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Trigger gasped. Her eyes flew open. She made a convulsive effort tovanish beneath the surface of the creek. Being flat on the sand as itwas, that didn't work. So she stopped splashing about and made rapidcovering-up motions here and there instead.
"You've got a nerve!" she snapped as her breath came back. "Beat it!Fast!"
Ole bashful Quillan, standing on the bank fifteen feet above her, lookedhurt. He also looked.
"Look!" he said plaintively. "I just came over to make sure you were allright--wild animals around! I wasn't studying the color scheme."
"_Beat it! At once!_"
Quillan inhaled with apparent difficulty.
"Though now it's been mentioned," he went on, speaking rapidly andunevenly, "there _is_ all that brown and that sort of pink and that lovelywhite." He was getting more enthusiastic by the moment; Trigger becameafraid he would fall off the bank and land in the creek beside her. "Andthe--ooh-ummh!--wet red hair and the freckles!" he rattled along, hiseyes starting out of his head. "And the lovely--"
"Quillan!" she yelled. "Please!"
Quillan checked himself. "Uh!" he said. He drew a deep breath. The wildlook faded. Sanity appeared to return. "Well, it's the truth about thosewild animals! Some sort of large, uncouth critter was observed just nowducking into the forest at the upper end of the valley!"
Trigger darted a glance along the bank. Her clothes were forty feetaway, just beside the water.
"I'm observing some sort of large, uncouth critter right here!" she saidcoldly. "What's worse, it's observing me. Turn around!"
Quillan sighed. "You're a hard woman, Argee," he said. But he turned. Hewas carrying a holstered gun, as a matter of fact; but he usually didthat nowadays anyway. "This thing," he went on, "is supposed to have ahead like a bat, three feet across. It flies."
"Very interesting," Trigger told him. She decided he wasn't going toturn around again. "So now I'll just get into my clothes, and then--"
It came quietly out of the trees around the upper bend of the creeksixty feet away. It had a head like a bat, and was blue on top andyellow below. Its flopping wing tips barely cleared the bank on eitherside. The three-foot mouth was wide open, showing very long thin whiteteeth. It came skimming swiftly over the surface of the water towardher.
"Quiiii-LLAN!"
* * * * *
They walked back along the trail to camp. Trigger walked a few stepsahead, her back very straight. The worst of it had been the smug look onhis face.
"Heel!" she observed. "Heel! Heel! Heel!"
"Now, Trigger," Quillan said calmly behind her. "After all, it was youwho came flying up the bank and wrapped yourself around my neck. Allwet, too."
"I was scared!" Trigger snarled. "Who wouldn't be? You certainly didn'thesitate an instant to take full advantage of the situation!"
"True," Quillan admitted. "I'd dropped the bat. There you were. Who'dhesitate? I'm not out of my mind."
She did two dance steps of pure rage and spun to face him. She put herhands on her hips. Quillan stopped warily.
"Your mind!" she said. "I'd hate to have one like it. What do you thinkI am? One of Belchik's houris?"
For a man his size, he was really extremely quick. Before she couldmove, he was there, one big arm wrapped about her shoulders, pinning herarms to her sides. "Easy, Trigger!" he said softly.
Well, others had tried to hold her like that when she didn't want to beheld. A twist, a jerk, a heave--and over and down they went. Triggerbraced herself quietly. If she was quick enough now---- She twisted,jerked, heaved. She stopped, discouraged. The situation hadn't alteredappreciably.
She _had_ been afraid it wasn't going to work with Quillan.
"Let go!" she said furiously, aiming a fast heel at his instep. But theinstep flicked aside. Her shoe dug into the turf of the path. The apemight even have an extra pair of eyes on his feet!
Then his free palm was cupped under her chin, tilting it carefully. Hisother eyes appeared above hers. Very close. Very dark.
"I'll bite!" Trigger whispered fiercely. "I'll bi--mmph!
"Mmmph--grrmm!
"Grr-mm-mhm.... Hm-m-m ... mhm!"
* * * * *
They walked on along the trail, hand in hand. They came up over the lastlittle rise. Trigger looked down on the camp. She frowned.
"Pretty dull!" she observed.
"Eh?" Quillan asked, startled.
"Not that, ape!" she said. She squeezed his hand. "Your morals aren'tgood, but dull it wasn't. I meant generally. We're just sitting here nowwaiting. Nothing seems to be happening."
It was true, at least on the surface. There were a great number of shipsand men around and near Luscious, but they weren't in view. They wereready to jump in any direction, at any moment, but they had nothing tojump at yet. The Commissioner's transmitters hadn't signaled more thantwo or three times in the last two days. Even the short communicatorsremained mostly silent.
"Cheer up, Doll!" Quillan said. "Something's bound to break prettysoon."
That evening, a Devagas ship came zooming in on Luscious.
They were prepared for it, of course. That somebody came round from timeto time to look over the local plasmoid crop was only to be expected. Asthe ship surfaced in atmosphere on the other side of the planet, fourone-man Scout fighters flashed in on it from four points of the horizon,radiation screens up. They tacked holding beams on it and bracedthemselves. A Federation destroyer appeared in the air above it.
