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quarters. There he finds
Paderbush in the process of transforming himself into Trumble; both are Hekkus disguises. Hekkus has no face and conceals the lack with masks. Gersen identifies himself, reminds Hekkus of the Mount Pleasant raid in which nearly all of Gersen's family was murdered, then kills him. He returns to the Oikumene accompanied by Alusz Iphigenia, promising to send ships to bring Thamber back into contact with the rest of humanity.
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place she could think of that could not be pressured into surrendering her to him: Interchange. Interchange facilitates the exchange of kidnap victims for their ransoms, and Hekkus cannot afford to lose its services. She acted as her own "kidnapper" and set the highest ransom
Interchange would allow, but Hekkus is steadily amassing the enormous sum.
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He then learns that Hekkus is perpetrating a series of kidnappings of extremely wealthy people and discovers why. When a beautiful, young woman named Alusz
Iphigenia Eperje-Tokay, who claims to be from the legendary lost planet Thamber, discovered that Hekkus wanted her, she sought refuge at the only
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He returns with enough counterfeit currency to ransom Alusz
Iphigenia, hoping she will be able to guide him to Thamber, where Hekkus periodically resides. Since she is entitled, as her own "sponsor", to the bulk of the ransom, Gersen asks for a bank draft drawn on a reputable bank, thereby acquiring
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He takes the fort to the castle of Sion
Trumble, who was Alusz Iphigenia's fiancé. One of Trumble's associates was tortured by Hekkus, but (uncertainly) denies that he is Paderbush. Gersen has his suspicions, however, and allows his prisoner to escape. He then forces his way into Trumble's private
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Thamber is home to a quasi-medieval culture. Gersen and Alusz
Iphigenia encounter a barbarian tribe. He fights the leader of the warband to save her from sexual slavery, and they accompany the warriors to Kokor Hekkus's castle. There the barbarians easily defeat Hekkus's foot soldiers, but then
258:. He is sent to disrupt a meeting between a criminal named Billy Windle and a Mr Hoskins. Gersen learns that Billy Windle is Kokor Hekkus. Hekkus is trying to sell the secret of immortality for instructions on how to create perfect counterfeit money, but Gersen ends up with the latter process.
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Patch's machine appears and sends the barbarians fleeing in panic. Gersen disables the machine, using a secret device he had had installed, and takes its crew prisoner, observing that one of them, Franz
Paderbush, resembles Billy Windle.
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During his investigation, Gersen ransoms Myron Patch, an engineer who built for Hekkus a walking "fort" in the shape of a
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sets his sights on Kokor Hekkus, one of the Demon
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This article is about the Jack Vance novel. For other uses, see
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231:) is a science fiction novel by American writer
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21:Killing machine (disambiguation)
1092:American science fiction novels
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41:consists almost entirely of a
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831:The House on Lily Street
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16:1964 novel by Jack Vance
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904:Gateway to Strangeness
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1097:Demon Princes series
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43:plot summary
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1034:Gaean Reach
768:Space Opera
366:Dying Earth
1066:Categories
1050:Bad Ronald
817:Night Lamp
789:Bad Ronald
711:Big Planet
553:The Asutra
510:The Dirdir
357:Jack Vance
289:References
239:" series.
233:Jack Vance
109:Jack Vance
974:Rumfuddle
539:The Anome
517:The Pnume
446:Star King
200:Star King
188:Paperback
153:Publisher
62:June 2022
1022:See also
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601:Lyonesse
467:The Face
273:genuine
125:Language
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529:Durdane
407:related
186:Print (
128:English
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625:Madouc
256:Beyond
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105:Author
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967:Noise
659:Throy
353:Works
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143:Genre
1029:Grue
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
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