She studied him again. “Better tell me first,” she said shortly.
“All right. We’re taking you to Commissioner Tate. We’ll be there in about an hour. He’ll tell you himself why he wanted to see you.”
Trigger’s eyes narrowed for an instant. Secretly she felt very much relieved. Holati Tate, at any rate, wouldn’t let anything really unpleasant happen to her—and she would find out at last what had been going on.
“You’ve got an odd way of taking people places,” she observed.
He laughed. “The grabber party wasn’t scheduled. You’d indicated you wanted to speak to the Commissioner. We were sent to the Colonial School to pick you up and escort you to him. When we found out you’d disappeared, we had to do some fast improvising. Not my business to tell you 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 Commissioner tell 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 flat piece of metal out of a pocket and reached back of her with it. He didn’t seem to do more than touch the cuffs, but she felt the slick coils 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 had someone watching their screens. You were spotted going in.” He sat down companionably beside her. “I’d introduce myself, but I don’t know if that would fit in with the Commissioner’s plans.”
Trigger shrugged. It still was quite possible, she decided, that her own plans weren’t completely spoiled. Holati and his friends didn’t necessarily know about that vault account. If they did know she’d had one and had closed it out, they could make a pretty good guess at what she’d done with the money. But if she just kept quiet, there might be an opportunity to get back to Ceyce and the Dawn City by tomorrow evening.
“No hard feelings, are there?” the Commissioner’s over-muscled henchman inquired amiably.
Trigger glanced at him from the side. Not amiably. “Yes,” she said evenly. “There are.”
He looked surprised. “Maybe,” the driver suggested from the front, “what Miss Argee could do with 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’s very good Puya.”
“So choke on it,” Trigger told him gently. She settled back into the corner of the seat and closed her eyes. “You can wake me up when we get to the Commissioner.”
6
When Trigger was brought to Commissioner Tate’s little private office and inquired with some heat what the devil was up, the tall grabber hadn’t come into the office with her. He asked the Commissioner from the door whether he should get Professor Mantelish to the conference room, and the Commissioner nodded. The door closed and the two of them were alone.
Commissioner Tate was a mild-looking little man, well along in years, sparse and spruce in his Precol uniform. The small gray eyes in the sun-darkened, leathery face weren’t really mild, if you considered them more closely, or if you knew the Commissioner.
“I know it’s looked odd,” the Commissioner admitted, “but the circumstances have been very odd. Still are. And I didn’t want to worry you any more than I had to.”
“Really? The methods you’ve used not to worry me have hardly been soothing,” said Trigger, unmollified.
“I know that, too,” said the Commissioner. “But if I’d told you everything immediately, you would have had reason enough to be worried for the past two months, rather than just for a day or so. The situation has improved now, very considerably. In fact, in another few days you shouldn’t have any more reason to worry at all.” He smiled briefly. “At least, 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, Trigger girl. 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 next three or four days.” Commissioner Tate got to his feet. “Then let’s go join Mantelish.”
“Why the professor?”
“He’s got a kind of pet I’d like you to look at.”
“A pet!” cried Trigger. She shook her head again and stood up resignedly. “Lead on, Commissioner!”
* * *
They joined Mantelish and his plasmoid weirdie in what looked like the dining room of what had looked like an old-fashioned hunting lodge when the aircar came diving down on it between two ice-sheeted mountain peaks. Trigger wasn’t sure in just what section of the main continent they were; but there were only two or three alternatives—it was high in the mountains, and night came a lot faster here than it did around Ceyce.
She greeted Mantelish and sat down at the table. He was a very big, rather fat but healthy-looking old man with a thick thatch of white hair and a ruddy face.
Then the Commissioner locked the doors and introduced her to the professor’s pet.
“In some way,” Holati Tate said, “this little item here seems to be at the 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, rather like a plump leech a foot and a half long. It was motionless except that the end nearest her shifted in a short arc from side to side, as if the thing suffered from a very slow twitch.
“One of the plasmoids obviously,” she said. “A jumpy one.” She blinked at it. “Looks like that 113. Is it?”
She glanced around. Commissioner Tate and Professor Mantelish, who sat in an armchair off to her right, were staring at her, eyebrows up, apparently surprised about something. “What’s the matter?” she asked.
“We’re just wondering,” said Holati, “how you happen to remember 113, in particular, out of the thousands of plasmoids on Harvest Moon.”
“Oh. One of the Junior Scientists on your Project mentioned the 112-113 unit. That brought it to mind. Is this 113?”
“No,” said Holati Tate. “But it appears to be a duplicate of it. It’s labeled 113-A. Even the professor isn’t certain he could distinguish between the two. Right, Mantelish?”
“That is true,” said Mantelish, “at present. Without a physical comparison—” He shrugged.
“What’s so important about the critter?” Trigger asked, eyeing the leech again. One good thing about it, she thought—it wasn’t equipped to eye her back.
“The plasmoid you mentioned earlier, Unit 112-113, has been stolen,” the Commissioner said. “We don’t—” But Holati Tate’s attention had shifted suddenly to the table. “Hey, now!” he said in a low voice.
Trigger followed his gaze. After a moment she made a soft, sucking sound 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’t move!” he cautioned her.
“Why not?” said Trigger.
“Hush, my dear.” Mantelish laid a large, heavy hand on each of her shoulders and bore down slightly. “It’s sensitive! This is very interesting. Very.”
Perhaps it was. She kept watching the plasmoid. It had thinned out somewhat 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 wriggled slightly under Mantelish’s hands. “And I’d sooner get out of this chair!”
“Don’t be childish, Trigger,” said the professor annoyedly. “You’re behaving as if it were, in some manner, offensive.”
“It is,” she said.
“Hush, my dear,” Mantelish said absently, putting on a little more pressure. Trigger hushed resignedly. They watched. In about a minute, the gliding thing reached the edge of the table. Trigger gathered herself to duck out from under Mantelish’s hands and go flying out of the chair if it looked as if the plasmoid was about to drop into her lap.
But it stopped. For a few seconds it lay motionless. Then it gradually raised its front end and began waving it gently back and forth in the air. At her, Trigger suspected.
“Yipes!” she said, horrified.
The front end sank back. The plasmoid lay still again. After a minute it was 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 from Trigger’s aching shoulders. “You startled it, Trigger!” he boomed at her accusingly.