His voice was calm and conversational. Dangerfield said:
"The ornamental buttons on my surcoat are shock-projectors,
two-dimensional microminiaturized printed-circuit models activated on the psionic level. I am standing facing you in full.
My upper bu.tton is aimed at the clump of muscles directly
above your heart. If you attempt to draw a weapon or make
a sudden move I will fire a paralyzing shock into your heart
muscles and you will die instantly of psionically-induced
heart failure! Now toss the Crown of Stars over here."
Hautley's air of unruffled aplomb was never more unshaken. He smiled and continued : "In' a moment, surely. But don't you want to know how I figured you for the most celebrated crime-fighter in the galaxy, even before comparing
your pearly white choppers to the dental records? It was
very, very simple and will only take a moment. The level of
your disguise's artistry was such that only four men in the
galaxy, including myself, could have accomplished it with such
a degree of finesse. The other two men are known to me; we
have worked together on one occasion or another. That left
only Captain Rex Dangerfield, master of disguise. You and I
have never met before. I doubted very much if my four
friends would dare the risk of attempting to pull off an imposture under my very nose. That left only you, Captain."
"You are very intelligent, Quicksilver," Dangerfield said
tonelessly. "Too intelligent for your own good . . ."
"Now," continued Quicksilver smoothly. "As to your motive: there could be only one motive. In the course of an official investigation, I presume, you stumbled across some
evidence that the Neothothic cult object contained some extraordinarily valuable 'thing.' Something so valuable as to thrust even the Crown's own intrinsic or historic value into
the pale. You have had a busy and long career, Captain;
many temptations have come before you, as they have come
before me. But here you are, risking your professional reputation, your name and career, your very life-the value of the 'thing' must be truly inestimable. Thus, I suspect it to be
a technological secret."
"You are quite correct, damn you," Dangerfield said in
cold tones quite unlike the hesitant, wavering voice of Pawel
Spiro. "The Cavern Kings of Thoth were not, as has been
universally believed, of 'pre-space' technology. In fact, they
possessed an amazing variety of energy weapons, a science of
armaments many millenia in advance of our own level of
military technology. A man who had control of such secrets
could conquer the galaxy, master the Empire itself, rule
the entire Universe! I learned of all this from a renegade
Neothothic priest, defrocked, exiled, and eager for revenge.
He revealed under the psychoscope that one of the gems in
the Crown is an energy-retaining galina crystalloid upon
which is molecularly recorded in universally comprehendible
mathematical terminology the entire weapons technology of
the extinct race of lizardmen!"
"But he had already blabbed the same info elsewhere,
hadn't he?" Hautley deftly interposed. ''To Heveret Twelfth
of Canopus, for one--Heveret, whose royal predecessor,
Heveret Eleventh, was one of the most ambitious warlords of
the last century. Number 12's greatest desire was to outdo the
exploits of his Pop, and as soon as he got the word, he began
getting ideas. But your talkative ex-frater also sold the news
to two other blokes as well-one of them a gangland chieftain on Thieves' Haven, who sicced a passel of Bad Guys on the trail of the lore; the second, some official less corruptible
than you of the Imperial government, who triggered an
official Intelligance survey of the problem of purloining the
Crown and the whole technology, a survey which ultimately
led to the government's attempted retaining of my own services in that capacity. Ah, it's been quite a round-robin, hasn't it, Rex, old boy?''
"Well. the party's over as of right now, Quicksilver,"
Dangerfield sneered. "Just toss the Crown over to the sofa;
gently now, no tricks! Don't try any games like pitching it at
my head or kicking it into the pit of my stomach, or I'll give
you a coronary on the spot!"
"Right-o, gently it is. Now, Barstine."
The heart-stopping buttons on Dangerfield's surcoat vaporized in a searing puff of metallic steam.
In the other comer of the room, Barsine Torsche stepped
from behind the light-ba.fHe which had enabled her to enter
the room directly behind Quicksilver under full invisibility, and to record every word of this conversation on her ringrecorder. In her right hand she held a multigun, whose nondirectional ionic-blast component had just disintegrated the deadly buttons with a curved beam. Now the neuronic stungun component felled Dangerfield like a disrooted kazolba tree, and stiffened him out safely in stasis.
"Captain Rex Dangerfield, I arrest you under ·the provisions of Public Criminal Code A-12, Sub-section 4, on the charges of Dlegal Use of Official Secrets, Criminal Impersonation, Conspiracy Towards Violating Planetary Sovereignity, and General Knavery," she intoned formally above the recumbent figure, just to complete the record Then, de-activating the recorder, she turned to the bland. smiling Hautley.
"Okay, toss over the junk jewelry, Quicksilver, c'monl" she
mapped "Your government needs that technology."
"No government needs so deadly a weapon as an advanced
energy-weapons science," he laughed lightly. "Especially, considering the fact we have no enemies. Or if the government does, then it's up to them to find someone smarter than me to
4o the jobl"
"You mean • . . •• she gasped.
"I mean. No, Barsine, your simple, childlike faith in me is
touching, but even the one and only Hautley Quicksilver
couldn't figure out a way to tell the one true Crown of Stars
in that warehouse full of phony copies. I didn't even try,
frankly. All I needed for my purpose was to snag just one of
'em, to confront 'Pawel Spiro' with. If your boss, '01' T.J.,'
Her lovely eyes glowed with dawning comprehension, then
flashed with fury.
"Oh! Hautley. Quicksilver. You. Beast!" she hissed between clenched teeth (which is a difficult trick to perform: try it yourself and see) . "All the scintillating way from Thoth
to the hotel you've been refusing to tell me how you picked
the right Crown, and I've been wracking my brains till
they're as limp as day-old asparagus, trying to figure out how
you did it! Now it turns out you didn't do it, at all! You are
the most insufferable, superior, supercillious, smug grulzak in
the Known Universe. I hate you!"
He reached out a casual arm and pulled her into a smothering embrace.
"That is inaccurate. You utterly adore me, and you know
it . . . poor child!" he commented. Then he kissed her with
such expertise that her toes curled up and her kneecaps
wilted like day-old asparagus, to match the above-described
condition of her intellectual equipment. Then he made the
mistake of releasing her.
KRAK!
Her palm connected with his cheek stunningly. Crimson
with fury, she slapped a gravity-neutralizer on Dangerfield's
forehead and towed h
im out of the room like a suitcase.
Hautley sighed, gingerly touching his stinging cheek.
"Such passion," he yawned, boredly. "Why does she keep
up this dull pretence of fighting it? The girl's mad for me,
obviously."
He had a versicle expressive of this amorous ennui:
Grim jest: they yield at touch of hand.
Too easy conquest is . . . too bland!
We shall leave the indomitable Quicksilver at that point.
enveloped in his own comfortable delusions.
THE END
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