Avenida san Miguel-so his bunch had proved right, and he
was one jump ahead of Grey-Complexion & Company! It
seemed obvious they had missed ·the clue in their search of the
fiat, for sw-ely they would never have left it intact for Hautley
to 1ind, but would have seared the title-page to ash, or carried
the book along with them when they left.
He took the slideway back to the spaceport, fully expecting
armed interception at every moment of the trip, but the journey, although a trifle tedious, was uninterrupted.
Hts slim little speedster, the fastest thing in · space, was
seemingly untampered with, but just to be certain no nasty explosive devices had been planted aboard her, be went over the graceful little craft with great care, and found nothing. Either
the forces of Grey-Complexion & Company bad not tried, or
they had tried to get into the ship but were unable to penetrate
the several electronic guardians he bad activated before quitting the craft a half an hour earlier.
The speedster flashed into deep space. With a bone-shivering subsonic drone the Bettleheim-Ortleigh-Robton Drive en-
gaged, and soon Quicksilver was hurtling towards the distant
planet of Sol III at seven hundred and fifty-seven light-speeds
per hour.
WHILE EN ROUTE, Quicksilver again altered his outward appearance. Blue facial pigmentation, a scalpwig of scarlet bristles, a padded pneumatic suit, and he was now one of the Blue Nomads of Cordova 6, Aristocrat Class, and obviously a tourist from his ritual accouterments.
The ship's computer brain spoke through the wall-vox, reminding him of the time. He ordered a snack.
Over a luncheon of boiled wyvem tongue and diced karoly,
Quicksilver consulted the ship's small but remarkably comprehensive reference library. Ordovik's Galactic Religious and Related Symbolism gave him the answer to the question of the
Purple Eye he had found in the Meredith Wilsson Room
above the bar.
The metallic token stood for the planet Thoth itself. And
there could be little question that this was more than mere
coincidence. Obviously, Grey-Complexion and his pals were,
also after the Crown of Stars, which made yet a fourth entry
in the race for the enigmatic cult object! Hautley read the relevant information in Ordovik, to see if he could learn anything else of value.
The circle within the elipse represented the planet, which, as
it happened, was ringed with a whorl of phosphorescent purple vapor. This particular form of the symbol identified its possessor as a member of the Neothothic Priesthood. Were the fanatic cultists aware their treasure was the object of plots? Or
was the Eye what might be called a purple herring, planted to
confuse and mislead him?
Time (as the ancient maxim ran) would telL
Next he checked his library for information on Sol III, a
planet with which he was not familiar. He learned the planet
was an oblate spheroid of medium size with an oxygen-base
atmosphere and one grav. Its native culture was very old indeed, although somewhat backwards technologically. The native name for Sol III was "Earth"--quaint conceit, thatland the Centaurus Sector lay in the Orion Spur, that minor archipelago of suns that jutted rimwards from the Carina
Cygnus Arm of the galaxy.
The leading native language was called Portingee or Portuguese or something like that. Sampling it, Hautley grimaced delicately: an uncouth, barbarous jargon, but he supposed he must subject himself to it. He unfolded the hypnopedia from the wall; dialed the appropriate file number, and settled down before whirling lights for a brief snooze from which he would awaken within an hour or less, his mind artificially
"imprinted" with a complete colloquial familiarity with the
local native langauge, social customs, cultural mores, etc.
When he awoke, the ship bad already emerged from the
mathematical paradox in which it traveled at ultraphotonic
velocities, and it was with a slight headache and a sour eye
that Quicksilver viewed the muddy looking planet that swam
up towards him in the viewplate.
Only one moon-how bizarre!
He spiraled down into a soupy atmosphere and hung in
mid-air while the sphere revolved beneath hun, until the continent called South America slid beneath him. He touched down at Brasialia, and emerged from the ship.
Now to find Dugan Motley! He hoped it would not take
long. As be selected an aircab-there were no glidewalks to be
seen, and you could not get anywhere in the capital city of
Brasilia unless you want to hoof it on the city's odd mosaicpaved stationary ways-be wondered why, of all the planets in the civilized galaxy, Dugan Motley would have chosen so
remote and stagnant a backwater as ,fuis little planet, a stellar
mediocrity if ever he saw one.
Probably nothing had happened here since Time began.
His aircab ascended into the steamy drizzle. The driver was
surly and sullen-at first anyway. Once he sized up Quicksilver as a free-wheeling Galactic tourist with a pouch full of munits, be became more cooperative. Judging from this specimen, the Earthmen were slim, brown-skinned little people with straight black hair and ebon eyes. And to judge from
their general demeanor, it seemed they still harbored a
grudge-feud against Galactics. As the wheezing little aircab
clove the rainy sky on its sputtering rotors, Hautley idly wondered how long it had been since Galactic Imperial forces had opened up this quaint portion of the Orion Spur to the civilizing influences of a superior culture. A modest inquiry directed at the swarthy little driver, elicited, interspersed amongst some
foul language and a number of pungent epithets, the information that the Conquest had occured way back in A.D. 1968, according to the local calendar. From the lowness of this numerical designation, Hautley assumed "1 968"' must have been at the very dawn of Earthling civilization. In a1l the millenia
since passed, the Earthlings did not seem to have improved
their technological levels with particular alacrity, he noted,
appraising the aircab itself, virtually a museum-piece, with its
ungainly nuclear power-pack. which must have occupied a
good cubic foot of space • • .
