ubicle area. It
might have been sent after somebody there. Apparently it ran into the
two men and killed them on the spot. The officer got off one shot and
that set off the automatic alarms. So pussy cat couldn't finish the job
that time."

"It's all sort of gruesome, isn't it?" Trigger said.

"Catassins are," Quillan agreed. "That's a fact."

Trigger took another sip. She set down her glass. "There's something
else," she said reluctantly.

"Yes?"

"When you said you'd come on board to see I got to Manon, I was thinking
none of the people who'd been after me on Maccadon could know I was on
the Dawn City. They might though. Quite easily."

"Oh?" said Quillan.

"Yes. You see I made two calls to the ticket office. One from a street
ComWeb and one from the bank. If they already had spotted me by that
tracer material, they could have had an audio pick-up on me, I suppose."

"I think we'd better suppose it," said Quillan. "You had a tail when you
came out of the bank anyway." His glance went past her. "We'll get back
to that later. Right now, take a look at that entrance, will you?"

Trigger turned in the direction he'd indicated.

"They do look like they're somebody important," she said. "Do you know
them?"

"Some of them. That gentleman who looks like he almost has to be the
Dawn City's First Captain really is the Dawn City's First Captain. The
lady he's escorting into the lounge is Lyad Ermetyne. The Ermetyne.
You've heard of the Ermetynes?"

"The Ermetyne Wars? Tranest?" Trigger said doubtfully.

"They're the ones. Lyad is the current head of the clan."

The history of Hub systems other than one's own became so involved so
rapidly that its detailed study was engaged in only by specialists.
Trigger wasn't one. "Tranest is one of the restricted planets now, isn't
it?" she ventured.

"It is. Restriction is supposed to be a handicap. But Tranest is also
one of the wealthiest individual worlds in the Hub."

Trigger watched the woman with some interest as the party moved along a
dim corridor, followed by the viewer circuit's invisible pick-up. Lyad
Ermetyne didn't look more than a few years older than she was herself.
Rather small, slender, with delicately pretty features. She wore
something ankle-length and long-sleeved in lusterless gray with an odd,
smoky quality to it.

"Isn't she the empress of Tranest or something of the sort?" Trigger
asked.

Quillan shook his head. "They've had no emperors there,