Doomsman - the Theif of Thoth

by Harlan Ellison

  quaint backwater of a planet, and he was impatient to get the

  social amenities out of the way so that he could get down to

  the brass tacks of business, as it were. He had no slightest

  doubt in mind, that Dugan Motley would refuse to give him

  the inside information he required. For, as yet, he had not

  found a chance to reveal to the bluff, swaggering old space-pirate the disquieting news that the evil forces against whom Hautley was opposed in a duel of wits had ruthlessly murdered in cold blood Dugan's old partner in crime, helpers, inoffensive Shpem Hufferd.

  For a brief while, however, he delayed passing on that unhappy news, and the two supercriminals toasted each other in the sparkling beverage and recounted old exploits, lovingly

  discussed ¢he fine points of criminal technique, and fingered

  over with the appreciation some of the mightiest deeds in the

  annals of criminality. But, then, once the social amenities

  were exhausted, the Master Burglar came swiftly to the point.

  "So." Fixing Hautley with an inquiring eye. "Now, not for

  the compliments exchange are you visiting old Dugan Motley,

  eh? No. Nor for the reminiscence doing, eh? Quicksilver, my

  friend, you have business in mind, right am I?"

  "Right," Quicksilver agreed.

  "Then shall we to it, pell-mell?"

  2G

  "DUGAN, OLD BOY," Hautley began without preamble, "you

  are the one man in the galaxy who tried to turn the Crown of

  Stars trick and came back with his throat uncut, even though

  you didn't manage to snaffle the gemmy thing. What I want to

  know is very simple. To Wit:

  ( 1 ) How is the Crown guarded?

  (2) How far did you get before you got caught?

  (3) Why did you fail to get the Crown?

  ( 4) How did you get caught at all, and you the snorpest

  scraggling fizzier that ever flad a fl.id in this neck of

  the galaxy?"

  The Motley paunch heaved alarmingly with a series of seismic chuckles that wreaked havoc with cheek, jowl and upper torso in general. Hautley patiently waited while the mirthquake slowly subsided. As it did, at length. Wheezing and wiping tears of honest laughter from his bright twinkling eyes, the fat old man tossed off a last goblet of Chateau Moskowitz

  '022 as lightly as if it were nothing of higher potency than a

  beaker of carrot juice.

  "So, my japer, that be's the caper, heh? The great Quicksilver planning to 'crown' a bee-youtiful career by snipping the Crown o' Stars itself, heh, me bucko? Oh, bar har bar!"

  "That's it, all right," Hautley said firmly. "And the question

  is, Dugan, will you help me by giving me all the dope I need

  to make a try? You're the only one that tried and got caught

  and still got away with an un-laser-broiled epidermis. I'd sure

  like to know what sort of guards I face, and exactly how you

  pulled off so brilliant a coup. Will you help me, Dugan?"

  "Yes, yes," the old man grumbled, wagging his head dole-

  fully, pendulous jowls a-wobbling. "Yes

  old Dugan tried,

  .

  •

  .

  the poor fat old feller . . . tired and failed, dog rot the frazzled luck o' the Motleys! But better luck and all success, sez I, to me friend, the so great Quicksilver, on top of whom's

  shoulders the cloak o' fame I worn so long has passed!"

  Hautley's mirror-bright eyes flashed eagerly.

  "Then you'll help me, Dugan?"

  "Aye, me spruce young buckol" the old pirate beamed, triggering off another series of seismic chuckles that went joggling and jiggling down his monstrously fat facade. "Happily will I

  be to tell to you all the ins of this dog-rotted Crown, and especially the, bar bar, outs!"

  "Great! That's fantabulous, Dugan! Let -me get my

  aoundscriber." Hautley dug out of his "business suit" a miniature tape-recorder and snapped it on.

  "Well, to beginning with, mine friend the great Quicksil-

  ver," Dugan began pompously, "you see, the Crown is-is-" I

  "Thafs enough free gas, Gutsy, hold it right there/"

  Dugan's voice broke off with an astounded snort.

