5
The man who held Trigger's wrists shifted his grip up her arms, andturned her a little so that she could sit upright on the seat, facedhalf away from him. She had got only a glimpse of him as he caught her,but he seemed to be wearing the same kind of commercial spacer's uniformas the group which had hustled her into the car. The other man in thecar, the driver, sat up front with his back to them. He looked like anyordinary middle-aged civilian.
Trigger let her breath out slowly. There was no point in yelling now.She could feel her legs tremble a little, but she didn't seem to beactually frightened. At least, not yet.
"Spot anything so far?" the man who held her asked. It was a deep voice.It sounded matter-of-fact, quite unexcited.
"Three possibles anyway," the driver said with equal casualness. Hedidn't turn his head. "Make it two.... One very definite possible now,I'd say!"
"Better feed it to her then."
The driver didn't reply, but the car's renewed surge of power pushedTrigger down hard on the seat. She couldn't see much more than ashifting piece of the sky line through the front view plate. Their owncar seemed to be rising at a tremendous rate. They were probably, shethought, already above the main traffic arteries over Ceyce.
"Now, Miss Argee," the man sitting beside her said, "I'd like toreassure you a little first."
"Go ahead and reassure me," Trigger said unsteadily.
"You're in no slightest danger from us," he said. "We're your friends."
"Nice friends!" remarked Trigger.
"I'll explain it all in a couple of minutes. There may be some fairlydangerous characters on our tail at the moment, and if they start tocatch up--"
"Which they seem to be doing," the driver interrupted. "Hang on for afew fast turns when we hit the next cloud bank."
"We'll probably shake them there," the other man explained to Trigger."In case we don't though, I'll need both hands free to handle the guns."
"So?" she asked.
"So I'd like to slip a set of cuffs on you for just a few minutes. I'vebeen informed you're a fairly tricky lady, and we don't want you to doanything thoughtless. You won't have them on very long. All right?"
Trigger bit her lip. It wasn't all right, and she didn't feel at allreassured so far.
"Go ahead," she said.
He let go of her left arm, presumably to reach for the handcuffs. Shetwisted around on him and went into fast action.
She was fairly proficient at the practice of unarmed mayhem. The troublewas that the big ape she was trying the stuff on seemed at least asadept and with twice her muscle. She lost a precious instant finding outthat the Denton was no longer in her robe pocket. After that she nevergot back the initiative. It didn't help either that the car suddenlyseemed to be trying to fly in three directions at once.
All in all, about forty seconds passed before she was plumped back onthe seat, her hands behind her again, linked at the wrists by the smoothplastic cords of the cuffs. The ape stood behind the driver, his handsresting on the back of the seat. He wasn't, Trigger observed bitterly,even breathing hard. The view plate was full of the cottony whiteness ofa cloud heart. They seemed to be dropping again.
One more violent swerve and they came flashing out into wet graycloud-shadow and on into brilliant sunlight.
A few seconds passed. Then the ape remarked, "Looks like you lost them,chum."
"Right," said the driver. "Almost at the river now. I'll turn norththere and drop down."
"Right," said the ape. "Get us that far and we'll be out of trouble."
A few minutes passed in silence. Presently Trigger sensed they wereslowing and losing altitude. Then a line of trees flashed by in the viewplate. "Nice flying!" the ape said. He punched the driver approvingly inthe shoulder and turned back to Trigger.
They looked at each other for a few seconds. He was tall, dark-eyed,very deeply tanned, with thick sloping shoulders. He probably wasn'tmore than five or six years older than she was. He was studying hercuriously, and his eyes were remarkably steady. Something stirred in herfor a moment, a small chill of fear. Something passed through herthoughts, a vague odd impression, like a half aroused memory, of huge,cold, dangerous things far away. It was gone before she could grasp itmore clearly. She frowned.
The ape smiled. It wasn't, Trigger saw, an entirely unpleasant face."Sorry the party got rough," he said. "Will you give parole if I takethose cuffs off and tell you what this is about?"
She studied him again. "Better tell me first," she said shortly.
"All right. We're taking you to Commissioner Tate. We'll be there inabout an hour. He'll tell you himself why he wanted to see you."
Trigger's eyes narrowed for an instant. Secretly she felt very muchrelieved. Holati Tate, at any rate, wouldn't let anything reallyunpleasant happen to her--and she would find out at last what had beengoing on.
"You've got an odd way of taking people places," she observed.
He laughed. "The grabber party wasn't scheduled. You'd indicated youwanted to speak to the Commissioner. We were sent to the Colonial Schoolto pick you up and escort you to him. When we found out you'ddisappeared, we had to do some fast improvising. Not my business to tellyou the reasons for that."
