ght rain robe,
draped the robe over her arm, slung her purse beside it, picked up the
sun hat and left the room.

The Colonial School's kitchen area was on one of the underground levels.
Unless they'd modified their guard system very considerably since
Trigger had graduated, that was the route by which she would leave.

As far as she could tell they hadn't modified anything. The whole
kitchen level looked so unchanged that she had a moment of nostalgia.
Groups of students went chattering along the hallways between the
storerooms and the cooking and processing plants. The big mess hall,
Trigger noticed in passing, smelled as good as it always had. Bells
sounded the end of a period and a loudspeaker system began directing
Class so and so to Room such and such. Standing around were a few
uniformed guards--mainly for the purpose of helping out newcomers who
had lost their direction.

She came out on the equally familiar big and brightly lit platform of
the loading ramp. Some sixty or seventy great cylindrical vans floated
alongside the platform, most of them disgorging their contents, some
still sealed.

Trigger walked unhurriedly down the ramp, staying in the background,
observing the movements of two ramp guards and marking four vans which
were empty and looked ready to go.

The driver of the farthest of the four empties stood in the back of his
vehicle, a few feet above the platform. When Trigger came level with
him, he was studying her. He was a big young man with tousled black hair
and a rough-and-ready look. He was grinning very faintly. He knew the
ways of Colonial School students.

Trigger raised her left hand a few inches, three fingers up. His grin
widened. He shook his head and raised both hands in a corresponding
gesture. Eight fingers.

Trigger frowned at him, stopped and looked back along the row of vans.
Then left hand up again--four fingers and thumb.

The driver made a circle with finger and thumb. A deal, for five
Maccadon crowns. Which was about standard fare for unauthorized passage
out of the school.

Trigger wandered on to the end of the platform, turned and came back,
still unhurriedly but now close to the edge of the ramp. Down the line,
another van slammed open in back and a stream of crates swooped out,
riding a gravity beam from the roof toward a waiting storeroom carrier.
The guard closest to Trigger turned to watch the process. Trigger took
six quick steps and reached her driver.