  Quicksilver's hand flew towards his concealed weaponry,

  but the hard, cold, level voice from behind them said:

  "Freeze, Blue Bay, unless you want a ventilated duodenum.

  Everybody stay nice an' quite, 'cause I got a itchy trigger-stud

  tlnger, and this thing might go off. That's right!"

  The steely-hard, ice-cold voice came from approximately

  seven feet three inches behind him, Hautley's keen sense of

  hearing told him That would place its point of origin directly

  .

  in front of the third in the series of French doors he recalled

  ICeing when first he had entered this first-floor room. Secure

  in the knowledge that no criminal could recognize him in his

  current disguise as one of the Blue Nomads of Cordova 6,

  Aristocrat Class, what with his indigo-hued facial pigmentation, his scalpwig of scarlet bristles, his padded pneumatic suit, etc., Hautley froze motionless and stared straight ahead

  of him into the mirror behind the wall of liquor bottles.

  There he could see the reflections of the intruders who had so

  rudely broken in upon his colloquy with the Master Burglar

  of Capitan.

  His heart sank, momentarily. He saw-as he had half-expected to see--a grey-complexioned Orgotyr in fluorescent ICarlet tights slashed with dead-black piping and puckered

  ruffs, a kind-faced Wollheimian in severely tailored spray-on

  llacb with triple-gathered dockets down the cuff, a plum-

  skinned Schloim from Pazatar 9, and a white-furred and

  dual-headed entity from Wolverine 3.

  This, he reflected, philosophically, was certainly not one of

  his better days.

  But he had no one to blame but himself. For he had carelessly neglected to take a precaution both elementary and extremely vital to one employed in his precarious profession-a precaution so natural to his thinking, that he had once put it

  down on paper for the delectation of future versicle-lovers in

  this manner:

  Observed: he who would die in bed

  Keeps one eye fixed behind, one fixed ahead/

  �7

  OF THE FOUR intruders, he noticed that one bore a General

  Nucleonics Mark IV coagulator. The second fiend was armed

  with a Cariocan boomerang-dirk of razor keen-edge knifewood. The third aimed a deadly little ionic flasher the size of his little finger, but potent enough in destructive potential to

  reduce this princely structure to smouldering cinders.

  The fourth hefted a cross-compensating megawatt neuronicparalyzer tube with sawed-off muzzle and a Freggley­

  Smythe-Wickett Model Alpha-12 robot-aimed l'adar-sighted

  spotter.

  Here's a deadly crew, Hautley sighed.

  Still seated immobile, he delicately and unobtrusively

  began shifting his weight in such a manner as to exert particular pressure on his left boot-heel, which was hollowed and contained therein a pressure-sensitive charge of flash-powder.

  Using the subtle arts of muscle-control Hautley had learned

  as a wee lad from the Adepts of New Tibet, or Blavatsky 3,

  as it was known to the tourism guide-books, he allowed the

  exertion of extraordinary thrust to build up--:-using, of

  course, only those sinews from kneecap to heel, the rest of

  his body lax as flaccid wax.

  But this time, to no avail

  .


  •

  •

  "Plax off, hubby!" the grey-complexioned one snarled,

  lifting one cruel lip in a nasty sneer. "Forget all about the

  charge of pressure-sensitive flash powder in the left boot heel,

  or I'll air-condition your liver and your duodenum!"

  Haudey sighed, but complied, permitting the thrust to

  slacken. Of course, the grey-complexioned Orgotyr in fluorescent scarlet tights slashed with dead-black piping and puckered ruffs had completed his natty sartorial ensemble_ with a set of X-ray contact lenses-how could Haudey have overlooked so obvious a gambit?

  You're getting mighty lax, he told himself severely.

  Purpling with indignation, Dugan Motley huffed and

  wheezed like a beached Ore. Apoplectic fury seethed in his

  stout old heart. Incoherent with boiling rage, he rumbled and

  snorted sulphurously. Hautley keenly realized that any moment now the old war-horse would do something foolish, like charging the four intruders like a bull walrus in mating season. He must do something quickly, to stave off this suicidal outburst on the part of his fat old host, whom he had unmeaningly embroiled in a private feud.

