considerable chunk of tough skin. She went on clutching it.

"Fly swatter got it!" he said. "Whew!" He looked down and patted the
clutching hand. "No catassin! The trap in the cabin just wasn't fast
enough. Had a gravity mine outside our door, just in case. _That_ was
barely fast enough!" For once, Quillan looked almost awed.

"L-l-l-like--" Trigger began. She tried again. "Like a little yellow
man--"

"You saw it? In the cabin? Yes. Never saw anything just like it before!"

Trigger pressed her lips together to make them stay steady.

"I have," she said. "That's what I was trying to tell you."

Quillan stared at her for an instant. "You'll tell me about it in a
couple of minutes. I've got some quick work to do first." He checked
himself. A wide grin spread suddenly over his face. "Know something,
doll?"

"What?"

"The damn computers!" Major Quillan said happily. "They goofed!"

* * * * *

The gravity mine would have reduced almost any life-form which moved
into its field to a rather thin smear, but there wasn't even that left
of the yellow demon-shape. Something, presumably something it was
carrying, had turned it into a small blaze of incandescent energy as the
mine flattened it out. Which explained the sound like a cloudburst. That
had been the passage's automatic fire extinguishers going into brief but
correspondingly violent action.

Quillan's group stayed out of sight for the time being. He'd barely got
the mine put away, along with a handful of warped metal slugs, which was
what the mine had left of their attacker's mechanical equipment, and
Trigger's cabin door locked again, when three visitors came zooming down
the storerooms hall in a small car. A ship's engineer and two
assistants had arrived to check on what had started the extinguishers.

"They may," Quillan said hopefully, "just go away again." He and Trigger
were watching the engineers through the viewer which had been extended
to cover their end of the passage.

They didn't just go away again. They checked the extinguishers, looked
at the floor, still wet but rapidly absorbing the last drops of the
brief deluge. They exchanged puzzled comment. They checked everything
once more. Finally the leader made use of the door announcer and asked
if he might intrude.

Quillan switched off the viewer. "Come in," he said resignedly.

The door opened. The three glanced at Quillan, and then at
Trigger-plus-Beldon. Their