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The point of it, Holati Tate explained, was that this had been moreactivity than 113-A normally displayed over a period of a week. And113-A was easily the most active plasmoid of them all nowadays.
"It is, of course, possible," Mantelish said, arousing from deepthought, "that it was attracted by your body odor."
"Thank you, Mantelish!" said Trigger.
"You're welcome, my dear." Mantelish had pulled his chair up to thetable; he hitched himself forward in it. "We shall now," he announced,"try a little experiment. Pick it up, Trigger."
She stared at him. "Pick it up! No, Mantelish. We shall now try someother little experiment."
Mantelish furrowed his Jovian brows. Holati gave her a small smileacross the table. "Just touch it with the tip of a finger," hesuggested. "You can do that much for the professor, can't you?"
"Barely," Trigger told him grimly. But she reached out and put acautious finger tip to the less lively end of 113-A. After a moment shesaid, "Hey!" She moved the finger lightly along the thing's surface. Ithad a velvety, smooth, warm feeling, rather like a kitten. "You know,"she said surprised, "it feels sort of nice! It just looks disgusting."
"Disgusting!" Mantelish boomed, offended again.
The Commissioner held up a hand. "Just a moment," he said. He'd pickedup some signal Trigger hadn't noticed, for he went over to the wall nowand touched something there. A release button apparently. The door tothe room opened. Trigger's grabber came in. The door closed behind him.He was carrying a tray with a squat brown flask and four rather smallglasses on it.
He gave Trigger a grin. She gave him a tentative smile in return. TheCommissioner had introduced him: Heslet Quillan--Major Heslet Quillan,of the Subspace Engineers. For a Subspace Engineer, Trigger had thoughtskeptically, he was a pretty good grabber. But there was a qualifiedtruce in the room. It would last, at least, until Holati finished hisexplaining. There was no really good reason not to include Major Quillanin it.
"Ah, Puya!" Professor Mantelish exclaimed, advancing on the tray asQuillan set it on the table. Mantelish seemed to have forgotten aboutplasmoid experiments for the moment, and Trigger didn't intend to remindhim. She drew her hand back quietly from 113-A. The professorunstoppered the flask. "You'll have some, Trigger, I'm sure? The onlyreally good thing the benighted world of Rumli ever produced."
"My great-grandmother," Trigger remarked, "was a Rumlian." She watchedhim fill the four glasses with a thin purple liquid. "I've never triedit; but yes, thanks."
Quillan put one of the glasses in front of her.
"And we shall drink," Mantelish suggested, with a suave flourish of hisPuya, "to your great-grandmother!"
"We shall also," suggested Major Quillan, pulling a chair up to thetable for himself, "Advise Trigger to take a very small sip on her firstgo at the stuff."
Nobody had invited him to sit down. But nobody was objecting either.Well, that fitted, Trigger thought.
She sipped. It was tart and hot. Very hot. She set the glass back on thetable, inhaled with difficulty, exhaled quiveringly. Tears gathered inher eyes.
"Very good!" she husked.
"Very good," the Commissioner agreed. He put down his empty glass andsmacked his lips lightly. "And now," he said briskly, "let's get on withthis conference."
Trigger glanced around the room while Quillan refilled three glasses.The small live coal she had swallowed was melting away; a warm glowbegan to spread through her. It did look like the dining room of ahunting lodge. The woodwork was dark, old-looking, worn with muchpolishing. Horned heads of various formidable Maccadon life-formsadorned the walls.
But it was open season now on a different kind of game. Three men hadwalked briskly past them when Quillan brought her in by the front door.They hadn't even looked at her. There were sounds now and then from someof the other rooms, and that general feeling of a considerable number ofpeople around--of being at an operating headquarters of some sort, whichhummed with quiet activity.
One of the things, Holati Tate said, which had not become publicknowledge so far was that Professor Mantelish actually succeeded ingetting some of the plasmoids on the Old Galactic base back intooperation. One plasmoid in particular.
