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<h2>18</h2> "Well," Trigger said, regarding Brule critically, "I just meant to say that you're getting the least little bit plump here and there, under all that tan. I'll admit it doesn't show yet when you're dressed." Brule smiled tolerantly. In silver swimming trunks and sandals, he was obviously a very handsome hunk of young man, and he knew it. So did Trigger. So did a quartet of predatory young females eyeing them speculatively from a table only twenty feet away. "I've come swimming here quite a bit since they opened the Center," he said. He flexed his right arm and regarded his biceps complacently. "That's just streamlined muscle you're looking at, sweetheart!" Trigger reached over and poked the biceps with a finger tip. "Muscle?" she said, smiling at him. "It dents. See?" p. 202 He clasped his other hand over hers and squeezed it lightly. "Oh, golly, Brule!" she said happily. "I'm so glad I'm back!" He gave her the smile. "You're not the only glad one!" She looked around, humming softly. They were having dinner in one of the Grand Commerce Center's restaurants. This one happened to be beneath the surface of the artificial swimming lake installed in the Center—a giant grotto surrounded by green-gold chasms of water on every side. Underwater swimmers and bottom walkers moved past beyond the wide windows. A streak of silvery swiftness against a dark red canyon wall before her was trying to keep away from a trio of pursuing spear fishermen. Even the lake fish were Hub imports, advertised as such by the Center. Her eyes widened suddenly. "Hey!" she said. "What?" "That group of people up there!" Brule looked. "What about them?" "No suits, you idiot!" He grinned. "Oh, a lot of them do that. Okay by Federation law, you know. And seeing Manon's so close to becoming open Federation territory, we haven't tried to enforce minor Precol regulations much lately." "Well—" Trigger began. He was still smiling. "Have you been doing it?" she inquired suspiciously. "Swimming in the raw? Certainly. Depends on p. 203 the company. If you weren't such a little prude, I'd have suggested it tonight. Want to try it later?" Trigger colored. Prude again, she thought. "Nope," she said. "There are limits." He patted her cheek. "On you it would look cute." She shook her head, aware of a small fluster of guilt. There had been considerably less actual coverage in the Beldon costume than there was in the minute two-piece counterpart to Brule's silver trunks she wore at the moment. She'd have to tell Brule about the Beldon stunt, since it was more than likely he'd hear about it from others—Nelauk Pluly, for one. But not now. Things were getting just a little delicate along that line at the moment. "Leave us change the subject, pig," she said cheerfully. "Tell me what else you've been doing besides acquiring a gorgeous tan." A couple of hours later, things began to get delicate again. Same subject. Trigger had been somewhat startled at the spaceport when Brule told her he had shifted his living quarters to a Center apartment, and that a large number of Precol's executives were taking similar liberties. Holati's stand-in, Acting Commissioner Chelly, apparently hadn't been too successful at keeping up personnel discipline. She hadn't said anything. It was true that Manon was still a precolonial planet only as a technicality. They didn't know quite as much about it as they had to know before it could be p. 204 officially released for unrestricted settling, but by now there was considerable excuse for loosening up on many of the early precautionary measures. For one thing, there were just so many Hub people around nowadays that it would have been a practical impossibility to enforce all Precol rules. What bothered her mainly about the business of Brule's Center apartment was that it might make the end of the evening less pleasant than she wanted it to be. Brule had become the least bit swacked. Not at all offensively, but he tended to get pretty ambitious then. And during the past few hours she'd noticed that something had changed in his attitude toward her. He'd always been confident of himself when it came to women, so it wasn't that. It was perhaps, Trigger thought, like an unspoken ultimatum along those lines. And she'd felt herself freezing up a little in response to the thought. The apartment was very beautiful. Nelauk, she guessed. Or somebody else like that. Brule's taste was good, but he simply wouldn't have thought of a lot of the details here. Neither, Trigger conceded, would she. Some of the details looked pretty expensive. He