. "That occurred to me too, but it didn't explain anything to me. Possibly it's explained something to the Psychology Service."
"Well," Trigger said, "it's certainly all very odd. Very disagreeable, too!" She laid the report down on the arm of her chair and looked at the Commissioner. "Guess I'd better run now," she said. "But there was something you said before that made me wonder. There was really very little of Doctor Azol left after that plasmoid got through with him."
He nodded. "True."
"It wasn't Azol, was it?"
"No."
"Man, oh, man!" Trigger jumped up, bent over his chair and gave him a quick peck on an ear tip. "If I ask one more question, we'll be sitting here the next two hours. I'll run instead! See you around lunchtime, Commissioner!"
"Right, Trigger," he said, getting up.
He closed the door behind her and went back to the transmitter. He looked rather unhappy.
"Yes?" said a voice in the transmitter.
"She just left," Commissioner Tate said. "Get on the beam and stay there!"
18
"Well," Trigger said, regarding Brule critically, "I just meant to say that you're getting the least little bit plump here and there, under all that tan. I'll admit it doesn't show yet when you're dressed."
Brule smiled tolerantly. In silver swimming trunks and sandals, he was obviously a very handsome hunk of young man, and he knew it. So did Trigger. So did a quartet of predatory young females eyeing them speculatively from a table only twenty feet away.
"I've come swimming here quite a bit since they opened the Center," he said. He flexed his right arm and regarded his biceps complacently. "That's just streamlined muscle you're looking at, sweetheart!"
Trigger reached over and poked the biceps with a finger tip. "Muscle?" she said, smiling at him. "It dents. See?"
He clasped his other hand over hers and squeezed it lightly.
"Oh, golly, Brule!" she said happily. "I'm so glad I'm back!"
He gave her the smile. "You're not the only glad one!"
She l
ooked around, humming softly. They were having dinner in one of the Grand Commerce Center's restaurants. This one happened to be beneath the surface of the artificial swimming lake installed in the Center--a giant grotto surrounded by green-gold chasms of water on every side. Underwater swimmers and bottom walkers moved past beyond the wide windows. A streak of silvery swiftness against a dark red canyon wall before her was trying to keep away from a trio of pursuing spear fishermen. Even the lake fish were Hub imports, advertised as such by the Center.
Her eyes widened suddenly. "Hey!" she said.
"What?"
"That group of people up there!"
Brule looked. "What about them?"
"No suits, you idiot!"
He grinned. "Oh, a lot of them do that. Okay by Federation law, you know. And seeing Manon's so close to becoming open Federation territory, we haven't tried to enforce minor Precol regulations much lately."
"Well--" Trigger began. He was still smiling. "Have you been doing it?" she inquired suspiciously.
"Swimming in the raw? Certainly. Depends on the company. If you weren't such a little prude, I'd have suggested it tonight. Want to try it later?"
Trigger colored. Prude again, she thought. "Nope," she said. "There are limits."
He patted her cheek. "On you it would look cute."
She shook her head, aware of a small fluster of guilt. There had been considerably less actual coverage in the Beldon costume than there was in the minute two-piece counterpart to Brule's silver trunks she wore at the moment. She'd have to tell Brule about the Beldon stunt, since it was more than likely he'd hear about it from others--Nelauk Pluly, for one.
But not now. Things were getting just a little delicate along that line at the moment.
"Leave us change the subject, pig," she said cheerfully. "Tell me what else you've been doing besides acquiring a gorgeous tan."
A couple of hours later, things began to get delicate again. Same subject. Trigger had been somewhat startled at the spaceport when Brule told her he had shifted his living quarters to a Center apartment, and that a large number of Precol's executives were taking similar liberties. 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.
What bothered her mainly about the business of Brule's Center apartment was that it might make the end of the evening less pleasant than she wanted it to be. Brule had become the least bit swacked. Not at all offensively, but he tended to get pretty ambitious then. And during the past few hours she'd noticed that something had changed in his attitude toward her. He'd always been confident of himself when it came to women, so it wasn't that. It was perhaps, Trigger thought, like an unspoken ultimatum along those lines. And she'd felt herself freezing up a little in response to the thought.
The apartment was very beautiful. Nelauk, she guessed. Or somebody else like that. Brule's taste was good, but he simply wouldn't have thought of a lot of the details here. Neither, Trigger conceded, would she. Some of the details looked pretty expensive.
He came back into the living room in a dressing gown, carrying a couple of drinks. It was going to get awkward, all right.
"Like it?" he asked, waving a hand around.
"It's beautiful," Trigger said honestly. She smiled. She sipped at the drink and placed it on the arm of her chair. "Somebody like an interior decorator help you with it?"
Brule laughed and sat down opposite her with his drink. The laugh had sounded the least bit annoyed. "You're right," he said. "How did you guess?"
"You never went in for art exactly," she said. "This room is a work of art."
He nodded. He didn't look annoyed any more. He looked smug. "It is, isn't it?" he said. "It didn't even cost so very much. You just have to know how, that's all."
"Know how about what?" Trigger asked.
