by Anthology
Trigger nodded. "After I've freshened up."
The bathroom mirror showed they'd left her eyes alone. But there was a very puzzling impression that she was staring at an image considerably plumper, shorter, younger than it should be--a teen-ager around seventeen or eighteen. Her eyes narrowed. If they'd done flesh-sculpting on her, it could cause complications.
She stripped hurriedly and checked. They hadn't tampered with her body. So it had to be the clothes; though it was difficult to see how even the most cunning cut could provide such a very convincing illusion of being more rounded out, heavier around the thighs, larger breasts--just missing being dumpy, in fact. She dressed again, looked again, and came out of the bathroom, still puzzled.
"Choice of three game birds for breakfast." Mihul announced. "Never heard of any of them. All good. Plus regular stuff." She patted her flat midriff. "Ate too much!" she admitted. "Now dig in and I'll brief you."
Trigger dug in. "I had a look at myself in the mirror," she remarked. "What's this now-you-see-it-now-you-don't business of fifteen or so pounds of baby fat?"
Mihul laughed. "You don't really have it."
"I know that too. How do they do it?"
"Subcolor job in the clothes. They're not really white. Anyone looking at you gets his vision distorted a little without realizing it. Takes a wider view of certain areas, for example. You can play it around in a lot of ways."
"I never heard of that one," Trigger said. "You'd think it would be sensational in fashions."
"It would be. Right now it's top secret for as long as Intelligence can keep it that way."
Trigger chewed a savory morsel of something. "Then why did you tell me?"
"You're one of the gang, however reluctant. And you're good at keeping the mouth shut. Your name, by the way, is now Comteen Lod, just turned eighteen. I am your dear mama. You call me Drura. We're from Slyth-Talgon on Evalee, here for a few days shooting."
Trigger nodded. "Do we do any shooting?"
Mihul pointed a finger at a side table. The Denton lay there, looking like a toy beside a standard slender-barrelled sporting pistol. "Bet your life, Comteen!" she said. "I've always been too stingy to try out a first-class preserve on my own money. And this one is first class." She paused. "Comteen and Drura Lod really exist. We're a very fair copy of what they look like, and they'll be kept out of sight till we're done here. Now--"
She leaned back comfortably, tilting the chair and clasping her hands around one knee. "Aside from the sport, we're here because you're a convalescent. You're recovering from a rather severe attack of Dykart Fever. Heard of it?"
Trigger reflected. "Something you pick up in some sections of the Evalee tropics, isn't it?"
Mihul nodded. "That's what you did, child! Skipped your shots on the last trip we took--and six months later you're still paying for it. You were in one of those typical Dykart fever comas when we brought you in last night."
"Very clever!" Trigger commented acidly.
"Very." Mihul pursed her lips. "The Dykart bug causes temporary derangements, you know--spells during which convalescents talk wildly, imagine things."
Trigger popped another fragment of meat between her teeth and chewed thoughtfully, looking over at Mihul. "Very good duck or whatever!" she said. "Like imagining they've been more or less kidnapped, you mean?"
"Things like that," Mihul agreed.
Trigger shook her head. "I wouldn't anyway. You types are bound to have all the legal angles covered."
"Sure," said Mihul. "Just thought I'd mention it. Have you used the Denton much on game?"
"Not too often." Trigger had been wondering whether they'd left the stunner compartment loaded. "But it's a very fair gun for it."
"I know. The other one's a Yool. Good game gun, too. You'll use that."
Trigger swallowed. She met the calm eyes watching her. "I've never handled a Yool. Why the switch?"
"They're easy to handle. The reason for the switch is that you can't just stun someone with a Yool. It's better if we both stay armed, though it isn't really necessary--so much money comes to play around here they can afford to keep the Uplands very thoroughly policed, and they do. But an ace in the hole never hurts." She considered. "Changed your mind about that parole business yet?"
"I hadn't really thought about it," Trigger said.
