Part 10 (1/2)

Trigger shook her head. ”It isn't being dropped very fast!” she observed.

”I told you I couldn't tell it backwards,” the Commissioner said patiently. ”All right if we start filling in the background now?”

”I guess we'd better,” she admitted.

”Fine,” said Commissioner Tate. He got to his feet. ”Then let's go join Mantelish.”

”Why the professor?”

”He could help a lot with the explaining. If he's in the mood. Anyway he's got a kind of pet I'd like you to look at.”

”A pet!” cried Trigger. She shook her head again and stood up resignedly. ”Lead on, Commissioner!”

They joined Mantelish and his plasmoid weirdie in what looked like the dining room of what had looked like an old-fas.h.i.+oned hunting lodge when the aircar came diving down on it between two ice-sheeted mountain peaks. Trigger wasn't sure in just what section of the main continent they were; but there were only two or three alternatives--it was high in the mountains, and night came a lot faster here than it did around Ceyce.

She greeted Mantelish and sat down at the table. Then the Commissioner locked the doors and introduced her to the professor's pet.

”It's labelled 113-A,” he said now. ”Even the professor isn't certain he could distinguish between the two. Right, Mantelish?”

”That is true,” said Mantelish, ”at present.” He was a very big, rather fat but healthy-looking old man with a thick thatch of white hair and a ruddy face. ”Without a physical comparison--” He shrugged.

”What's so important about the critter?” Trigger asked, eyeing the leech again. One good thing about it, she thought--it wasn't equipped to eye her back.

”It goes back to the time,” the Commissioner said, ”when Mantelish and Fayle and Azol were conducting the first League investigation of the plasmoids on Harvest Moon. You recall the situation?”

”If you mean their attempts to get the things to show some signs of life, I do, naturally.”

”One of them got lively enough for poor old Azol, didn't it?” Professor Mantelish rumbled from his armchair.

Trigger grimaced. Doctor Azol's fate might be one of the things that had given her a negative att.i.tude towards plasmoids. With Mantelish and Doctor Gess Fayle, Azol had been the third of the three big U-League boys in charge of the initial investigation on Harvest Moon. As she remembered it, it was Azol who discovered that Plasmoids occasionally could be induced to absorb food. Almost any kind of food, it turned out, so long as it contained a sufficient quant.i.ty of protein. What had happened to Azol looked like a particularly unfortunate result of the discovery. It was a.s.sumed an untimely coronary had been the reason he had fallen helplessly into the feeding trough of one of the largest plasmoids. By the time he was found, all of him from the knees on up already had been absorbed.

”I meant your efforts to get them to work,” she said.

Commissioner Tate looked at Mantelish. ”You tell her about that part of it,” he suggested.

Mantelish shook his head. ”I'd get too technical,” he said resignedly.

”I always do. At least they say so. You tell her.”

But Holati Tate's eyes had s.h.i.+fted suddenly to the table. ”Hey, now!” he said in a low voice.

Trigger followed his gaze. After a moment she made a soft, sucking sound of alarmed distaste.

”Ugh!” she remarked. ”It's moving!”

”So it is,” Holati said.

”Towards me!” said Trigger. ”I think--”

”Don't get startled. Mantelis.h.!.+”