He gathered up his knapsack once more, took out his scanners, and checked for any inner perimeter of beams. There was none, and he stepped closer to the chalet's front wall to examine the doors and windows.
"Do you really think he'll come, sir?" the younger man asked.
His older companion never took his eyes from the panel before him. Dozens of alarms, internal and external, reported to that panel, from the motion sensors atop the compound walls to the intricate infrared photoelectric beams covering the chalet's exterior and the manifold internal detection systems on its windows, doors, and hallways. For three nights they'd waited, without even a flicker from any of them, and he understood the youngster's impatience and doubt.
"Oh, he'll come," the older man said. "If he's the man for the job, he'll come."
Habibula slipped cautiously down the hallway. The doors had been too richly fitted with alarms for his taste, but only three separate systems had protected the library windows. The window lock had been a sophisticated Cabloc Seven combination device, but locks were his special talent. A mortal pity an artist of his stature was deprived the recognition his genius deserved, yet such was the way of an uncaring world. And fair or no, there were compensations, he reminded himself with a smile.
He paused in the darkness of a four-way intersection, mentally consulting the map he'd memorized, then nodded with a smile. One more flight of stairs, another door, and then the cellar itself.
"I still wish we could have avoided giving him an accurate map, sir," the younger man fretted. "Couldn't we have had her—?"
"If he noticed any discrepancies, he'd pull out in a second," the older man said patiently. "Besides, this is supposed to be a test, as well, and how good a test would it be if we deliberately fed him false information?"
Habibula crouched outside the wine cellar door and examined the lock with the aid of a small hand light. Well, now! Isn't that a mortal surprise!
He bent closer and ran his fingers over the three combination wheels, and his eyebrows rose in respect. He'd always heard the Ulnar Chalet had first-class security, and any member of the Ulnar clan could afford the very best, but this was more than he'd expected. It was a Cerberus Twelve, possibly the most complex and effective lock yet designed by man, but he smiled, then gave it a fond pat. A good lock was like a trusted friend to Giles Habibula, for he had a certain way with them, and this one was based on a design his own father had created fifty years before. A mortal pity the old man had been a finer locksmith than a businessman, for his creation had been stolen by sharper, craftier minds, but he'd taught his son its secrets before they had.
Giles smiled again, and his short, strong fingers began to turn the knobs with a delicate precision any surgeon might have envied.
"Sir, I'm sorry, but I really don't think he's coming. Or not tonight, at least." The young man rose and walked about the room for a moment, stretching muscles cramped by hours of motionless waiting. "It's after two hundred. If he was coming, he'd certainly have started by now."
"How do you know he hasn't?" the older man countered. The green-uniformed youngster looked at him in disbelief for a moment, then waved at the console before them.
"If he were here, we'd know about it, sir," he said positively.
"Ah, you young people!" The older man smiled. "So much faith in technology and so little in human inventiveness! Sit down, James. And remember, he's Giles Habibula."
The Cerberus Twelve clicked finally, and he wiped sweat from his broad face once more despite the cool of the chalet's dehumidified air. A fearsome fine lock you designed, Dad, he thought wryly, and what a mortal sin you never got the credit you deserved for it! Ah, but we'll make them wonder at us when they find it unlocked in the morning, won't we?
He chuckled and stole through into the dusty silence of the wine cellars. One more lock and the Dragon's Eye would nestle safe and secure in his knapsack . . . and then it would be time for what he'd come for.
The younger man stirred restlessly in his chair, only his immense respect for his senior preventing yet another protest. No one had ever defeated a Cerberus Twelve without blasting or cutting. He couldn't believe that even a man of Giles Habibula's reputation could beat this one, and even if he could, there was still no sign of any attempt to penetrate the chalet.
The older man noted his restlessness and hid another smile.
There!
Habibula stowed the Dragon's Eye carefully in his knapsack, and his gray eyes glittered at the huge gem's fearsome beauty. He stroked it with reverent fingers. Ah, I'd like to keep you for myself, he thought at it, just to rest my mortal eyes upon you from time to time. But you're too well known for that, aren't you?
He chuckled, then turned away and rubbed his hands, and his eyes flickered with a deeper greed as they darted about the dimly lit cellar's dusty racks of priceless bottles.
He started his search, trotting down the aisles between the racks, face alight with pleasure as he scanned the dusty labels. A little bonus for my mortal time, he told himself with a grin, and started making his selections. The Napa '72 made a good start, and he followed it with a bottle of the Mons Olympus '90, then the Rothschild '63. Years to savor, all of them, he thought, and then his beady eyes lit in sheer delight.
He stepped closer, unable to believe what he was seeing. Crocyrean Brandy?! It couldn't be!
He blew dust gently from the bottle and sighed in pleasure. It was, and the '51, at that! Over a mortal century old, pressed from the rich black grapes of the Canal Delta, then distilled and aged to await a palate with the sensitivity to appreciate its golden glory. And that palate, he promised himself, would savor it with the respect it deserved.
He lifted the bottle gently from the rack—and froze as alarms howled.