"I'd let you carry your own gun then."
Trigger looked reflective, then shook her head. "I'd rather not."
"Suit yourself," Mihul said agreeably. "In that case though, there should be something else understood."
"What's that?"
"We'll have up to three-four days to spend here together before Whatzzit shows up."
"Whatzzit?"
"For future reference," Mihul said, "Whatzzit will be that which--or he or she who--wishes to have that interview with you and has arranged for it. That's in case you want to talk about it. I might as well tell you that I'll do very little talking about Whatzzit."
"I thought," Trigger suggested, "I was one of the gang."
"I've got special instructions on the matter," Mihul said. "Anyway, Whatzzit shows up. You have your interview. After that we do whatever Whatzzit says we're to do. As you know."
Trigger nodded.
"Meanwhile," said Mihul, "we're here. Very pleasant place to spend three-four days in my opinion, and I think, in yours."
"Very pleasant," Trigger agreed. "I've been suspecting it was you who suggested it would be a good place to wait in."
"No," Mihul said. "Though I might have, if anyone had asked me. But Whatzzit's handling all the arrangements, it seems. Now we could have fun here--which, I suspect, would be the purpose as far as you're concerned."
"Fun?" Trigger said.
"To put you into a good frame of mind for that interview, might be the idea," Mihul said. "I don't know. Three days here should relax almost anyone. Get in a little shooting. Loaf around the pools. Go for rides. Things like that. The only trouble is I'm afraid you're nourishing dark notions which are likely to take all the enjoyment out of it. Not to mention the possibility of really relaxing."
"Like what?" Trigger asked.
"Oh," Mihul said, "there're all sorts of possibilities, of course." She nodded her head at the guns. "Like yanking the Denton out of my holster and feeding me a dose of the stunner. Or picking up that coffee pot there and tapping me on the skull with it. It's about the right weight."
Trigger said thoughtfully, "I don't think either of those would work."
"They might," Mihul said. "They just might! You're fast. You've been taught to improvise. And there's something eating you. You're edgy as a cat."
"So?" Trigger said.
"So," Mihul said, "there are a number of alternatives. I'll lay them out for you. You take your pick. For one, I could just keep you doped. Three days in dope won't hurt you, and you'll certainly be no problem then. Another way--I'll let you stay awake, but we stay in our rooms. I can lock you in at night, and that window is escape-proof. I checked. It would be sort of boring, but we can have tapes and stuff brought up. I'd have the guns put away and I'd watch you like a hawk every minute of the day."
She looked at Trigger inquiringly. "Like either of those?"
"Not much," Trigger said.
"They're safe," Mihul said. "Quite safe. Maybe I should.... Well, the heat's off, and it's just a matter now of holding you for Whatzzit. There're a couple of other choices. One of them has an angle you won't like much either. On the other hand, it would give you a sporting chance to take off if you're really wild about it. And it's entirely in line with my instructions. I warned them you're tricky."
Trigger stopped eating. "Let's hear that one."
Mihul tilted the chair back a little farther and studied her a moment. "Pretty much like I said before. Everything friendly and casual. Gun a bit, swim a bit. Go for a ride or soar. Lie around in the sun. But because of those notions of yours, there'd be one thing added. An un-incentive."
"An un-incenti
ve?" Trigger repeated.
"Exactly," said Mihul. "That isn't at all in line with my instructions. But you're a pretty dignified little character, and I think it should work."
"Just what does this un-incentive consist of?" Trigger inquired warily.
"If you make a break and get away," Mihul said, "that's one thing. Something's eating you, and I'm not sure I like the way this matter's been handled. In fact, I don't like it. So I'll try to stop you from leaving, but if it turns out I couldn't, I won't hold any grudges. Even if I wake up with lumps."
She paused. "On the other hand," she said, "there we are--together for three-four days. I don't want to spend them fighting off attempts to clobber me every thirty seconds. So any time you try and miss, Comteen, mama is going to pin you down fast, and hot up your seat with whatever is handiest."