"Know how to live," Brule said. "Know what it's all about. Then it's easy."
He was looking at her. The smile was there. The warm, rich voice was there. All the old charm was there. It was Brule. And it wasn't. Trigger realized she was twisting her hands together. She looked down at them. The little jewel in the ring Holati Tate had given her to wear blinked back with crimson gleamings.
Crimson!
She drew a long, slow breath.
"Brule," she said.
"Yes?" said Brule. At the edge of her vision she saw the smile turn eager.
Trigger said, "Give me the plasmoid." She raised her eyes and looked at him. He'd stopped smiling.
Brule looked back at her a long time. At least it seemed a long time to Trigger. The smile suddenly returned.
"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, almost plaintively. "If it's a joke, I don't get it."
"I just said," Trigger repeated carefully, "give me the plasmoid. The one you stole."
Brule took a swallow of his drink and put the glass down on the floor. "Aren't you feeling well?" he asked solicitously.
"Give me the plasmoid."
"Honestly, Trigger." He shook his head. He laughed. "What are you talking about?"
"A plasmoid. The one you took. The one you've got here."
Brule stood up. He studied her face, blinking, puzzled. Then he laughed, richly. "Trigger, I've fed you one drink too many! I never thought you'd let me do it. Be sensible now--if I had a plasmoid here, how could you tell?"
"I can tell. Brule, I don't know how you took it or why you took it. I don't really care." And that was a lie, Trigger thought dismally. She cared. "Just give it to me, and I'll put it back. We can talk about it afterwards."
"Afterwards," Brule said. The laugh came again, but it sounded a little hollow. He moved a step toward her, stopped again, hands on his hips. "Trigger," he said soberly, "if I've ever done anything you mightn't approve of, it was done for both of us. You realize that, don't you?"
"I think I do," Trigger said warily. "Yes. Give it to me, Brule."
Brule leaped forward. She slid sideways out of the chair to the floor as he leaped. She was crying inside, she realized vaguely. Brule was going to kill her now, if he could.
She caught his left foot with both hands as he came down, and twisted viciously.
Brule shouted something. His red, furious face swept by above. He thumped to the floor beside her, one leg flung across her thighs, gripping.
In colonial school Brule had received the same basic training in unarmed combat that Trigger had. He was close to eighty pounds heavier than Trigger, and it was still mostly muscle. But it was nearly four years now since he had bothered himself with drills.
And he hadn't been put through Mihul's advanced students' courses lately.
He stayed conscious a little less than nine seconds.
The plasmoids were in a small electronic safe built into a music cabinet. The stamp to the safe was in Brule's billfold.
There were three of them, about the size of mice, starfish-shaped lumps of translucent, hard, colorless jelly. They didn't move.
Trigger laid them in a row on the polished surface of a small table, and blinked at them for a moment from a streaming left eye. The right eye was swelling shut. Brule had got in one wild wallop somewhere along the line. She picked up a small jar, emptied some spicy-smelling, crumbly contents out on the table, dropped the plasmoids inside, closed the jar and left the apartment with it. Brule was just beginning to stir and groan.
Commissioner Tate hadn't retired yet. He let her in without a word. Trigger put the jar down on a table.
"Three of your nuts and bolts in there," she said.
He nodded. "I know."
"I thought you did," said Trigger. "Thanks for the quick cure. But right at the moment I don't like you very much, Holati. We can talk about that in the morning."
"All right," said the Commissioner. He hesitated. "Anything that should be taken care of before then?"
"It's been taken care of," Trigger said. "One of our employees has been moderately injured. I dialed the medics to go pick him up. They have. Good night."
"You might let me do something for that eye," he said.
Trigger shook her head. "I've got stuff in my quarters."
She locked herself into her quarters, got out a jar of quick-heal and anointed the eye and a few other minor bruises. She put the jar away, made a mechanical check of the newly installed anti-intrusion devices, dimmed the lights and climbed into her bunk. For the next twenty minutes she wept violently. Then she fell asleep.
An hour or so later, she turned over on her side and said without opening her eyes, "Come, Fido!"
The plasmoid purse appeared just above the surface of the bunk between Trigger's pillow and the wall. It dropped with a small thump and stood balanced uncertainly. Trigger slept on.
Five minutes after that, the purse opened itself. A little later again, Trigger suddenly shifted her shoulder uneasily, frowned and made a little half-angry, half-whimpering cry. Then her face smoothed out. Her breathing grew quiet and slow.
Major Heslet Quillan of the Subspace Engineers came breezing into Manon Planet's spaceport very early in the morning. A Precol aircar picked him up and let him out on a platform of the Headquarters dome near Commissioner Tate's offices. Quillan was handed on toward the offices through a string of underlings and reached the door just as it opened and Trigger Argee stepped through.
He grasped her cordially by the shoulders and cried out a cheery hello. Trigger made a soft growling sound in her throat. Her left hand chopped right, her right hand chopped left. Quillan grunted and let go.
"What's the matter?" he inquired, stepping back. He rubbed one arm, then the other.
Trigger looked at him, growled again, walked past him, and disappeared through another door, her back very straight.