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-know!-
edge? 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 worli 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 Quicksil-
ver 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
'Ibieves' Haven • , •
17
THE OUTLAw PLANET in the Gap was not very much larger
than his own domain of Carvel in the Chain of Astarte. And
unlike the Astartean system, this one consisted of a single
minor planet, rather than a belt of asteriods, a system moreover devoid of even a parent star, for Thieves' Haven drifted alone in the blackness of the abyss-like rift between the two
galactic arms. Rumor had it that the planetoid had once been
a rogue world wandering space until it fell under the scrutiny
of a band of master space-thieves who had the worldlet terra-formed at vast expense, triggering a nuclear "round-robin,.
effect in the planetoidal core for beat, and stimulating the
ionic field about the new atmosphere for sunlight, or a near
equivalent thereof.
Landing at the planet's only spacefield, Hautley locked his
ship and consulted his timepiece. Less than two hours had
elapsed since he had bade farewell to Pawel Spiro back on
Carvel. The imposter would presumably suspend independent
operations until receiving final word from Hautley Quicksil
:ver, who had promised to either accept or decline his con-
tract within twenty-seven hours. Twenty-five hours remained
before Hautley must make up his mind. And within this interval, he must accomplish a variety of routine tasks.
He must locate Shpem Hufferd, and extract from the retired accomplice of Dugan Motley the current location and present pseudonym of the Master-Burglar of Capitan.
He must secure a personal interview with this Dugan Motley, and pump him of relevant information regarding Motley's famous attempt to steal the reptillian artifact, .in particular, a description of the various measures taken by the Neotbothic priesthood to protect their jewelled treasure from
thievery; and the means by which Dugan Motley, and Dugan
Motley alone of all the criminals who had attempted to steal
the Crown, had escaped from the grip of the fanatic Crownguardians unharmed and unpunished.
He must furthermore decide which, of the three potential
clients who had applied for his services, be would accept a
contract from, and if at all possible, find out who or what
was behind the imposter posing as Pawel Spiro.
Quite a list of things to be done within a mere twenty-five
hours, but Hautley remained undaunted by the enormity of
this caper. He proceeded about his business, having berthed
his craft in a rented dock.
Emerging from the subterranean docking facilities to the
upper levels of the outlaw world's one city, fittingly named
Hideout, be took a glidewalk into the business district.
It was a fantastic metropolis, this capital city of Crime.
Fabulous avenues lined with · palaces of wine and gourmet
foods, as well as most of the other pleasures which the flesh
feU heir to (including thirteen totally new and original vices
especially invented for Thieves' Haven by a team of
galactically-famed psychologists, chemists and anatomical
specialists retained by the local planetary government, known
as The Syndicate, a generation earlier at incredible fees) .
Quicksilver had never before had occasion to land on the
outlaw planet in the Gap in all his excitement-packed career,
and he looked forward to a tour of the incredible City of
Criminals.
While he gaped and gawked at the sights, the swiftly moving power-driven glidewalk. carried him through a whirling panorama of storefronts and neon illuminated signs indicative
of the pleasures that awaited within.
Others rode the glidewalk besides him, of course. And
there was one of these that kept an unobtrusive eye on the
stoop-shouldered form of the disguised Hautley Quicksilver.
This individual, a bald-domed, grey-complexioned Orgotry
in fluorescent scarlet tights slashed with dead-black piping
and puckered ruffs, ostensibly coughed into a cupped hand.
Actually, between hacking spasms of glottal throat-clearing,
the Orgotyr whispered into a ring-radio:
"It's Quicksilver, chief. What are my instructions?"
/> Although Hautley knew it not, yet another, a fourth claimant was interested in the Crown of Stars!
18
ALL ABOUT THE GLDEWALK whereon the disguised Hautley
Quicksilver rode, closely shadowed by an unknown observer
narrowly watching his every move, towered the glittering facades of gaming houses and gambling palaces wherein were installed no fewer than eleven thousand. four hundred and
sixteen different games of chance devised and maintained for
the sole purpose of parting a man from his munits.
