you people doing? Looking for Gess Fayle and the key
unit?"

Holati Tate said, "That's about it. We're one of a few thousand
Federation groups assigned to the same general job. Each group works at
its specialties, and the information gets correlated." He paused. "The
Federation Council--they're the ones we're working for directly--the
Council's biggest concern is the very delicate political situation
that's involved. They feel it could develop suddenly into a dangerous
one. They may be right."

"In what way?" Trigger asked.

"Well, suppose that key unit is lost and stays lost. Suppose all the
other plasmoids put together don't contain enough information to show
how the Old Galactics produced the things and got them to operate."

"Somebody would get that worked out pretty soon, wouldn't they?"

"Not necessarily, or even probably, according to Mantelish and some
other people who know what's happened. There seem to be too many basic
factors missing. It might be necessary to develop a whole new class of
sciences first. And that could take a few centuries."

"Well," Trigger admitted, "I could get along without the things
indefinitely."

"Same here," the plasmoid nabob agreed ungratefully. "Weird beasties!
But--let's see. At present there are twelve hundred and fifty-eight
member worlds to the Federation, aren't there?"

"More or less."

"And the number of planetary confederacies, subplanetary governments,
industrial, financial and commercial combines, assorted power groups,
etc. and so on, is something I'd hate to have to calculate."

"What are you driving at?" she asked.

"They've all been told we're heading for a new golden age, courtesy of
the plasmoid science. Practically everybody has believed it. Now there's
considerable doubt."

"Oh," she said. "Of course--practically everybody is going to get very
unhappy, eh?"

"That," said Commissioner Tate, "is only a little of it."

"Yes, the thing isn't just lost. Somebody's got it."

"Very likely."

Trigger nodded. "Fayle's ship might have got wrecked accidentally, of
course. But the way he took off shows he planned to disappear--a
crack-up on top of that would be too much of a coincidence. So any one
of umpteen thousands of organizations in the Hub might be the one that
has that plasmoid now!"

"Including," said Holati, "any one of the two hundred and fourteen
restricted worlds. Their treaties of limitation wouldn't have let them
get into the plasmoid pi