Holati took a towel from beneath the table and spread it out. "Absorbent material," he said. "Lay it on that and just let it dry. That's what we used to do."
Trigger shook her head. "Next thing, I'll be changing its diapers!"
"It isn't that bad," the Commissioner said. "Anyway, you will adopt baby, won't you?"
"I suppose I have to." She placed the plasmoid on the towel, wiped her hands and stepped back from it. "What happens if it falls on the floor?"
"Nothing," Holati said. "It just moves on in the direction it was going. Pretty hard to hurt those things."
"In that case," Trigger said, "let's check out its container now."
The Commissioner took Repulsive's container out of a desk safe and handed it to her. Its outer appearance was that of a neat modern woman's handbag with a shoulder strap. It had an antigrav setting which would reduce its overall weight, with the plasmoid inside, down to nine ounces if Trigger wanted it that way. It also had a combination lock, unmarked, virtually invisible, the settings of which Trigger already had memorized. Without knowing the settings, a determined man using a high-powered needle blaster might have opened the handbag in around nine hours. A very special job.
Trigger ran through the settings, opened the container and peered inside. "Rather cramped," she observed.
"Not for one of them. We needed room for the gadgetry."
"Yes," she said. "Subspace rotation." She shook her head. "Is that another Space Scout invention?"