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The bedside ComWeb warned her politely that it was now ten minutes todive point. Waking passengers who experienced subspace distress in anyform could obtain immediate assistance by a call on any ComWeb. If theypreferred, they could have their cabins kept under the continuous visualsupervision of their personal steward or stewardess.
The Dawn City's passenger areas still looked rather well populated whenTrigger arrived. But some of the passengers were showing signs ofregretting their decision to stay awake. Presently she became aware of afaint queasiness herself.
It wasn't bad--mainly a sensation as if the ship were tryingcontinuously to turn over on its axis around her and not quite makingit--and she knew from previous experience that after the first hour orso she would be completely free of that. She walked into a low, dimlylit, very swank-looking gambling room, still well patronized by thehardier section of her fellow travelers, searching for a place where shecould sit down unobtrusively for a while and let the subspace reactionwork itself out.
A couch beside a closed door near the unlit end of the room seemed aboutright for the purpose.
Trigger sat down and glanced around. There were a variety of games inprogress, all unfamiliar to her. The players were mostly men, but aremarkable number of beautiful women, beautifully gowned, stood aroundthe tables as observers. Traveler's Companions, Trigger realizedsuddenly--the Dawn City's employees naturally would be inured tosubspace effects. From the scraps of talk she could pick up, the stakesseemed uniformly high.
A swirl of vertigo suddenly built up in her again. This one was strongerthan most; for a moment she couldn't be sure whether she was going to besick or not. She stood up, stepped over to the door a few feet away,pulled it open and went through, drawing it shut behind her.
There had been a shielding black-light screen in the doorway. On theother side was bottled sunshine.
She found herself on a long balcony which overlooked a formal gardenenclosure thirty feet below. There was no one else in sight. She leanedback against the wall beside the door, closed her eyes and breathedslowly and deeply for some seconds. The sickish sensation began tofade.
When she opened her eyes again, she saw the little yellow man.
He stood motionless at the far end of the garden, next to some floweringshrubbery out of which he might have just stepped. He seemed to bepeering along the sand path which curved in toward the balcony andvanished beneath it, below the point where Trigger stood.
It was sheer fright which immobilized her at first. Because there wasnot anything really human about that small, squat, manshaped figure. Adwarfish yellow demon he seemed, evil and menacing. The garden, sherealized suddenly, might be an illusion scene. Or else--
The thing moved in that instant. It became a blur of motion along thecurving path and disappeared under the balcony. After a second or so sheheard the sound of a door closing some distance away. The garden laystill again.
Trigger stayed where she was, her knees shaking a little. The frightappeared to have driven every trace of nausea out of her, and graduallyher heartbeat began to return to normal. She took three cautious stepsforward to the balcony railing, where the tip of a swaying green treebranch was in reach.
She put her hand out hesitantly, felt the smooth vegetable texture of aleaf, grasped it, pulled it away. She moved back to the door andexamined the leaf. It was a quite real leaf. Thin sap formed a bead ofamber moisture at the break in the stalk as she looked at it.
No illusion structure could be elaborated to that extent.
So she'd just had her first dive hallucination--and it had been a dilly!
Trigger dropped the leaf, pushed shakily at the balcony door, andstepped back through the black-light screen into the reassuring murmurof human voices in the gambling room.
An hour later, the ship's loudspeaker system went on. It announced thatthe Dawn City would surface in fifteen minutes because of graviticdisturbances, and proceed the rest of the way to Evalee in normal space,arriving approximately five hours behind schedule. Rest cubiclepassengers would not be disturbed, unless this was specificallyrequested by a qualified associate.
Trigger turned her attention back to her viewer, feeling ratherrelieved. She hadn't experienced any further hallucinations, or otherindications of subspace distress; but the one she'd had would do her fora while. The little viewer library she was in was otherwise deserted,and she'd been going about her studies there just the least bitnervously.
Subject of the studies were the Hub's principal games of chance. She'didentified a few of those she'd been watching--and one of them did lookas if someone who went at it with an intelligent understanding of theodds--
A part of Trigger kept tut-tutting and shaking its head at such recklessnotions. But another part pointed out that they couldn't be much worseoff financially than they were right now. So what if they arrived inManon dead-broke instead of practically? Besides, there was the problemof remaining inconspicuous till they got there. On the Dawn City no onewhose wardrobe was limited to one Automatic Sales dress was going toremain inconspicuous very long.
Trigger-in-toto went on calculating the odds for various possible playcombinations. She developed her first betting system, presentlydiscovered several holes in it, and began to develop another.
The loudspeaker system went on again. She was too absorbed to pay muchattention to it at first. Then she suddenly straightened up andlistened, frowning.
The man speaking now was the liner's First Security Officer. He wasbeing very polite and regretful. Under Section such and such, Number soand so, of the Federation's Legal Code, a cabin by cabin search of thepassenger area of the Dawn City had become necessary. The persons ofpassengers would not be searched. Passengers might, if they wished, bepresent while their cabins were inspected; but this was not required.Baggage need not be opened, providing its spyproofing was not activated.Any information revealed by the search which did not pertain to aviolation of the Code Section and Number in question would not berecorded and could not be introduced as future legal evidence under anycircumstances. Complaints regarding the search could be addressed to anyPlanetary Moderator's office.
This wasn't good at all! Trigger stood up. The absence of luggage in hercabin mightn't arouse more than passing interest in the searchers. Hergun was a different matter. Discreet inquiries regarding a femalepassenger who carried a double-barreled sporting Denton might be one ofthe check methods used by the Scout Intelligence boys if they startedthinking of liners which recently had left Maccadon in connection withTrigger's disappearance. There weren't likely to be more than two orthree guns of that type on board, and it was almost certain that shewould be the only woman who owned one.
