d what's everybody concluded from that?"

"They want 113-A in a very bad way. So they need it."

"In connection with the key unit?" Trigger asked.

"Probably."

"That makes everything look very much better, doesn't it?"

"Quite a little," he said. "The unit may not work, or may not work
satisfactorily, unless 113-A is in the area. Mantelish talks of
something he calls proximity influence. Whatever that is, 113-A has
demonstrated it has it."

"So," Trigger said, "they might have two thirds of what everybody wants,
and you might have one third. Right here on the table. How many of the
later raiders did you catch?"

"All of them," said the Commissioner. "Around forty. We got them dead,
we got them alive. It didn't make much difference. They were hired
hands. Very expensive hired hands, but still just that. Most of them
didn't know a thing we could use. The ones that did know something were
mind-blocked again."

"I thought," Trigger said reflectively, "you could _un_block someone
like that."

"You can, sometimes. If you're very good at it and if you have time
enough. We couldn't afford to wait a year. They died before they could
tell us anything."

There was a pause. Then Trigger asked, "How did you get involved in
this, personally?"

"More or less by accident," the Commissioner said. "It was in connection
with our second lead."

"That's me, huh?" she said unhappily.

"Yes."

"Why would anyone want to grab me? I don't know anything."

He shook his head. "We haven't found out yet. We're hoping we will, in a
very few days."

"Is that one of the things you can't tell me about?"

"I can tell you most of what I know at the moment," said the
Commissioner. "Remember the night we stopped off at Evalee on the way in
from Manon?"

"Yes," she said. "That big hotel!"

8

"About an hour after you'd decided to hit the bunk," Holati said, "I
portaled back to your rooms to pick up some Precol reports we'd been
setting up."

Trigger nodded. "I remember the reports."

"A couple of characters were working on your doors when I got there.
They went for their guns, unfortunately. But I called the nearest Scout
Intelligence office and had them dead-brained."

"Why that?" she asked.

"It could have been an accident--a couple of ordinary thugs. But their
equipment looked a little too good for ordinary thugs. I didn't know
just what to be suspicious of, but I got suspicious anyway."

"That's you, all right