vest Moon and various
storage points by now. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them turn up
here in the dome eventually. Not that it's a serious loss. What the
thieves have been getting away with is small stuff--plasmoid nuts and
bolts, so to speak. Still, each of those would still fetch around a
hundred thousand credits, if you offered them to the right people.
Incidentally, if asking you to this conference has interfered with any
personal plans, just say so. We can put it off till tomorrow. Especially
since it's beginning to look as if Mantelish won't make it here either."

"Either?" Trigger said.

"Quillan's already had to cancel. He got involved with something during
the afternoon."

"Oh," she said coolly. She looked at her watch. "I do have a dinner date
with Brule Inger in an hour and a half. But you said this meeting wasn't
to take more than an hour anyway, didn't you?"

He nodded.

"Then I'm free. My quarters are arranged, and I'm ready to go back on my
old job in the morning."

"Fine," said the Commissioner. "There are things I wanted to discuss
with you privately anyway. If we can't get through to Mantelish in
another ten minutes, we'll go ahead with that. I would have liked to
have Quillan here to fill us in with data about some of the top-level
crooks in the Hub. They're a specialty of his. I don't know too much
about them myself."

He paused. "That Lyad Ermetyne now," he said, "looks as if she either
already is part of the main problem or is working very hard to get
there. She's had a Tranest warship stationed here for the past two
weeks. A thing called the Aurora."

Trigger was startled. "But warships aren't allowed in Manon System!"

"It isn't in the system. It's stationed a half light-year away, where it
has a legal right to be. Nothing to worry about as such. It's just a
heavy armed frigate, which is the limit Tranest is allowed to build.
Since it's Lyad's private boat, I imagine it's been souped up with
everything they could throw in. Anyway, the fact that she sent it here
ahead of her indicates she isn't just dropping in for a casual visit."

"She made that pretty clear herself!" Trigger said. "Why do you think
she's being so open about it?"

He shrugged. "Might have a number of reasons. One could be that she'd
get the beady eye anyway as soon as she showed up here. When Lyad goes
anywhere, it's usually on business. After Quillan reported on your
dinner party, I got all the information