She'd better go get the Denton immediately ... and then vanish againinto the public sections of the ship! Some Security officer with a goodmemory and a habit of noticing faces might identify her otherwise fromthe news viewer pictures taken on Manon.
And he just might start wondering then why she was traveling as BirnaDrellgannoth--and start to check.
She paused long enough to get the Legal Code article referred to intothe viewer.
Somebody on board appeared to have got himself murdered.
She reached the cabin too late. A couple of young Security men alreadywere going over it. Trigger said hello pleasantly. It was too bad, butit wasn't their fault. They just had a job to do.
They smiled back at her, apologized for the intrusion and went on withtheir business. She sat down and watched them. The Denton was there inplain sight. Dropping it into her purse now would be more likely to fixit in their memory than leaving it where it was.
The gadgets they were using were in concealing casings, and she couldn'tguess what they were looking for by the way they used them. It didn'tseem that either of them was trying to haul up an identifying memoryabout her. They did look a little surprised when the second cabin closetwas opened and found to be as empty as the first; but no comments weremade about that. Two minutes after Trigger
had come in, they werefinished and bowed themselves out of the cabin again. They turned thentoward the cabin occupied by the ancient retainers of the Askab ofElfkund.
Trigger left her door open. This she wanted to hear, if she could.
She heard. The Elfkund door also stayed open, while the racket beyond itgrew shriller by the moment. Finally a ComWeb chimed. A feminine voicespoke sternly. The Quavering outcries subsided. It looked as if Securityhad been obliged to call on someone higher up in the Elfkund entourageto come to its aid. Trigger closed her door grinning.
On the screen of her secluded library, she presently watched a greatport shuttle swing in from Evalee to meet the hovering Dawn City. Itwould bring another five hundred or so passengers on board and take offthe few who had merely been making the short run from Maccadon to Evaleein style. Solidopic operators were quite likely to be on the shuttle, soshe had decided to keep away from the entry area.
The transfer operation was carried out very expeditiously, probably tomake up for some of the time lost on the surface. When the shuttleshoved off, the loudspeaker announced that normal space flight would bemaintained till after the stopover at Garth. Trigger wanderedthoughtfully back to her cabin. She closed the door behind her.
Then she saw the man sitting by the ComWeb cabinet. Her breath suckedin. She crouched a little, ready to wheel and bolt.
"Take it easy, Trigger!" Major Quillan said. He was in civilian clothes,of rather dudish cut.
Trigger swallowed. There was, too obviously, no place to bolt to. "Howdid you find me?"
He shrugged. "Longish story. You're not under arrest."
"I'm not?"
"No," said Quillan. "When we get to Manon, the Commissioner will have asuggestion to make to you."
"Suggestion?" Trigger said warily.
"I believe you're to take back your old Precol job in Manon, but ascover for your participation in our little project. If you agree to it."
"What if I don't?"
He shrugged again. "It seems you'll be writing your own ticket from hereon out."
Trigger stared at him, wondering. "Why?"
Quillan grinned. "New instructions have been handed down," he said. "Ifyou're still curious, ask Whatzzit."
"Oh," Trigger said. "Then why are you here?"
"I," said Quillan, "am to make damn sure you get to Manon. I brought afew people with me."
"Mihul, too?" Trigger asked, a shade diffidently.
"No. She's on Maccadon."
"Is she--how's she doing?"
"Doing all right," Quillan said. "She sends her regards and says alittle less heft on the next solar plexus you torpedo should be goodenough."
Trigger flushed. "She isn't sore, is she?"
"Not the way you mean," he considered. "Not many people have jumpedMihul successfully. In her cockeyed way, she seemed pretty proud of herstudent."
Trigger felt the flush deepen. "I got her off her guard," she said.
"Obviously," said Quillan. "In any ordinary argument she could pull yourlegs off and tie you up with them. Still, that wasn't bad. Have youtalked to anybody since you came on board?"
"Just the room stewardess. And a couple of old ladies in the nextcabin."
"Yeah," he said. "Couple of old ladies. What did you talk about?"
Trigger recounted the conversation. He reflected, nodded and stood up.
"I put a couple of suitcases in that closet over there," he said. "Yourpersonal stuff is in them, de-tracered. Another thing--somebody checkedover your finances and came to the conclusion you're broke."
"Not exactly broke," said Trigger.
Quillan reached into a pocket, pulled out an envelope and laid it on thecabinet. "Here's a little extra spending money then," he said. "Thebalance of your Precol pay to date. I had it picked up on Evalee thismorning. Seven hundred twenty-eight FC."
"Thanks," Trigger said. "I can use some of that."
They stood looking at each other.
"Any questions?" he asked.
"Sure," Trigger said. "But you wouldn't answer them."
"Try me, doll," said Quillan. "But let's shift operations to thefanciest cocktail lounge on this thing before you start. I feel likerelaxing a little. For just one girl, you've given us a fairly roughtime these last forty-eight hours!"
"I'm sorry," Trigger said.
"I'll bet," said Quillan.
Trigger glanced at the closet. If he'd brought everything along, therewas a dress in one of those suitcases that would have been a little toodaring for Maccadon. It should, therefore, be just about right for acocktail lounge on the Dawn City; and she hadn't had a chance to wear ityet. "Give me ten minutes to change."
"Fine." Quillan started toward the door. "By the way, I'm your neighbornow."
"The cabin at the end of the hall?" she asked startled.
"That's right." He smiled at her. "I'll be back in ten minutes."
Well, that was going to be cosy! Trigger found the dress, shook it outand slipped into it, enormously puzzled but also enormously relieved.That Whatzzit!
Freshening up her make-up, she wondered how he had induced the Elfkundladies to leave. Perhaps he'd managed to have a better cabin offered tothem. It must be convenient to have that kind of a pull.
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