The Thief of Thoth

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).

"This headpiece"—he spoke abruptly, shattering the silence —"is popularly called The Crown of Stars is it not? And I believe it is venerated and guarded by a fanatic cult who have sworn death to the interloper and crown-lifter—death according to indescribably bizarre and barbaric torments—am I not correct, Learned Spiro?"

Flustered, Pawel Spiro stammered inarticulately for a moment, then cleared his throat with another of those annoying, phlegmy little coughs Quicksilver found so distasteful.

"Er ... ah ... hem! I believe that is, ah, correct, Ser Hautley ..." he admitted.

"Yes—?"

"It, er, the cult object is worshiped by the Neothothic Priesthood ... fourteenth-generation descendants of the original settlers. They have, ah, evolved a form of ancestor worship in regard to the so-called Cavern Kings, a mysterious race which flourished, decayed and became extinct on Thoin IV some centuries before the first Survey Service ships arrived from Galactic Center, during, I believe, the semi-legendary reign of the Galactic Imperator Drongerghastus the Inimitable, the 'Opener of the Starways' ..."

"What exactly were these Cavern Kings?" Hautley inquired.

"A race of, ah, highly intelligent beings evolved from the lizard, as we are from the simians. To be precise: from the order Sauria, family Lacertidae, genus Lacerta; a species somewhat similar to C. niloticus, and resembling to some degree the common 'monitor^ or the familiar 'gecko' ... ah, extraordinary creatures of unusual culturaldevelopment, although of pre-Space andprobably of pre-Electric technology. Their curious architecturalmonuments, amatter of tapering towers awry-tilted and of only quasi-Euclidean geometry, and peculiar in that the cities are subterranean ..."

"Underground towers? An unique concept," Hautley said gravely. Caught up in that technical enthusiasm to which the Validian Scholar is ever susceptible, Pawel Spiro nodded several times, flushing pinkly with intellectual excitement.

"Decidedly unique, Ser Hautley! Ah ... unfortunately, naught remains of their cultural artifacts save for these curiously subterranean urban structures (which clearly argue the racial heritage of the lizard!), and which remain to this day among the most notable archeological enigmas of the entire Cluster ... and, of course, the ... Crown of Stars."

Quicksilver extinguished his aromatique in the nearby vacuum trap, and regarded the client with a slight quizzical smile.

"Any relic so rare must be worth ... a fortune?" he queried gently.

The Learned Pawel Spiro looked decidedly unhappy.

"Ah ... yes, I believe so ..."

The quizzical smile deepened, gaining an overtone of ironic mockery.

"It is—is it not, in point of fact—completely priceless—in fact, beyond price?"

Spiro's unhappy expression intensified into one of positive gloom.

"Well . . . yes!"

"In such a case, then," Quicksilver said smoothly, "my usual fees would be ... doubled.''