The Thief of Thoth

16

NOW SEEMINGLY an older gentleman of scholarly and inactive habits, a citizen of the planet Rowrbazzle 12 from his strawberry complexion and ebon locks, Quicksilver closed up the cosmeticon cubicle and stepped before the glowing control console of the ship. He relaxed the powerful magnetic lines of force that enclosed the vessel, and, with yet another bone-shivering subsonic drone, it re-entered "normal" space near the edge of the Gap.

As the ship proceeded on normal planetary rocket drive, Quicksilver mused over the several curious aspects of the case his research has thus far uncovered.

Point # 1 : Three forces, seemingly independent of each other, sought possession of the Neothothic jewelled crown. The question was: why?

Granted, the Crown of Stars was a fabulously rare artifact, worth an immense sum of money either for its intrinsic worth as an item of jewelry or for its historic and archeological value as the only known non-architectural artifact of a mysterious planetary culture, the Cavern Kings of Thoth. But either of these values hardly seemed sufficient motive for the Imperial government, a planetary monarch, and an unknown masquerader pretending to be a famous scholar, to simultaneously develop an interest in purloining the object. Why were individuals from three such widely different areas of expertise suddenly displaying such an extraordinary desire in the Crown?

An unidentified individual posing as an archeologist, but perhaps more truly of a criminal profession, a supercilious planetary prince, motives unknown; an intelligence agent, acting under orders of the Emperor's Cabinet. What did these three have in common? Desire for wealth—power—knowledge? No, it was something else, some as yet unknown factor which Hautley Quicksilver's acute perceptions had yet to untangle from this raveled knot of mixed motives and unanswered questions.

A small vertical crease, indicative of intellectual tension, formed between his ebon arched brows.

This much at least hinted at the key to the puzzle: one of the three was known to be an imposter.

Although Pawel Spiro's story hung together, and his disguise was clever enough to fool the camera—and to elude detection by a known colleague, his esteemed superior—the real Pawel Spiro was busily at work in the center of the galaxy on anthropological-archeological research, while a phony Pawel Spiro, half a galaxy away, was holed up in a glossy tourist trap of a hotel, awaiting word from the foremost private investigator in Known Space.

Who was the pseudo Spiro? Why did he want the Crown? And, perhaps more importantly, whom did he represent?

And come to think of it, was the pseudo Spiro the only fake among Hautley's three would-be clients? What of Heveret Twelfth? True, his fingerprints seemed to match those retained in official Canopan records, but that was only proof to a degree.

Quicksilver smiled thinly. In these days of advanced technology, the criminal mind had resources vastly superior to those of the good old days. It was no longer impossible to fake fingerprints. Indeed, without greatly taxing his imagination, the galaxy's ace investigator could easily bring to mind no less than eight different ways of so doing, to wit:

1. Invisible fingertip sheaths bearing raised imprints.

2. Skin graft, or entire digital transplantation.

3. Homosculpture.

4. Bribery of the Archives official whom Quicksilver had interviewed, or replacement of the genuine archivist with a criminal accomplice.

5. The simple forgery of fake fingerprint records, cunningly smuggled into the Canopan Archives.

6. Dialic biostasism.

7. Narcotic persuasion or hypnotic implanting of false information regarding the fingerprints of His Dignity in the mind of the Archivist.

8. And last, but not least, time-prolapse, by means of an Anchidean protomorph, or a laboratory duplication thereof.

However, as yet Hautley had no positive evidence as to the identity of the individual who had attempted to retain his professional services while claiming to be the Proprietor of Canopus. This facet of the case would bear further study. He filed away among other temporarily unanswerable questions the matter of the true identity of the so-called Heveret Twelfth.

No more time for deliberation. The ship was approaching 'Thieves' Haven ...