Chapter 4

The head of the personnel department of Precol’s Maccadon office said, “You don’t want me, Argee. That’s not my jurisdiction. I’ll connect you with Undersecretary Rozan.”

Trigger blinked. “Under--” she began. But he’d already cut off.

She stared at the ComWeb, feeling a little shaken. All she’d done was to say she wanted to apply for a transfer! Undersecretary Rozan was one of Precol’s Big Four. For a moment, Trigger had an uncanny notion. Some strange madness was spreading insidiously through the Hub. She shook the thought off.

A businesslike blonde showed up in the screen. She might be about thirty-five. She smiled a small, cold smile.

“Rozan,” she said. “You’re Trigger Argee. I know about you. What’s the trouble?”

Trigger looked at her, wondering. “No trouble,” she said. “Personnel just routed me through to you.”

“They’ve been instructed to do so,” said Rozan. “Go ahead.”

“I’m on detached duty at the moment.”

“I know.”

“I’d like to apply for a transfer back to my previous job. The Manon System.”

“That’s your privilege,” said Rozan. She half turned, swung a telewriter forward and snapped it into her ComWeb. She glanced out at Trigger’s desk. “Your writer’s connected, I see. We’ll want thumbprint and signature.”

She slid a form into her telewriter, shifted it twice as Trigger deposited thumbprint and signature and drew it out. “The application will be processed promptly, Argee. Good day.”

Not a gabby type, that Rozan.

If not gabby, the Precol blonde was a woman of her word. Trigger had just started lunch when the office mail-tube receiver tinkled brightly at her. She reached in, took out a flat plastic carrier, snapped it open. The paper that unfolded itself in her hand was her retransfer application.

At the bottom of the form was stamped “Application Denied,” followed by the signature of the Secretary of the Department of Precolonization, Home Office, Evalee.

Trigger’s gaze shifted incredulously from the signature to the two words, and back. They’d taken the trouble to get that signature transmitted from Evalee just to make it clear that there were no heads left to be gone over in the matter. Precol was not transferring her back to Manon. That was final. Then she realized that there was a second sheet attached to the application form.

On it in handwriting were a few more words: “In accordance with the instructions of Commissioner Tate.” And a signature, “Rozan.” And three final words: “Destroy this note.”

Trigger crumpled up the application in one hand. Her other hand darted to the ComWeb.

Then she checked herself. To fire an as-of-now resignation back at Precol had been the immediate impulse. But something, some vague warning chill, was saying it might be a very poor impulse to follow.

She sat back to think it over.

It was very probable that Undersecretary Rozan disliked Holati Tate intensely. A lot of the Home Office big shots disliked Holati Tate. He’d stamped on their toes more than once--very justifiably; but he’d stamped. The Home Office wouldn’t go an inch out of its way to do something just because Commissioner Tate happened to want it done.

So somebody else was backing up Commissioner Tate’s instructions.

Trigger shook her head helplessly.

The only somebody else who could give instructions to the Precolonization Department was the Council of the Federation!

And how could the Federation possibly care what Trigger Argee was doing? She made a small, incredulous noise in her throat.

Then she sat there a while, feeling frightened.

The fright didn’t really wear off, but it settled down slowly inside her. Up on the surface she began to think again.

Assume it’s so, she instructed herself. It made no sense, but everything else made even less sense. Just assume it’s so. Set it up as a practical problem. Don’t worry about the why...

The problem became very simple then. She wanted to go to Manon. The Federation--or something else, something quite unthinkable at the moment but comparable to the Federation in power and influence--wanted to keep her here.

She uncrumpled the application, detached Rozan’s note, tore up the note and dropped its shreds into the wall disposal. That obligation was cancelled. She didn’t have any other obligations. She’d liked Holati Tate. When all this was cleared up, she might find she still liked him. At the moment she didn’t owe him a thing.

Now. Assume they hadn’t just blocked the obvious route to Manon. They couldn’t block all routes to everywhere; that was impossible. But they could very well be watching to see that she didn’t simply get up and walk off. And they might be very well prepared to take quite direct action to stop her from doing it.

