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Yes, she could become more specific about the location with the help of star maps. "Let's get them out," said Commissioner Tate. They got them out. The Ermetyne presently circled a largish section of the Vishni Fleet's area. The questions began again. 113-A: Professor Mantelish had told her of his experiments with this plasmoid There was an interruption here while Mantelish huffed reflexively.

"You can do that much for the professor, can't you?" "Barely," Trigger told him grimly. But she reached out and put a cautious finger tip to the less lively end of 113-A. After a moment she said, "Hey!" She moved the finger lightly along the thing's surface. It had a velvety, smooth, warm feeling, rather like a kitten. "You know," she said surprised, "it feels sort of nice!

She drew her hand back quietly from 113-A. The professor unstoppered the flask. "You'll have some, Trigger, I'm sure? The only really good thing the benighted world of Rumli ever produced." "My great-grandmother," Trigger remarked, "was a Rumlian." She watched him fill the four glasses with a thin purple liquid. "I've never tried it; but yes, thanks."

"That makes everything look very much better, doesn't it?" "Quite a little," he said. "The unit may not work, or may not work satisfactorily, unless 113-A is in the area. Mantelish talks of something he calls proximity influence. Whatever that is, 113-A has demonstrated it has it." "So," Trigger said, "they might have two thirds of what everybody wants, and you might have one third.

Pretty short leads so far, but you work with what you can get." He nodded at the table. "We picked up the first lead through 113-A." Trigger glanced down. The plasmoid lay there some inches from the side of her hand. "You know," she said uncomfortably, "old Repulsive moved again while we were talking! Towards my hand." She drew the hand away.

So what happened with 113-A?" "Mantelish began to get results with it," the Commissioner said. "One experiment was rather startling. He'd been trying that electrical stimulation business. Nothing happened until he had finished. Then he touched the plasmoid, and it fed the whole charge back to him. Apparently it was a fairly hefty dose." She laughed delightedly. "Good for Repulsive!

"Like the Harvest Moon plasmoids when they stimulated 113?" "Right. He thought about that, and then located another moving plasmoid. He dropped in to look it over, with 113-A in his pocket again, and it stopped. He did the same thing in one more place and then quit. There aren't that many moving plasmoids around. Those three labs are still wondering what hit their specimens."

Commissioner Tate said, "By the way, Quillan does have a degree in subspace engineering and gets assigned to the Engineers now and then. But his real job's Space Scout Intelligence." Trigger nodded. "I'd almost guessed it!" She gave Quillan another smile. She nearly gave 113-A a smile. "And now," said the Commissioner, "we'll talk more freely. We tell Mantelish just as little as we can.

The Devagas, naturally, hadn't acted on the king plasmoid's naive suggestion. Whatever it feared was more than likely to be very useful to them. Instead they made preparations to bring both 113-A and Trigger Argee into their possession. They would then have a new, strong bargaining point in their dealings with their dubious partner.

Mantelish smacked his lips thoughtfully and shook his head. "Not good!" he said. "Not at all good! I'm beginning to think " He paused a moment. "Go on, Lyad." The hierarchy was now giving renewed consideration to a curious request the plasmoid had made almost as soon as Balmordan became capable of understanding it. The request had been to find and destroy plasmoid 113-A.