Trigger said hesitantly, "Those people who were chasing this car--"
"What about them?" he asked thoughtfully.
"Were they after _me_?"
"Well," he said, "they weren't after me. Better let the Commissionertell you about that, too. Now--how about parole?"
She nodded. "Till you turn me over to the Commissioner."
"Fair enough," he said. "You're his problem then." He took a small flatpiece of metal out of a pocket and reached back of her with it. Hedidn't seem to do more than touch the cuffs, but she felt the slickcoils loosen and drop away.
Trigger rubbed her wrists. "Where's my gun?" she asked.
"I've got it. I'll give it to the Commissioner."
"How did you people find me so fast?"
"Police keep bank entrances under twenty-four hour visual survey. We hadsomeone watching their screens. You were spotted going in." He sat downcompanionably beside her. "I'd introduce myself, but I don't know ifthat would fit in with the Commissioner's plans."
Trigger shrugged. It still was quite possible, she decided, that her ownplans weren't completely spoiled. Holati and his friends didn'tnecessarily know about that vault account. If they did know she'd hadone and had closed it out, they could make a pretty good guess at whatshe'd done with the money. But if she just kept quiet, there might be anopportunity to get back to Ceyce and the Dawn City by tomorrow evening.
"Cigarette?" the Commissioner's overmuscled henchman inquired amiably.
Trigger glanced at him from the side. Not amiably. "No, thanks."
"No hard feelings, are there?" He looked surprised.
"Yes," she said evenly. "There are."
"Maybe," the driver suggested from the front, "what Miss Argee could dowith is a shot of Puya. Flask's in my coat pocket. Left side."
"There's an idea," remarked Trigger's companion. He looked at her. "It'svery good Puya."
"So choke on it," Trigger told him gently. She settled back into thecorner of the seat and closed her eyes. "You can wake me up when we getto the Commissioner."
* * * * *
"In some way," Holati Tate said, "this little item here seems to be atthe core of the whole plasmoid problem. Know what it is?"
Trigger looked at the little item with some revulsion. Dark green,marbled with pink streakings, it lay on the table between them, ratherlike a plump leech a foot and a half long. It was motionless except thatthe end nearest her shifted in a short arc from side to side, as if thething suffered from a very slow twitch.
"One of the plasmoids obviously," she said. "A jumpy one." She blinkedat it. "Looks like that 113. Is it?"
She glanced around. Commissioner Tate and Professor Mantelish, who satin an armchair off to her right, were staring at her, eyebro
ws up,apparently surprised about something. "What's the matter?" she asked.
"We're just wondering," said Holati, "how you happen to remember 113, inparticular, out of the thousands of plasmoids on Harvest Moon."
"Oh. One of the Junior Scientists on your Project mentioned the 112-113unit. That brought it to mind. Is this 113?"
"No," said Holati Tate. "But it appears to be a duplicate of it." He wasa mild-looking little man, well along in years, sparse and spruce in hisPrecol uniform. The small gray eyes in the sun-darkened, leathery faceweren't really mild, if you considered them more closely, or if you knewthe Commissioner.
"Have to fill you in on some of the background first, Trigger girl,"he'd said, when she was brought to his little private office andinquired with some heat what the devil was up. The tall grabber hadn'tcome into the office with her. He asked the Commissioner from the doorwhether he should get Professor Mantelish to the conference room, andthe Commissioner nodded. Then the door closed and the two of them werealone.
"I know it's looked odd," Commissioner Tate admitted, "but thecircumstances have been very odd. Still are. And I didn't want to worryyou any more than I had to."
Trigger, unmollified, pointed out that the methods he'd used not toworry her hardly had been soothing.
"I know that, too," said the Commissioner. "But if I'd told youeverything immediately, you would have had reason enough to be worriedfor the past two months, rather than just for a day or so. The situationhas improved now, very considerably. In fact, in another few days youshouldn't have any more reason to worry at all." He smiled briefly. "Atleast, no more than the rest of us."
Trigger felt a bit dry-lipped suddenly. "I do at present?" she asked.
"You did till today. There's been some pretty heavy heat on you, Triggergirl. We're switching most of it off tonight. For good, I think."
"You mean some heat will be left?"
"In a way," he said. "But that should be cleared up too in the nextthree or four days. Anyway we can drop most of the mystery act tonight."
Trigger shook her head. "It isn't being dropped very fast!" sheobserved.
"I told you I couldn't tell it backwards," the Commissioner saidpatiently. "All right if we start filling in the background now?"
