as rather startling. He'd been trying that electrical
stimulation business. Nothing happened until he had finished. Then he
touched the plasmoid, and it fed the whole charge back to him.
Apparently it was a fairly hefty dose."

She laughed delightedly. "Good for Repulsive! Stood up for his rights,
eh?"

"Mantelish gained some such impression anyway. He became more cautious
with it after that. And then he learned something that should be
important. He was visiting another lab where they had a couple of
plasmoids which actually moved now and then. He had 113-A in his coat
pocket. The two lab plasmoids stopped moving while he was there. They
haven't moved since."

"Like the Harvest Moon plasmoids when they stimulated 113?"

"Right. He thought about that, and then located another moving plasmoid.
He dropped in to look it over, with 113-A in his pocket again, and it
stopped. He did the same thing in one more place and then quit. There
aren't that many moving plasmoids around. Those three labs are still
wondering what hit their specimens."

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."

"When was that?"

"Some months ago. Before you and I left Manon. The professor was out,
and 113-A had gone along in his pocket as usual. But his two lab guards
and one of the raiders were killed. The others got away. Gess Fayle's
defection was a certainty by then, and everybody was very nervous. The
Feds got there, fast, and dead-brained the raider. They learned just two
things. One, he'd been mind-blocked and couldn't have spilled any
significant information even if they had got him alive. The other item
they drew from his brain was a clear impression of the target of the
raid--the professor's pal here."

"Uh-huh," Trigger said, lost in thought. She poked Repulsive lightly.
"That would be Fayle and his associates then. Or somebody who knew about
them. Did they want to kill it or grab it?"

The Commissioner looked at her. "Grab it, was the dead-brain report.
Why?"

"Just wondering. Would make a difference, wouldn't it? Did they try
again?"

"There've been five more attempts," he said.

"An