He let go of her left arm, presumably to reach for the handcuffs. She twisted around on him and went into fast action.

She was fairly proficient at the practice of unarmed mayhem. The trouble was that the big ape she was trying the stuff on seemed at least as adept and with twice her muscle. She lost a precious instant finding out that the Denton was no longer in her robe pocket. After that she never got back the initiative. It didn't help either that the car suddenly seemed to be trying to fly in three directions at once.

All in all, about forty seconds pa.s.sed before she was plumped back on the seat, her hands behind her again, linked at the wrists by the smooth plastic cords of the cuffs. The ape stood behind the driver, his hands resting on the back of the seat. He wasn't, Trigger observed bitterly, even breathing hard. The view plate was full of the cottony whiteness of a cloud heart. They seemed to be dropping again.

One more violent swerve and they came flashing out into wet gray cloud-shadow and on into brilliant sunlight.

A few seconds pa.s.sed. Then the ape remarked, "Looks like you lost them, chum."

"Right," said the driver. "Almost at the river now. I'll turn north there and drop down."

"Right," said the ape. "Get us that far and we'll be out of trouble."

A few minutes pa.s.sed in silence. Presently Trigger sensed they were slowing and losing alt.i.tude. Then a line of trees flashed by in the view plate. "Nice flying!" the ape said. He punched the driver approvingly in the shoulder and turned back to Trigger.

They looked at each other for a few seconds. He was tall, dark-eyed, very deeply tanned, with thick sloping shoulders. He probably wasn't more than five or six years older than she was. He was studying her curiously, and his eyes were remarkably steady. Something stirred in her for a moment, a small chill of fear. Something pa.s.sed through her thoughts, a vague odd impression, like a half aroused memory, of huge, cold, dangerous things far away. It was gone before she could grasp it more clearly. She frowned.

The ape smiled. It wasn't, Trigger saw, an entirely unpleasant face.

"Sorry the party got rough," he said. "Will you give parole if I take those cuffs off and tell you what this is about?"

She studied him again. "Better tell me first," she said shortly.

"All right. We're taking you to Commissioner Tate. We'll be there in about an hour. He'll tell you himself why he wanted to see you."

Trigger's eyes narrowed for an instant. Secretly she felt very much relieved. Holati Tate, at any rate, wouldn't let anything really unpleasant happen to her--and she would find out at last what had been going on.

"You've got an odd way of taking people places," she observed.

He laughed. "The grabber party wasn't scheduled. You'd indicated you wanted to speak to the Commissioner. We were sent to the Colonial School to pick you up and escort you to him. When we found out you'd disappeared, we had to do some fast improvising. Not my business to tell you the reasons for that."

Trigger said hesitantly, "Those people who were chasing this car--"

"What about them?" he asked thoughtfully.

"Were they after _me_?"

"Well," he said, "they weren't after me. Better let the Commissioner tell you about that, too. Now--how about parole?"

She nodded. "Till you turn me over to the Commissioner."

"Fair enough," he said. "You're his problem then." He took a small flat piece of metal out of a pocket and reached back of her with it. He didn't seem to do more than touch the cuffs, but she felt the slick coils loosen and drop away.

Trigger rubbed her wrists. "Where's my gun?" she asked.

"I've got it. I'll give it to the Commissioner."

"How did you people find me so fast?"

"Police keep bank entrances under twenty-four hour visual survey. We had someone watching their screens. You were spotted going in." He sat down companionably beside her. "I'd introduce myself, but I don't know if that would fit in with the Commissioner's plans."

Trigger shrugged. It still was quite possible, she decided, that her own plans weren't completely spoiled. Holati and his friends didn't necessarily know about that vault account. If they did know she'd had one and had closed it out, they could make a pretty good guess at what she'd done with the money. But if she just kept quiet, there might be an opportunity to get back to Ceyce and the Dawn City by tomorrow evening.

"Cigarette?" the Commissioner's overmuscled henchman inquired amiably.

Trigger glanced at him from the side. Not amiably. "No, thanks."

"No hard feelings, are there?" He looked surprised.

"Yes," she said evenly. "There are."

"Maybe," the driver suggested from the front, "what Miss Argee could do with is a shot of Puya. Flask's in my coat pocket. Left side."

"There's an idea," remarked Trigger's companion. He looked at her. "It's very good Puya."

"So choke on it," Trigger told him gently. She settled back into the corner of the seat and closed her eyes. "You can wake me up when we get to the Commissioner."

"In some way," Holati Tate said, "this little item here seems to be at the core of the whole plasmoid problem. Know what it is?"

Trigger looked at the little item with some revulsion. Dark green, marbled with pink streakings, it lay on the table between them, rather like a plump leech a foot and a half long. It was motionless except that the end nearest her shifted in a short arc from side to side, as if the thing suffered from a very slow twitch.

"One of the plasmoids obviously," she said. "A jumpy one." She blinked at it. "Looks like that 113. Is it?"

She glanced around. Commissioner Tate and Professor Mantelish, who sat in an armchair off to her right, were staring at her, eyebrows up, apparently surprised about something. "What's the matter?" she asked.

"We're just wondering," said Holati, "how you happen to remember 113, in particular, out of the thousands of plasmoids on Harvest Moon."

"Oh. One of the Junior Scientists on your Project mentioned the 112-113 unit. That brought it to mind. Is this 113?"

"No," said Holati Tate. "But it appears to be a duplicate of it." He was a mild-looking little man, well along in years, spa.r.s.e and spruce in his Precol uniform. The small gray eyes in the sun-darkened, leathery face weren't really mild, if you considered them more closely, or if you knew the Commissioner.

"Have to fill you in on some of the background first, Trigger girl,"

he'd said, when she was brought to his little private office and inquired with some heat what the devil was up. The tall grabber hadn't come into the office with her. He asked the Commissioner from the door whether he should get Professor Mantelish to the conference room, and the Commissioner nodded. Then the door closed and the two of them were alone.

"I know it's looked odd," Commissioner Tate admitted, "but the circ.u.mstances have been very odd. Still are. And I didn't want to worry you any more than I had to."

Trigger, unmollified, pointed out that the methods he'd used not to worry her hardly had been soothing.

"I know that, too," said the Commissioner. "But if I'd told you everything immediately, you would have had reason enough to be worried for the past two months, rather than just for a day or so. The situation has improved now, very considerably. In fact, in another few days you shouldn't have any more reason to worry at all." He smiled briefly. "At least, no more than the rest of us."

Trigger felt a bit dry-lipped suddenly. "I do at present?" she asked.

"You did till today. There's been some pretty heavy heat on you, Trigger girl. We're switching most of it off tonight. For good, I think."

"You mean some heat will be left?"

"In a way," he said. "But that should be cleared up too in the next three or four days. Anyway we can drop most of the mystery act tonight."