companions again and apparently received some undetectable sign of consent. "Miss Farn, as you know, our group has been entrusted with the care of two League plasmoids here. Are you aware that six of the plasmoids which were distributed to responsible laboratories throughout the Hub have been lost to unknown raiders?"

She was startled. "No, I didn't know that. I heard there'd been some unsuccessful attempts to steal distributed plasmoids."

"These six attempts," Rak said primly, "were completely successful. One must assume that the victimized laboratories also had been regarded as raidproof."

Trigger admitted it was a reasonable assumption.

"There is another matter," Rak went on. "When we arrived here, we understood Doctor Gess Fayle was to bring Plasmoid Unit 112-113 to this project. It seems possible that Doctor Fayle's failure to appear indicates that League Headquarters does not consider the project a sufficiently safe place for 112-113."

"Why don't you ask Headquarters?" Trigger suggested.

They stirred nervously.

"That would be a violation of the Principle of the Chain of Command, Miss Farn!" Rak explained.

"Oh," she said. The Juniors were overdisciplined, all right. "Is that 112-113 such a particularly important item?"

"If Doctor Fayle is in personal charge of it," Rak said carefully, "I would say yes."

Recalling her meetings with Doctor Gess Fayle in the Manon System, Trigger silently agreed. He was one of the U-League's big shots, a political scientist who had got himself appointed as Mantelish's chief assistant when that eminent biologist was first sent to Manon to take over League operations there. Trigger had disliked Fayle on sight, and hadn't changed her mind on closer acquaintance.

"I remember that 112-113 unit now," she said suddenly. "Big, ugly thing—well, that describes a lot of them, doesn't it?"

Rak and the others looked quietly affronted. In a moment, Trigger realized, one of them was going to go into a lecture on functional esthetics unless she could head them off—and she'd already heard quite enough about functional esthetics in connection with the plasmoids.

"Now, 113," she hurried on, "is a very small plasmoid"—she held her hands fifteen inches or so 

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