outh. Other hands held her arms. Her feet came off the
ground and she had a momentary awareness of being rushed expertly
forward.

Then she was in the car, half on her side over the rear seat, two very
strong hands clamping her wrists together behind her back. As she sucked
in her breath for a yell, the door snapped shut behind her, cutting off
the rollicking "ha-ha-ha's" and other noises outside.

There was a lurching twist as the aircar shot upward.

5

The man who held Trigger's wrists shifted his grip up her arms, and
turned her a little so that she could sit upright on the seat, faced
half away from him. She had got only a glimpse of him as he caught her,
but he seemed to be wearing the same kind of commercial spacer's uniform
as the group which had hustled her into the car. The other man in the
car, the driver, sat up front with his back to them. He looked like any
ordinary middle-aged civilian.

Trigger let her breath out slowly. There was no point in yelling now.
She could feel her legs tremble a little, but she didn't seem to be
actually frightened. At least, not yet.

"Spot anything so far?" the man who held her asked. It was a deep voice.
It sounded matter-of-fact, quite unexcited.

"Three possibles anyway," the driver said with equal casualness. He
didn't turn his head. "Make it two.... One very definite possible now,
I'd say!"

"Better feed it to her then."

The driver didn't reply, but the car's renewed surge of power pushed
Trigger down hard on the seat. She couldn't see much more than a
shifting piece of the sky line through the front view plate. Their own
car seemed to be rising at a tremendous rate. They were probably, she
thought, already above the main traffic arteries over Ceyce.

"Now, Miss Argee," the man sitting beside her said, "I'd like to
reassure you a little first."

"Go ahead and reassure me," Trigger said unsteadily.

"You're in no slightest danger from us," he said. "We're your friends."

"Nice friends!" remarked Trigger.

"I'll explain it all in a couple of minutes. There may be some fairly
dangerous characters on our tail at the moment, and if they start to
catch up--"

"Which they seem to be doing," the driver interrupted. "Hang on for a
few fast turns when we hit the next cloud bank."

"We'll probably shake them there," the other man explained to Trigger.
"In case we don't though, I'll need both hands free to handle the guns."

"So?" she asked.

"So I