Legacy | Page 8

Hub population on Manon
Planet had just passed the forty-three thousand mark. There had been,
Trigger recalled, a trifle nostalgically, barely eight hundred Precol
employees, and not another human being, on that world in the days
before Holati Tate announced his discovery.
She was just letting the viewer panel slide back into the desk when the
office ComWeb gave forth with a musical ping. She switched it on.
"Hi, Rak!" she said cheerily. "Anything new?"
The bony-faced young man looking out at her wore the lusterless black
uniform of a U-League Junior Scientist. His expression was worried.
He said, "I believe there is, Miss Farn." Rak was the group leader of the
thirty-four Junior Scientists the League had installed in the Project.
Like all the Juniors, he took his duties very seriously. "Unfortunately
it's nothing I can discuss over a communicator. Would it be possible for
you to come over and meet with us during the day?"
"That," Trigger stated, "was a ridiculous question, Rak! Want me over
right now?"

He grinned. "Thanks, Miss Farn! In twenty minutes then? I'll get my
advisory committee together and we can meet in the little conference
room off the Exhibition Hall."
Trigger nodded. "I'll be wandering around the Hall. Just send a guard
out to get me when you're ready."

3
She switched off the ComWeb and stood up. Rak and his group were
stuck with the Plasmoid Project a lot more solidly than she was. They'd
been established here, confined to their own wing of the Project area,
when she came in from Manon with the Commissioner. Until the
present security rulings were relaxed--which might not be for another
two years--they would remain on the project.
Trigger felt a little sorry for them, though the Junior Scientists didn't
seem to mind the setup. Dedication stood out all over them. Since about
half were young women, one could assume that at any rate they weren't
condemned to a completely monastic existence.
A couple of workmen were guiding a dozen big cleaning robots around
the Plasmoid Exhibition Hall, which wouldn't be open to students or
visitors for another few hours. Trigger strolled across the floor of the
huge area toward a couple of exhibits that hadn't been there the last
time she'd come through. Life-sized replicas of two O.G.
Plasmoids--Numbers 1432 and 1433--she discovered. She regarded the
waxy-looking, lumpish, partially translucent forms with some distaste.
She'd been all over the Old Galactic Station itself, and might have
stood close enough to the originals of these models to touch them. Not
that she would have.
She glanced at her watch, walked around a scale model of Harvest
Moon, the O.G. station, which occupied the center of the Hall, and
went on among the exhibits. There were views taken on Manon Planet
in one alcove, mainly of Manon's aerial plankton belt and of the giant

plasmoids called Harvesters which had moved about the belt,
methodically engulfing its clouds of living matter. A whale-sized
replica of a Harvester dominated one end of the Hall, a giant dark-green
sausage in external appearance, though with some extremely fancy
internal arrangements.
"Miss Farn...."
She turned. A League cop, standing at the entrance of a hallway thirty
feet away, pitched her the old flourish and followed it up with a bow.
Excellent manners these guard boys had!
Trigger gave him a smile.
"Coming," she said.
Junior Scientist Rak and his advisory committee--two other young men
and a young woman--were waiting in the conference room for her.
They all stood up when she came in. This room marked the border of
their territory; they would have violated several League rules by
venturing out into the hall through which Trigger had entered.
And that would have been unthinkable.
Rak did the talking, as on the previous occasions when Trigger had met
with this group. The advisory committee simply sat there and watched
him. As far as Trigger could figure it, they were present at these
sessions only to check Rak if it looked as if he were about to commit
some ghastly indiscretion.
"We were wondering, Miss Farn," Rak said questioningly, "whether
you have the authority to requisition additional University League
guards for the Plasmoid Project?"
Trigger shook her head. "I've got no authority of any kind that I know
of, as far as the League is concerned. No doubt Professor Mantelish
could arrange it for you."

Rak nodded. "Is it possible for you to contact Professor Mantelish?"
"No," Trigger said. She smiled. "Is it possible for you to contact him?"
Rak glanced around his committee as if looking for approval, then said,
"No, it isn't. As a matter of fact, Miss Farn, we've been isolated here in
the most curious fashion for the past few weeks."
"So have I," said Miss Farn.
Rak looked