tful," said Trigger. "May I see it on the model?"

"Immediately, madam."

A few moments later, a long-limbed model strolled into the view screen,
displaying an exquisite arrangement of burnt sienna ribbons plus four
largish leaf-like designs. Trigger glanced quickly back to the table
where she had put down the strange green buds. They had quietly opened
out meanwhile.

She thanked the manager, switched off the ComWeb, got into the Beldon
again and attached her leaf designs where the model had carried them.
They adhered softly, molding themselves to her, neatly completing the
costume.

She stepped into the high heels and looked in the mirror again. She
breathed "Brother!" again. Maccadon wouldn't have approved. She wasn't
sure she approved either.

But one thing was certain--there wasn't the remotest suggestion of
dowdiness about a Beldon. Objectively, impersonally considered, the
effect was terrific.

Feeling tawny and feline, Trigger slowly lifted one shoulder and lowered
it again. She turned and strolled toward the full-length mirror across
the cabin, admiring the shifts of the Beldon effect in the flow of
motion.

Terrific!

With another drink, she could do it.

She dialed another drink and settled down with it beneath the mechanical
stylist for a readjustment in the hairdo department. This time the
stylist purred as it surveyed and hummed while it worked. And when the
hairdo was done and Trigger moved to get up, its flexible little tool
pads pulled her back gently into the seat and tilted up her chin. For a
moment she was startled. Then she saw that the stylist had produced a
shining make-up kit and was opening it. This time she was getting the
works....

Twenty minutes later, Quillan's voice informed her via the ComWeb that
he could be outside her cabin any time she was ready. Trigger told him
cheerily to come right over, picked up her purse and swaggered toward
the door, smiling a cool, feline smile.

"Prude, eh?" she muttered.

She opened the door.

"Ya-arghk!" cried Quillan, shaken.

14

They were out on a terrace near the top of an illusion mountainside, in
a beautiful evening. Dinner had been old-style and delicious, served by
its creators, two slim, brown-skinned, red-lipped girls who looked much
too young to have acquired such skills. They were natives of Tranest,
Lyad said proudly, and two of the finest food technicians in the Hub.
They were, at all events, the two finest foo