ch its victims. Then she studied the
carpet carefully until Gaya nudged her to indicate the business was
over. Catassins almost invariably used their natural equipment in the
kill; it was a swift process, of course, but shockingly brutal, and
Trigger didn't care to remember what the results looked like in a human
being. Both men had been killed in that manner; and the purpose
obviously was to conceal the fact that the killer was not a catassin,
but something even more efficient along those lines.

It didn't occur to the Security chief to question Trigger. A temporal
restructure of a recent event was a far more reliable witness than any
set of human senses and memory mechanisms. He left presently, reassured
that the catassin incident was concluded. It startled Trigger to realize
that Security did not seem to be considering seriously the possibility
of discovering the human agent behind the murders.

Quillan shrugged. "Whoever did it is covered three ways in every
direction. The chief knows it. He can't psych four thousand people on
general suspicions, and he'd hit mind-blocks in every twentieth
passenger presently on board if he did. Anyway he knows we're on it, and
that we have a great deal better chance of nailing the responsible
characters eventually."

"More information for the computers, eh?" Trigger said.

"Uh-huh."

"You got this little chunk the hard way, I feel," she observed.

"True," Quillan admitted, "But we have to get it any way we can till we
get enough to move on. Then we move." He looked at her, with an air of
regarding a new idea. "You know," he said, "you don't do badly for an
amateur!"

"She doesn't do badly," Gaya's voice said behind Trigger, "for anybody.
How do you people feel about a drink? I thought I could use one myself
after looking at the chief's restructure."

Trigger felt herself coloring. Praise from the cloak and dagger experts!
For some reason it pleased her immensely. She turned her head to smile
at Gaya, standing there with three glasses on a tray.

"Thanks!" she said. She took one of the glasses. Gaya held the tray out
to Quillan and took the third glass herself.

It was some five minutes later when Trigger remarked, "You know, I'm
getting sleepy."

Quillan looked around the viewer equipment he and Gaya were dismantling.
"Why not hit the couch over there and take a nap?" he suggested. "It'll
be about an hour before the boys can get down here for the real
conference."