"I guess we'd better," she admitted.
"Fine," said Commissioner Tate. He got to his feet. "Then let's go joinMantelish."
"Why the professor?"
"He could help a lot with the explaining. If he's in the mood. Anywayhe's got a kind of pet I'd like you to look at."
"A pet!" cried Trigger. She shook her head again and stood upresignedly. "Lead on, Commissioner!"
They joined Mantelish and his plasmoid weirdie in what looked like thedining room of what had looked like an old-fashioned hunting lodge whenthe aircar came diving down on it between two ice-sheeted mountainpeaks. Trigger wasn't sure in just what section of the main continentthey were; but there were only two or three alternatives--it was high inthe mountains, and night came a lot faster here than it did aroundCeyce.
She greeted Mantelish and sat down at the table. Then the Commissionerlocked the doors and introduced her to the professor's pet.
"It's labelled 113-A," he said now. "Even the professor isn't certain hecould distinguish between the two. Right, Mantelish?"
"That is true," said Mantelish, "at present." He was a very big, ratherfat but healthy-looking old man with a thick thatch of white hair and aruddy face. "Without a physical comparison--" He shrugged.
"What's so important about the critter?" Trigger asked, eyeing the leechagain. One good thing about it, she thought--it wasn't equipped to eyeher back.
"It goes back to the time," the Commissioner said, "when Mantelish andFayle and Azol were conducting the first League investigation of theplasmoids on Harvest Moon. You recall the situation?"
"If you mean their attempts to get the things to show some signs oflife, I do, naturally."
"One of them got lively enough for poor old Azol, didn't it?" ProfessorMantelish rumbled from his armchair.
Trigger grimaced. Doctor Azol's fate might be one of the things that hadgiven her a negative attitude towards plasmoids. With Mantelish andDoctor Gess Fayle, Azol had been the third of the three big U-Leagueboys in charge of the initial investigation on Harvest Moon. As sheremembered it, it was Azol who discovered that Plasmoids occasionallycould be induced to absorb food. Almost any kind of food, it turned out,so long as it contained a sufficient quantity of protein. What hadhappened to Azol looked like a particularly unfortunate result of thediscovery. It was assumed an untimely coronary had been the reason hehad fallen helplessly into the feeding trough of one of the largestplasmoids. By the time he was found, all of him from the knees on upalready had been absorbed.
"I meant your efforts to get them to work," she said.
Commissioner Tate looked at Mantelish. "You tell her about that part ofit," he suggested.
Mantelish shook his head. "I'd get too technical," he said resignedly."I always do. At least they say so. You tell her."
But Holati Tate's eyes had shifted suddenly to the table. "Hey, now!" hesaid in a low voice.
Trigger followed his gaze. After a moment she made a soft, suckingsound of alarmed distaste.
"Ugh!" she remarked. "It's moving!"
"So it is," Holati said.
"Towards me!" said Trigger. "I think--"
"Don't get startled. Mantelish!"
Mantelish already was coming up slowly behind Trigger's chair. "Don'tmove!" he cautioned her.
"Why not?" said Trigger.
"Hush, my dear." Mantelish laid a large, heavy hand on each of hershoulders and bore down slightly. "It's sensitive! This is veryinteresting. Very."
Perhaps it was. She kept watching the plasmoid. It had thinned outsomewhat and was gliding very slowly but very steadily across the table.Definitely in her direction.
"Ho-ho!" said Mantelish in a thunderous murmur. "Perhaps it likes you,Trigger! Ho-ho!" He seemed immensely pleased.
"Well," Trigger said helplessly, "I don't like it!" She wriggledslightly under Mantelish's hands. "And I'd sooner get out of thischair!"
"Don't be childish, Trigger," said the professor annoyedly. "You'rebehaving as if it were, in some manner, offensive."
"It is," she said.
"Hush, my dear," Mantelish said absently, putting on a little morepressure. Trigger hushed resignedly. They watched. In about a minute,the gliding thing reached the edge of the table. Trigger gatheredherself to duck out from under Mantelish's hands and go flying out ofthe chair if it looked as if the plasmoid was about to drop into herlap.
But it stopped. For a few seconds it lay motionless. Then it graduallyraised its front end and began waving it gently back and forth in theair. At her, Trigger suspected.
"Yipes!" she said, horrified.
The front end sank back. The plasmoid lay still again. After a minute itwas still lying still.
"Show's over for the moment, I guess," said the Commissioner.
"I'm afraid so," said Professor Mantelish. His big hands went away fromTrigger's aching shoulders. "You startled it, Trigger!" he boomed ather accusingly.