For those whose tastes demanded a different sort of stimulus, there were establishments catering to bizarre tastes wherefor princely fees, one could titillate even the most jaded palate by torturing an android, or synthetic human female to death, or where one could indulge in an astounding variety of
narcotics, including eleven brand new ones the chemists of
Thieves' Haven had invented. For those habituates so saturated with over-use of narcotic stimulants, and who thus required something rather special to send them off to Cloudcuckooland, other houses of pleasure proferred "super-boilermakers" in which thirty or forty different drugs were expertly blended, compounded and homogenized, and then injected directly into the living brain tissue.
Yet other stores offered quiet nooks where one could spend
a tranquil and contemplative hour or two of quiet meditation
in the racks of the galaxy's most celebrated and inclusive pornographic, necrophiliac and homophagic library, with adjacent film collection for those troubled by a meagre vocabulary.
Against the velvet backdrop of the Gap-black sky, phantasmal illusion-signs outblazed the stellar skies of other planets with multi-hued advertising spectaculars.
AH PONG'S DE LUXE DREAMARIUM
Murder! Rape! Torture! Mass Atrocities!
Even Suicide For The Ultimate
In Thrills!
Have Your Kicks In The Finest Man
Made Synthetic Dreams & Illusions
•
PEG-LEG FAUNTLEROY
PRESENTS: "MANHUNT'
Track Down And Kill Your
Enemies! Satisfaction Guaranteed!
Risks Eliminated!
Why Pay a Psychosurgeon??
Our Androids Guaranteed to Simulate
Mom, Dad, the Wife, or Anyone Else You Hate!
So Work Off Your Frustrations
The Fauntleroy Way!
(Genuine Blood Supplied by
Hemoglobin Associates, Ltd.)
•
ONE-EYE GROGAN'S HOUSE
OF TEN THOUSAND GAMES
"Lose Yer Shirt in Surroundings
Of Palatial Elegance
And Class!"
•
MADAME FAFH'S PALACE OF JOY
Women of a Million Worlds,
Specially Trained to Serve Youl
Also, For
Them As Likes,
Boys, Men,
Neuters, Albino Hermaphrodites
And Highly Talent"ed Dogs!
As he rode along, ostensibly gawking at the sights, Quicksilver tuned his wristphone to the planetary wavelength, and consulted the Central Directory of Thieves' Haven for the address of Shpern Hufferd. He promptly learned that the former professional associate of the now retired Master Burglar of Capitan now resided in a somewhat decayed suburb of the
planetary capital. From this informative item, Quicksilver
swiftly deduced that Hufferd now dwelt in somewhat reduced
circumstances, despite a highly profitable career in galactic
crime.
It reminded Quicksilver of one of the less philosophical
and more practicaJ. versicles of his own composition, which
went something like this:
Resolved: for crime to pay its best
Your loot you wisely shouldst invest.
However, it also indicated that, being low on funds, old
Shpem Hufferd migbt be induced to part with Dugan Motley's current address for a small exchange of monetary units.
Waiting for the next intersection, Quicksilver stepped off
the express glidewalk onto a sideway and headed towards the
less populous suburbs of the city of Hideout.
Behind him, the bald-domed, grey-complexioned Orgotyr
in the scarlet fluorescent tights slashed with dead-black piping
and puckered ruffs stepped off the moving walk, and was replaced by a kind-faced individual in severely tailored sprayon slacks with triple-gathered dockets down the cuff; from his sandy hair-tufts and pallid visage, an inhabitant of Wollheim
4.
Through the gaudy neon-illuminated night hurtled Hautley
and his accompanying shadow.
Quicksilver treaded · gingerly between the maze of intersecting slideways and glidewalks, moving from strip to strip according to the precise directions he had received from the Central Directory of Citizens (a tourist service of Thieves'
Haven Chamber of Commerce) .
As he negotiated the moving roads, the position of his
"tail" (if this historian may, for the moment, lapse into the
criminous jargon of the era) was taken by a variety of individuals, including a plum-skinned Schloim from Pazatar 9, a white-furred and dual-headed entity from Wolverine 3, and,
as the sequence returned to his original shadow, the balddomed, grey-complexioned Orgotyr showed up again.
