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By lunchtime, Trigger was acting almost cordial again. "I've got thePrecol job lined up," she reported to Holati Tate. "I'll handle it likeI used to, whenever I can. When I can't, the kids will shift inautomatically." The kids were the five assistants among whom her dutieshad 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 turnedout Mantelish wanted to take Repulsive along on a field trip thisafternoon."
Holati looked startled. "He can't do that, and he knows it!" He reachedfor the desk transmitter.
"Don't bother, Commissioner. I told Mantelish I'd been put in charge ofRepulsive, and that he'd lose an arm if he tried to walk out of the labwith him."
Holati cleared his throat. "I see! How did Mantelish react?"
"Oh, he huffed a bit. Like he does. Then he calmed down and agreed hecould get by without Repulsive out there. So we stood by while hemeasured and weighed the thing, and so on. After that he got friendlyand said you'd asked him to fill me in on current plasmoid theory."
"So I did," said Holati. "Did he?"
"He tried, I think. But it's like you say. I got lost in about threesentences and never caught up." She looked curiously at theCommissioner. "I didn't have a chance to talk to Major Quillan alone, soI'm wondering why Mantelish was told the I-Fleets in the Vishni area arehunting for planets with plasmoids on them. I thought you felt he wastoo woolly-minded to be trusted."
"We couldn't keep that from him very well," Holati said. "He was the boywho thought of it."
"You didn't have to tell him they'd found some possibles did you?"
"He did, unfortunately. He's had those plasmoid detectors of his forabout a month, but he didn't happen to think of mentioning them. Thereason he was to come back to Manon originally was to sort over thestuff the Fleets have been sending back here. It's as weird a collectionof low-grade life-forms as I've ever seen, but not plasmoid. Mantelishwent into a temper and wanted to know why the idiots weren't usingdetectors."
"Oh, Lord!" Trigger said.
"That's what it's like when you're working with him," said theCommissioner. "We started making up detectors wholesale and rushing themout there, but the new results haven't come in yet."
"Well, that explains it." Trigger looked down at the desk a moment, thenglanced up and met the Commissioner's eye. She colored slightly.
"Incidentally," she said, "I did take the opportunity to apologize toMajor Quillan for clipping him a couple this morning. I shouldn't havedone that."
"He didn't seem offended," said Holati.
"No, not really," she agreed.
"And I explained to him that you had a very good reason to feeldisturbed."
"Thanks," said Trigger. "By the way, was he really a smuggler at onetime? And a hijacker?"
"Yes--very successful at it. It's excellent cover for some phases ofIntelligence work. As I heard it, though, Quillan happened to scrambleup one of the Hub's nastier dope rings in the process, and was brokentwo grades in rank."
"Broken?" Trigger said. "Why?"
"Unwarranted interference with a political situation. The Scouts arerough about that. You're supposed to see those things. Sometimes youdon't. Sometimes you do and go ahead anyway. They may pat you on theback privately, but they also give you the axe."
"I see," she said. She smiled.
"Just how far did we get in bringing you up to date yesterday?" theCommissioner asked.
"The remains that weren't Doctor Azol," Trigger said.
If it hadn't been for the funny business with Trigger, Holati said, hemightn't have been immediately skeptical about Doctor Azol's supposeddemise by plasmoid during a thrombosis-induced spell of unconsciousness.There had been no previous indications that the U-League's screening ofits scientists, in connection with the plasmoid find, might have beenstrategically loused up from the start.
But as things stood, he did look on the event with very considerableskepticism. Doctor Azol's death, in that particular form, seemed toomuch of a coincidence. For, beside himself, only Azol knew that anotherperson already had suddenly and mysteriously lost consciousness onHarvest Moon. Only Azol therefore might expect that the Commissionerwould quietly inform the official investigators of the precedingincident, thus cinching the accidental death theory in Azol's case muchmore neatly than the assumed heart attack had done.
The Commissioner went on from there to the reflection that if Azol hadchosen to disappear, it might well have been with the intention ofconveying important information secretly back to somebody waiting for itin the Hub. He saw to it that the remains were preserved, and that wordof what could have happened was passed on to a high Federation officialwhom he knew to be trustworthy. That was all he was in a position to do,or interested in doing, himself. Security men presently came and tookthe supposed vestiges of Doctor Azol's body back to the Hub.
"It wasn't until some months later, when the works blew up and I was puton this job, that I heard any more about it," Holati Tate said. "Itwasn't Azol. It was part of some unidentifiable cadaver which he'dpresumably brought with him for just such a use. Anyway, they had Azol'sgene patterns on record, and they didn't jibe."
His desk transmitter buzzed and Trigger took it on an earphoneextension.
