"I don't think they are. Imported talent of some kind, for my money. Anyway, if someone wants to pick up Trigger Argee here, he'd better come in with a battleship."
Plemponi glanced nervously across the balcony at the cloudless blue sky about the quadrangle.
"The impression I got from Holati Tate," he said, "is that somebody might."
2
There was a tube portal at the end of the hall outside Doctor Plemponi's office. Mihul stepped into the portal, punched the number of her personal quarters, waited till the overhead light flashed green a few seconds later, and stepped out into another hall seventeen floors below Plemponi's office and a little over a mile and a half away from it.
Mihul crossed the hall, went into her apartment, locked the door behind her and punched a shield button. In her bedroom, she opened a wall safe and swung out a high-powered transmitter. She switched the transmitter to active.
"Yes?" said a voice.
"Mihul here," said Mihul. "Quillan or the Commissioner...."
"Quillan here," the transmitter said a few seconds later in a different voice, a deep male one. "Go ahead, doll."
Mihul grunted. "I'm calling," she said, "because I feel strongly that you boys had better take some immediate action in the Argee matter."