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Any obvious lack of friendliness between them might make the job more difficult. Trigger sighed. Things were getting complicated again. While Quillan was indulging his baser nature among the questionable attractions of the Inferno, she'd shot three hundred of her Precol credits on a formal black gown ... on what, yesterday, she would have considered a rather unbelievable gown.
"First Lady " she said. Lyad went white around the lips. Quillan made some kind of startled sound. Trigger shot. Flam ran at her then, screaming, arms waving, eyes wild and green like an animal's. Trigger half turned and shot again. She looked at Quillan. "Just stunned," she explained. She waited. Quillan let his breath out slowly. "Glad to hear it!" He glanced down at Pluly.
On the flashing, all-out run to Luscious, subspace all the way, with the Commissioner and Quillan spelling each other around the clock at the controls, the transmitters clattering for attention every half hour, the ship's housekeeping had to be handled, and somebody besides Mantelish needed to keep a moderately beady eye on the Ermetyne, she hadn't even thought of acting on Pilch's suggestion.
One from a street ComWeb and one from the bank. If they already had spotted me by that tracer material, they could have had an audio pick-up on me, I suppose." "I think we'd better suppose it," said Quillan. "You had a tail when you came out of the bank anyway." His glance went past her. "We'll get back to that later. Right now, take a look at that entrance, will you?"
That was an odd-looking little group in the doorway, Trigger felt. On his knees before Quillan was a fat, elderly man, blinking dazedly at her. He wore a brilliantly purple bath towel knotted about his loins and nothing else. It was a moment before she recognized Belchik Pluly. Old Belchy! And on the floor before Belchy, motionless as if in devout prostration, Virod lay on his face.
She gave Trigger coolly speculative looks now and then. Then Virod showed up again with a flat tray of what turned out to be a very special brand of tobacco. Trigger declined. The men made connoisseur-type sounds of high appreciation, and everybody, including Lyad, lit up small pipes of a very special brand of coral and puffed away happily. Quillan looked up at Virod.
A drowsy somnolence enveloped her almost instantly. She closed her eyes. Ten minutes later, Gaya, standing over her, announced, "Well, she's out." "Fine," said Quillan, packaging the rest of the equipment. "Tell them to haul in the rest cubicle. I'll be done here in a minute. Then you and the lady warden can take over." Gaya looked down at Trigger. There was a trace of regret in her face.
"Poor Pilli!" she said. "Alas!" Quillan said politely. "I gather you didn't just stun Pilli?" She shook her head. "Couldn't," she said. "Too big. Too fast." "How about the other one?" "Oh, him. Stunned. He's an investigator. They thought he was dead, though. That's what scared Lyad and Flam." "Yeah," Quillan said thoughtfully. "It would."
It startled Trigger to realize that Security did not seem to be considering seriously the possibility of discovering the human agent behind the murders. Quillan shrugged. "Whoever did it is covered three ways in every direction. The chief knows it. He can't psych four thousand people on general suspicions, and he'd hit mind-blocks in every twentieth passenger presently on board if he did.
If she was quick enough now She twisted, jerked, heaved. She stopped, discouraged. The situation hadn't altered appreciably. She had been afraid it wasn't going to work with Quillan. "Let go!" she said furiously, aiming a fast heel at his instep. But the instep flicked aside. Her shoe dug into the turf of the path. The ape might even have an extra pair of eyes on his feet!
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