The Thief of Thoth

30

THOTH, OR THOIN IV, was a small, cold, windy ball of rock. Bleak, barren, devoid of tree or leaf—a wilderness of stone stretching off on every side. No wonder the ancient and extinct Cavern Kings had constructed their unique civilization underground.

They were met at the landing stage and escorted from their craft by a silent group of priests in lizard-suit regalia, including dragonish false heads with eye-holes th the throatplates and imitation claws. Hautley's bland attempts to chafer with the ecclesiastics was severely rebuffed. One and all, the priests virtually radiated disapproval on all wave lengths.

The portly Archimandrate conducted them personally to the quarters apparently set aside for uninvited guests. The trip was short and swift, but Hautley did manage to observe something of the remarkable architectural style for which the extinct super-reptiles were widely known: a subtle matter of sloping walls, multiplanal ceilings and chambers of dodecahedral rather than cubicular format. Oddly impressive, in a non-Euclidian sort of way.

The Spartan simplicity of their quarters was depressing, to say the least. Two narrow cots with a privacy partition set between. Beside each cot stood a berrywood stool, a small three-legged tabouret for personal effects, and a washbasin. The walls themselves, eye-wrenchingly leaning awry at bewildering angles, were devoid of ornament or color. They were left to their own. devices as soon as they had reached the cell. The only reply to Hautley's amiable flow of chatter had been a curt, snappish remark to the effect that their dinner would be served in two hours, while Temple artificers wrought repairs in the fractured Spasmodic Frammistator. The lock clicked in the door and they were alone.

Hautley stretched out on the lumpy cot and smoked. It would seem that the frequent and aimless attempts to steal the Crown of Stars had developed within the breasts of the Neothothic priesthood an unhealthy degree of suspicion towards chance droppers-in. He had no doubt their quarters were bugged as thoroughly as Thoth's limited technology permitted. This was, in fact, more than Hautley's hunch. While being whisked via various shortcuts to their present abode, Hautley felt the warning tingle of a penetrascope which must have been in one or another of the chambers adjoining the corridor. This brief but penetrating subelectronic tickle was the response of his sensitive nervous system to the bath of theta-beams emitted by the scope, as they searched his physical structure down to the molecular level. He remained unruffled by the occurance. Anticipating a penetrascope, he had abandoned his customary "business suit" this once, and the equipment he did carry was completely unobservable by any, even sophisticated, means.

Using the eye-blink code devised by Imperial Intelligence, Hautley conveyed this and other relevant warnings and information to Bansine, while carrying on, at the vocal level, with a brainless stream of bright chatter. When dinner arrived it was spooned out by a grumpy old frater who ignored Hautley's cheery greetings as pointedly as he was swift to pocket the tip. Dèjeuner by the way, was not exactly up to Hautley's accustomed level of gustatory expertise—a soppy affair of lukewarm gruel and buttermilk. No doubt healthy enough, but hardly Hautley's idea of an ideal din-din.

Night fell. Here in the underground city it might have been hard to tell, except that about seven o'clock the lights went out automatically. This was what Hautley had been waiting for. Within split seconds of the falling of abrupt darkness, Quicksilver made his move. His equipment for this caper was merely two simple articles: a self-inflating balloon dummy of approximately Hautley's bodily dimensions, which under cover of darkness he whisked from behind the portable light-baffle he had carried invisibly into the citadel, thence whisking himself out of sight behind the second of the two articles, the light-baffle itself. This was accomplished within split seconds. He presumed that even if their quarters were under infra-red surveillance during the hours of darkness, the lethargic fraters would need at least a few seconds to make the change-over from visible light surveillance to the nightsight variety. During those few precious mini-seconds, he became hidden from any form of vision behind the baffle, while the rubber dummy took his place in the cot, with the covers drawn up over its head.

At Barsine disrobed on the other side of the partition, they exchanged a few final phrases, then settled down, ostensibly, to sleep ...

In a flash the invisible Quicksilver was out of the room, having picked the lock by an ingenious system of conflicting magnetic currents. The corridors were poorly lit by a system of night lights. Hautley moved through their coiling maze without faltering. His studies of Neothothic architecture had suggested to him that the treasure vault wherein the cherished cult object was kept would be concealed most probably in a circular sub-basement directly below the main body of the cavern-city, which was the only settlement on the inhospitable little world.

He wove his agile path past formidable barriers—guards, light-traps, alarm-triggered cameras and automatic self-sighting disruptor cannons (all of which he eluded, since the light-baffle rendered him completely invisible). The usual death-traps and poised weights were child's play to avoid. Fierce watchdogs he simply strode past, having temporarily paralyzed their keen sense of smell with a potent deodorant spray. This unimpressive gamut run, he found himself within the lowest sub-basement within less then 22 minutes. This was it: the sanctum sanctorisimus of the whole shebang! Beyond that door, if his careful calculations proved correct, he should find the fabulous Crown of Stars itself! He manipulated magnetic forces, and the door swung open ...

Utterly appalled to the roots of his being, Hautley reeled in mind-numbing shock!

Of course, he had suspected something like this. Some sort of incredibly ingenious, supra-humanly clever, diabolical method by which the Crown would be protected from the touch of desecrating, light-fingered hands ...

But not for something like this!

Rising in thirty-seven tiers of stone like narrow shelves around the curved walls of this circular adytum, stood the fantasticaly valuable Crown of Stars itself—hopelessly lost somewhere amid seven hundred and seventy-six exact, precise, microscopically-detailed DUPLICATES.

Sternly repressing a cold shudder at the damnable, fiendish simplicity of it all, Hautley was ironically reminded of one of his own versicles, to wit:

Hardest of all: to find

One needle in a mountain of its kind.