10
Half an hour later there still hadn't been any decent openings. Triggerwas maintaining a somewhat brooding silence at the moment. Mihul, besideher, in the driver's seat of the tiny sports hopper, chatted pleasantlyabout this and that. But she didn't appear to expect any answers.
There weren't many half-hours left to be wasted.
Trigger stared thoughtfully out through the telescopic ground-view platebefore her, while the hopper soared at a thousand feet toward thetwo-mile square of preserve area which had been assigned to them to huntover that morning. Dimly reflected in the view plate, she could see thehead of the gun-pup who went with that particular area lifted above theseat-back behind her. He was gazing straight ahead between the twohumans, absorbed in canine reflections.
There was plenty of bird life down there. Some were original Terranforms, maintained unchanged in the U-League's genetic banks. Probablymany more were inspired modifications produced on Grand Commerce gameranches. At any other time, Trigger would have found herself enjoyingthe outing almost as much as Mihul.
Not now. Other things kept running through her head. Money, for example.They hadn't returned her own cash to her and apparently didn't intendto--at least not until after the interview. But Mihul was carrying atleast part of their spending money in a hip pocket wallet. The rest ofit might be in a concealed room safe or deposited with the resorthotel's cashier.
She glanced over at Mihul again. Good friend Mihul never before hadlooked quite so large, lithe, alert and generally fit for arough-and-tumble. That un-incentive idea was fiendishly ingenious! Itwas difficult to plan things through clearly and calmly while one'sself-esteem kept quailing at vivid visualizations of the results ofmaking a mistake.
The hopper settled down near the center of their territory, guided thelast half mile by Mihul who had fancied the looks of someshrub-cluttered ravines ahead. Trigger opened the door on her side. Thegun-pup leaped lightly across the seat and came out behind her. Heturned to look over his huntresses and gave them a wag, a polite butperfunctory one. Then he stood waiting for orders.
Mihul considered him. "Guess he's in charge here," she said. She waveda hand at the pup. "Go find 'em, old boy! We'll string along."
He loped off swiftly, a lean brown houndlike creature, a Grand Commercedevelopment of some aristocratic Terran breed and probably aconsiderable improvement on the best of his progenitors. He curvedaround a thick clump of shrubs like a low-flying hawk. Two plumpfeather-shapes, emerald-green and crimson, whirred up out of the nearside of the shrubbery, saw the humans before them and rose steeply,picking up speed.
A great many separate, clearly detailed things seemed to be going onwithin the next four or five seconds. Mihul swore, scooping the Dentonout of its holster. Trigger already had the Yool out, but the gun wasunfamiliar; she hesitated. Fascinated, she glanced from the speeding,soaring feather-balls to Mihul, watched the tall woman straighten for anoverhead shot, left hand grasping right wrist to steady the lightweightDenton--and in that particular instant Trigger knew exactly what wasgoing to happen next.
The Denton flicked forth one bolt. Mihul stretched a little more for thenext shot. Trigger wheeled matter-of-factly, dropping the Yool, leftelbow close in to her side. Her left fist rammed solidly into Mihul'sbare brown midriff, just under the arch of the rib cage.
That punch, in those precise circumstances, would have paralyzed theaverage person. It didn't quite paralyze Mihul. She dropped forward,doubled up and struggling for breath, but already twisting aroundtoward Trigger. Trigger stepped across her, picked up the Denton,shifted its setting, thumbed it to twelve-hour stunner max, and letMihul have it between the shoulder blades.
Mihul jerked forward and went limp.
Trigger stood there, shaking violently, looking down at Mihul andfighting the irrational conviction that she had just committedcold-blooded murder.
The gun-pup trotted up with the one downed bird. He placed it reverentlyby Mihul's outflung hand. Then he sat back on his haunches and regardedTrigger with something of the detached compassion of a good undertaker.
Apparently this wasn't his first experience with a hunting casualty.
The story Trigger babbled into the hopper's communicator a minute laterwas that Drura Lod had succumbed to an attack of Dykart fever coma--andthat an ambulance and a fast flit to a hospital in the nearest city wereindicated.
The preserve hotel was startled but reassuring. That the mother shouldbe afflicted with the same ailment as the daughter was news to them butplausible enough. Within eight minutes, a police ambulance was flyingMihul and Trigger at emergency speeds towards a small Uplands Citybehind the mountains.
Trigger never found out the city's name. Three minutes after she'dfollowed Mihul's floating stretcher into the hospital, she quietly leftthe building again by a street entrance. Mihul's wallet had containedtwo hundred and thirteen crowns. It was enough, barely.
She got a complete change of clothes in the first Automatic Servicestore she came to and left the store in them, carrying the sportingoutfit in a bag. The aircab she hired to take her to Ceyce had to bepaid for in advance, which left her eighty-two crowns. As they wentflying over a lake a while later, the bag with the sporting clothes andaccessories was dumped out of the cab's rear window. It was justpossible that the Space Scouts had been able to put that tracer materialidea to immediate use.
In Ceyce a short two hours after she'd felled Mihul, Trigger called theinterstellar spaceport and learned that the Dawn City was open topassengers and their guests.
