o Trigger, most of the ones that had been collected looked
like assorted bugs and worms, though one at least was the size of a
small pig.

"No form, no pattern," Mantelish rumbled. "Was the thing practicing? Did
it attempt to construct an assistant and set it down here to test it?
Well, now!" He went off again to incomprehensibilities, apparently no
longer entirely dissatisfied. "Get me 112!" he bellowed. "Then this
business will be solved! Meanwhile we now at least have plasmoid
material to waste. We can experiment boldly! Come, Lyad, my dear."

And Lyad followed him into the lab unit, where they went to work again,
dissecting, burning, stimulating, inoculating and so forth great numbers
of more or less pancake-sized subplasmoids.

* * * * *

This morning Trigger wasn't getting down to the best semidrowsy level at
all readily. And it might very well be that Lyad-my-dear business. "You
know," she had told the Commissioner thoughtfully the day before, "by
the time we're done, Lyad will know more about plasmoids than anyone in
the Hub except Mantelish!"

He didn't look concerned. "Won't matter much. By the time we're done,
she and the rest of the Ermetynes will have had to cough up control of
Tranest. They've broken treaty with this business."

"Oh," Trigger said. "Does Lyad know that?"

"Sure. She also knows she's getting off easy. If she were a Federation
citizen, she'd be up for compulsory rehabilitation right now."

"She'll try something if she gets half a chance!" Trigger warned.

"She sure will!" the Commissioner said absently. He went on with his
work.

It didn't seem to be Lyad that was bothering. Trigger lay flat on her
back in the shallow sand bar, arms behind her head, feeling the sun's
warmth on her closed eyelids. She watched her thoughts drifting by
slowly.

It just might be Quillan.

Ole Major Quillan. The rescuer in time of need. The not-catassin
smasher. Quite a guy. The water murmured past her.

On the ride out here they'd run by one another now and then, going from
job to job. After they'd arrived, Quillan was gone three quarters of the
time, helping out in the hunt for the concealed Devagas fortress. It was
still concealed; they hadn't yet picked up a trace.

But every so often he made it back to camp. And every so often when he
was back in camp and didn't think she was looking, he'd be sitting there
looking at her.

Trigger grinned happily. Ole Major Q