James H. Schmitz: Stories

Consider the plasmoids...Ancient living machines that after millennia of stillness suddenly begin to move under their own power, for reasons that remain a mystery to men. Holati Tate discovered them - then disappeared. Trigger Argee was his closet associate - she means to find him. She's brilliant, beautiful, and skilled in every known martial art. She's worth plenty - dead or alive - to more than one faction in this obscure battle.

He contracted for a charter trip--but the man who hired his spacer wasn't quite a man, it turned out--and he wanted more than service!