Birna Drellgannoth picked up her tickets and went on board, minglingunostentatiously with a group in a mood of festive leave-taking. Shewent fading even more unostentatiously down a hallway when the groupstopped cheerfully to pose for a solidopic girl from one of the newsagencies. She located her cabin after a lengthy search, set the door todon't-disturb, glanced around the cabin and decided to inspect it inmore detail later.
She pulled off her slippers, climbed on the outsized divan which passedhere for a bunk, and stretched out.
She lay there a while, blinking at the ceiling and worrying a littleabout Mihul. Even theoretically a stunner-max blast couldn't cause Mihulthe slightest permanent damage. It might, however, leave her in afairly peevish mood after the grogginess wore off, since the impactwasn't supposed to be pleasant. But Mihul had stated she would hold nogrudges over a successful escape attempt; and even if they caught upwith her again before she got to Manon, this attempt certainly had to berated a technical success.
They might catch up, of course, Trigger thought. The Federation musthave an enormous variety of means at its disposal when it set outseriously to locate one of its missing citizens. But the Dawn City wouldbe some hours on its way before Mihul even began to think coherentlyagain. She'd spread the alarm then, but it should be a while before theystarted to suspect Trigger had left the planet. Maccadon was her homeworld, after all. If she'd just wanted to hole up, that was where shewould have had the best chance to do it successfully.
Evalee, the first Hub stop, was only nine hours' flight away; Garth layless than five hours beyond Evalee. After that there was only the longsubspace run to Manon....
They'd have to work very fast to keep her from leaving the Hub thistime!
Trigger glanced over at the Denton lying by the bedside ComWeb on alittle table at the head of the divan-thing. She was aware of a feelingof great contentment, of growing relaxation. She closed her eyes.
By and large, she thought--all things considered--she hadn't come offbadly among the cloak and dagger experts! She was on her way to Manon.
Some hours later she slept through the Dawn City's thunderous takeoff.
When she woke up next she was in semidarkness. But she knew where shewas and a familiar feeling of low-weight told her the ship was inflight. She sat up.
At her motion, the area about her brightened, and the cabin grew visibleagain. It was rather large, oval-shaped. There were three closed doorsin the walls, and the walls the
mselves were light amber, of oddlyinsubstantial appearance. A rosy tinge was flowing up from the floorlevel through them, and as the color surged higher and deepened, therecame an accompanying stir of far-off, barely audible music. Thedon't-disturb sign still reflected dimly from the interior panels of thepassage door. Trigger found its control switch on the bedstand and shutit off.
At once a soft chiming sounded from the miniature ComWeb on thebedstand. Its screen filled with a pulsing glow, and there was a voice.
"This is a recording, Miss Drellgannoth," the voice told her. "If RoomService may intrude with an audio message, please be so good as to touchthe blue circle at the base of your ComWeb."
Trigger touched the blue circle. "Go ahead," she invited.
"Thank you, Miss Drellgannoth," said the voice. "For the duration of thevoyage your personal ComWeb will be opened to callers, for either audioor visual intrusion, only by your verbal permission or by your touch onthe blue circle."
It stopped. Another voice picked up. "This is your Personal RoomStewardess, Miss Drellgannoth. Forgive the intrusion, but the ship willdive in one hour. Do you wish to have a rest cubicle prepared?"
"No, thanks," Trigger said. "I'll stay awake."
"Thank you, Miss Drellgannoth. As a formality and in accordance withFederation regulations, allow me to remind you that Federation Law doesnot permit the bearing of personal weapons by passengers during a dive."
Her glance went to the Denton. "All right," she said. "I won't. It'sbecause of dive hallucinations, I suppose?"
"Thank you very much, Miss Drellgannoth. Yes, it is because of themisapprehensions which may be caused by dive hallucinations. May I be ofservice to you at this time? Perhaps you would like me to demonstratethe various interesting uses of your personal ComWeb Cabinet?"
Trigger's eyes shifted to the far end of the cabin. A rather large, veryelegant piece of furniture stood there. Its function hadn't beenimmediately obvious, but she had heard of ComWeb Service Cabinets.
She thanked the stewardess but declined the offer. The lady switchedoff, apparently a trifle distressed at not having discovered anythingBirna Drellgannoth's personal stewardess might do for Birna right now.
Trigger went curiously over to the cabinet. It opened at her touch andshe sat down before it, glancing over its panels. A remarkable numberof uses were indicated, which might make it confusing to the average Hubcitizen. But she had been trained in communications, and the servicecabinet was as simple as any gadget in its class could get.
She punched in the ship's location diagram. The Dawn City was slightlymore than an hour out of Ceyce Port, but it hadn't yet cleared thesubspace nets which created interlocking and impenetrable fields ofenergy about the Maccadon System. A ship couldn't dive in such an areawithout risking immediate destruction; but the nets were painstakinglymaintained insurance against a day when subspace warfare might againexplode through the Hub.
Trigger glanced over the diagrammed route ahead. Evalee.... Garth. Atiny green spark in the far remoteness of space beyond them representedManon's sun.
Eleven days or so. With the money to afford a rest cubicle, the timecould be cut to a subjective three or four hours.
