The Thief of Thoth

13

WORKING WITHOUT undue haste, but also without a single wasted motion, the cleverest agent in Near Space selected a blank contract from his file, inserted the document into the typovox and dictated eleven crisp sentences. Snapping it from the machine, he affirmed his thumbprint with practised dexterity.

He then chose, from the photograms he had taken of the digital impressions left by Heveret Twelfth on the doorjamb, a superb thumbprint. He photographed it again, reversed the negative, duplicated it upon a plastic cube in nitrate of impervium. From a pocket in his utility-girdle, which he customarily wore next to his epidermis beneath his garments, he withdrew a bulb of acid and sprayed the plastic cube with a corrosive mist.

An instant later he inked an excellent thumbprint to the contract with the plastic cube. The acid spray had eaten away the lucent substance from around the near-microscopic lines of impervium nitrate, making, in effect, a rubber stamp. The ink utilized in the process was a special mixture of his own; intermingled with the coloring matter with a chemical compound that exactly duplicated the sweaty oils which with the human shin was permeated.

He then placed the document in a sealed oven of peculiar design, concealed within a free form sculpture which stood a few feet away. This oven was a miniature gammatron accelerator, and would "age" anything placed within it by artificially induced radioactive impregnation. The document, when removed from the accelerator, would pass any carbon-14 test to which it could be put: every molecule, including the typovoxed matter and the two thumbprints, were exactly forty-seven minutes old.

The forged contract in his hand, he then bathed Barsine Torsche in a jet of counteractive gas, lifting her back into her chair.

She awoke instantly, unaware of any time lapse, due to the instantaneous action of both the narcotic vapor and its counter-agent. He proffered, with great aplomb, the fruit of his labors for her perusal. She read it carefully, not neglecting to check it for proper age with the carbon-14 meter unobtrusively attached to her left wrist, disguised as a mere bauble of gems. A tiny crease of exasperation formed between the twin indigo arches of her perfect brows.

"Well, you're right, Haut. You daren't break this one! Old XII sounds a perfect terror, and from what I've heard of his temper, I doubt if a round dozen Cabinet ministers could make him budge a millimeter. Oh, scintilance! 'Old T.J.' be frothing when he hears you are unavailable ... but about how long will it take you to vaporize this scut, anyway?" she asked, referring to the completely falacious caper outlined in the forged contract—a vital political assassination. Hautley shrugged.

"A solid month. I expect. His Dignity's enemy seems to have anticipated an attempt to scrag him. He's a clever devil," Hautley said, permitting a note of professional admiration to seep into the clinical detachment of his cool tones, as he extemporized with suave eloquence. "A surgeon has extracted the ulna bone from the right forearm. An aluminum tube has been inserted in its place, a tube packed with those new molecule-sized ultratransistors and micro-printed circuits. The miniscule gadgetry projects a field of force impervious to any material object larger than a proton—transparent, in fact, only to those more harmless octaves of the electro-magnetic spectrum such as normal gravity, average extremes of heat and light. This force shell completely armors his body—"

"Space! How does the poor bastard breathe?" Barsine asked, fascinated. Hautley's agile wits raced keenly.

"Air, within his self-imposed prison, is manufactured and re-processed by a tiny recycling plant concealed in the left tibia, which has also been replaced with an aluminum tube," he said glibly. She marvelled.

"Clever devil! With all that hardware clanking around in his innards, I should he'd be afraid of getting the hiccups and joggling something loose!"

He smiled at her jape.

"Or of taking a shower! Suppose he short-circuited the old tibia there, eh? Ha ha!"

"Ha," he joined her, "ha."

"So how do you plan to clobber ol' invulnerable—if you don't mind a mere amateur prying into, snort, snort, 'Professional' secrets?"

Did he detect a note of unseemly levity in her query?

Was it possible Barsine Torsche was not taken in?

He permitted a worrisome frown to crinkle the bland expanse of his mahogany-hued brow.

"Don't know. Studying the problem now. Rather busy, as I said before, Barsine ... ”

She sighed. "Ah? So. Well, this gal can take a hint when she's not wanted.”

She rose lithely and went to the door. Pausing there, she turned a keen glance on him.

"I hope you're not trying to put one over on me, Hautley Quicksilver!"

His mobile features assumed a hurt expression.

''Cause if you are, let me warn you, me bucko! 'Old T.J.' 's really boiling on this one. And Carina-Cygnus won't be big enough to hold 'Old T.J.' and you if he finds out ... well ... that's it, Quicksilver!"

A look of hurt innocence filled his mercury-colored eyes.

"Barsine! Really!"

She ground her teeth. "Oh, all right ... bye now, Haut. Got to buzz along and find your replacement—see you in the newsfax! No, don't call old Creepy—! know the way out."

And she was gone. To find a replacement for Hautley Quicksilver!

Leaning back in the auto-adjusting pneumo, he permitted himself a small quiet smile of complacency. She would hunt far to find an agent of comparable talent—as his swift simulation of a legal contract and smoothly-concocted story gave full proof!

But now—to work. As an esteemed (and, no doubt purely legendary) pioneer of Hautley Quicksilver's profession was wont to put it—the game's afoot!