The Devagas ship couldn't escape. So it blew itself up.
They were prepared for that, too. The Devagas pilot was beingdead-brained three minutes later. He didn't know a significant thingexcept the exact coordinates of an armed, subterranean Devagas dome,three days' run away.
The Scout ships that had been hunting for the dome went howling intoward it from every direction. The more massive naval vessels of theFederation followed behind. There was no hurry for the heavies. Thecaptured Devagas ship's attempt to beam a warning to its base had beensmothered without effort. The Scouts were getting in fast enough toblock escape attempts.
"And now we split forces," the Commissioner said. He was the only one,Trigger thought, who didn't seem too enormously excited by it all."Quillan, you and your group get going! They can use you there a wholelot better than we can here."
For just a second, Quillan looked like a man being dragged violently intwo directions. He didn't look at Trigger. He asked, "Think it's wise toleave you people unguarded?"
"Quillan," said Commissioner Tate, "that's the first time in my lifeanybody has suggested I need guarding."
"Sorry sir," said Quillan.
"You mean," Trigger said, "we're not going? We're just staying here?"
"You've got an appointment, remember?" the Commissioner said.
Quillan and company were gone within the hour. Mantelish, Holati Tate,Lyad and Trigger stayed at camp.
Luscious looked very lonely.
* * * * *
"It isn't just the king plasmoid they're hoping to catch there," theCommissioner told Trigger. "And I wouldn't care, frankly, if the thingstayed lost the next few thousand years. But we had a very odd reportlast week. The Federation's undercover boys have been scanning theDevagas worlds and Tranest very closely of late, naturally. The reportis that there isn't the slightest evidence that a single one of the topmembers of the Devagas hierarchy has been on any of their worlds in thepast two months."
"Oh," she said. "They think they're out here? In that dome?"
"That's what's suspected."
"But why?"
He scratched his chin. "If anyone knows, they haven't told me. It'sprobably nothing nice."
Trigger pondered. "You'd think they'd use facsimiles," she said. "LikeLyad."
"Oh, they did," he said. "They did. That's one of the reasons for beingpretty sure they're gone. They're nowhere near as expert at thatfacsimile business as the Trane
st characters. A little study of therecordings showed the facs were just that."
Trigger pondered again. "Did they find anything on Tranest?"
"Yes. One combat-strength squadron of those souped-up frigates of theAurora class they're allowed by treaty can't be accounted for."
Trigger cupped her chin in her hands and looked at him. "Is that whywe've stayed on Luscious, Holati--the four of us?"
"It's one reason. That Repulsive thing of yours is another."
"What about him?"
"I have a pretty strong feeling," he said, "that while they'll probablyfind the hierarchy in that Devagas dome, they won't find the 112-113item there."
"So Lyad still is gambling," Trigger said. "And we're gambling we'll getmore out of her next play than she does." She hesitated. "Holati--"
"Yes?"
"When did you decide it would be better if nobody ever got to see thatking plasmoid again?"
Holati Tate said, "About the time I saw the reconstruct of that yellowmonster of Balmordan's. Frankly, Trigger, there was a good deal ofdiscussion of possibilities along that line before we decided toannounce the discovery of Harvest Moon. If we could have just kept ithidden away for a couple of centuries--until there was considerably moregood sense around the Hub--we probably would have done it. But somebodywas bound to run across it sometime. And the stuff did look as if itmight be extremely valuable. So we took the chance."
"And now you'd like to untake it?"
"If it's still possible. Half the Fed Council probably would like to seeit happen. But they don't even dare think along those lines. There couldbe a blowup that would throw Hub politics back into the kind of snarlthey haven't been in for a hundred years. If anything is done, it willhave to look as if it had been something nobody could have helped. Andthat still might be bad enough."
"I suppose so. Holati--"
"Yes?"
She shook her head. "Nothing. Or if it is, I'll ask you later." Shestood up. "I think I'll go have my swim."
She still went loafing in Plasmoid Creek in the mornings. The bat hadbeen identified as an innocent victim of appearances, a verymild-mannered beast dedicated to the pursuit and engulfment of hugemothlike bugs which hung around watercourses. Luscious still looked likethe safest of all possible worlds for any creature as vigorous as ahuman being. But she kept the Denton near now, just in case.
She stretched out again in the sun-warmed water, selected a smooth rockto rest her head on, wriggled into the sand a little so the currentwouldn't shift her, and closed her eyes. She lay still, breathingslowly. Contact was coming more easily and quickly every morning. Butthe information which had begun to filter through in the last few dayswasn't at all calculated to make one happy.
She was afraid now she was going to die in this thing. She had almostlet it slip out to Holati, which wouldn't have helped in the least.She'd have to watch that in future.
Repulsive hadn't exactly said she would die. He'd said, "Maybe."Repulsive was scared too. Scared badly.
Trigger lay quiet, her thoughts, her attention drifting softly inwardand down. Creek water rippled against her cheek.
It was all because that one clock moved so slowly. That was the thingthat couldn't be changed. Ever.