Trigger stared at her.
She cleared her throat.
"While I'm carrying a gun?" she said shakily. "Don't be ridiculous, Mihul!"
"You're not going to gun me for keeps to get out of a licking," Mihul said. "And that's all the Yool can do. How else will you stop me?"
Trigger's fingernails drummed the table top briefly. She wet her lips. "I don't know," she admitted.
"Of course," said Mihul, "all this unpleasantness can be avoided very easily. There's always the fourth method."
"What's that?"
"Just give parole."
"No parole," Trigger said thinly.
"All right. Which of the other ways will it be?"
Trigger didn't hesitate. "The sporting chance," she said. "The others aren't choices."
"Fair enough," said Mihul. She stood up and went over to the wall. She selected a holster belt from the pair hanging there and fastened it around her. "I rather thought you'd pick it," she said. She gave Trigger a brief grin. "Just make sure it's a good opening!"
"I will," Trigger said.
Mihul moved to the side table, took up the Denton, looked at it, and slid it into her holster. She turned to gaze out the window. "Nice country!" she said. "If you're done with breakfast, how about going out right now for a first try at the birds?"
Trigger hefted the coffee pot gently. It was about the right weight at that. But the range was a little more than she liked, considering the un-incentive.
Besides, it might crack the monster's skull.
She set the pot gently down again.
"Great idea!" she said. "And I'm all finished eating."
10
Half an hour later there still hadn't been any decent openings. Trigger was maintaining a somewhat brooding silence at the moment. Mihul, beside her, in the driver's seat of the tiny sports hopper, chatted pleasantly about this and that. But she didn't appear to expect any answers.
There weren't many half-hours left to be wasted.
Trigger stared thoughtfully out through the telescopic ground-view plate before her, while the hopper soared at a thousand feet toward the two-mile square of preserve area which had been assigned to them to hunt over that morning. Dimly reflected in the view plate, she could see the head of the gun-pup who went with that particular area lifted above the seat-back behind her. He was gazing straight ahead between the two humans, absorbed in canine reflections.
There was plenty of bird life down there. Some were original Terran forms, maintained unchanged in the U-League's genetic banks. Probably many more were inspired modifications produced on Grand Commerce game ranches. At any other time, Trigger would have found herself enjoying the outing almost as much as Mihul.
Not now. Other things kept running through her head. Money, for example. They hadn't returned her own cash to her and apparently didn't intend to--at least not until after the interview. But Mihul was carrying at least part of their spending money in a hip pocket wallet. The rest of it might be in a concealed room safe or deposited with the resort hotel's cashier.
She glanced over at Mihul again. Good friend Mihul never before had looked quite so large, lithe, alert and generally fit for a rough-and-tumble. That un-incentive idea was fiendishly ingenious! It was difficult to plan things through clearly and calmly while one's self-esteem kept quailing at vivid visualizations of the results of making a mistake.
The hopper settled down near the center of their territory, guided the last half mile by Mihul who had fancied the looks of some shrub-cluttered ravines ahead. Trigger opened the door on her side. The gun-pup leaped lightly across the seat and came out behind her. He turned to look over his huntresses and gave them a wag, a polite but perfunctory one. Then he stood waiting for orders.
Mihul considered him. "Guess he's in charge here," she said. She waved a hand at the pup. "Go find 'em, old boy! We'll string along."
He loped off swiftly, a lean brown houndlike creature, a Grand Commerce development of some aristocratic Terran breed and probably a considerable improvement on the best of his progenitors. He curved around a thick clump of shrubs like a low-flying hawk. Two plump feather-shapes, emerald-green and crimson, whirred up out of the near side of the shrubbery, saw the humans before them and rose steeply, picking up speed.
