She gave Trigger a wink behind Plemponi's back. "We keep the chiropractors on stand-by duty when we go riding with Plemp."

"Now then! Now then!" Doctor Plemponi said. "You distracted my attention for a moment, that's all. Now, Trigger, the reason we're here is that Mihul told me at our prebreakfast conference you weren't entirely happy at the good old Colonial School. So climb in, if you don't have much else to do, and we'll run up to the office and discuss it." He opened the door for her.

"Much else to do!" Trigger gave him a look. "All right, Doctor. We'll run up and discuss it."

She went back for her sun hat, climbed in, closed the door and sat down beside him, shoving the holstered Denton forward on her thigh.

Plemponi eyed the gun dubiously. "Brushing up in case there's another grabber raid?" he inquired. He reached out for the guide stick.

Trigger shook her head. "Just working off hostility, I guess." She waited till he had lifted the car off the ground in a reckless swoop. "That business yesterday--it really was a grabber raid?"

"We're almost sure it was," Mihul said behind her, "though I did hear some talk they might have been after those two top-secret plasmoids in your Project."

"_That's_ not very likely," Trigger remarked. "The raiders were a half mile away from where they should have come down if the plasmoids were what they wanted. And from what I saw of them, they weren't nearly a big enough gang for a job of that kind."

"I thought so, too," Mihul said. "They were topflight professionals, in any case. I got a glimpse of some of their equipment. Knockout guns--foggers--and that was a fast car!"

"Very fast car," Trigger agreed. "It's what made me suspicious when I first saw them come in."

"They also," said Mihul, "had a high-speed interplanetary hopper waiting for them in the hills. Two more men in it. The cops caught them, too." She added, "They were grabbers, all right!"

"Anything to indicate whom they were after?" Trigger asked.

"No," Mihul said. "Too many possibilities. Twenty or more of the students in that area at the time had important enough connections to class as grabber bait. The cops won't talk except to admit they were tipped off about the raid. Which was obvious. The way they popped up out of nowhere and closed in on those boys was a beautiful sight to see!"

"I," Trigger admitted, "didn't see it. When that car homed in, I yelled a warning to the nearest bunch of students and dropped flat behind a rock. By the time I risked a look, the cops had them."

"You showed very good sense," Plemponi told her earnestly. "I hope they burn those thugs! Grabbing's a filthy business."

"That large object coming straight at you," Mihul observed calmly, "is another aircar. In this lane it has the right of way. You do not have the right of way. Got all that, Plemp?"

"Are you sure?" Doctor Plemponi asked her bewilderedly. "Confound it! I shall blow my siren."

He did.