"Argee," she said. She listened a moment. "All right. Coming over." Shestood up, replacing the earphone. "Office tangle," she explained. "Guessthey feel I'm fluffing, now I'm back. I'll get back here as soon as it'sstraightened out. Oh, by the way."
"Yes?"
"The Psychology Service ship messaged in during the morning. It'llarrive some time tomorrow and wants a station assigned to it outside thesystem, where it won't be likely to attract attention. Are they reallyas huge as all that?"
"I've seen one or two that were bigger," the Commissioner said. "But notmuch."
"When they're stationed, they'll send someone over in a shuttle to pickme up."
The Commissioner nodded. "I'll check on the arrangements for that. Theidea of the interview still bothering you?"
"Well, I'd sooner it wasn't necessary," Trigger admitted. "But I guessit is." She grinned briefly. "Anyway, I'll be able to tell mygrandchildren some day that I once talked to one of the real eggheads!"
The Psychology Service woman who stood up from a couch as Trigger cameinto the small spaceport lounge next evening looked startlingly similarto Major Quillan's Dawn City assistant, Gaya. Standing, you could seethat she was considerably more slender than Gaya. She had all of Gaya'sgood looks.
"The name is Pilch," she said. She looked at Trigger and smiled. It wasa good smile, Trigger thought; not the professional job she'd expected."And everyone who knows Gaya," she went on, "thinks we must be twins."
Trigger laughed. "Aren't you?"
"Just first cousins." The voice was all right too--clear and easy.Trigger felt herself relax somewhat. "That's one reason they picked meto come and get you. We're already almost acquainted. Another is thatI've been assigned to take you through the preliminary work for yourinterview after we get to the ship. We can chat a bit on the way, andthat should make it seem less disagreeable. Boat's in the speedboat parkover there."
They started down a short hallway to the park area. "Just howdisagreeable is it going to be?" Trigger asked.
"Not at all bad in your case. You're conditioned to the processes morethan you know. Your interviewer will just pick up where the last jobended and go on from there. It's when you have to work down throughbarriers that you have a little trouble."
Trigger was still mulling that over as she stepped ahead of Pilch intothe smaller of two needle-nosed craft parked side by side. Pilchfollowed her in and closed the lock behind them. "The other one's acombat job," she remarked. "Our escort. Commissioner Tate made very surewe had one, too!" She motioned Trigger to a low soft seat that took uphalf the space of the tiny room behind the lock, sat down beside her andspoke at a wall pickup. "All set. Let's ride!"
> Blue-green tinted sky moved past them in the little room's viewerscreen; then a tilted landscape flashed by and dropped back. Pilchwinked at Trigger. "Takes off like a scared yazong, that boy! He'll racethe combat job to the ship. About those barriers. Supposing I told yousomething like this. There's no significant privacy invasion in thisline of work. We go directly to the specific information we're lookingfor and deal only with that. Your private life, your personal thoughts,remain secret, sacred and inviolate. What would you say?"
"I'd say you're a liar," Trigger said promptly.
"Of course. That sort of thing is sometimes told to nervousinterviewees. We don't bother with it. But now supposing I told you verysincerely that no recording will be made of any little personal glimpseswe may get?"
"Lying again."
"Right again," said Pilch. "You've been scanned about as thoroughly asanyone ever gets to be outside of a total therapy. Your personalsecrets are already on record, and since I'm doing most of thepreparatory work with you, I've studied all the significant-looking onesvery closely. You're a pretty good person, for my money. All right?"
Trigger studied her face uncomfortably. Hardly all right, but....
"I guess I can stand it," she said. "As far as you're concerned,anyway." She hesitated. "What's the egghead like?"
"Old Cranadon?" said Pilch. "You won't mind her a bit, I think. Verymotherly old type. Let's get through the preparations first, and thenI'll introduce you to her. If you think it would make you morecomfortable, I'll just stay around while she's working. I've sat in onher interviews before. How's that?"
"Sounds better," Trigger said. She did feel a good deal relieved.
They slid presently into a tunnel-like lock of the space vehicle HolatiTate had described as a flying mountain. From what Trigger could see ofit in the guide lights on the approach, it did rather closely resemble avery large mountain of the craggier sort. They went through a series oflifts, portals and passages, and wound up in a small and softly lit roomwith a small desk, a very large couch, a huge wall-screen, and assortedgadgetry. Pilch sat down at the desk and invited Trigger to make herselfcomfortable on the couch.
Trigger lay down on the couch. She had a very brief sensation of fallinggently through dimness.
Half an hour later she sat up on the couch. Pilch switched on a desklight and looked at her thoughtfully. Trigger blinked. Then her eyeswidened, first with surprise, then in comprehension.
"Liar!" she said.
"Hm-m-m," said Pilch. "Yes."
"That _was_ the interview!"
"True."