  "Relax, old-timer!" he said in a mollifying tone.

  "Relax, is it7" the Master Burglar roared

  "Sure. Be smart. They've got us zaxed like a couple of

  chowders in a second-rate Chowderyl Be smart, ease off, and

  watch your arteries.''

  Grey-<:omplexion grinned nastily at this, but eld Dugan

  was still trembling with infuriated rage.

  "By dog and bot damn, my arteries can go plax themselfsl

  Had the ruddy little blighters ripped out last year and replaced with spliced plastex tubing, fore an' aft, did I! But I am boiling with the insultednessl To a guest in mine home,

  the sticking-ups should happen! An old fat man, sick and

  lonely, I still have my prides! Me, me, on whom in my days

  none ever got the droppings! OOOOoooo-the shame of it

  all!"

  He broke off, to fix the grinning quartet with a glare of

  sufficient wattage to boil aluminum.

  "Kill me quick, you scut�, before I Pill dying of ·the galloping embarrassments-AARGGHH. Akk. Gukk . • •

  "

  "Always happy to oblidge, Fats," leered the kindly-fea-

  tured Wollheimian in severely tailored spray-on slacks with

  triple-gathered dockets down the cuff. Leveling his cross-compensating neuronic paralyzer tube, he sprayed Dugan Motley with a pale lavender ray-beam.

  Dugan sagged, limbs and paunch flopping in several different directions simultaneously. The effect was that of a half a ton of monkey-blubber suddenly freed of its casing.

  Rapping a hard oath, Hautley whirled into violent action.

  One hand plucked a slim, deadly little needier from his

  tunic, as he whirled-

  -But, even as he whirled, a hissing, crackling noise of ray

  gunfire exploded behind him with all the vehement sound

  effects of twenty pounds of frozen, oily bacon quick-fried in

  a berserk shortwave-oven.

  "All right, Quicksilver," an icy female voice redolent of

  ill-repressed wrath seethed behind him. "You'e safe enough

  now, but not when I get my hands on you, you trickster

  you!"

  He whirled to see the unexpected figure of Barsine Torsche

  behind him, standing victoriously with a smoking . pistol

  astride the recumbent bodies of the four intruders, who lay

  rigid as tent poles, blue sparks snapping from their finger tips.

  "I WONDER, Barsine, if you realize how lovely you look when

  you are angry," Hautley purred, with that suave self-possession that seldom deserted him, even under the most horrendous of circumstances.

  She snorted.

  "Thought you could fool me, did you? Phooey!" she crackled. "I had a hunch you had something up your sleeve beside your arm. So I hid off-planet at the edge of your meteor-moat

  and waited to see if you would come hightailing out of ,there

  -which you did!"

  "Barsine, I-"

  "You buzzed off Carvel before I could even finish having a

  smoke! So I just foJlowed along after you. If I'd stopped to

  think what I would do if I were Ser Smart-Nose H. Quicksilver, C.A., I'd have thought of checking up on old Shpem Hufferd, former confederate of the notorious Dugan Motley

  -which is just what you did."

  "Barsine

  . . I"

  .

  "Well?"

  "So I went to check up on Shpem Huffered: what, may I

  ask, does that prove? I told you I was on a job for His Dignity the Proprietor of Canopus-perhaps I wanted to hire Hufferd for the job of scragging Heverefs political foe?'•

  Her adorably small jaw settled grimly.

  "Won't .do, Quicksilver! I checked the records. You did not

  register any contract with anybody rtJh.is whole entire week,

  for any caper. So . • . either you were lying, and flashed a

  phony contract under my nose, or you've been cheating on

  your income tax by not reporung commissions-which is it?"

  Hautley was not trapped into a disclosure that easily.

  "How could you possibly follow me through pseudospace?"

  he scoffed shrewdly. "When a ship is under Bettleheim-Ortleigh-Robton Drive transposition it is, by very definition. undetectible, even by gazdar • • •

  ••

  She smirked triumphantly.

  "Simple, you simpleton. When I left your flashy villa, I

  stuck a 'tracer' on your hull. Now, let•s stop shilly-shallying.

