t seems to have
happened. Not how or why. Apparently they did get me to develop a total
recall of that knocked-out period in the last interview--I even reported
hearing you and Doctor Azol moving around and talking in the next
compartment."

He nodded. "I remember enough of my conversation with Azol to be able to
verify that part of it."

"Then, some time before I actually fell down," said Trigger, "I was
apparently already in that mysterious coma. Getting deeper into it. It
started when I walked away from Mantelish's group, without having any
particular reason for doing it. I just walked. Then I was in another
compartment by myself and still walking, and the stuff kept getting
deeper, until I lost physical control of myself and fell down. Then I
lay there a while until you came down that aisle and saw me. And after
you'd picked me up and put me in that chair--just like that, everything
clears up! Except that I don't remember what happened and think I've
just left Mantelish to go looking for you. I don't even wonder how I
happen to be sitting there in a chair!"

The Commissioner smiled briefly. "That's right. You didn't."

Her slim fingers tapped the pages of the report, the green stone in the
ring he'd given her to wear reflecting little flashes of light. "They
seem quite positive that nobody else came near me during that period.
And that nobody had used a hypno-spray on me or shot a hypodermic pellet
into me--anything like that--before the seizure or whatever it was came
on. How do you suppose they could be so sure of that?"

"I wouldn't know," Holati said. "But I think we might as well assume
they're right."

"I suppose so. What it seems to boil down to is they're saying I was
undergoing something like a very much slowed-down, very profound
emotional shock--source still undetermined, but profound enough to knock
me completely out for a while. Only they also say that--for a whole list
of reasons--it couldn't possibly have been an emotional shock after all!
And when the effect left, it went instantaneously. That would be just
the reverse to the pattern of an emotional shock, wouldn't it?"

"Yes," he said. "That occurred to me too, but it didn't explain anything
to me. Possibly it's explained something to the Psychology Service."

"Well," Trigger said, "it's certainly all very odd. Very disagreeable,
too!" She laid the report down on the arm of her chair and looked at the
Commissioner. "Guess I'd better run now