The Thief of Thoth

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 ...