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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." He was a mild-looking little man, well along in years, sparse and spruce in his Precol uniform.
"Lay it on that and just let it dry. That's what we used to do." Trigger shook her head. "Next thing, I'll be changing its diapers!" "It isn't that bad," the Commissioner said. "Anyway, you will adopt baby, won't you?" "I suppose I have to." She placed the plasmoid on the towel, wiped her hands and stepped back from it. "What happens if it falls on the floor?" "Nothing," Holati said.
"Major," she said, "I think I'd like that cigarette now." He came over and lit one for her. Trigger thanked him and puffed. And she'd almost spilled everything, she was thinking. The paid-up reservation. Every last thing. "I'd like to get it straight," she said. "What you're talking about sounds like it's a mind-search job, Holati." "It's in that class," he said.
Half the Fed Council probably would like to see it happen. But they don't even dare think along those lines. There could be a blowup that would throw Hub politics back into the kind of snarl they haven't been in for a hundred years. If anything is done, it will have to look as if it had been something nobody could have helped. And that still might be bad enough." "I suppose so. Holati " "Yes?"
That Repulsive thing of yours is another." "What about him?" "I have a pretty strong feeling," he said, "that while they'll probably find the hierarchy in that Devagas dome, they won't find the 112-113 item there." "So Lyad still is gambling," Trigger said. "And we're gambling we'll get more out of her next play than she does." She hesitated. "Holati " "Yes?"
You would have thought the Federation might have had a Security Chief in on that first operation. Right there on Harvest Moon!" "They did," he said. "It was Fayle." "Oh! Pretty embarrassing." Trigger was silent a moment. "Holati, could those things ever become as valuable as people keep saying? It's all sounded a little exaggerated to me." The Commissioner said he'd wondered about it too.
The salaries weren't entirely prospective either. Ten miles away on the other side of Headquarters dome, new squares of living domes were sprouting up daily. At this morning's count they housed fifty-two thousand people. The Hub's major industries and assorted branches of Federation government had established a solid foothold on Manon. Trigger turned her head as Holati Tate came into the office.
It was nice that old Holati Tate had made an almost indecently vast fortune out of his first-discovery rights to the things, because she was really very fond of the Commissioner when he wasn't being irritating. But in some obscure way she found the plasmoids themselves and the idea of unlimited plastic life which they embodied rather appalling. However, she was in a minority there.
"It also instructed us to treat the First Lady of Tranest with the courtesy due to her station meanwhile." "Brother!" Trigger said, outraged. "Just too bad I couldn't read that message," said Holati Tate. "Some gravitic disturbance! Rendezvous point's hours behind us. They'll never catch up." "Ho-ho!" said Trigger. "But that's being pretty insubordinate, Holati!" "It was till just now," he said.
"Exactly how I feel about it," said the Commissioner. Trigger stared at him suspiciously. "You're a pretty sneaky type yourself!" she said. "Well, excuse the blowup, Holati. They probably had some reason for it. Have they found out anything at all with all the spraying and investigating?" "Oh, yes. They seem to have made considerable progress.
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