warned. "We just could get jumped here. Don't
think so, though. They'd have to get past the Commissioner."

"Oh, he's here, too?"

She didn't hear what Quillan answered, because things faded out around
then. When they faded in again, the passageway with the mirrors had
disappeared, and they were coming to the top of a short flight of low,
wide stairs and into a very beautiful room. This room was high and
long, not very wide. In the center was a small square swimming pool, and
against the walls on either side was a long row of tall square crystal
pillars through which strange lights undulated slowly. Trigger glanced
curiously at the nearest pillar. She stopped short.

"Galaxy!" she said, startled.

Quillan reached back and grabbed her arm with his gun hand. "Keep
moving, girl! That's just how Belchik keeps his harem grouped around him
when he's working. Not too bad an idea--it does cut down the chatter.
This is his office."

"Office!" Then she saw the large business desk with prosaic standard
equipment which stood on the carpet on the other side of the pool. They
moved rapidly past the pool, Quillan still hauling at her arm. Trigger
kept staring at the pillars they passed. Long-limbed, supple and
languid, they floated in their crystal cages, in tinted, shifting
lights, eyes closed, hair drifting about their faces.

"Awesome, isn't it?" Quillan's voice said.

"Yes," said Trigger. "Awesome. One in each--he is a pig! They look
drowned."

"He is and they aren't," said Quillan. "Very lively girls when he lets
them out. Now around this turn and ... oops!"

Pluly had reached the turn at the end of the row of pillars, moaned
again and fallen forwards.

"Fainted!" Quillan said. "Well, we don't need him any more. Watch your
step, Trigger--dead one just behind Pluly."

Trigger stretched her stride and cleared the dead one behind Pluly
neatly. There were three more dead ones lying inside the entrance to the
next big room. She went past them, feeling rather dreamy. The sight of a
squat, black subtub parked squarely on the thick purple carpeting ahead
of her, with its canopy up, didn't strike her as unusual. Then she saw
that the man leaning against the canopy, a gun in one hand, was
Commissioner Tate. She smiled.

She waved her hand at him as they came up. "Hi, Holati!"

"Hi, yourself," said the Commissioner. He asked Quillan, "How's she
doing?"

"Not bad," Quillan said. "A bit ta-ta at the moment. Double dose of
c