erator's office.

This wasn't good at all! Trigger stood up. The absence of luggage in her
cabin mightn't arouse more than passing interest in the searchers. Her
gun was a different matter. Discreet inquiries regarding a female
passenger who carried a double-barreled sporting Denton might be one of
the check methods used by the Scout Intelligence boys if they started
thinking of liners which recently had left Maccadon in connection with
Trigger's disappearance. There weren't likely to be more than two or
three guns of that type on board, and it was almost certain that she
would be the only woman who owned one.

She'd better go get the Denton immediately ... and then vanish again
into the public sections of the ship! Some Security officer with a good
memory and a habit of noticing faces might identify her otherwise from
the news viewer pictures taken on Manon.

And he just might start wondering then why she was traveling as Birna
Drellgannoth--and start to check.

She paused long enough to get the Legal Code article referred to into
the viewer.

Somebody on board appeared to have got himself murdered.

She reached the cabin too late. A couple of young Security men already
were going over it. Trigger said hello pleasantly. It was too bad, but
it wasn't their fault. They just had a job to do.

They smiled back at her, apologized for the intrusion and went on with
their business. She sat down and watched them. The Denton was there in
plain sight. Dropping it into her purse now would be more likely to fix
it in their memory than leaving it where it was.

The gadgets they were using were in concealing casings, and she couldn't
guess what they were looking for by the way they used them. It didn't
seem that either of them was trying to haul up an identifying memory
about her. They did look a little surprised when the second cabin closet
was opened and found to be as empty as the first; but no comments were
made about that. Two minutes after Trigger had come in, they were
finished and bowed themselves out of the cabin again. They turned then
toward the cabin occupied by the ancient retainers of the Askab of
Elfkund.

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 it
grew shriller by the moment. Finally a ComWeb chimed. A feminine voice
spoke sternly. The Quavering outcries subsided. It looked as if Security
had been obliged to