Chapter 3

She switched off the ComWeb and stood up. Rak and his group were stuck with the Plasmoid Project a lot more solidly than she was. They’d been established here, confined to their own wing of the Project area, when she came in from Manon with the Commissioner. Until the present security rulings were relaxed--which might not be for another two years--they would remain on the project.

Trigger felt a little sorry for them, though the Junior Scientists didn’t seem to mind the setup. Dedication stood out all over them. Since about half were young women, one could assume that at any rate they weren’t condemned to a completely monastic existence.

A couple of workmen were guiding a dozen big cleaning robots around the Plasmoid Exhibition Hall, which wouldn’t be open to students or visitors for another few hours. Trigger strolled across the floor of the huge area toward a couple of exhibits that hadn’t been there the last time she’d come through. Life-sized replicas of two O.G. Plasmoids--Numbers 1432 and 1433--she discovered. She regarded the waxy-looking, lumpish, partially translucent forms with some distaste. She’d been all over the Old Galactic Station itself, and might have stood close enough to the originals of these models to touch them. Not that she would have.

She glanced at her watch, walked around a scale model of Harvest Moon, the O.G. station, which occupied the center of the Hall, and went on among the exhibits. There were views taken on Manon Planet in one alcove, mainly of Manon’s aerial plankton belt and of the giant plasmoids called Harvesters which had moved about the belt, methodically engulfing its clouds of living matter. A whale-sized replica of a Harvester dominated one end of the Hall, a giant dark-green sausage in external appearance, though with some extremely fancy internal arrangements.

“Miss Farn...”

She turned. A League cop, standing at the entrance of a hallway thirty feet away, pitched her the old flourish and followed it up with a bow. Excellent manners these guard boys had!

Trigger gave him a smile.

“Coming,” she said.

Junior Scientist Rak and his advisory committee--two other young men and a young woman--were waiting in the conference room for her. They all stood up when she came in. This room marked the border of their territory; they would have violated several League rules by venturing out into the hall through which Trigger had entered.

And that would have been unthinkable.

Rak did the talking, as on the previous occasions when Trigger had met with this group. The advisory committee simply sat there and watched him. As far as Trigger could figure it, they were present at these sessions only to check Rak if it looked as if he were about to commit some ghastly indiscretion.

“We were wondering, Miss Farn,” Rak said questioningly, “whether you have the authority to requisition additional University League guards for the Plasmoid Project?”

Trigger shook her head. “I’ve got no authority of any kind that I know of, as far as the League is concerned. No doubt Professor Mantelish could arrange it for you.”

Rak nodded. “Is it possible for you to contact Professor Mantelish?”

“No,” Trigger said. She smiled. “Is it possible for you to contact him?”

Rak glanced around his committee as if looking for approval, then said, “No, it isn’t. As a matter of fact, Miss Farn, we’ve been isolated here in the most curious fashion for the past few weeks.”

“So have I,” said Miss Farn.

Rak looked startled. “Oh!” he said. “We were hoping you would be willing to give us a little information.”

“I would,” Trigger assured him, “if I had any to give. I don’t, unfortunately.” She considered. “Why do you feel additional League guards are required?”

“We heard,” Rak remarked cautiously, “that there were raiders in the Colonial School area yesterday.”

“Grabbers,” Trigger said. “They wouldn’t bother you. Your section of the project is supposed to be raidproof anyway.”

Rak glanced at his companions again and apparently received some undetectable sign of consent. “Miss Farn, as you know, our group has been entrusted with the care of two League plasmoids here. Are you aware that six of the plasmoids which were distributed to responsible laboratories throughout the Hub have been lost to unknown raiders?”

She was startled. “No, I didn’t know that. I heard there’d been some unsuccessful attempts to steal distributed plasmoids.”

“These six attempts,” Rak said primly, “were completely successful. One must assume that the victimized laboratories also had been regarded as raidproof.”

Trigger admitted it was a reasonable assumption.

“There is another matter,” Rak went on. “When we arrived here, we understood Doctor Gess Fayle was to bring Plasmoid Unit 112-113 to this project. It seems possible that Doctor Fayle’s failure to appear indicates that League Headquarters does not consider the project a sufficiently safe place for 112-113.”

“Why don’t you ask Headquarters?” Trigger suggested.

They stirred nervously.

“That would be a violation of the Principle of the Chain of Command, Miss Farn!” Rak explained.

“Oh,” she said. The Juniors were overdisciplined, all right. “Is that 112-113 such a particularly important item?”

“If Doctor Fayle is in personal charge of it,” Rak said carefully, “I would say yes.”

Recalling her meetings with Doctor Gess Fayle in the Manon System, Trigger silently agreed. He was one of the U-League’s big shots, a political scientist who had got himself appointed as Mantelish’s chief assistant when that eminent biologist was first sent to Manon to take over League operations there. Trigger had disliked Fayle on sight, and hadn’t changed her mind on closer acquaintance.

“I remember that 112-113 unit now,” she said suddenly. “Big, ugly thing--well, that describes a lot of them, doesn’t it?”

Rak and the others looked quietly affronted. In a moment, Trigger realized, one of them was going to go into a lecture on functional esthetics unless she could head them off--and she’d already heard quite enough about functional esthetics in connection with the plasmoids.

“Now, 113,” she hurried on, “is a very small plasmoid”--she held her hands fifteen inches or so apart--”like that; and it’s attached to the big one. Correct?”

Rak nodded, a little stiffly. “Essentially correct, Miss Farn.”

“Well,” Trigger said, “I can’t blame you for worrying a bit. How about your Guard Captain? Isn’t it all right to ask him about reinforcements?”

Rak pursed his lips. “Yes. And I did. This morning. Before I called you.”

“What did he say?”

Rak grimaced unhappily. “He implied, Miss Farn, that his present guard complement could handle any emergency. How would he know?”

“That’s his job,” Trigger pointed out gently. The Juniors did look badly worried. “He didn’t have any helpful ideas?”

“None,” said Rak. “He said that if someone wanted to put up the money to hire a battle squad of Special Federation Police, he could always find some use for them. But that’s hopeless, of course.”

Trigger straightened up. She reached out and poked Rak’s bony chest with a finger tip. “You know something?” she said. “It’s not!”

The four faces lit up together.

“The fact is,” Trigger went on, “that I’m handling the Project budget until someone shows up to take over. So I think I’ll just buy you that Federation battle squad, Rak! I’ll get on it right away.” She stood up. The Juniors bounced automatically out of their chairs. “You go tell your guard Captain,” she instructed them from the hall door, “there’ll be a squad showing up in time for dinner tonight.”