Thief of Time

at the head of the last assistant he had.”
    “Really, thur?”
    “Mm, he hasn’t thrown a clock at your head, has he?”
    “No, thur. He acth quite normally,” said Igor, a man with four thumbs and stitches all around his neck. He opened the door into the workshop. “Dr. Hopkinth, Mr. Jeremy. I will make thome tea, thur.”
    Jeremy was sitting bolt upright at the table, his eyes gleaming.
    “Ah, doctor,” he said. “How kind of you to come.”
    Dr. Hopkins took in the workshop.
    There had been changes. Quite a large piece of lathe-and-plaster wall, covered in penciled sketches, had been removed from somewhere and stood on an easel on one side of the room. The benches, usually the resting places of clocks in various stages of assembly, were covered with lumps of crystal and slabs of glass. And there was a strong smell of acid.
    “Mm…something new?” Dr. Hopkins ventured.
    “Yes, doctor. I’ve been examining the properties of certain superdense crystals,” said Jeremy.
    Dr. Hopkins took a deep breath of relief. “Ah, geology. A wonderful hobby! I’m so glad. It’s not good to think about clocks all the time, you know!” he added, jovially, and with a soupçon of hope.
    Jeremy’s brow wrinkled, as if the brain behind it was trying to fit around an unfamiliar concept.
    “Yes,” he said at last. “Did you know, doctor, that copper octirate vibrates exactly two million, four hundred thousand and seventy-eight times a second?”
    “As much as that, eh?” said Dr. Hopkins. “My word.”
    “Indeed. And light shone through a natural prism of Octivium quartz splits into only three colors?”
    “Fascinating,” said Dr. Hopkins, reflecting that it could be worse. “Mm…is it me, or is there a rather… sharp smell in the air?”
    “Drains,” said Jeremy. “We’ve been cleaning them. With acid. Which is what we needed the acid for. For cleaning the drains.”
    “Drains, eh?” Dr. Hopkins blinked. He wasn’t at home in the world of drains. There was a crackling sound and blue light flickered under the door of the kitchen.
    “Your, mm, man, Igor,” he said. “All right, is he?”
    “Yes, thank you, doctor. He’s from Uberwald, you know.”
    “Oh. Very…big, Uberwald. Very big country.” That was one of only two things Dr. Hopkins knew about Uberwald. He coughed nervously and mentioned the other one. “People there can be a bit strange, I’ve heard.”
    “Igor says he’s never had anything to do with that kind of person,” said Jeremy calmly.
    “Good. Good. That is good,” said the doctor. Jeremy’s fixed smile was beginning to unnerve him. “He, mm, seems to have a lot of scars and stitches.”
    “Yes. It’s cultural.”
    “Cultural, is it?” Dr. Hopkins looked relieved. He was a man who tried to see the best in everybody, but the city had got rather complicated since he was a boy, with dwarfs, and trolls, and golems, and even zombies. He wasn’t sure he liked everything that was happening, but a lot of it was “cultural,” apparently, and you couldn’t object to that, so he didn’t. “Cultural” sort of solved problems by explaining that they weren’t really there.
    The light under the door went out. A moment later Igor came in with two cups of tea on a tray.
    It was good tea, the doctor had to admit, but the acid in the air was making his eyes water.
    “So, mm, how is the work on the new navigation tables going?” he said.
    “Ginger bithcuit, thur?” said Igor, by his ear.
    “Oh, er, yes…Oh, I say, these are rather good, Mister Igor.”
    “Take two, thur.”
    “Thank you.” Now Dr. Hopkins sprayed crumbs as he spoke. “The navigation tables—” he repeated.
    “I am afraid I have not been able to make very much progress,” said Jeremy. “I have been engaged on the properties of crystals.”
    “Oh. Yes. You said. Well, of course we are very grateful for any time that you feel you can spare,” said Dr. Hopkins. “And if I may say so, mm, it is good to see you with a new interest. Too much concentration on one thing is, mm, conducive to ill humors of the brain.”
    “I have medicine,” said Jeremy.
    “Yes, of course. Er…as a matter of fact, since I happened to be going past the apothecary today…” Dr. Hopkins pulled a large, paper-wrapped bottle out of his pocket.
    “Thank you.” Jeremy indicated the shelf behind him. “As you can see, I have nearly run out.”
    “Yes, I thought you might,” said Dr. Hopkins, as if the level of the