ssioner. "You don't feel she did any lying this
time?"

"I doubt it. I tapped her one now and then, just to make sure she didn't
slow down enough to do much thinking. Besides I'd got the whole business
down on a pocket recorder, and Lyad knew it. If she makes one more goof
till this deal is over, the recording gets released to the Hub's news
viewer outfits, yowls and all. She'd sooner lose Tranest than risk
having that happen. She'll be good."

"Yeah, probably," he said thoughtfully. "About that substation--would
you feel more comfortable if we went after the bunch round the Devagas
dome first and got us an escort for the trip?"

"Sure," Trigger said. "But that would just about kill any chances of
doing anything personally, wouldn't it?"

"I'm afraid so. Scout Intelligence will go along pretty far with me. But
they couldn't go that far. We might be able to contact Quillan
individually though. He's a topnotch man in a fighter."

"It doesn't seem to me," Trigger said, "that we ought to run any risk of
being spotted till we know exactly what this thing is like."

"Well," said the Commissioner, "I'm with you there. We shouldn't."

"What about Mantelish and Lyad? You can't let them know either."

The Commissioner motioned with his head. "The rest cubicle back of the
cabins. If we see a chance to do anything, we'll pop them both into
Rest. I can dream up something to make that look plausible afterwards, I
think."

Trigger was silent a moment. Lyad had told them she'd dispatched the
Aurora to stand guard over a subspace station where the missing king
plasmoid presently was housed, until both she and the combat squadron
from Tranest could arrive there. The exact location of that station had
been the most valuable of the bits of information she had extracted so
painstakingly from Balmordan. The coordinates were centered on the
Commissioner's course screen at the moment.

"How about that Tranest squadron?" Trigger asked. "Think Lyad might have
risked a lie, and they could get out here in time to interfere?"

"No," said the Commissioner. "She had to have some idea of where to send
them before starting them out of the Hub. They'll be doing fine if they
make it to the substation in another two weeks. Now the Aurora--if they
started for Luscious right after Lyad called them last night, at best
they can't get there any sooner than we can get to the substation. I
figure that at four days. If they turn right around then, and