Puttering along at a dismally slow crawl of 500 m.p.h., the
cab left the city of Brasilia proper, and entered into airspace
above its several suburbs. Before Hautley bad completed
smoking his second aromatique, they were above endless
squares of suburban homes, amusing antiques with their biodomes which thermostatically simulated a perfect Nordamericano climate and eaoh with its identical elm tree on the front yard and a two-'copter garage in the rear. Now they were over
the fashionable Matto Grosso suburb.
The farther they flew, the higher the fare mounted, and the
higher the fare mounted, the more sizable grew the potential
tip in the driver's expectant mind, and the more sizable proportions the tip assumed, the more affable grew the surly little cabby. He became, in fact, downright cordial, and, as they
began to near their destination, he bad unthawed to the degree
of volubly pointing out the local sights. Such as the marina at
the mouth of the Orinoco River, Blasco Ibanez National Park,
and the replica of the Lost City of "Z" for which a local folk
hero called "Colonel Fawcett" ·had been searching when he
met a grisly and enigmatic end somewhere in the trackless and
swampy wilds of the great Amazonian jungle whose matted
wildernes
s had once sprawled in oozy grandeur where now
block after block of suburban homes marched in stereotyped
squalor. (This exact-size duplicate of the Lost City. Hautley
learned from the now loquacious cabby. gratuitously passing
on quaint nuggets of local color, had been constructed entirely
from tens of thousands of "Mr. Frosty" sticks contributed by
the schoolchildren of the Earth. Sadly, for antiquarians such
as Quicksilver, the Lost City of "Z" had been tom down some
centuries ago so that a fly-in video theatre could be constructed on its site by an enterprising realty entrepeneur.) Ah! progress! thought Hautley, wryly.
ONE HUNDRED AND SEVEN A venida san Miguel proved to be a
palatial mansion whose stately lines reflected the well-aged patina of an aristocratic colonial culture. It was prefabricated entirely out of pastel nonresinous plastics, in a style which
nostalgically reminded Hautley of childhood visits to grandma's farm. This imposing structure rose amid flowering parks with gracefully meandering walks and a clutter of greenhouses
and comparable outbuildings of similar nature. The old boy
(Quicksilver mused) has certainly done all right for himself/
Hautley's driver landed the aircab with a bounce and a
thump that must have loosened half the nuts and bolts holding
the craft together. Hautley, however, was grateful to have
come down in one piece. From the sounds it had made in
ftight, the antiquated vehicle either had a bad case of asthma,
or could be expected to blow a gasket or lose a venturi at any
moment during flight. Quicksilver paid the exorbitant fare,
added a gratuity whose sheer opulent munificence made the
cabby's toes curl with ecstacy; and rang the doorbell.
He proffered his card to the robutler, eschewing, for just
this once, a nom de plume, and while waiting, glanced about
him curiously. Everywhere was rose-marble from far Capuchine and grillwork of fine Phriote craftsmanship, chastely ornamented with a zircon-studded chromium relief illustrative of various culture heroes from the local religion (Juarez,
Mickey Mouse, Fidel Castro, Zorro and Joan Blondell, to be
precise.) Hautley's sardonic brows mounted. What luxury!
What taste! Dugan Motley, it seemed, had certainly invested
his criminously-gotten gains wisely and well . . .
A deep-chested foghorn voice in full-throated bellow interrupted these cultural musings.
"By dog, the great Quicksilver himself landing on mine
doorstep, it is! Scintillate me for a no-good, a joy it is for you
to meeting up with m�no?"
Surging mountainously in advance of the prim and staid robutler, came Dugan Motley himself, all seven foot-three inches and 325 pounds of him, dwarfing the automataton as
he waddled into the hall. A gigantic, fiercely-bristling piratical
beard of flaming crimson, twinkling eyes merry and bright
and blue as the earth sea, Caribbean, he lumbered forward,
his inunense paunch of heroic, nay! mythological proportions
swinging from side to side as he strode, with one fat iridium
ring glittering from his left earlobe.
Beaming smiles and thundering forth articulate welcomes
and little goat-cries of enthusiasm, he bore down on the startled Quicksilver like a super-dreadnaught descending in full force upon a tiny rowboat, enveloping him in a vast, bonecrunching bear bug, thumping him on the back with pats of spine-pulverizing impact; and firing off floor-shaking salvos of
hearty booming laughter that caused the bric-a-brac to jingle,
several alabaster busts to quake on their fluted pedestals and
aroused seismic waves of tinkling among the crystal chandeliers.
The Master Burglar ushered Quicksilver into a first-floor
den only a few �crons smaller that the Grand Imperial State
Audience Chamber itself. Pushing his guest into the seductive
embrace of a cozy pneumatique that instantly adjusted to his
contours and began a subtle massage job on his shoulder muscles, Dugan waddled over to the wall and thumbed a dial.
