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It would last, at least, until Holati finished his explaining. There was no really good reason not to include Major Quillan in it. "Ah, Puya!" Professor Mantelish exclaimed, advancing on the tray as Quillan set it on the table. Mantelish seemed to have forgotten about plasmoid experiments for the moment, and Trigger didn't intend to remind him.
Quillan put one of the glasses in front of her. "And we shall drink," Mantelish suggested, with a suave flourish of his Puya, "to your great-grandmother!" "We shall also," suggested Major Quillan, pulling a chair up to the table for himself, "Advise Trigger to take a very small sip on her first go at the stuff." Nobody had invited him to sit down. But nobody was objecting either.
"Does Mantelish have any idea why Repulsive is the only plasmoid known to which our ring detectors don't react?" "Apparently he does," Holati said. "But when he starts in on those subjects, I find him difficult to follow." He looked soberly at Trigger. "There are times," he confessed, "when I suspect Professor Mantelish is somewhat daft.
One of the things, Holati Tate said, which had not become public knowledge so far was that Professor Mantelish actually succeeded in getting some of the plasmoids on the Old Galactic base back into operation. One plasmoid in particular.
Within a few weeks it was parked on Luscious, where it devoted itself to the minor creative experimentation which presently was to puzzle Professor Mantelish. The Devagas meanwhile toiled prodigiously to complete the constructions which were to be a central feature in the new alliance.
"There were two holes in another piece," the Commissioner said, very thoughtfully. "If that's the average, she was punched in a few thousand spots. Let's go have a better look." He and Mantelish maneuvered the gravity crane carrying the holed slab of steel-alloy into the ship's workshop.
He asked the Commissioner from the door whether he should get Professor Mantelish to the conference room, and the Commissioner nodded. Then the door closed and the two of them were alone. "I know it's looked odd," Commissioner Tate admitted, "but the circumstances have been very odd. Still are. And I didn't want to worry you any more than I had to."
Mantelish wasn't in the least appeased by the fact that again at the Commissioner's suggestion Lyad had installed one minor new hypno-command which, she said, would clear up permanently his tendency toward attacks of dive sickness. But he just ran down finally and sat there, glowering at the Ermetyne now and then.
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.
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!"
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