The Thief of Thoth

11

ONLY QUICKSILVER'S habit of iron self-control kept his jaw from drooping halfway to his knees. Luckily his disciplined features retained their accustomed impassivity, even though inwardly he blenched from the shock of astonishment. Mastering himself, he permitted one lean hand to trigger a proximity switch.

''The b-beacon's on, Barsine. I'll guide you down."

While the radiobeacon piloted the police ship through the whirling meteor-moat of Quicksilver Castle, the lord of the manor tossed back a stiff snootful of Old Space Ranger and felt the knotted tension of his solar plexus dissolve as the potent beverage ricocheted off his tonsils and sloshed comfortingly into his abdomen. He had recovered his usual aplomb by the time Smeedley, the butler, ushered Barsine Torsche into his tower chamber.

Smeedley, nine feet tall, cadaverous and gaunt as a Zulu assegai, bowed creakily, and said in a rusty quavering voice of aristocratic accent: "Miss Torsche, Ser Hautley. Will there be anything further, Ser?"

"I think not, thank you, Smeedley. Wait. Yes. A drink, Barsine?"

She arched one eyebrow. “At nine o'clock in the morning? Oh, well. Why not?"

He deliberated. A connoisseur of the most discerning palate, he riffled through a mental selection of appropriate beverages, finally selecting a mild little liqueur, exotic but amusing.

"Two tots of Rissoveur '32, Smeedley, I think. The glasses to be chiled to 72° and the liqueur, of course, served at blood heat. A sprig of crabgrass, fresh cut, in each glass."

A slight, approving smile spread Smeedley's bloodless lips In a rictus of admiration.

"At once, Ser."

The gaunt butler in formal black creaked his way out.

"Really hitting the old rotgut these days, aren't you, Haut?" Barsine cracked, distinctly unimpressed. "Doesn't it hit you in the old reaction time? Are you still the fastest gun in the Carina-Cygnus Arm, or getting trembly from the booze you slosh up?"

A pained expression flitted across Hautley's features.

"Please ... a morning tot of Rissoveur is a social ritual in the finest circles," he said. She grinned hoydenishly.

"Yeah. Where I come from, it's a straight gin! But never mind. To business, before that vampire butler of yours comes flapping in. I don't know how you stumbled on it, but the Commissioner picked you to lift Crown thing—I've got all the poop right here in this dossier.” She slapped it down on his desk, as it happened, right beside a similar dossier which Hautley had received only thirty-two minutes before from Herveret Twelfth.

"And, speaking of that, Haut—how the clabberdoxing scintillation did you know what the Commissioner wanted? You don't have an Ear planted in the Depot offices, do you, or a spy-eye?"

"Of course not! It was ..."

"Well?" she demanded curiously. He smiled coolly.

"It was elementary, Barsine. Pure deduction. I couldn't explain how we professionals do these things—sheer intuition."

Her expression was skeptical but resigned. Her pink lips pouted and parted to ask another question, but just then Smeedley came wobbling into the chamber on insecure and doubtless arthritic joints, bearing two frosty drinks on an iridium salver. They toasted each other. Barsine, no epicure, tossed her drink down with a casual dip of the wrist, but Hautley savored the delicate bouquet with first the left tonsil, then the right, accepted four drops into his mouth to stimulate the salivary glands, then consumed the exquisite beverage with tranquil sips, meditating briefly on the Eleventh Proposition of Monsalietsin's Quantuum Philosophy.

Barsine watched him with a dubious look as he made a little ritual over drinking the aromatic fluid. She looked adorably lovely in her lime-green boat-cloak and opaline frock, standing against the crystalline pane through which the ruddy skies of Carvel glimmered. Pity she was so insensible to the finer things in life, Hautley mused. Of course, the poor thing was obviously madly in love with him, and fighting it every inch of the way, which explained her rude remarks and pretense of impatience at his aplomb. Ah, well. Her affectation of dislike added a certain piquance to their relationship, but Hautley's keen eye clearly saw through the mask to the depth of her quite understandable passion for him.

This, as often happens, dampened whatever degree of ardor he might otherwise have felt for so delectable a morsel of warmly curvaceous girlflesh. By temperament he was opposed to an easy conquest and was attracted by a chill rebuttal, which always implies eventual conquest after a tempestuous seige. Or, as Quicksilver phrased it in one of his wittier versicles:

Dearer to me: the prize I take,

Than gifts that other people make!