Then Virod showed up again with a flat tray of what turned out to be a very special brand of tobacco. Trigger declined. The men made connoisseur-type sounds of high appreciation, and everybody, including Lyad, lit up small pipes of a very special brand of coral and puffed away happily. Quillan looked up at Virod.
"Hi, big boy!" he said pleasantly. "How's everything been with you?"
Virod, in a wide-sleeved scarlet jacket and creased black trousers, bowed his shaved bullet head very slightly. "Everything's been fine, Major Quillan," he said. "Thank you." He turned and went out of the place. Trigger glanced after him. Virod awed her a little—he was really huge. Moving about among them, he had seemed like a softly padding elephant. And there was an elephant's steady deftness in the way he held out the tiny tobacco trays.
The Ermetyne winked at Quillan. "Quillan wrestled Virod to a pindown once," she said to Trigger. "A fifty-seven minute round, wasn't it?"
"Thereabouts," Quillan said. He added, "Trigger doesn't know yet that I was a sports bum in my youth."
"Really?" Trigger said.
He nodded. "Come from a long line of sports bums, as a matter of fact. But I broke tradition—went into business for myself finally. Nowadays I'm old and soft. Eh, Belchy?" The two great pals, sitting side by side, dug elbows at each other and ha-ha-ha'd. Trigger winced.
"Still in the same line of business, on the side?" Lyad inquired.
Quillan looked steadily at her and grinned. "More or less," he said.
"We might," Lyad said thoughtfully, "come back to that later. As for that match with Virod," she went on to Trigger, "it was really a terrific event! Virod was a Tranest arena professional before I took him into my personal employ, and he's very, very rarely been beaten in any such contest." She laughed. "And before such a large group of people too! I'm afraid he's never quite forgiven you for that, Quillan."