ng as we can. And from all accounts, now that she's
showed up to take personal charge of things around here, we can expect
some very fast, very direct action from Lyad."

"How fast?"

"My own guess," said the Commissioner, "would be around a week. If she
hasn't moved by then, we might help things along a little."

"Make a few of those openings for her, eh? Well, that doesn't sound too
bad." Trigger reflected. "Then there's Point Number Two," she said.

"What's that?"

She grimaced. "I'm not real keen on it," she confessed, "but I think
we'd better do something about that interview with Whatzzit I ducked out
of. If they still want to talk to me--"

"They do. Very much so."

"What's that business about their saying it was okay now for me to go on
to Manon?"

Commissioner Tate tugged gently at his left ear lobe. "Frankly," he
said, "that's something that shook me a little."

"Shook you? Why?"

"It's that matter of experts coming in grades. The upper ranks in the
Psychology Service are extremely busy people, I understand. After your
first interview we were shifted upward promptly. A couple of middling
high-bracket investigators took over for a while. But after the fourth
interview I was told I'd have to bring you to the Hub to let somebody
really competent handle the next stage of whatever they've been doing.
They said they couldn't spare anybody of that caliber for a trip to
Manon."

"Was _that_ the real reason we went to Maccadon?" Trigger asked,
startled.

"Sure. But we still hadn't got anywhere near the Service's top level
then. As I get it, their topnotchers don't spend much time on individual
cases. They keep busy with things on the scale of our more bothersome
planetary cultures--and there are supposed to be only a hundred or so of
them in that category. So I was more than a little surprised when the
Service informed me finally one of those people was coming to Maccadon
to conduct your ninth interview."

"One of the real eggheads!" Trigger smiled nervously. "And then I just
took off! They can't have too good an opinion of me at the moment, you
know."

"Apparently that didn't upset them in the least," the Commissioner
said. "They told me to stay calm and make sure you got to Manon all
right. Then they said they had a ship operating in this area, and they'd
route it over to Manon after you arrived here."

"A ship?" Trigger asked.

"I've seen a few of their ships--they looked like oversized flying