She would, Trigger decided, leave the method she’d use to get out of the Colonial School unobserved to the last. That shouldn’t present any serious difficulties.

Once she was outside, what would she do?

Principally, she had to buy transportation. And that--since she had no intention of spending a few months on the trip, and since a private citizen didn’t have the ghost of a chance at squeezing aboard a Federation packet on the Manon run--was going to be expensive. In fact, it was likely to take the bulk of her savings. Under the circumstances, however, expense wasn’t important. If Precol refused to give her back her job when she showed up on Manon, a number of the industrial outfits preparing to move in as soon as the plant got its final clearance would be very happy to have her. She’d already turned down a dozen offers at considerably more than her present salary.

So ... she’d get off the school grounds, take a tube strip into downtown Ceyce, step into a ComWeb booth, and call Grand Commerce transportation for information on the earliest subspace runs to Manon.

She’d reserve a berth on the first fast boat out. In the name of--let’s see--in the name of Birna Drellgannoth, who had been a friend of hers when they were around the age of ten. Since Manon was a Precol preserve, she wouldn’t have to meet the problem of precise personal identification, such as one ran into when booking passage to some of the member worlds.

The ticket office would have her thumbprints then. That was unavoidable. But there were millions of thumbprints being deposited every hour of the day on Maccadon. If somebody started checking for her by that method, it should take them a good long while to sort out hers.

Next stop--the Ceyce branch of the Bank of Maccadon. And it was lucky she’d done all her banking in Ceyce since she was a teen-ager, because she would have to present herself in person to draw out her savings. She’d better lose no time getting to the bank either. It was one place where theoretical searchers could expect her to show up.

She could pay for her ship reservation at the bank. Then to a store for some clothes and a suitcase for the trip...

And, finally, into some big middle-class hotel where she would stay quietly until a few hours before the ship was due to take off.

That seemed to cover it. It probably wasn’t foolproof. But trying to work out a foolproof plan would be a waste of time when she didn’t know just what she was up against. This should give her a running start, a long one.

When should she leave?

Right now, she decided. Commissioner Tate presumably would be informed that she had applied for a transfer and that the transfer had been denied. He knew her too well not to become suspicious if it looked as if she were just sitting there and taking it.

She got her secretary on the ComWeb.

“I’m thinking of leaving the office,” she said. “Anything for me to take care of first?”

It was a safe question. She’d signed the day’s mail and checks before lunch.

“Not a thing, Miss Farn.”

“Fine,” said Ruya Farn. “If anyone wants me in the next three or four hours, I’ll be either down in the main library or out at the lake.”

And that would give somebody two rather extensive areas to look for her, if and when they started to look--along with the fact that, for all anyone knew, she might be anywhere between those two points.

A few minutes later, Trigger sauntered, humming blithely, into her room and gave it a brief survey. There were some personal odds and ends she would have liked to take with her, but she could send for them from Manon.

The Denton, however, was coming along. The little gun had a very precisely calibrated fast-acting stunner attachment, and old Runser Argee had instructed Trigger in its use with his customary thoroughness before he formally presented her with the gun. She had never had occasion to turn the stunner on a human being, but she’d used it on game. If this cloak and dagger business became too realistic, she’d already decided she would use it as needed.

She slipped the Denton into the side pocket of a lightweight rain robe, draped the robe over her arm, slung her purse beside it, picked up the sun hat and left the room.

The Colonial School’s kitchen area was on one of the underground levels. Unless they’d modified their guard system very considerably since Trigger had graduated, that was the route by which she would leave.

As far as she could tell they hadn’t modified anything. The whole kitchen level looked so unchanged that she had a moment of nostalgia. Groups of students went chattering along the hallways between the storerooms and the cooking and processing plants. The big mess hall, Trigger noticed in passing, smelled as good as it always had. Bells sounded the end of a period and a loudspeaker system began directing Class so and so to Room such and such. Standing around were a few uniformed guards--mainly for the purpose of helping out newcomers who had lost their direction.