Trigger straightened up. She reached out and poked Rak's bony chest with a finger tip. "You know something?" she said. "It's not!"
The four faces lit up together.
"The fact is," Trigger went on, "that I'm handling the Project budget until someone shows up to take over. So I think I'll just buy you that Federation battle squad, Rak! I'll get on it right away." She stood up. The Juniors bounced automatically out of their chairs. "You go tell your guard Captain," she instructed them from the hall door, "there'll be a squad showing up in time for dinner tonight."
The Federation Police Office in Ceyce informed Trigger that a Class A Battle Squad—twenty trained men with full equipment—would report for two months' duty at the Colonial School during the afternoon. She made them out a check and gave it the Ruya Farn signature via telewriter. The figure on that check was going to cause some U-League auditor's eyebrows to fly off the top of his head one of these days; but if the League insisted on remaining aloof to the problems of its Plasmoid Project, a little financial anguish was the least it could expect in return.
Trigger felt quite cheerful for a while.
Then she had a call from Precol's Maccadon office. She was requested to stand by while a personal interstellar transmission was switched to her ComWeb.
It looked like her day! She hummed softly, waiting. She knew just one individual affluent enough to be able to afford personal interstellar conversations; and that was Commissioner Tate. Fast work, Plemp, she thought approvingly.
But it was Brule Inger's face that flashed into view on the ComWeb. Trigger's heart jumped. Her breath caught in her throat.
"Brule!" she yelled then. She shot up out of her chair. "Where are you calling from?"