Thus kept under continuous surveillance, Quicksilver made
the trip from the downtown business section of Hideout to
the remote and rather decayed suburbs wherein he hoped to
locate Shpern Hufferd
19
SHPERN HUFFERD lived in a ramshackle development between
the Diomazian Sulphur Works and the Autophan Sewage
Canal, a region that could with admirable accuracy be described as odoriferous. In this section of town none of the immense and immensely expensive illusion-display signs lit up
the velvet darkness of night. The dilapidated rows of prefabricated hovels were drowned in purpureal gloom, an omnipresent pall broken only by the occasional, fitful and sputtering light in crude primary colors, of a few antediluvian and malfunctioning "neon signs" which blazoned forth such curt
legends as JOE'S EATS; O'LEARY'S BAR & GRILL; WUN
LONG PAN'S HAND LAUNDRY; MAXIE'S SODA
LUNCH; ZELIM QUANG'S ELITE OVO-SNAVE, and
similar inscriptions.
Quicksilver left the slideway and perambulated the few remaining blocks to his goal by the time-tested expedient of shank's mare. His interchangeable followers vanished. The
streets were fashioned entirely of antiquated qwikplast, much
stained and splotched by age and neglect. Filthy water gurgled in noisome gutters. Sagging housefronts sagged at odd angles above the street, shadeless windows leering emptily
like the vacant eyesockets of human skulls-a distinctly foetid and rundown neighborhood That a once celebrated criminal of the calibre of Shpem Huflerd should have sunk so low as to inhabit a swinish hovel of such squalor as these. • •
Sidestepping adroitly in order to avoid the rotting carcass
of a starved housecat, Hautley found himself before Shpem
Huflerd's address. According to the directory, the former
criminal rented the first floor flat of the decayed two-story
Living Home, a prefabricated hovel manufactured at a pit�
tance by Prefabricated Hovels, Inc.
There were no lights in the bleared and grease-filmed window.
Nor did Hautley extract any reply when he sounded the
buzzer. On the off chance that its mechanism might be inoperable, Hautley resorted to a manual signal and knocked.
again eliciting a negative response.
,
Presumably, Shpern Huflerd was not at home.
Hautley glanced about him, tak
ing in the ill-lit and dubious
condition of the neighborhood. Directly across the street was
another two-story building, its bottom level devoted to an establishment purveying doubtful liquors, the upper story seem�
ingly residential in character. A few mangy local citizens
lounged about under a buzzing street light, or slouched
moistly in the gurgling gutters, seemingly victims to the ine·
briating beverages on sale in the street-level bar.
If Shpem Huflerd were out, there were no way of forming
an accurate estimate as to the time of his arrival home. And
Hautley distinctly did not wish to remain standing in front of
his residence all night. For one thing, the neighborhood was
clearly disreputable. For another, he did not wish to draw attention to the fact that someone wished to interview the former associate of Dugan Motley.
The best idea would be to simply wait inside. Hautley bent
to examine the lock. It was an antique electronic-key model,
which could be opened only by the appropriate wave length
to which it was attuned.
Hautley dipped one hand beneath his garments and withdrew a cunningly devised and miniature all-purpose electronic key from one of the innumerable 'pockets and pouches
·
of his "business suit."
He pressed the tubelike end of this small device against the
keyhole and spun the dockets. The instrument rapidly ran
through several thousand frequencies in less than 1 .07 sec�
onds, eventually striking upon the precise frequency to which
the lock was attuned.
The door iris dilated and Hautley stepped quickly into a
pitch-black room, illuminated only by fitful tlashes of dim
neon through the grease-smeared windowpanes, through
which the illuminated sign of the bar across the street shone
as it flashed on and off.
Hautley felt certain none of the dilapidated loungers loitering about the street had noted his swift and unobtrusive entry into the flat.
Standing motionless in the dark room, he quested about
with keen-honed and delicate senses. The air of the longclosed room was stifling. A variety of odors assaulted his nostrils with outrageous impact. There was the scent of a certain brand of rotgut brandy known as 01' Space Marshall. Added
Doomsman - the Theif of Thoth Page 14