A great many separate, clearly detailed things seemed to be going on within the next four or five seconds. Mihul swore, scooping the Denton out of its holster. Trigger already had the Yool out, but the gun was unfamiliar; she hesitated. Fascinated, she glanced from the speeding, soaring feather-balls to Mihul, watched the tall woman straighten for an overhead shot, left hand grasping right wrist to steady the lightweight Denton--and in that particular instant Trigger knew exactly what was going to happen next.
The Denton flicked forth one bolt. Mihul stretched a little more for the next shot. Trigger wheeled matter-of-factly, dropping the Yool, left elbow close in to her side. Her left fist rammed solidly into Mihul's bare brown midriff, just under the arch of the rib cage.
That punch, in those precise circumstances, would have paralyzed the average person. It didn't quite paralyze Mihul. She dropped forward, doubled up and struggling for breath, but already twisting around toward Trigger. Trigger stepped across her, picked up the Denton, shifted its setting, thumbed it to twelve-hour stunner max, and let Mihul have it between the shoulder blades.
Mihul jerked forward and went limp.
Trigger stood there, shaking violently, looking down at Mihul and fighting the irrational conviction that she had just committed cold-blooded murder.
The gun-pup trotted up with the one downed bird. He placed it reverently by Mihul's outflung hand. Then he sat back on his haunches and regarded Trigger with something of the detached compassion of a good undertaker.
Apparently this wasn't his first experience with a hunting casualty.
The story Trigger babbled into the hopper's communicator a minute later was that Drura Lod had succumbed to an attack of Dykart fever coma--and that an ambulance and a fast flit to a hospital in the nearest city were indicated.
The preserve hotel was startled but reassuring. That the mother should be afflicted with the same ailment as the daughter was news to them but plausible enough. Within eight minutes, a police ambulance was flying Mihul and Trigger at emergency speeds towards a small Uplands City behind the mountains.
Trigger never found out the city's name. Three minutes after she'd followed Mihul's floating stretcher into the hospital, she quietly left the building again by a street entrance. Mihul's wallet had contained two hundred and thirteen crowns. It was enough, barely.
She got a complete change of clothes in the first Automatic Service store she came to and left the store in them, carrying the sporting outfit in a bag. The aircab she hired to take her to Ceyce had to be paid for in advance, which left her eighty-two crowns. As they went flying over a lake a while later, the bag with the sporting clothes and accessories was dumped out of the cab's rear window. It was just possible that the Space Scouts had been able to put that tracer material idea to immediate use.
In Ceyce a short two hours after she'd felled Mihul, Trigger called the interstellar spaceport and l
earned that the Dawn City was open to passengers and their guests.
Birna Drellgannoth picked up her tickets and went on board, mingling unostentatiously with a group in a mood of festive leave-taking. She went fading even more unostentatiously down a hallway when the group stopped cheerfully to pose for a solidopic girl from one of the news agencies. She located her cabin after a lengthy search, set the door to don't-disturb, glanced around the cabin and decided to inspect it in more detail later.
She pulled off her slippers, climbed on the outsized divan which passed here for a bunk, and stretched out.
She lay there a while, blinking at the ceiling and worrying a little about Mihul. Even theoretically a stunner-max blast couldn't cause Mihul the slightest permanent damage. It might, however, leave her in a fairly peevish mood after the grogginess wore off, since the impact wasn't supposed to be pleasant. But Mihul had stated she would hold no grudges over a successful escape attempt; and even if they caught up with her again before she got to Manon, this attempt certainly had to be rated a technical success.
They might catch up, of course, Trigger thought. The Federation must have an enormous variety of means at its disposal when it set out seriously to locate one of its missing citizens. But the Dawn City would be some hours on its way before Mihul even began to think coherently again. She'd spread the alarm then, but it should be a while before they started to suspect Trigger had left the planet. Maccadon was her home world, after all. If she'd just wanted to hole up, that was where she would have had the best chance to do it successfully.
Evalee, the first Hub stop, was only nine hours' flight away; Garth lay less than five hours beyond Evalee. After that there was only the long subspace run to Manon....