came back into the living room in a dressing gown, carrying a couple of drinks. It was going to get awkward, all right. "Like it?" he asked, waving a hand around. "It's beautiful," Trigger said honestly. She smiled. She sipped at the drink and placed it on the arm of her chair. "Somebody like an interior decorator help you with it?" p. 205 Brule laughed and sat down opposite her with his drink. The laugh had sounded the least bit annoyed. "You're right," he said. "How did you guess?" "You never went in for art exactly," she said. "This room is a work of art." He nodded. He didn't look annoyed any more. He looked smug. "It is, isn't it?" he said. "It didn't even cost so very much. You just have to know how, that's all." "Know how about what?" Trigger asked. "Know how to live," Brule said. "Know what it's all about. Then it's easy." He was looking at her. The smile was there. The warm, rich voice was there. All the old charm was there. It was Brule. And it wasn't. Trigger realized she was twisting her hands together. She looked down at them. The little jewel in the ring Holati Tate had given her to wear blinked back with crimson gleamings. Crimson! She drew a long, slow breath. "Brule," she said. "Yes?" said Brule. At the edge of her vision she saw the smile turn eager. Trigger said, "Give me the plasmoid." She raised her eyes and looked at him. He'd stopped smiling. Brule looked back at her a long time. At least it seemed a long time to Trigger. The smile suddenly returned. "What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, almost plaintively. "If it's a joke, I don't get it." p. 206 "I just said," Trigger repeated carefully, "give me the plasmoid. The one you stole." Brule took a swallow of his drink and put the glass down on the floor. "Aren't you feeling well?" he asked solicitously. "Give me the plasmoid." "Honestly, Trigger." He shook his head. He laughed. "What are you talking about?" "A plasmoid. The one you took. The one you've got here." Brule stood up. He studied her face, blinking, puzzled. Then he laughed, richly. "Trigger, I've fed you one drink too many! I never thought you'd let me do it. Be sensible now—if I had a plasmoid here, how could you tell?" "I can tell. Brule, I don't know how you took it or why you took it. I don't really care." And that was a lie, Trigger thought dismally. She cared. "Just give it to me, and I'll put it back. We can talk about it afterwards." "Afterwards," Brule said. The laugh came again, but it sounded a little hollow. He moved a step toward her, stopped again, hands on his hips. "Trigger," he said soberly, "if I've ever done anything you mightn't approve of, it was done for both of us. You realize that, don't you?" "I think I do," Trigger said warily. "Yes. Give it to me, Brule." Brule leaped forward. She slid sideways out of the chair to the floor as he leaped. She was crying inside, she realized vaguely. Brule was going to kill her now, if he could. p. 207 She caught his left foot with both hands as he came down, and twisted viciously. Brule shouted something. His red, furious face swept by above. He thumped to the floor beside her, one leg flung across her thighs, gripping. In colonial school Brule had received the same basic training in unarmed combat that Trigger had. He was close to eighty pounds heavier than Trigger, and it was still mostly muscle. But it was nearly four years now since he had bothered himself with drills. And he hadn't been put through Mihul's advanced students' courses lately. He stayed conscious a little less than nine seconds. The plasmoids were in a small electronic safe built into a music cabinet. The stamp to the safe was in Brule's billfold. There were three of them, about the size of mice, starfish-shaped lumps of translucent, hard, colorless jelly. They didn't move. Trigger laid them in a row on the polished surface of a small table, and blinked at them for a moment from a streaming left eye. The right eye was swelling shut. Brule had got in one wild wallop somewhere along the line. She picked up a small jar, emptied some spicy-smelling, crumbly contents out on the table, dropped the plasmoids inside, closed the jar and left the apartment with it. Brule was just beginning to stir and groan. Commissioner Tate hadn't retired yet. He let p. 208 her in without a word. Trigger put the jar down on a table. "Three of your nuts and bolts in there," she said. He nodded. "I know." "I thought you did," said Trigger. "Thanks for the quick cure. But right at the moment I don't like you very much, Holati. We can talk about that in the morning." "All right," said the Commissioner. He