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The Ermetyne's amber eyes switched to Trigger. "Shall I?" she asked. Trigger nodded. And a specific human being. The Devagas already had established that this human being must be Trigger Argee. "What?" Mantelish's thick white eyebrows shot up. "113-A we can understand it is afraid of being in some way brought back under control. But why Trigger?"
He closed the door carefully behind him. "How's the little critter doing?" he asked. "Still absorbing the goop," Trigger said. She held Mantelish's small mystery plasmoid cupped lightly between thumbs and fingers, its bottom side down in a shallow bowl half full of something which Mantelish considered to be nutritive for plasmoids, or at least for this one.
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.
"I'd heard that." "It was Mantelish's idea," said Trigger. "Now Mantelish is very fond of that sequoia tree. He's got a big, comfortable bench right among its roots, where he likes to sit down around noon and have a little nap when he's out here." "Oh!" said Pilch. "Repulsive's been up to his old tricks, eh?" "Sure. He's given Mantelish very exact instructions.
And here's something else very interesting that's going on at present." "What's that?" "The real hush-hush reason for Mantelish's expedition," Trigger explained, "is, of course, to scout around this whole area of space with planetary plasmoid detectors. They don't want anybody stumbling on another setup like Harvest Moon and accidentally activating another king plasmoid." "Yes," Pilch said.
"Then, some time before I actually fell down," said Trigger, "I was apparently already in that mysterious coma. Getting deeper into it. It started when I walked away from Mantelish's group, without having any particular reason for doing it. I just walked.
"The other reason she came here," Pilch said, "is to take care of the financing of Mantelish's expedition." "I didn't know that!" Trigger said, surprised. "It's her way of making amends. Her legitimate Hub holdings are still enormous, of course. She can afford it." "Well," Trigger said, "that's one thing about Lyad she's wholehearted!" "She's that," said Pilch.
"I had a talk with Commissioner Tate an hour or so ago. He's preparing to leave Maccadon again, I understand." "That's right. He's been organizing that big exploration trip of Mantelish's the past couple of months. He'll be in charge of it when they take off." "You're not going along?" Pilch asked. Trigger shook her head. "Not this time. Ape and I Captain Quillan and I, that is "
"How come Quillan didn't start wondering when I didn't show up in Mantelish's lab with Repulsive?" "So that's what he was for!" Holati said. He rubbed the side of his jaw. "I was curious about that angle! That wasn't Quillan. That was Quillan's fac." "In Mantelish's lab?" Trigger said, startled. "Sure. That's how they all got in.
"Are you going to be back in the dome by lunchtime?" "I think so. Might have some interesting news, too, incidentally." "Fine," she said. "See you then." Twenty minutes later the desk transmitter gave her the "to be shielded" signal. Up went the barrier again. Major Quillan's face looked out at her from the screen. He was, Trigger saw, in Mantelish's lab.
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