"Then you're the egghead!"
"Tcha!" said Pilch. "Well, I believe I can modestly describe myself asbeing like that. Yes. You're another, by the way. We're just smart aboutdifferent things. Not so very different."
"You were smart about this," Trigger said. She swung her legs off thecouch and regarded Pilch dubiously. Pilch grinned.
"Took most of the disagreeableness out of it, didn't it?"
"Yes," Trigger admitted, "it did. Now what do we do?"
"Now," said Pilch, "I'll explain."
The thing that had caught their attention was a quite simple process. Itjust happened to be a process the Psychology Service hadn't observedunder those particular circumstances before.
"Here's what our investigators had the last time," Pilch said. "Linesand lines of stuff, of course. But here's a simple continuity whichmakes it clear. Your mother dies when you're six months old. Then thereare a few nurses whom you don't like very much. Good nurses but franklymuch too stupid for you, though you don't know that, and they don'teither, naturally. Next, you're seven years old--a bit over--andthere's a mud pond on the farm near Ceyce where you spend all yourvacations. You just love that old mud pond."
Trigger laughed. "A smelly old hole, actually! Full of froggy sorts ofthings. I went out to that farm six years ago, just to look around itagain. But you're right. I did love that mud pond, once."
"Right up to that seventh summer," Pilch said. "Which was the summeryour father's cousin spent her vacation on the farm with you."
Trigger nodded. "Perhaps. I don't remember the time too well."
"Well," Pilch said, "she was a brilliant woman. In some ways. She wasabout the age your mother had been when she died. She was verygood-looking. And she was _nice_! She played games with a little girl,sang to her. Told her stories. Cuddled her."
Trigger blinked. "Did she? I don't--"
"However," said Pilch, "she did not play games with, tell stories to,cuddle, etcetera, little girls who"--her voice went suddenly thin andedged--"_come in all filthy and smelling from that dirty, slimy old mudpond!_"
Trigger looked startled. "You know," she said, "I do believe I rememberher saying that--just that way!"
"You remember it," said Pilch, "now. You never saw her again after thatsummer. Your father had good sense. He didn't marry her, as heapparently intended to do before he saw how she was going to be withyou. You went back to your old mud pond just once more, on your nextvacation. She wasn't there. What had you done? You waded around,feeling pretty sad. And you stepped on a sharp stick and cut your footbadly. Sort of a self-punishment."
She flipped over a few pages of some record on her desk. "Now before youstart asking what's interesting about that, I'll run over a fewcrossed-in items. Age twelve. There's that Maccadon animal like adryland jellyfish--a mingo, isn't it?--that swallowed your kitten."
"The mingo!" Trigger said. "I remember that. I killed it."
"Right. You kicked it apart and pulled out the kitten, but the kittenwas dead and partly digested. You bawled all day and half the nightabout that."
"I might have, I suppose."
"You did. Now those are two centering points. There's other stuffconnected with them. No need to go into details. As classes--you'vestepped now and then on things that squirmed or squashed. Bad smells.Etcetera. How do you feel about plasmoids?"
Trigger wrinkled her nose. "I just think they're unpleasant things. Allexcept--"
Oops! She checked herself.
"--Repulsive," said Pilch. "It's quite all right about Repulsive. We'vebeen informed of that supersecret little item you're guarding. If wehadn't been told, we'd know now, of course. Go ahead."
"Well, it's odd!" Trigger remarked thoughtfully. "I just said I thoughtplasmoids were rather unpleasant. But that's the way I used to feelabout them. I don't feel that way now."
"Except again," said Pilch, "for that little monstrosity on the ship. Ifit was a plasmoid. You rather suspect it was, don't you?"
Trigger nodded. "That would be pretty bad!"
"Very bad," said Pilch. "Plasmoids generally, you feel about them now asyou feel about potatoes ... rocks ... neutral things like that?"
"That's about it," Trigger said. She still looked puzzled.
"We'll go over what seems to have changed your attitude there in aminute or so. Here's another thing--" Pilch paused a moment, then said,"Night before last, about an hour after you'd gone to bed, you had avery light touch of the same pattern of mental blankness you experiencedon that plasmoid station."
"While I was asleep?" Trigger said, startled.
"That's right. Comparatively very light, very brief. Five or sixminutes. Dream activity, etcetera, smooths out. Some blocking on varioussense lines. Then, normal sleep until about five minutes before you wokeup. At that point there may have been another minute touch of the samepattern. Too brief to be actually definable. A few seconds at most. Thepoint is that this is a continuing process."
She looked at Trigger a moment. "Not particularly alarmed, are you?"
"No," said Trigger. "It just seems very odd." She added, "I got ratherfrightened when Commissioner Tate was first telling me what had beengoing on."
"Yes, I know."
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