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Holati had come by just before to report that the Ermetyne was now awake but very groggy, apparently more than a little shocked, and not yet quite able to believe she was still alive. He'd dose her with this and that, and interrogations would be postponed until everybody was on their feet. When Trigger woke up from her five hour nap, the purse was shut. She opened it and looked inside.
Lyad and Flam both stood at the far side of the room. Their expressions were unhappy. "I don't like at all," Quillan said, "what's been going on here. Not one bit! Which is why Big Boy got the neck broken finally. Can the rest of us take a hint?" "Certainly," the Ermetyne said. "So the Flam girl quits ogling those guns on the shelf and stays put, or they'll amputate a leg.
Trigger glanced at her watch. It had been going on for only fifteen minutes, but she felt somewhat dizzy by now. The Ermetyne just looked a little more wilted. After a minute, Commissioner Tate inquired politely whether there was any further information the First Lady could think of to give them at this time. She shook her head. No. Only Professor Mantelish believed her.
They started out of the little room, Pluly in the van, clutching his towel. The Ermetyne, dangling loosely over Quillan's left shoulder, looked fairly gruesomely dead. "You walk this side of me, Trigger," Quillan said. "Still all right?" She nodded. "Yes." Actually she wasn't quite.
"Or drinks from you either, Trigger Argee!" he growled. "Who in the great spiraling galaxy is there left to trust!" "Sorry, Professor," Trigger said meekly. In half an hour or so, he calmed down enough to join the others in the lounge, to get the final story on Gess Fayle and the missing king plasmoid from the Ermetyne.
Moving about among them, he had seemed like a softly padding elephant. And there was an elephant's steady deftness in the way he held out the tiny tobacco trays. The Ermetyne winked at Quillan. "Quillan wrestled Virod to a pindown once," she said to Trigger. "A fifty-seven minute round, wasn't it?" "Thereabouts," Quillan said.
And everyone here is aware that the Treaties of Restriction imposed on both our governments have made it impossible for our citizens to engage seriously in plasmoid research." Trigger nodded briefly as the light-amber eyes paused on her for a moment. Quillan had cautioned her not to show surprise at anything the Ermetyne might say or do.
"Sometimes," she told Quillan, "the Askab becomes a little independent. He's been spoken to. Here you keep them for Trigger." She tossed the package lightly over to them. Quillan put out a hand and caught it. "Thanks," he said. He put the package in a pocket. "I'll call off my beagles." "Suit yourself as to that," said the Ermetyne. "It won't hurt the Askab to stay frightened a little longer."
"That Lyad Ermetyne now," he said, "looks as if she either already is part of the main problem or is working very hard to get there. She's had a Tranest warship stationed here for the past two weeks. A thing called the Aurora." Trigger was startled. "But warships aren't allowed in Manon System!" "It isn't in the system. It's stationed a half light-year away, where it has a legal right to be.
"Another facsimile, I suppose?" "Of course." The Ermetyne glanced at a small jeweled wrist watch. "Now the Aurora, if my orders were being followed, and they were, dived approximately five minutes ago unless somebody who might be your wrathful rescuers approached her before that time, in which case she dived then.
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