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Updated: June 22, 2025
If Trigger didn't know what to say herself, she was merely to look inscrutable. "I'll scrut," he explained. "The others won't. I'll take over then and you just follow my lead. Get it?" "Balmordan," Lyad said, "I understand you are going to Manon to attend the seminars and demonstrations on the plasmoid station?" "That is true, First Lady," said Balmordan.
Balmordan accordingly assisted obligingly in the second operation. He was delighted when it became apparent that his assistance was being willingly and comprehendingly accepted. This subject did not die immediately. But he did not regain consciousness after the plasmoid devices had been installed; and some hours later he did die, in convulsions. Number Three was more fortunate.
But they discovered promptly that neither Trigger nor 113-A were at all easy to come by. Balmordan now suggested a modification of tactics. The hierarchy had seen to it that a number of interpreters were available for 112; Balmordan in consequence had lost much of his early importance and was anxious to regain it.
Balmordan didn't fit her picture of a Devagas leader too badly. His manner and talk were easygoing and agreeable. But his particular brand of ogle, when she first became aware of it, had been disquieting. Rather like a biologist planning the details of an interesting vivisection. Of course he was a biologist. But Trigger kept wondering why Lyad had invited him to dinner.
With no hesitation it was accepted, but Balmordan was warned not to bring his monster into the Hub area. If it was discovered on a Devagas world, the hierarchy would be faced with the choice between another war with the Federation and submission to more severely restrictive Federation controls.
Lyad had told them she'd dispatched the Aurora to stand guard over a subspace station where the missing king plasmoid presently was housed, until both she and the combat squadron from Tranest could arrive there. The exact location of that station had been the most valuable of the bits of information she had extracted so painstakingly from Balmordan.
It wasn't so serious an addiction, except perhaps in the fact that it was rarely given up again. The sponges soothed jangled nerves, stabilized unstable emotions. Balmordan didn't look like a man who needed one. He was big, not as tall as Quillan but probably heavier, with strong features, a boldly jutting nose. Bleak, pale eyes.
It did not have the understanding to permit it to construct such a base. So it made the Devagas a proposition. It would work for them, somewhat as it had worked for the Old Galactics, if unlike the Old Galactics they would work for it. Balmordan, newly become a person of foremost importance, transmitted the offer to the hierarchy in the Hub.
The ship, running subspace and pilotless, plowed headlong into the next gravitic twister and broke up. A Devagas ship's detectors picked up the wreckage three days later. Balmordan was on board the Devagas ship and in charge. The Devagas, at that time, were at least as plasmoid-hungry as anybody else, and knew they were not likely to see their hunger gratified for several decades.
His proposal was that all efforts should be directed at obtaining 113-A. Once it was obtained, he himself would volunteer to become its first interpreter. Trigger Argee, because of the information she might reveal to others, should be destroyed a far simpler operation than attempting to take her alive. This was agreed to; and Balmordan was authorized to carry out both operations.
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