“So I’ve been told,” said Trigger. “That’s why I want to find out what’s gone haywire with it.”
“In a moment,” Plemponi said. “In a moment.” He located his napkin, wiped his lips carefully. “Now I’ve mentioned all this simply to make it very, very clear that we’ll do anything we can to keep you satisfied. We’re delighted to have you with us. We are honored!” He beamed at her. “Right?”
Trigger smiled. “If you say so. And thanks very much for all the lovely compliments, Doctor. But now let’s get down to business.”
Plemponi glanced over at Mihul and looked evasive. “That being?” he asked.
“You know,” Trigger said. “But I’ll put it into specific questions if you like. Where’s Commissioner Tate?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where is Mantelish?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know that either.” He began to look unhappy.
“Oh?” said Trigger. “Who does know then?”
“I’m not allowed to tell you,” Doctor Plemponi said firmly.
Trigger raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”
“Federation security,” Plemponi said, frowning. He added, “I wasn’t supposed to tell you that either, but what could I do?”
“Federation security? Because of the plasmoids?”
“Yes . . . Well . . . I’d—I don’t know.”
Trigger sighed. “Is it just me you’re not supposed to tell these things to?”
“No, no, no,” Plemponi said hastily. “Nobody. I’m not supposed to admit to anyone that I know anything of the whereabouts of Holati Tate or Professor Mantelish.”
“Fibber!” Trigger said quietly. “So you know!”
Plemponi looked appealingly at Mihul. She was grinning. “My lips are sealed, Trigger! I can’t help it. Please believe me.”
“Let me sum it up then,” Trigger said, tapping the arm of her chair with a fingertip. “Eight weeks ago I get pulled off my job in the Manon System and sent here to arrange the organizational details of this Plasmoid Project. The only reason I took on the job, as a temporary assignment, was that Commissioner Tate convinced me it was important to him to have me do it. I even let him talk me into doing it under the assumed name of Ruya Farn and”—she reached up and touched the side of her head—”and to dye my hair. For no sane reason that I could discover! He said the U-League had requested it.”
Doctor Plemponi coughed. “Well, you know, Trigger, how sensitive the League is to personal notoriety.”
The eyebrow went up again. “Notoriety?”
“Not in the wrong sense!” Plemponi said hastily. “But your name has become much more widely known than you may believe. The news viewers mentioned you regularly in their reports on Harvest Moon and the Commissioner. Didn’t they, Mihul?”
Mihul nodded. “You made good copy, kid! We saw you in the solidopics any number of times.”
“Well, maybe,” Trigger said. “The cloak and dagger touches still don’t make much sense to me. But let’s forget them and go on.
“When we get here, I manage to see Mantelish just once to try to find out what his requirements will be. He’s pretty vague about them. Commissioner Tate is in and out of the Project—usually out. He’s also turned pretty vague. About everything. Three weeks ago today I’m told he’s gone. Nobody here can, or will, tell me where he’s gone or how he can be contacted. Same thing at the Maccadon Precol office. Same thing at the Evalee home office. Same thing at the U-League—any office. Then I try to contact Mantelish. I’m informed he’s with Tate! The two of them have left word I’m to carry on.”
She spread her hands. “Carry on with what? I’ve done all I can do until I get further instructions from the people supposedly directing this supposedly very urgent and important project! Mantelish doesn’t even seem to have a second in command . . .”
Plemponi nodded. “I was told he hadn’t selected his Project assistants yet.”
“Except,” said Trigger, “for that little flock of junior scientists who keep themselves locked in with the plasmoids. They know less than nothing and would be too scared to tell me that if I asked them.”
Plemponi looked confused for a moment. “That last sentence—” He checked himself. “Well, let’s not quibble. Go on.”
Trigger said, “That’s it. Holati didn’t need me on this job to begin with. There’s nothing involved about the organizational aspects. Unless something begins to happen—and rather soon—there’s no excuse for me to stay here.”
“Couldn’t you,” Plemponi suggested, “regard this as a kind of well-earned little vacation?”