"I don't believe it!" The younger man shot upright in his chair, staring at his console in disbelief. A brilliant light—the very last one on the panel—flashed blood red, and the older man laughed.
"I told you he was Giles Habibula, James!" he said, and reached for his communicator.
Habibula's eyes darted about the cellar in disbelief. He'd checked the racks for motion systems, scanned for invisible detection beams, searched with excruciating care for any possible alarm, and found nothing. He'd even seized the mortal Dragon's Eye without sounding an alert!
He shook himself as the fearsome keening of the alarms burned in his ears. How they'd detected his presence was less important than escaping before they got here. The chances might be slim, but he'd planned his exit route with all his mortal cunning on the way in, and they'd not caught him yet!
He slid the brandy into his knapsack, buckled it shut, and darted from the cellar with a blinding speed that belied his bulk.
"He's on his way out," the older man said urgently into his communicator. "It looks like he's headed for the west annex."
Habibula dashed up stairs and down halls with fleet-footed urgency, avoiding the detectors he'd noted on his way in with instinctive skill and breathing a silent apology to the vintages jouncing in the knapsack on his back. A mortal crime to jostle such fine wine so rudely, but he promised to let it settle properly before he tapped it.
A door slammed somewhere behind him, and he swallowed a curse as feet ran after him. They were too far back to have seen him, but where had they come from?! There were supposed to be no human guards, and even if there were, how did they know which way to pursue? He'd tripped none of the alarms he'd already spotted in his flight, and if he'd missed any on the way in, the guards would surely have reacted before he got clear to the mortal cellars!
But there was no time to think about that, and they were too far back to catch him. Once he made it through the library and onto the grounds, he'd mapped a dozen different escape routes, and—
He darted into the huge library, running for the windows, and crashed full-tilt into something in the darkness. Somehow he managed to curl around to protect the precious bottles in his knapsack as he fell, but whatever had tripped him
up wrapped about his legs like a Venusian python. He thrashed and kicked against it, fighting it in the blinding dark, and he'd almost won free when the library lights clicked on.
A reading lamp, he thought. A mortal reading lamp! What fearsome idiot left it standing in the middle of the mortal aisle?!
He started to leap up, then sighed and sat back down as half a dozen men with drawn pistols dashed into the library. He sat on the floor, looking up at them, and wondered what the Legion of Space was doing in the Ulnar Chalet at three in the morning.
"Good morning, Mr. Habibula. My name is Jartha. Colonel John Jartha of the Legion, at your service." The silver-haired man in the green uniform bowed courteously, apparently oblivious to the three enormous legionnaires who had "escorted" Habibula into the chalet's security center, then waved as a beautiful young woman walked in through another door. "I believe you've met Miss Coran," he added.
"Aye, and so I have," Habibula replied. His gray eyes were hard for just an instant, but then he smiled at the young woman and nodded to the knapsack one of the legionnaires held. "I'll take my mortal money in small bills, lass," he said genially, "but I'm afraid you'll have to get the Dragon's Eye from that great, fearsome brute with my knapsack if you're still minded to have it."
The young woman smiled, then shook her head with a trace of sadness, and Colonel Jartha cleared his throat.
"I trust you won't hold this against Miss Coran, Mr. Habibula. She was only doing her job."
"Her job, is it?" Habibula inquired pleasantly.
"Indeed. In fact, she had no choice. Miss Coran's father owns a bar—the Blue Unicorn, I believe it's called—in the Aphrodite Sea just off the coast of New Chicago. Unfortunately, there were a few, ah, irregularities in his departure from the Legion some twenty years ago." Jartha shook his head sadly. "A pity, but you know how military organizations can be."
"So you used mortal blackmail to get the lass to do your bidding, did you?" Habibula observed shrewdly.
"We prefer to think of it as encouraging her to volunteer," the colonel disagreed. "Of course, the Green Hall itself has authorized her father's pardon in return for her services."
"Has it now? And why would the Green Hall be interested in trapping a poor, honest nobody like myself?"
"You wrong yourself, Mr. Habibula." Jartha smiled. "You're quite well known in certain circles. Indeed, when we asked who the most skilled, ah, lock expert in the System might be, our contacts assured us it was either you or Stephen Matha."
"Matha! That fearsome nincompoop?!" Habibula glared at the Legion colonel. "Why, I've more talent in one hand—no, in one mortal finger!—than that great, clumsy, bumbling, overconfident—"
"Please, Mr. Habibula!" Jartha broke in, and Ethyra Coran raised a hand to hide an even broader smile. Habibula slithered to a red-faced halt, and the colonel spoke quickly before he could start up once more. "All our sources assured us Matha fell far short of your stature, Mr. Habibula," he soothed, "and that was the reason we recruited Miss Coran to contact you. We need a man with a certain talent, you see, and this was our way to be sure you had it."
"A test, was it?" Habibula glared at him, angered, despite his circumstances, by the touch to his pride of Matha's name.
"Indeed it was," Jartha assured him, "and one you passed with flying colors. Major Hazell" —he nodded at the younger man standing behind him— "doubted you could do it, but I had complete faith in you."