The wall sank into the floor soundlessly, revealing to Hautley's stunned gaze tlte most astounding collection of cut-crystal decanters filled with potables of every hue in the spectrum
-an alcoholic's dream of the Land of Oz.
Roaring with Falstaffian joviality, Dugan Motley grinned
through the bristling bush of his bright beard.
"You, my friend, the great Quicksilver of about whom I
have so much heard, you will drink-what?" He gestured expansively, using for the gesture a hand only slightly smaller than a medium-sized ham.
"Your choice you will taking, please, of two hundred and
eleven thousand, four hundred thirty-six different varieties of
booze, rotgut and panther's sweat (as the earthly Ancients
would say, ho ho) . So what is it you are choose? Or to the
smoking perhaps-maybe? Sniff? Inject? Nasal-spray? Nerve
center electrostimulus? Ovo-Snave? You ask-I got!" he
boomed, crimson with the flush of hospitality.
"In other words-name my poison, eh?" Quicksilver
smiled. For once his aplomb was overwhelmed by the sheer
prodigality of the Master Burglar's generosity. He assumed
a judicious air and pondered the row of sparkling decanters.
"Well . . . Chateau Moskowitz, Dugan, if you have it."
"If I am having it-to laugh, to laugh it is! Seventeen more
bottles I am having than the Emperor himself in the Imperial
booze collection, har-har." Dugan slapped his wobbling
paunch with one massive hand, a wallop that would have staggered a bullock. ''The bottles, the drinking, it is a lonely, sick old man's only joy," he snorted "But no, yes--scut me for a
snazzer, I will having the same, by dog!" Waddling over to
the wall of spirituous beverages, the fat man selected a crystal
bottle.
"Vintage of '022, is okay being by you, mine boy? Heh?"
he rumbled inquiringly.
Hautley nodded. "A good year, I believe, yes."
Dugan slopped the priceless beverage into two diamond-
studded cups il.nd they toasted each other.
"To crime," Quicksilver proposed aptly.
"To crime, har bar!"
They drank.
DuGAN MOTLEY gargled down his brew with snorting appreciation, and wiped the back of his hand across his whiskery mouth.
"Pfthaa! Hot damn and by dog, now, but that has the genuine old-fashioned Moxie, or am I be-lying in my molars, heh? Heh!" he belched.
"Excellent," Hautley commented. Judiciously he swizzled
the pallid sparkling wine about the outer rim of the goblet
with a practised twist of the wrist. He threw back his head to
languidly savor the bouquet with first the left nostril, then the
right, and then with the left again, as it was particularly sensitive.
"A charmingly unpretentious little wine," he pronounced,
after sampling it thoughtfully. "Ever so cautiously verging on
audacity, but sweetly retiring from the brink, blushing, as it
were. But pleasant, very . . . ah . . . humble, but touched
with an amusing degree of self-confidence."
"Hot damn," Dugan Motley rumbled, admiringly. Hautley
inserted the very tip of his tongue into the fluid and sipped
frowningly.
"Hmm . . . from the, ah, the west side of the vinyard, I
should say," he continued. "More sun in the afternoons, you
know," he improvised
, at Dugan's gape of non-comprehension. "Brings out the tannic acid in the soil, of course. Yes
. . . on the whole, a very hospitable little wine. Very."
Dugan's huge red face split in two with a grin that revealed
a display of ivories that would have quickened the heart of a
pianist.
"Ho, it is the true connoisseur, this Quicksilver, by hot
damn and hot dog! What expertise and know-how, not to
mentioning the savvy too! Oh, the joy it is to an old lonely
sick man's heart, the very sight of you is bringing,-the great
Quicksilver!"
"Happy to meet you, too," Hautley said. "I've always been
an admirer-"
Dugan's cement-mixer voice roared on over Hautley's polite interpolation like a bulldozer sliding over a cabbage patch.
"Upstairs-! can show you!-1 am keeping scrapbooks full of
you, yes! That time on Zanuck 3 when the ruby eye from the
idol of N'gumba-Yoh-Yoh the Corn Goddess you are the
stealing of! What finesse! And the timing, how smooth!"
"Tut, now!" Hautley said modestly.
"And the kidnaping for the huge r·ansom of that Prince
from Niekas 12-how you are, with the adroits and the subties, too, hoy! And him the Prince, too, a forty-foot Crocodile
Man! Oh, the marvelousness of it all! To an old man's heart it
is like a breath of the good old days . . .
"
Against his innate sense of modesty, Quicksilver could not
help but bask before the warmth of ,this praise like earth poet
of pre-antiquity Walter Savage Landor before the fires of life.
••old!" he protested, rallying the old bandit. "Why, Dugan
you sound like a real old-timer, but from the looks of you, I'd
swear you're not a day over two hundred! Come on, now, I'd
thumbprint an oath to the fact."
"Oh, har bar bar!"
They joshed back and forth over the sparkling wine, as two
veteran professionals will upon their first meeting. But it was
grim business that had brought Hautley speeding to this
Doomsman - the Theif of Thoth Page 16
