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Come in, Quillan, Commissioner Tate said from within the office.
Quillan went in and closed the door behind him. What did I do? he asked
bewilderedly.
Nothing much, said Holati. You just share the misfortune of being a male
human being. At the moment, Trigger s against em. She blew up the Brule Inger
setup last night.
Oh! Quillan sat down. I never did like that idea much, he said.
The Commissioner shrugged. You don t know the girl yet. If I d hauled Inger
in, she would never have really forgiven me for it. I had to let her handle it
herself. Actually she understands that.
How did it go?
Her cover reported it was one hell of a good fight for some seconds. If you d
looked closer, you might have just spotted the traces of the shiner Inger gave
her. It was a beaut last night.
Quillan went white.
But if you re thinking of having a chat with Inger that part of it, the
Commissioner went on, forget it. He glanced re at a report form from the
medical department on his desk. Dislocated shoulder . . . broken thumb . . .
moderate concussion.
And so on. It was the throat punch that finished the matter. He can t talk
yet. We ll call it square.
Quillan grunted. What are you going to do with him now?
Nothing, Holati said. We know his contacts. Why bother? He ll resign end of
the month.
Quillan cleared his throat and glanced at the door. I suppose she ll want him
put up for rehabilitation seemed pretty fond of him.
Relax, son, said the Commissioner. Trigger s an individualist. If Inger
goes up for rehabilitation, it will be because he wants it. And he doesn t, of
course. Being a slob suits him fine. He s just likely to be more cautious
about it in the future. So we ll let him go his happy way. Now let s get down
to business. How does Pluly s yacht harem stack up?
A reminiscent smile spread slowly over Quillan s face. He shook his head.
Awesome, brother! he said. Plain awesome!
Pick up anything useful?
Nothing definite. But whenever Belchy comes out of the esthetic trances, he s
a worried man. Count him in.
For sure?
Yes.
All right. He s in. Crack the
Aurora yet?
No, said Quillan. The girls are working on it, But the Ermetyne keeps a
mighty taut ship and a mighty disciplined crew. We ll have a couple of those
boys wrapped up in another week. No earlier.
A week might be soon enough, said the Commissioner. It also might not.
I know it, said Quillan. But the
Aurora does look a little bit obvious, doesn t she?
Yes, Holati Tate admitted. Just a little bit.
19
By lunchtime, Trigger was acting almost cordial again. I ve got the Precol
job lined up, she reported to Holati Tate.
I ll handle it like I used to, whenever I can. When I can t, the kids will
shift in automatically. The kids were the five assistants among whom her
duties had been divided in her absence.
Major Quillan called me up to Mantelish s lab around ten, she went on. The
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prof wanted to see Repulsive, so I took him up there. Then it turned out
Mantelish wanted to take Repulsive along on a field trip this afternoon.
Holati looked startled. He can t do that, and he knows it! He reached for
the desk transmitter.
Don t bother, Commissioner. I told Mantelish I d been put in charge of
Repulsive, and that he d lose an arm if he tried to walk out of the lab with
him.
Holati cleared his throat. I see! How did Mantelish react?
Oh, he huffed a bit. Like he does. Then he calmed down and agreed he could
get by without Repulsive out there. So we stood by while he measured and
weighed the thing, and so on. After that he got friendly and said you d asked
him to fill me in on current plasmoid theory.
So I did, said Holati. Did he?
He tried, I think. But it s like you say. I got lost in about three sentences
and never caught up. She looked curiously at the Commissioner. I didn t have
a chance to talk to Major Quillan alone, so I m wondering why Mantelish was
told the I-
Fleets in the Vishni area are hunting for planets with plasmoids on them. I
thought you felt he was too wooly-minded to be trusted.
We couldn t keep that from him very well, Holati said. He was the boy who
thought of it.
You didn t have to tell him they d found some possibles, did you?
We did, unfortunately. He s had those plasmoid detectors of his for about a
month, but he didn t happen to think of mentioning them. The reason he was to
come back to Manon originally was to sort over the stuff the Fleets have been
sending back here. It s as weird a collection of low-grade life-forms as I ve
ever seen, but not plasmoid. Mantelish went into a temper and wanted to know
why the idiots weren t using detectors.
Oh, Lord! Trigger said.
That s what it s like when you re working with him, said the Commissioner.
We started making up detectors wholesale and rushing them out there, but the
new results haven t come in yet.
Well, that explains it. Trigger looked down at the desk a moment, then
glanced up and met the Commissioner s eye.
She colored slightly.
Incidentally, she said, I did take the opportunity to apologize to Major
Quillan for clipping him a couple this morning. I shouldn t have done that.
He didn t seem offended, said Holati.
No, not really, she agreed.
And I explained to him that you had very good reason to feel disturbed.
Thanks, said Trigger. By the way, was he really a smuggler at one time? And
a hijacker?
Yes very successful at it. It s excellent cover for some phases of
Intelligence work. As I heard it, though, Quillan happened to scramble up one
of the Hub s nastier dope rings in the process, and was broken two grades in
rank.
Broken? Trigger said. Why?
Unwarranted interference with a political situation. The Scouts are rough
about that. You re supposed to see those things. Sometimes you don t.
Sometimes you do and go ahead anyway. They may pat you on the back privately,
but they also give you the axe.
I see, she said. She smiled.
His desk transmitter buzzed and Trigger took it on an earphone extension.
Argee, she said. She listened a moment. All right. Coming over. She stood
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