He came back into the living room in a dressing gown, carrying a couple of drinks. It was going to get awkward, all right.

"Like it?" he asked, waving a hand around.

"It's beautiful," Trigger said honestly. She smiled. She sipped at the drink and placed it on the arm of her chair. "Somebody like an interior decorator help you with it?"

Brule laughed and sat down opposite her with his drink. The laugh had sounded the least bit annoyed. "You're right," he said. "How did you guess?"

"You never went in for art exactly," she said. "This room is a work of art."

He nodded. He didn't look annoyed any more. He looked smug. "It is, isn't it?" he said. "It didn't even cost so very much. You just have to know how, that's all."

"Know how about what?" Trigger asked.

"Know how to live," Brule said. "Know what it's all about. Then it's easy."

He was looking at her. The smile was there. The warm, rich voice was there. All the old charm was there. It was Brule. And it wasn't. Trigger realized she was twisting her hands together. She looked down at them. The little jewel in the ring Holati Tate had given her to wear blinked back with crimson gleamings.

Crimson!

She drew a long, slow breath.

"Brule," she said.

"Yes?" said Brule. At the edge of her vision she saw the smile turn eager.

Trigger said, "Give me the plasmoid." She raised her eyes and looked at him. He'd stopped smiling.

Brule looked back at her a long time. At least it seemed a long time to Trigger. The smile suddenly returned.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, almost plaintively. "If it's a joke, I don't get it."

"I just said," Trigger repeated carefully, "give me the plasmoid. The one you stole."

Brule took a swallow of his drink and put the glass down on the floor. "Aren't you feeling well?" he asked solicitously.

"Give me the plasmoid."

"Honestly, Trigger." He shook his head. He laughed. "What are you talking about?"

"A plasmoid. The one you took. The one you've got here."

Brule stood up. He studied her face, blinking, puzzled. Then he laughed, richly. "Trigger, I've fed you one drink too many! I never thought you'd let me do it. Be sensible now—if I had a plasmoid here, how could you tell?"

"I can tell. Brule, I don't know how you took it or why you took it. I don't really care." And that was a lie, Trigger thought dismally. She cared. "Just give it to me, and I'll put it back. We can talk about it afterwards."

"Afterwards," Brule said. The laugh came again, but it sounded a little hollow. He moved a step toward her, stopped again, hands on his hips. "Trigger," he said soberly, "if I've ever done anything you mightn't approve of, it was done for both of us. You realize that, don't you?"

"I think I do," Trigger said warily. "Yes. Give it to me, Brule."

Brule leaped forward. She slid sideways out of the chair to the floor as he leaped. She was crying inside, she realized vaguely. Brule was going to kill her now, if he could.

She caught his left foot with both hands as he came down, and twisted viciously.

Brule shouted something. His red, furious face swept by above. He thumped to the floor beside her, one leg flung across her thighs, gripping.

In colonial school Brule had received the same basic training in unarmed combat that Trigger had. He was close to eighty pounds heavier than Trigger, and it was still mostly muscle. But it was nearly four years now since he had bothered himself with drills.

And he hadn't been put through Mihul's advanced students' courses lately.

He stayed conscious a little less than nine seconds.

The plasmoids were in a small electronic safe built into a music cabinet. The stamp to the safe was in Brule's billfold.

There were three of them, about the size of mice, starfish-shaped lumps of translucent, hard, colorless jelly. They didn't move.

Trigger laid them in a row on the polished surface of a small table, and blinked at them for a moment from a streaming left eye. The right eye was swelling shut. Brule had got in one wild wallop somewhere along the line. She picked up a small jar, emptied some spicy-smelling, crumbly contents out on the table, dropped the plasmoids inside, closed the jar and left the apartment with it. Brule was just beginning to stir and groan.