The reason the achievement hadn't been announced was that for nearly sixweeks no one except the three men directly involved in the experimentshad known about them. And during that time other things occurred whichmade subsequent publicity seem very inadvisable.
Mantelish scowled. "We made up a report to the League the day of theinitial discovery," he informed Trigger. "It was a complete and detailedreport!"
"True," Holati said, "but the report the U-League got didn't happen tobe the one Professor Mantelish helped make up. We'll go into that later.The plasmoid the professor was experimenting with was the 112-113 unit."
He shifted his gaze to Mantelish. "Still want me to tell it?"
"Yes, yes!" Mantelish said impatiently. "You will oversimplify grossly,of course, but it should do for the moment. At a more leisurely time Ishall be glad to give Trigger an accurate description of the processes."
Trigger smiled at him. "Thank you, Professor!" She took her second sipof the Puya. Not bad.
"Well, Mantelish was dosing this plasmoid with mild electricalstimulations," Holati went on. "He noticed suddenly that as he did itother plasmoids in that section of Harvest Moon were indicating signs ofactivity. So he called in Doctor Fayle and Doctor Azol."
The three scientists discovered quickly that stimulation of the 112 partof the unit was in fact producing random patterns of plasmoid motionthroughout the entire base, while an electrical prod at 113 broughteverything to an abrupt stop again. After a few hours of this, 112suddenly extruded a section of its material, which detached itself andmoved off slowly under its own power through half the station, trailedwith great excitement by Mantelish and Azol. It stopped at a point whereanother plasmoid had been removed for laboratory investigations, climbedup and settled down in the place left vacant by its predecessor. It thenreshaped itself into a copy of the predecessor, and remained where itwas. Obviously a replacement.
There was dignified scientific jubilation among the three. This wasprecisely the kind of information the U-League--and everybody else--hadbeen hoping to obtain. 112-113 tentatively could be assumed to be a kindof monitor of the station's activities. It could be induced to go intoaction and to activate the other plasmoids. With further observation andrefinement of method, its action undoubtedly could be shifted from therandom to the purposeful. Finally, and most importantly, it had shownitself capable of producing a different form of plasmoid life to fulfilla specific requirement.
In essence, the riddles presented by the Old Galactic Station appearedto be solved.
The three made up their secret report to the U-League. Included was arecommendation to authorize distribution of ten per cent of the lesssignificant plasmoids to various experimental centers in the Hub--thebig and important centers which had been bringing heavy politicalpressure to bear on the Federation to let them in on the investigation.That should keep them occupied, while the U-League concluded the reallyimportant work.
"Next day," said Holati, "Doctor Gess Fayle presented Mantelish with atransmitted message from U-League Headquarters. It containedinstructions to have Fayle mount the 112-113 unit immediately in one ofthe League ships at Harvest Moon and bring it quietly to Maccadon."
Mantelish frowned. "The message was faked!" he boomed.
"Not only that," said Holati. "The actual report Doctor Fayle hadtransmitted the day before to the League was revised to the extent thatit omitted any reference to 112-113." He glanced thoughtfully atMantelish. "As a matter of fact, it was almost a month and a half beforeLeague Headquarters became aware of the importance of the unit."
The professor snorted. "Azol," he explained to Trigger, "had become avictim of his scientific zeal. And I--"
"Doctor Azol," said the Commissioner, "as you may remember, had hislittle mishap with the plasmoid just two days
after Fayle departed."
"And I," Mantelish went on, "was involved in other urgent research. Howwas I to know what that villain Fayle had been up to? A vice presidentof the University League!"
"Well," Trigger said, "what had Doctor Fayle been up to?"
"We don't know yet," Holati told her. "Obviously he had something inmind with the faked order and the alteration of the report. But the onlything we can say definitely is that he disappeared on the League ship hehad requisitioned, along with its personnel and the 112-113 plasmoid,and hasn't shown up again.
"And that plasmoid unit now appears to have been almost certainly thekey unit of the entire Old Galactic Station--the unit that kepteverything running along automatically there for thirty thousand years."
He glanced at Quillan. "Someone at the door. We'll hold it while yousee what they want."
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