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 'Thieves' 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 heat, 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 Quicksilver, who had promised to either accept or define his contract 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 Huferd, 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 Crown-guardians 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 fell 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 gapped 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 GLIDEWALK 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 where—for 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 You!
Also, For
Them As Likes,
Boys, Men,
Neuters, Albino Hermaphrodites
And Highly Talented 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.