gine. Tell him this then--from the Commissioner; not from
me--there'll be no charges, but Precol expects his resignation, end of
the month."

"That on the level?" Doctor Leehaven demanded incredulously.

"Of course."

The doctor snorted. "You people are getting soft-headed! But I'll tell
him."

The morning went on. Trigger was suspiciously studying a traffic control
note stating that a Devagas missionary shop had checked in and berthed
at the spaceport when the G C Center's management called in to report,
with some nervousness, that the Center's much advertised
meteor-repellent roof had just flipped several dozen tons of falling
Moon Belt material into the spaceport area. Most of it, unfortunately,
had dropped around and upon a Devagas missionary ship.

"Not damaged, is it?" she asked.

The Center said no, but the Missionary Captain insisted on speaking to
the person in charge here. To whom should they refer him?

"Refer him to me," Trigger said expectantly. She switched on the vision
screen.

The Missionary Captain was a tall, gray-haired, gray-eyed, square-jawed
man in uniform. After confirming to his satisfaction that Trigger was
indeed in charge, he informed her in chilled tones that the Devagas
Union would hold her personally responsible for the unprovoked outrage
unless an apology was promptly forthcoming.

Trigger apologized promptly. He acknowledged with a curt nod.

"The ship will now require new spacepaint," he pointed out, unmollified.

Trigger nodded. "We'll send a work squad out immediately."

"We," the Missionary Captain said, "shall supervise the work. Only the
best grade of paint will be acceptable!"

"The very best only," Trigger agreed.

He gave her another curt nod, and switched off.

"Ass," she said. She cut in the don't-disturb barrier and dialed
Holati's ship.

It took a while to get through; he was probably busy somewhere in the
crate. Like Belchik Pluly, the Commissioner, while still a very wealthy
man, would have been a very much wealthier one if it weren't for his
hobby. In his case, the hobby was ships, of which he now owned two. What
made them expensive was that they had been tailor-made to the
Commissioner's specifications, and his specifications had provided him
with two rather exact duplicates of the two types of Scout fighting
ships in which Squadron Commander Tate had made space hideous for
evildoers in the good old days. Nobody as yet had got up the nerve to
point o