_Leland Hale was undoubtedly the cleverest
crook in the universe. But how could even he
crack that closely-guarded time capsule?_
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Infinity August 1958.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
_Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become
their property, that they may more perfectly respect it._--The Man
Who Was Thursday, _by G. K. Chesterton._
Tracing the path of a human being over a million parsecs of space and a
half century of time isn't easy, even when the subject makes no effort
to conceal his route or confuse his contemporaries. The difficulty
increases by a factor of at least ten when the subject is a wily,
clever, and thoroughly ruthless scoundrel like Leland Hale. If it was
difficult for the Interstellar Police to track down Hale a century ago,
it is easy to see why it would be almost impossible today. The records
are too sketchy.
But while it is virtually impossible to give any coherent chronological
account of the life of Leland Hale, it is certainly possible to deduce
what did happen during those periods of his life which are accurately
documented. Modern psychometric analysis enables us to pinpoint his
character down to the seventieth decimal place, and that, in turn,
enables us to see what he _must_ have done in a given circumstance,
being the kind of man he was.
Folk legend has a tendency to make heroes of even the vilest of
villains, provided they are colorful enough, and no amount of fact ever
quite smothers the romantic legend. Such mythical or semi-mythical
characters as Robin Hood, Jesse James, Billy the Kid, John Dillinger,
Captain Hamling Fox III, and Hilary Boone were all rascals to the core,
but even today they have their practicing cults. But the _cultus_
peculiar to Leland Hale seems to outshine them all, and for the
singularly perverse reason that he was worse than all the rest rolled
together. Indeed, he has been touted throughout the galaxy as a sort
of super Simon Templar, who "robbed from the rich and gave to the
poor." Rob from the rich he did, but the recipient was Leland Hale, who
was rarely, if ever, in penurious circumstances.
If there is any way in which the legends of Leland Hale do not
exaggerate, it is in the descriptions of his physical size. Here, there
is no need to exaggerate; Hale stood six feet six in his bare feet and
had an absolute mass of some one hundred thirty-eight kilograms--very
little of it fat. His hair was black and his skin was deeply tanned;
his face was hard, blocky, and handsome. Mentally, he was brilliant;
morally, he had one philosophy--"Leland Hale deserves to own the
galaxy." He knew the goal was unobtainable, but he worked steadily at
it.
What he wanted, he took, and if it wasn't available, he took the next
best thing--all of which brings us around to the peculiar incident on
the planet Apfahl.
* * * * *
A century ago, Apfahl was just one of those little backwater planets
that cluttered the fringes of the main streams of galactic trade.
During the early colonization of the planet, the great southern
continent was the only section of the new world that seemed worth
colonizing. By the end of the first three centuries, it was fairly
well covered with people, and those people had divided themselves into
two groups.
The southernmost part of the continent, being closer to the pole, and
higher in altitude, was occupied by semi-nomadic herdsmen who kept
animals that could graze on the almost untillable tundra. The northern
peoples, on the other hand, became farmers.
As a result, the Apfahlians quarrelled over the rightful seat of the
colony government, and, after much strife, _two_ capitals were set up,
and the country of Sudapfahl and the country of Nordapfahl glared at
each other across the boundary that separated them.
Just where the name _Apfahl_ came from, no one is quite sure. Since
it was originally colonized by people from Vega IV, which in turn was
colonized directly from Earth by people of Old Germanic stock, an
attempt has been made to trace the name through that language. The
attempt has resulted in two schools of thought.
One school contends that the word comes from the Old Earth German
word _Apfel_, which means "apple"; the other school, with an equally
sound basis, insists that the name is derived from _Abfall_, meaning
"garbage." Which school of thought one follows seems to be entirely
dependent on whether one is an inhabitant of the planet or has merely
visited there.
Leland Hale was, perhaps, an exception to that rule; the first time he
saw it, hanging in the blackness a couple of hundred thousand miles out
of the forward plate of his expensive private ship, the planet looked
very much like an apple--ripe and ready for plucking. Naturally.
Now, about all the average galactic citizen knows about Apfahl these
days is that it was the birthplace of Dachboden; as a matter of fact,
that's all anybody thought of it as a hundred years ago. Someone
says: "R. Philipp Dachboden, the Painter of Apfahl," and everyone
nods knowingly. But it would be worth your while to give five-to-one
odds against any given person being able to tell you what sector it's
in. And, actually, that's as it should be; aside from the fact that
R. Philipp Dachboden was born there, Apfahl has no claim whatever to
galactic prominence.