cked
up some signal Trigger hadn't noticed, for he went over to the wall now
and touched something there. A release button apparently. The door to
the room opened. Trigger's grabber came in. The door closed behind him.
He was carrying a tray with a squat brown flask and four rather small
glasses on it.

He gave Trigger a grin. She gave him a tentative smile in return. The
Commissioner had introduced him: Heslet Quillan--Major Heslet Quillan,
of the Subspace Engineers. For a Subspace Engineer, Trigger had thought
skeptically, he was a pretty good grabber. But there was a qualified
truce in the room. It would last, at least, until Holati finished his
explaining. There was no really good reason not to include Major Quillan
in it.

"Ah, Puya!" Professor Mantelish exclaimed, advancing on the tray as
Quillan set it on the table. Mantelish seemed to have forgotten about
plasmoid experiments for the moment, and Trigger didn't intend to remind
him. She drew her hand back quietly from 113-A. The professor
unstoppered the flask. "You'll have some, Trigger, I'm sure? The only
really good thing the benighted world of Rumli ever produced."

"My great-grandmother," Trigger remarked, "was a Rumlian." She watched
him fill the four glasses with a thin purple liquid. "I've never tried
it; but yes, thanks."

Quillan put one of the glasses in front of her.

"And we shall drink," Mantelish suggested, with a suave flourish of his
Puya, "to your great-grandmother!"

"We shall also," suggested Major Quillan, pulling a chair up to the
table for himself, "Advise Trigger to take a very small sip on her first
go at the stuff."

Nobody had invited him to sit down. But nobody was objecting either.
Well, that fitted, Trigger thought.

She sipped. It was tart and hot. Very hot. She set the glass back on the
table, inhaled with difficulty, exhaled quiveringly. Tears gathered in
her eyes.

"Very good!" she husked.

"Very good," the Commissioner agreed. He put down his empty glass and
smacked his lips lightly. "And now," he said briskly, "let's get on with
this conference."

Trigger glanced around the room while Quillan refilled three glasses.
The small live coal she had swallowed was melting away; a warm glow
began to spread through her. It did look like the dining room of a
hunting lodge. The woodwork was dark, old-looking, worn with much
polishing. Horned heads of various formidable Maccadon life-forms
adorned the walls.

But it was o