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She studied 113-A curiously. "A mighty mite! What does Mantelish make of it?" "He thinks the 112-113 unit forms a kind of self-regulating system. The big one induces plasmoid activity, the little one modifies it. This 113-A might be a spare regulator. But it seems to be more than a spare which brings us to that first lead we got. A gang of raiders crashed Mantelish's lab one night."
She looked away quickly again, turned and went restlessly back through the lounge, and up the passage, toward the cabins. She went by the two suits of space armor at the lock without looking at them. She opened the door to Mantelish's cabin and looked inside. The professor lay sprawled across the bunk in his clothes, breathing slowly and regularly. Trigger closed his door again.
"The Feds got in on it then. There'd been that business in Mantelish's lab. There were similarities in the pattern. You knew Mantelish. You'd been on Harvest Moon with him. They thought there could be a connection." "But what connection?" she protested. "I know I don't know anything that could do anybody any good!" He shrugged. "I can't figure it either, Trigger girl.
When I can't, the kids will shift in automatically." The kids were the five assistants among whom her duties had been divided in her absence. "Major Quillan called me up to Mantelish's lab around ten," she went on. "They wanted to see Repulsive, so I took him up there. Then it turned out Mantelish wanted to take Repulsive along on a field trip this afternoon." Holati looked startled.
To tell you the truth, Trigger, the professor is a terrible handicap on an operation like this. I understand he was a great friend of your father's." "Yes," she said. "Going over for visits to Mantelish's garden with my father is one of the earliest things I remember. I can imagine he's a problem!" She shifted her gaze curiously from one to the other of the two men. "What are you people doing?
Most of those Ermetynes wind up being dead-brained by some loving relative, and apparently they have to know how to whip up a sharp brew of poison before they're let into kindergarten. Lyad's been top dog among them since she was eighteen " His head turned. A bell had begun pinging in the next room. He stood up. "Probably Mantelish's outfit on the transmitter," he said.
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!"
Take Mantelish's big tree out there!" "The sequoia?" "Yes. Now just last year it was looking so bad they almost talked the professor into having it taken away. Hardly a green branch left on it." Pilch shaded her eyes and looked at the sequoia's crown far above them. "It looks," she observed reflectively, "in fairly good shape at the moment, I'd say!" "Yes, and it's getting greener every week.
Mantelish's garden in the highland south of Ceyce had a certain renown all over the Hub. It had been donated to the professor twenty-five years ago by the populace of another Federation world.
He was one of the U-League's big shots, a political scientist who had got himself appointed as Mantelish's chief assistant when that eminent biologist was first sent to Manon to take over League operations there. Trigger had disliked Fayle on sight, and hadn't changed her mind on closer acquaintance. "I remember that 112-113 unit now," she said suddenly.
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