“I’ve tried to regard it as that. Holati impressed on me that one of us had to remain in the area of the Project at all times, so I haven’t even been able to leave the school grounds. I’ve caught up with my reading, and Mihul has put me through two of her tune-up commando courses. But the point is that I’m not on vacation. I don’t believe Precol would feel that any of my present activities come under the heading of detached duty work!”
There was a short silence. Plemponi stared down at his empty tray, said, “Excuse me,” got up and walked over to the wall chef with the tray.
“Wrong slot,” Trigger told him.
He looked back. “Eh?”
“You want to put it in the disposal, don’t you?”
“Thanks,” Plemponi said absently. “Always doing that. Confusing them . . .” He dropped the tray where it belonged, shoved his hands into the chef’s cleaning recess and waved them around, then came back, still looking absent-minded, and stopped before Trigger’s chair. He studied her face for a moment.
“Commissioner Tate gave me a message for you,” he said suddenly.
Trigger’s eyes narrowed slightly. “When?”
“The day after he left.” Plemponi lifted a hand. “Now wait! You’ll see how it was. He called in and said, and I quote, `Plemp, you don’t stand much of a chance at keeping secrets from Trigger, so I’ll give you no unnecessary secrets to keep. If this business we’re on won’t let us get back to the Project in the next couple of weeks, she’ll get mighty restless. When she starts to complain—but no earlier—just tell her there are reasons why I can’t contact her at present, or let her know what I’m doing, and that I will contact her as soon as I possibly can.’ End of quote.”
“That was all?” asked Trigger.
“Yes.”
“He didn’t say a thing about how long this situation might continue?”
“No. I’ve given you the message word for word. My memory is excellent, Trigger.”
“So it could be more weeks? Or months?”
“Yes. Possibly. I imagine . . .” Plemponi had begun to perspire.
“Plemp,” said Trigger, “will you give Holati a message from me?”
“Gladly!” said Plemponi. “What—oh, oh!” He flushed.
“Right,” said Trigger. “You can contact him. I thought so.”
Doctor Plemponi looked reproachful. “That was unfair, Trigger! You’re quick-witted.”
Trigger shrugged. “I can’t see any justification for all this mystery, that’s all.” She stood up. “Anyway, here’s the message. Tell him that unless somebody—rather promptly—gives me a good sane reason for hanging around here, I’ll ask Precol to transfer me back to the Manon job.”
Plemponi tut-tutted gloomily. “Trigger,” he said, “I’ll do my best about the message. But otherwise—”
She smiled nicely at him. “I know,” she said, “your lips are sealed. Sorry if I’ve disturbed you, Plemp. But I’m just a Precol employee, after all. If I’m to waste their time, I’d like to know at least why it’s necessary.”
Plemponi watched her walk out of the room and off down the adjoining hall. In his face consternation struggled with approval.
“Lovely little figure, hasn’t she?” he said to Mihul. He made vague curving motions in the air with one hand, more or less opposing ones with the other. “That sort of an up-and-sideways lilt when she walks.”
“Uh-huh,” said Mihul. “Old goats.”
“Eh?” said Doctor Plemponi.
“I overheard you discussing Trigger’s lilt with Mantelish.”
Plemponi sat down at his desk. “You shouldn’t eavesdrop, Mihul,” he said severely. “I’d better get that message promptly to Tate, I suppose. She meant what she said, don’t you think?”
“Every bit of it,” said Mihul.
“Tate warned me she might get very difficult about this time. She’s too conscientious, I feel.”
“She also,” said Mihul, “has a boy friend in the Manon System. They’ve been palsy ever since they went through the school here together.”
“Ought to get married then,” Plemponi said. He shuddered. “My blood runs cold every time I think of how close those grabbers got to her yesterday!”
Mihul shrugged. “Relax! They never had a chance. The characters Tate has guarding her are the fastest moving squad I ever saw go into action.”
“That,” Plemponi said reflectively, “doesn’t sound much like our Maccadon police.”
“I don’t think they are. Imported talent of some kind, for my money. Anyway, if someone wants to pick up Trigger Argee here, he’d better come in with a battleship.”
Plemponi glanced nervously across the balcony at the cloudless blue sky above the quadrangle.