The Missionary Captain was a tall, gray-haired, gray-eyed, square-jawed man in uniform. After confirming to his satisfaction that Trigger was indeed in charge, he informed her in chilled tones that the Devagas Union would hold her personally responsible for the unprovoked outrage unless an apology was promptly forthcoming.
Trigger apologized promptly. He acknowledged with a curt nod.
"The ship will now require new spacepaint," he pointed out, unmollified.
Trigger nodded. "We'll send a work squad out immediately."
"We," the Missionary Captain said, "shall supervise the work. Only the best grade of paint will be acceptable!"
"The very best only," Trigger agreed.
He gave her another curt nod, and switched off.
"Ass," she said. She cut in the don't-disturb barrier and dialed Holati's ship.
It took a while to get through; he was probably busy somewhere in the crate. Like Belchik Pluly, the Commissioner, while still a very wealthy man, would have been a very much wealthier one if it weren't for his hobby. In his case, the hobby was ships, of which he now owned two. What made them expensive was that they had been tailor-made to the Commissioner's specifications, and his specifications had provided him with two rather exact duplicates of the two types of Scout fighting ships in which Squadron Commander Tate had made space hideous for evildoers in the good old days. Nobody as yet had got up the nerve to point out to him that private battlecraft definitely were not allowable in the Manon System.
He came on finally. Trigger told him about the Devagas. "Did you know those characters were in the area?" she asked.