But it would have been foolish anyway to sleep through the one trip on aHub luxury liner she was ever likely to take in her life.
She set the cabinet to a review of the Dawn City's passenger facilities,and was informed that everything would remain at the disposal of wakingpassengers throughout all dives. She glanced over bars, fashion shows,dining and gaming rooms. The Cascade Plunge, from the looks of it, wouldhave been something for Mihul.... "Our Large Staff of Traveler'sCompanions"--just what she needed. The Solido Auditorium "... and theInferno--our Sensations Unlimited Hall." A dulcet voice informed herregretfully that Federation Law did not permit the transmission of fullSU effects to individual cabins. It did, however, permit a few sampleglimpses. Trigger took her glimpses, sniffed austerely, switched back tothe fashions.
There had been a neat little black suit on display there. While shedidn't intend to start roaming about the ship until it dived and themajority of her fellow travelers were immersed in their rest cubicles,she probably still would be somewhat conspicuous in her Automatic Salesdress on a boat like the Dawn City. That little black suit hadn't lookedat all expensive--
"Twelve hundred forty-two Federation credits?" she repeated evenly aminute later. "I see!"
Came to roughly eight hundred fifty Maccadon crowns, was what she saw.
"May we model it in your suite, madam?" the store manager inquired.
"No, thanks," Trigger told her. "Just looking them over a bit." Sheswitched off, frowned absently at a panel labeled "Your Selection ofPersonalized Illusion Arrangements," shook her head, snapped the cabinetshut and stood up. It looked like she had a choice between beingconspicuous and staying in her cabin and playing around with things likethe creation of illusion scenes.
And she was really a little old for that kind of entertainment.
She opened the door to the narrow passageway outside the cabin andglanced tentatively along it. It was very quiet here. One of the reasonsthis was the cheapest cabin they'd had available presumably was that itlay outside the main passenger areas. To the right the corridor openedon a larger hall which ran past a few hundred yards of storerooms beforeit came to a stairway. At the head of the stairway, one came outeventually on one of the passenger levels. To the left the corridorended at the door of what seemed to be the only other cabin in thissection.
Trigger looked back toward the other cabin.
"Oh," she said. "Well ... hello."
The other cabin door stood open. A rather odd-looking little person satin a low armchair immediately inside it. She had lifted a thin,green-sleeved arm in a greeting or beckoning gesture as Trigger turned.
She repeated the gesture now. "Come here, girl!" she called amiably in aquavery old-woman voice.
Well, it couldn't do any harm. Trigger put on her polite smile andwalked down the hall toward the open door. A quite tiny old woman itwas, with a head either shaved or naturally bald, dressed in a kind ofdark-green pajamas. Long glassy earrings of the same color pulled downthe lobes of her small ears. The oddness of the face was due mainly tothe fact that she wore a great deal of make-up, and that the make-up wasa matching green.
She twisted her head to the left as Trigger came up, and chirpedsomething. Another woman appeared behind the door, almost a duplicate ofthe first, except that this one had gone all out for pink. Tiny things.They both beamed up at her.
Trigger beamed back. She stopped just outside the door.
"Greetings," said the pink one.
"Greetings," Trigger replied, wondering what world they came from. Thestyle wasn't exactly like anything she'd seen before.
"We," the green lady informed her with a not unkindly touch ofcondescension, "are with the Askab of Elfkund."
"Oh!" said Trigger in the tone of one who is impressed. Elfkund hadn'trung any bells.
"And with whom are you, girl?" the pink one inquired.
"Well," Trigger said, "I'm not actually _with_ anybody."
The smiles faded abruptly. They glanced at each other, then looked backat Trigger. Rather severely, it seemed.
"Did you mean," the green one asked carefully, "that you are _not_ aretainer?"
Trigger nodded. "I'm from Maccadon," she explained. "The name is BirnaDrellgannoth."
"Maccadon," the pink one repeated. "You are a commoner then, youngBirna?"
"Of course she is!" The green one looked offended. "Maccadon!" She gotout of her chair with remarkable spryness and moved to the door. "It'squite drafty," she said, looking pointedly past Trigger. The door closedon Trigger's face. A second later, she heard the lock snap shut. Amoment after that, the don't-disturb sign appeared.
Well, she thought, wandering back to her cabin, it didn't look as if shewere going to be bothered with excessively friendly neighbors on thistrip.
She had a bath and then discovered a m
echanical stylist in a recessbeside the bathroom mirror. She swung the gadget out into the room, setit for a dye removal operation and sat down beneath it. A redhead againa minute or so later, she switched the machine to Orado styles and leftit to make up its electronic mind as to what would be the most suitablecreation under the circumstances.
The stylist hovered above her for over a minute, muttering and cluckingas it conducted an apparently disapproving survey of the job. Then itwent swiftly and silently to work. When it shut itself off, Triggerchecked the results in the mirror.
She wasn't too pleased. An upswept arrangement which brought out thebone structure of her face rather well but didn't do much else for her.Possibly the stylist had included the Automatic Sales dress in itscomputations.
Well, it would have to do for her first tour of the ship.