hesitated. "Anything that should be taken care of before then?" "It's been taken care of," Trigger said. "One of our employees has been moderately injured. I dialed the medics to go pick him up. They have. Good night." "You might let me do something for that eye," he said. Trigger shook her head. "I've got stuff in my quarters." She locked herself into her quarters, got out a jar of quick-heal and anointed the eye and a few other minor bruises. She put the jar away, made a mechanical check of the newly installed anti-intrusion devices, dimmed the lights and climbed into her bunk. For the next twenty minutes she wept violently. Then she fell asleep. An hour or so later, she turned over on her side and said without opening her eyes, "Come, Fido!" The plasmoid purse appeared just above the surface of the bunk between Trigger's pillow and p. 209 the wall. It dropped with a small thump and stood balanced uncertainly. Trigger slept on. Five minutes after that, the purse opened itself. A little later again, Trigger suddenly shifted her shoulder uneasily, frowned and made a little half-angry, half-whimpering cry. Then her face smoothed out. Her breathing grew quiet and slow. Major Heslet Quillan of the Subspace Engineers came breezing into Manon Planet's spaceport very early in the morning. A Precol aircar picked him up and let him out on a platform of the Headquarters dome near Commissioner Tate's offices. Quillan was handed on toward the offices through a string of underlings and reached the door just as it opened and Trigger Argee stepped through. He grasped her cordially by the shoulders and cried out a cheery hello. Trigger made a soft growling sound in her throat. Her left hand chopped right, her right hand chopped left. Quillan grunted and let go. "What's the matter?" he inquired, stepping back. He rubbed one arm, then the other. Trigger looked at him, growled again, walked past him, and disappeared through another door, her back very straight. "Come in, Quillan," Commissioner Tate said from within the office. Quillan went in and closed the door behind him. "What did I do?" he asked bewilderedly. "Nothing much," said Holati. "You just share the misfortune of being a male human being. At p. 210 the moment, Trigger's against 'em. She blew up the Brule Inger setup last night." "Oh!" Quillan sat down. "I never did like that idea much," he said. The Commissioner shrugged. "You don't know the girl yet. If I'd hauled Inger in, she would never have really forgiven me for it. I had to let her handle it herself. Actually she understands that." "How did it go?" "Her cover reported it was one hell of a good fight for some seconds. If you'd looked closer, you might have just spotted the traces of the shiner Inger gave her. It was a beaut last night." Quillan went white. "But if you're thinking of having a chat with Inger re that part of it," the Commissioner went on, "forget it." He glanced at a report from the medical department on his desk. "Dislocated shoulder ... broken thumb ... moderate concussion. And so on. It was the throat punch that finished the matter. He can't talk yet. We'll call it square." Quillan grunted. "What are you going to do with him now?" "Nothing," Holati said. "We know his contacts. Why bother? He'll resign end of the month." Quillan cleared his throat and glanced at the door. "I suppose she'll want him put up for rehabilitation—seemed pretty fond of him." "Relax, son," said the Commissioner. "Trigger's an individualist. If Inger goes up for rehabilitation, it will be because he wants it. And he doesn't, of course. Being a slob suits him fine. p. 211 He's just likely to be more cautious about it in future. So we'll let him go his happy way. Now—let's get down to business. How does Pluly's yacht harem stack up?" A reminiscent smile spread slowly over Quillan's face. He shook his head. "Awesome, brother!" he said. "Plain awesome!" "Pick up anything useful?" "Nothing definite. But whenever Belchy comes out of the esthetic trances, he's a worried man. Count him in." "For sure?" "Yes." "All right. He's in. Crack the Aurora yet?" "No," said Quillan. "The girls are working on it. But the Ermetyne keeps a mighty taut ship and a mighty disciplined crew. We'll have a couple of those boys wrapped up in another week. No earlier." "A week might be soon enough," said the Commissioner. "It also might not." "I know it," said Quillan. "But the Aurora does look a little bit obvious, doesn't she?" "Yes," Holati Tate admitted. "Just a little bit." p. 212 <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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