him alone.

"Sit down," he said. "I've been trying to get hold of Mantelish for the
past hour. He's over on the other side of the planet again."

Trigger sat down and lifted an eyebrow. "Should he be?"

"I don't think so," said Holati. "But I've been overruled on that. He's
still the best man the Federation has working on the various plasmoid
problems, so I'm not to interfere with his investigations any more than
I can show is absolutely necessary. It's probably all right. Those
U-League guards of his aren't a bad group."

"If they compare with the boys the League had watching the Plasmoid
Project, they should be just about tops," Trigger said.

"The Space Scouts thank you for those kind words," the Commissioner told
her. "Those weren't League guards. When it came to deciding who was to
keep an eye on you, I overruled everybody."

She smiled. "I might have guessed it. What's there for the professor to
be investigating on the other side of Manon?"

"He's hunting for some theoretical creatures he calls wild plasmoids."

"_Wild_ plasmoids?"

"Uh-huh. His idea is that some of the plasmoids the Old Galactics were
using on Manon might have got away from them, or just been left lying
around, so to speak, and could have survived till now. He thinks they
might even be reproducing themselves. He's looking for them with a
special detector he built."

Trigger held up a finger on which was a slim gold ring with a small
green stone in it. "Like this one?" she asked.

"He's got a large version of that type of detector with him too. But he
thinks that if any wild plasmoids are around, they're likely to be along
the lines of 113-A. So he's also constructed a detector which reacts to
113-A."

"I see." Trigger was silent a moment. "Does Mantelish have any idea why
Repulsive is the only plasmoid known to which our ring detectors don't
react?"

"Apparently he does," Holati said. "But when he starts in on those
subjects, I find him difficult to follow." He looked soberly at Trigger.
"There are times," he confessed, "when I suspect Professor Mantelish is
somewhat daft. But probably he's just so brilliant that he keeps fading
beyond my mental range."

Trigger laughed. "My father used to come home from a session with
Mantelish muttering the same sort of thing." She glanced at the ring
again. "By the way, have any plasmoids actually been stolen around here
for us to detect?"

He nodded. "Quite a few have been snitched from Har