Chapter 14

They were out on a terrace near the top of an illusion mountainside, in a beautiful evening. Dinner had been old-style and delicious, served by its creators, two slim, brown-skinned, red-lipped girls who looked much too young to have acquired such skills. They were natives of Tranest, Lyad said proudly, and two of the finest food technicians in the Hub. They were, at all events, the two finest food technicians Trigger had run into as yet.

The brandy which followed the dinner seemed to represent no let-down to the connoisseurs around Trigger. She went at it cautiously, though she had swallowed a couple of wake-up capsules just before they walked into the Ermetyne suite. The capsules took effect in the middle of the first course; and what she woke up to was a disconcerting awareness of being the center of much careful attention. The boys were all giving her-plus-Beldon the eye, intensively; even Lyad’s giant-sized butler or majordomo or whatever she’d called him, named Virod, ogled coldly out of the background. Trigger gave them the eye back, one after the other, in turn; and that stopped it. Lyad, beautifully wearing something which would have passed muster at the U-League’s Annual Presidential Dinner in Ceyce, looked amused.

It wasn’t till the end of the second course that Trigger began to feel at ease again. After that she forgot, more or less, about the Beldon. The talk remained light during dinner. When they switched off the illusion background for a look at the goings-on during the Garth stopover, she took the occasion to study her companions in more detail.

There were three men at the table; Lyad and herself. Quillan sat opposite her. Belchik Pluly’s unseemly person, in a black silk robe which left his plump arms bare from the elbows down, was on Quillan’s right.

The third man fascinated her. It was as if some strange cold creature had walked up out of a polar sea to come on board their ship.

It wasn’t so much his appearance, though the green tip of a Vethi sponge lying coiled lightly about his neck probably had something to do with the impression. Trigger knew about Vethi sponges and their addicts, though she hadn’t seen either before. It wasn’t so serious an addiction, except perhaps in the fact that it was rarely given up again. The sponges soothed jangled nerves, stabilized unstable emotions.

Balmordan didn’t look like a man who needed one. He was big, not as tall as Quillan but probably heavier, with strong features, a boldly jutting nose. Bleak, pale eyes. He was about fifty and wore a richly ornamented blue shirt and trousers. The shirt hung loose, perhaps to conceal the flattened contours of his odd companion’s body. Lyad had introduced him as a Devagas scientist and in a manner which indicated he was a man of considerable importance. That meant he was almost certainly a member of the Devagas hierarchy, which in itself would have made him very interesting.

Trigger had run into some of the odd-ball missionaries the Devagas kept sending about the Hub; and she’d sometimes speculated curiously regarding the leaders of that chronically angry, unpredictable nation which, on its twenty-eight restricted worlds, formed more than six percent of the population of the Hub. The Devagas seemed to like nobody; and certainly nobody liked them.

Balmordan didn’t fit her picture of a Devagas leader too badly. His manner and talk were easygoing and agreeable. But his particular brand of ogle, when she first became aware of it, had been disquieting. Rather like a biologist planning the details of an interesting vivisection.

Of course he was a biologist.

But Trigger kept wondering why Lyad had invited him to dinner. She was positive, for one thing, that Belchik Pluly wasn’t at all happy about Balmordan’s presence.

Dinner was over before the Garth take-off, and they switched themselves back to the mountainside and took other chairs. A red-haired, green-eyed, tanned, sinuous young woman called Flam appeared from time to time to renew brandy glasses and pass iced fruits around. She gave Trigger coolly speculative looks now and then.

Then Virod showed up again with a flat tray of what turned out to be a very special brand of tobacco. Trigger declined. The men made connoisseur-type sounds of high appreciation, and everybody, including Lyad, lit up small pipes of a very special brand of coral and puffed away happily. Quillan looked up at Virod.

“Hi, big boy!” he said pleasantly. “How’s everything been with you?”

Virod, in a wide-sleeved scarlet jacket and creased black trousers, bowed his shaved bullet head very slightly. “Everything’s been fine, Major Quillan,” he said. “Thank you.” He turned and went out of the place. Trigger glanced after him. Virod awed her a little--he was really huge. Moving about among them, he had seemed like a softly padding elephant. And there was an elephant’s steady deftness in the way he held out the tiny tobacco trays.

The Ermetyne winked at Quillan. “Quillan wrestled Virod to a pindown once,” she said to Trigger. “A fifty-seven minute round, wasn’t it?”

“Thereabouts,” Quillan said. He added, “Trigger doesn’t know yet that I was a sports bum in my youth.”

“Really?” Trigger said.

He nodded. “Come from a long line of sports bums, as a matter of fact. But I broke tradition--went into business for myself finally. Nowadays I’m old and soft. Eh, Belchy?” The two great pals, sitting side by side, dug elbows at each other and ha-ha-ha’d. Trigger winced.

“Still in the same line of business, on the side?” Lyad inquired.

Quillan looked steadily at her and grinned. “More or less,” he said.

“We might,” Lyad said thoughtfully, “come back to that later. As for that match with Virod,” she went on to Trigger, “it was really a terrific event! Virod was a Tranest arena professional before I took him into my personal employ, and he’s very, very rarely been beaten in any such contest.” She laughed. “And before such a large group of people too! I’m afraid he’s never quite forgiven you for that, Quillan.”

“I’ll keep out of his way,” Quillan said easily.

“Did you people know,” Lyad said, “that the trouble on the way between Maccadon and Evalee was caused by a catassin killing?” There was a touch of mischief in the question, Trigger thought.

There were assorted startled responses. The Ermetyne went briefly over some of the details Quillan had told; essentially it was the same story. “And do you know, Belchik, what the creature was trying to do? It was trying to get into the rest cubicle vaults. Just think, it might have been sent after you!”

It was rather cruel. Pluly’s head jerked, and he blinked rapidly at Lyad, saying nothing. He was a badly scared little man at that moment. Trigger felt a little sorry for him, but not too sorry. Belchy’s ogle had been of the straightforward, loose-lipped, drooling variety.

“You’re safe when you’re in one of those things, Belchik!” Quillan said reassuringly. “Wouldn’t you feel a little safer there yourself, Lyad? If you say they’re not even sure they’ve killed the creature...”

“I probably shall have a cubicle set up here,” Lyad said. “But not as protection against a catassin. It would never get past Pilli, for one thing.” She looked at Trigger. “Oh, I forgot. You haven’t met Pilli. Virod!” she called.

Virod appeared at the far end of the terrace.

“Yes, First Lady?”

“Bring in Pilli,” she told him.

Virod bowed. “Pilli is in the room, First Lady.” He glanced about, went over to a massive easy chair a few feet way, and swung it aside. Something like a huge ball of golden fur behind it moved and sat up.

It was an animal of some sort. Its head seemed turned toward the group, but whatever features it had remained hidden under the fur. Then an arm like the arm of a bear reached out and Trigger saw a great furred hand that in shape seemed completely human clutch the chair’s edge.

“He was resting,” Lyad said. “Not sleeping. Pilli doesn’t sleep. He’s a perfect guardian. Come here, Pilli--meet Trigger Argee.”

Pilli swung up on his feet. It was an impressively effortless motion. There was a thick wide torso on short thick legs under the golden fur. The structure was gorilla-like. Pilli might weigh around four hundred pounds.

He started silently forward and Trigger felt a tingle of alarm. But he stopped six feet away. She looked at him. “Do I say something to Pilli?”