"Ah?" Habibula seemed to deflate suddenly and heaved an enormous sigh. "Well, it's a mortal pity the major was right, then, isn't it?" He shook his head. "Twenty fearsome years of practice—aye, and the most cunning mind with machines you're like to see in your life, Colonel Jartha—and I've not the least tiniest idea how it was I tripped myself up. The mortal shame of it! Giles Habibula to put his foot in a trap he never even saw!"
"But that was because we cheated at the very end, Mr. Habibula," Jartha said almost compassionately. He took the knapsack from the enormous legionnaire and withdrew the bottle of Crocyrean Brandy. "Fifty-one," he observed. "I believe most connoisseurs regard this as the finest year ever."
"That they do, and with mortal good reason," Habibula said, gray eyes clinging to the bottle with a sort of desperate sorrow as it slipped further from his grasp.
"But it isn't," Jartha said. "Brandy, I mean. This bottle is a fake." Habibula stared at him, and Jartha tossed it back to the legionnaire. "There's a motion sensor and an ultrawave homing device in it, Mr. Habibula. I knew a man of your discerning palate could never pass by '51 Crocyrean, so—"
"The cold, cunning heart of the man!" Habibula said indignantly. "To trap poor Giles Habibula with an empty bottle? An empty bottle of the '51?! You're not human, Colonel!"
"Perhaps not, but I do need you, and I'm afraid that this" —he dug back into the knapsack and extracted the huge ruby— "is the real Dragon's Eye. We've caught you red-handed in its theft, Mr. Habibula. I'd say you're looking at ten to twenty years in the uranium mines of Pluto."
"But it was you yourself set me on to steal the lovely, wicked thing," Habibula pointed out shrewdly, "and that makes you an accomplice!"
"No, Mr. Habibula. It makes Miss Coran an accomplice. I'm not even here."
"You're not—?!" Habibula glared at the colonel for a moment, then darted a look at Ethyra Coran, and the beautiful, sable-haired young woman had gone quite pale. He clenched his jaws until his teeth hurt, then turned his baleful gray eyes back to Jartha. "You've gone to a mortal lot of trouble just to trap poor Giles—aye, and this lass, too, it seems. So what might it be you're wanting of us, Colonel John Jartha?"
"Miss Coran's part is done, assuming you accept my terms, Mr. Habibula."
"And what might those terms be?"
"The Legion of Space is the Green Hall's first line of defense," Jartha replied in a voice that was suddenly deadly serious, "but its final defense is the device known as AKKA. Have you heard of it?"
"Aye, of course I have. Everyone in the mortal System's heard of it!"
"Then you know that there can never be more than a single keeper of the weapon, only one individual who knows the secret of its construction and operation?" Habibula nodded, and Jartha went on heavily. "Unfortunately, that isn't quite the truth of it, Mr. Habibula. Only one person may ever know the secret at one time, yet we can never be certain that no accident or disease will overtake the present Keeper before he or she can pass it on to his or her successor. And so the secret is written down, locked inside a box of adamanite which can be opened only with the fingerprints of the designated successor. Not even you could open that box's lock without them, and any attempt to force it would only destroy its contents."
"Ah?" Habibula cocked his head, considering ways he might have gone about opening such a box. To be sure, the fingerprint provision would make it mortal difficult, but unless there were other safeguards Jartha had chosen not to mention—
"Indeed," the colonel went on, breaking into his thoughts. "But the problem, Mr. Habibula, is that the box has been stolen."
"Stolen?" Giles Habibula paled at the fearsome implications. If someone had stolen the box, if they ever managed to open it and lay hands upon the secret of the device which had overthrown the Purple Hall and the Empire of the Ulnars, the consequences would be unthinkable.
"Stolen," Jartha agreed coldly. "We believe we know by whom, but the man in question is wealthier and more powerful than you can imagine. He could have hidden it anywhere, on any of his estates. He's already killed to secure it, and I see no reason to believe he wouldn't kill again to keep it, but the same contacts in the Green Hall which let him steal it in the first place would quickly warn him of any official move the Legion made against him. Which brings us to you, Mr. Habibula. We had that Cerberus Twelve installed especially for you. If you could defeat it and steal the Dragon's Eye, then perhaps you can also find and steal the Keeper's box back for the Green Hall."
"You're mad," Habibula said flatly. "If he's so fearsomely powerful
not even the blessed Legion can defeat him, it would be madness for one man, even Giles Habibula, to cross him!"
"Perhaps, but those are my terms," Jartha said coldly. "You have a choice: accept them, or spend twenty years on Pluto for grand theft."
"Ah, you're an evil, evil man, John Jartha," Habibula said bitterly.
"No, Mr. Habibula, I'm a desperate man. We must reclaim the secret of AKKA. It's just remotely possible they may find a way to open it, or, failing that, they may attempt to kidnap Aladoree, the Keeper's daughter, and force her to open it. She's only three years old, Mr. Habibula. How could she stop them? And to what lengths would men ruthless enough to steal the Keeper's box go in order to force a child to obey them?"