He put down a hand to help her step up. She slipped the five-crown piece
into his palm.

"Up front," he whispered hoarsely. "Next to the driver's seat and keep
down. How far?"

"Nearest tube line."

He grinned again and nodded. "Can do."

Twenty minutes later Trigger was in a downtown ComWeb booth. There had
been a minor modification in her plans and she'd stopped off in a store
a few doors away and picked up a carefully nondescript street dress and
a scarf. She changed into the dress now and bundled the school costume
into a deposit box, which she dispatched to Central Deposit with a
one-crown piece, getting a numbered slip in return. It had occurred to
her that there was a chance otherwise of getting caught in a Colonial
School roundup, if it was brought to Doctor Plemponi's attention that
there appeared to be considerably more students out on the town at the
moment than could be properly overlooked.

Or even, Trigger thought, if somebody simply happened to have missed
Trigger Argee.

She slipped the rain robe over her shoulders, dropped a coin into the
ComWeb, and covered the silver-blonde hair with the scarf. The screen
lit up. She asked for Grand Commerce Transportation.

Waiting, she realized suddenly that so far she was rather enjoying
herself. There had been a little argument with the van driver who, it
turned out, had ideas of his own about modifying Trigger's plans--a
complication she'd run into frequently in her school days too. As usual,
it didn't develop into a very serious argument. Truckers who dealt with
the Colonial School knew, or learned in one or two briefly horrid
lessons, that Mihul's commando-trained charges were prone to ungirlish
methods of discouragement when argued with too urgently.

The view screen switched on. The transportation clerk's glance flicked
over Trigger's street dress when she told him her destination. His
expression remained bland. Yes, the Dawn City was leaving Ceyce Port for
the Manon System tomorrow evening. Yes, it was subspace express--one of
the newest and fastest, in fact. His eyes slipped over the dress again.
Also one of the most luxurious, he might add. There would be only two
three-hour stops in the Hub beyond Maccadon--one each off Evalee and
Garth. Then a straight dive to Manon unless, of course, gravitic storm
shifts forced the ship to surface temporarily. Average time for the Dawn
City on the run was eleven days; the slowest trip so far had required
sixt