Part 26 (2/2)

”Bring in Pilli,” she told him.

Virod bowed. ”Pilli is in the room, First Lady.” He glanced about, went over to a ma.s.sive 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?”

Lyad looked pleased. ”No. He's a biostructure. A very intelligent one, but speech isn't included in his pattern.”

Trigger kept looking at the golden-furred nightmare. ”How can he see to guard you through all that hair?”

”He doesn't see,” Lyad said. ”At least not as we do. Pilli's part of one of our Tranest experiments--the original stock came from the Maccadon life banks, a small golden-haired Earth monkey. The present level of the experiment is on the fancy side--it has four hearts, for example, and what amounts to a second brain at the lower half of its spine. But it doesn't come equipped with visual organs. Pilli is one of twenty-three of the type. They have compensatory perception of a kind that is still quite mysterious. We hope to breed them past the speech barrier so they can tell us what they do instead of seeing.... All right, Pilli. Run along!” She said to Balmordan, ”I believe he doesn't like that Vethi thing of yours very much.”

Balmordan nodded. ”I had the same impression.”

Perhaps, Trigger thought, that was why Pilli had been lurking so close to them. She watched the biostructure move off down the terrace, grotesque and huge. She had got its scent as it went past her, a fresh, rather pleasant whiff, like the smell of ripe apples. An almost amiable sort of nightmare figure, Pilli was; the apple smell went with that, seemed to fit it. But nightmare was there too. She found herself feeling rather sorry for Pilli.

”In a way,” Lyad said, ”Pilli brings us to that matter of business I mentioned this afternoon.”

The group's eyes s.h.i.+fted over to her. She smiled.

”We have good scientists on Tranest,” she said, ”as Pilli, I think, demonstrates.” She nodded at Balmordan. ”There are good scientists in the Devagas Union. And everyone here is aware that the Treaties of Restriction imposed on both our governments have made it impossible for our citizens to engage seriously in plasmoid research.”

Trigger nodded briefly as the light-amber eyes paused on her for a moment. Quillan had cautioned her not to show surprise at anything the Ermetyne might say or do. If Trigger didn't know what to say herself, she was merely to look inscrutable. ”I'll scrut,” he explained. ”The others won't. I'll take over then and you just follow my lead. Get it?”

”Balmordan,” Lyad said, ”I understand you are going to Manon to attend the seminars and demonstrations on the plasmoid station?”

”That is true, First Lady,” said Balmordan.

”Now I,” Lyad told the company, ”shall be more honest. The information released in those seminars is of no value whatever. He”--she nodded at the Devagas scientist--”and I are going to Manon with the same goal in mind. That is to obtain plasmoids for our government laboratories.”

Balmordan smiled amiably.

Trigger asked. ”How do you intend to obtain them?”

”By offering very large sums of money, or equivalent inducements, to people who are in a position to get them for me,” said Lyad.

Quillan tut-tutted disapprovingly. ”The First Lady's mind,” he told Trigger, ”turns readily to illegal methods.”

”When necessary,” Lyad said undisturbed, ”as it is here.”

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