  Who was it who hired you to go after the Crown of Stars,

  and what did you learn from poor old Dugan Motley-"

  Hautley jumped, and turned
  body of their host.

  "Yes, by Arnam's Beard! I knew I'd forgotten something

  -what about poor old Dugan? They zapped him down, just

  as you came crashing the party. I wonder if the old walrus is

  still with us, or . . . ?"

  He made a swift examination of the body with his pocket

  medikit Face cast in an expression of unusual solemnity, he

  rose slowly upon completion of the task.

  "Well?'• Barsine inquired anxiously. "Is the old geezer

  okay, or did they

  T'

  •

  •

  •

  "No, not with the coagulator, thank Space. They zapped

  him with the neuronic paralyzer."

  She relaxed. "Thank the Plenum! He's an old rum-guzzling

  reprobate but

  ,

  I'd hate to see him fried. H it's only an n-gun,

  the effects wear off-"

  "In fifty-six hours!" Hautley grated tautly "I can't wait

  .

  that long for the information I need, and I didn't get one erg

  of intelligence regarding Thoth from him before the Baddies

  zapped him down. No, there's no point in hoping for help

  from this quarter. His brain'll be in stasis where I can't question it. Damn! Now what'll I do!"

  "What about these four scuggers?'' Barsine indicated the

  four tent poles, still faintly sparking from their finger tips.

  "Maybe they know something?'' Quicksilver eyed them disdainfully.

  "Not them-mere hirelings. Turn 'em over to the local native police, will you Barsine, while I-"

  "Oh no you don't, Hautley Quicksilver! I know you and

  your tricks! You'll buzz off in your speedster the microsec my

  back is turned if I don't keep you in sight! No siree, from

  here on we work together, o
r you don't work at all!"

  He sighed, but complied. "Well, at least help me drag them

  into the front hall. You hit them with such a charge, ·they're

  beginning to singe Dugan's priceless Artemisian tapestry-carpet."

  While Barsine had Dugan's robutler phone for medical aid,

  and then summoned the local police to pick up the unconscious scuggers, Hautley searched the spark-discharging bodies with swift but microscopic care. He found nothing.

  -

  Moments later they were winging back to downtown Brasilia in Dugan's own aircar, Within moments they were in the sleek cabin of Quicksilver's slim speedster, the fastest thing in

  space, and the quaint old planet Earth was fading behind

  them into the sunset.

  "So. What's your--our-next move?" Barsine demanded,

  while making certain subtle repairs in her facial cosmetics.

  "Next, my lass, I make a try at lifting the Crown of Stars,"

  he said grimly.

  AN HOUR LATER they circled in orbit about the planet Thoth.

  The trip from Sol III to Thoin IV in the Derghiz Cluster had

  been rapid and uneventful, consuming a half-hour at most.

  As they emerged from pseudospace into the normal continuum, Hautley, having donned yet another of his remarkable disguises, deftly removed the Triple-X Spasmodic Frammistator from the drive engine, replacing the delicate component with an identical, though severely fractured, duplicate.

  His callboard whistled for ·attention. Wiping graphite from

  his hands with a scrap of waste, Hautley thumbed the switch

  to Receiving and delivered a bland smile into the irate features of a Neothothic Archimandrate.

  "Identify yourself at once! Screech, crackle. No ship permitted on or about, whee, ziggle, this planet by Section 1 2, Paragraph Z of our Charter of Planetary Sovereignty with

  your zeek, wheetle, Imperial government!" the irate Archimandrate sizzled, obviously having worked up a fine, ecclesiastical frenzy.

  "Hi, there!" Hautley beamed jovially. "Sorry, friend, but I

  can't budge. Cracked my only Spasmodic Frammistator right

  smack in two coming through a nasty gravity-vortex a parsec

  back. Lucky to be able to ·transpose into Normal so near a

  fine inhabited-type planet like yours!"

  "What? Zeek, week, weezle. What ship are you?,.

  "HMS Pinafore, out of New Poughkeepsie, Altair, bound