THE THIEF OF THDTH
by Lin Carter
1
HAUTLEY QUICKSILVER, who was among the most celebrated and certainly the most distinguished of all the Licensed Legal Criminals and Confidential Agents in the Near Stars, lived with all the luxurious refinements and civilized comforts available to those who have achieved the ultimate peak of their profession.
He had a castle of organic pink quartz on the planetoid Carvel in that asteroid belt known as The Chain of Astarte. It had been designed to his specifications by none other than Smingoth Whibberley, the most noted, controversial, and widely imitated architectural philosopher of the 36th century A.C. There Hautley lived alone with his quaint hobbies, his curious pets, and his truly extraordinary collection of hand weapons culled from 1,376 different planetary cultures. No less than sixteen hundred varieties of weapon were represented in his arsenal—among them devices designed to stab, slice, puncture, detonate, envenom, stun, paralyze, render immobile, implode, decapitate, unlimb, eviscerate or otherwise render hors de combat an unwary opponent With each of these, Quicksilver had made certain he acquired a thorough professional competency upon which depended (and not infrequently) the adroit performance of his occupational duties, if not indeed continuance of life itself.
Quicksilver's castle clung to a sheer crag of dark green coral which rose from a sea of heavy opal smoke. This vaporous ocean entirely mantled the surface of the planetoid and the pinkly alabastrine hue of his castle formed a delicate aesthetic contrast against the melting and changing hues of the heavy vapor, the rough emeraldine coral, and the tea-rose sky, with the sullen disc of Astarte a smouldering ruby on the dim horizon.
This horizon looked to be far more distant than it actually was. Carvel was a terraformed planetoid with a diameter of only forty-nine kilometers. A permanent and artificial magnetic field, generated by certain ingenious devices situated at the core of the worldlet, continuously distorted the gaseous molecules of which the atmosphere was composed, lending the optical effect of a stupendous lens. This created the illusion of vast distances, pleasing to the eye.
The coral peak to which clung the pink quartz buildings was but one among a scattered forest of similar monoliths which rose from the opal sea at irregular intervals over the entire surface of Carvel. Carvel itself was one of several thousand similar worldlets that encircled the otherwise planetless star—a dying red Supergiant with an M1 spectrum, comparable to Antares but somewhat less in magnitude. This chain of tiny planetoids, in which Carvel was but a minor gem, encircled the russet star like a necklace of jewels around the throat of some dusky queen; and among the whirling myriads, Carvel was lost and hidden.
The very nature of Hautley's profession was such that extreme privacy was eminently desirable. And he had many enemies. His versicle upon this topic was pointedly clear:
Hardest of alclass="underline" to find
One needle in a mountain of its kind.
2
PROFESSIONALLY SPEAKING, of course, Quicksilver's source of remuneration would drastically suffer if his dwelling were completely impossible to locate. No clients beat a pathway to one's portal, if that portal's whereabouts are forever unknowable.
Hence, Hautley was "at home" to qualified visitors on alternate Zandays. Potential clients might phone him—on a very private line—whose continually fluctuating wave-lengths were published every second Oomday in the personal columns of the New Andelsprutz (Alpha Centauri IV) Times-Clarion—and, if their business sounded sufficiently promising and their credit rating met his rather elevated standards, Quicksilver would switch on the radiobeacon which guided his clientele blindly through the planetary jungle of spinning rocks whose orbits he alone knew, and to which he always referred as the "moat" of Quicksilver Castle.
This particular Zanday, his visitor was a bland, soft-spoken little mouse of a man with vapid, characterless features, pale eyes of contrasting colors, thin salmon hair, and drooping eyelids tattooed with the green caste-mark that denoted a IV-Class Scholar of the Validian Psychodiscipline.
In a muted, shallow voice (only slightly blurred on the vowels, either from nervousness or tension), this insipid would-be client introduced himself as ''the Learned Pawel Spiro, Resident Locutioner in Thothic Archeology at the Boghazy-the-Great Memorial Museum in Tavory, on Alcazar III." Spiro spoke rapidly, softly, in an ingratiating and self-deprecating manner, not once lifting his eyes to Quicksilver after a first keen all-encompassing appraisal.
". . . The, ah, Museum is interested in retaining your, ah, services, Ser Hautley," Spiro murmured in his fawning slightly hesitant voice, "on, ah, a mission of extreme, ah, delicacy."
"Which is?" Quicksilver prompted, the resonant timbre of his masculine baritone in striking contrast to the little man's fuzzy articulation.
". . . To, ah, appropriate a certain article of not inconsiderable, ah, historic and scientific interest, and, ah, of monetary value ..."
"This article is . . . ?" Hautley inquired, patiently.
The Learned Pawel Spiro twisted his soft, white, slightly moist hands together, in a further symptom of tension or nervousness, or both. He cleared his throat with a phlegmy, glottal sound.
"... An archaic jeweled headpiece which is a relic of the extinct, primordial Cavern Kings of the planet Thoth, ah, that is, Thoin IV in the, ah, the Derghis, ah, Cluster ... We, er, the Museum, that is, understand, Ser Hautley, that your, ah, fee for professional services rendered is rather, er, rather superlative ..."
"I fear so,” Quicksilver drawled lazily. ''You will, however, find my professional competency equally superlative."
A small pallid smile flitted over Spiro's loose lips, flitted, and was gone in an eye-blink.
"... So we have been given to understand, Ser Hautley. You will, ah, appreciate that we are unaccustomed to such dealings, and consulted the Central Orion Better Business Bureau and the Alphard Chamber of Commerce from which planet, I believe, your, ah, firm derives its charter ..."
"Of course."
"Our treasury is equal to meeting your fee ... ah, however, for any expenses above and beyond, ah, reasonable limits, the Department whose spokesman I must request an itemized summary of expenditures ... and we would like delivery of the relic within, ah, ninety days of the date of the contract ... ?"
Hautley smiled slightly.
"The contract has not yet been thumbprinted,'' Hautley gently reminded his nervous client. And he thought to himself: There is something about this little man that ...
3
QUICKSILVER removed a slim green tube from the bloodwood case on the desk before him, set it between his lips, and inhaled thoughtfully until the autoigniter tip flared. A pungently stimulating vapor permeated the tower chamber wherein they sat. He smoked his aromatique meditatively in silence for a few moments, watching the slight tense movements of Pawel Spiro's hands with lazy impassive face and mirror-bright eyes whose detailed scrutiny was scalpel-sharp.
This Quicksilver, foremost Licensed Legal criminal and Confidential Agent in half a galaxy was a lean, lithe, agile young man of only seventy-six, patently of homonid stock, although, perchance, admixed with a touch of anthrofelinesque blood inherited from a paternal great-grandmother.
From throat to and heel he was clothed in sprayed satin of seven subtly differing shades of black. His face was dyed mahogany, the features hard, ascetic, with prominent cheekbones, feline jaw, and a broad and high forehead which plainly denoted an astonishing calibre of intellectual capacity. His hair, falling in meticulous antique locks over his brow, was colored pewter-grey due to a cosmetic endocrine adjustment currently in mode. A characteristically whimsical light flashed in his oblique mirror eyes (from which affectation, as well as his alert and mercurial temperament, he derived his suragnomen).