"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 apart—"like that; and it's attached to the big one. Correct?"
Rak nodded, a little stiffly. "Essentially correct, Miss Farn."
"Well," Trigger said, "I can't blame you for worrying a bit. How about your Guard Captain? Isn't it all right to ask him about reinforcements?"
Rak pursed his lips. "Yes. And I did. This morning. Before I called you."
"What did he say?"
Rak grimaced unhappily. "He implied, Miss Farn, that his present guard complement could handle any emergency. How would he know?"
"That's his job," Trigger pointed out gently. The Juniors did look badly worried. "He didn't have any helpful ideas?"
"None," said Rak. "He said that if someone wanted to put up the money to hire a battle squad of Special Federation Police, he could always find some use for them. But that's hopeless, of course."