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"I see," he said, once I had ground to a halt. "Well, your request seems reasonable. Aahz... Aahz... I don't recall the name off-hand, but it does ring some sort of a bell. Oh well, we can check it easily enough. GRETTA!?" In response to his call, a young female Pervect appeared in the office door. She glanced quickly at Pookie who was leaning against the wall behind me, but except for that ignored my bodyguard as completely as the record keeper had.
"Yes sir?"
"Gretta, this is Mr. Skeeve. He's trying to locate someone who might have been a student here. I'd like you to help him locate the appropriate file in the archives... if it exists. Mr. Skeeve, this is Gretta. She's one of the apprentices here who helps us... is something wrong?" I had suddenly drawn back the hand I had been extending to shake hands with Gretta, and the record keeper had noted the move.
"Oh, nothing... really," I said embarrassed. I quickly reached out and shook the offered hand. "It's a... bad habit I learned from Aahz. I really should break it. You were saying?"
The record keeper ignored my efforts to cover the social gaff.
"What bad habit is that?"
"It's silly, but... Well, Aahz, back when he was my teacher, wouldn't shake hands with me once I became his apprentice. When we first met and after we became partners it was okay, but not while I was his student. I don't shake hands with apprentices he used to say... only louder. I hadn't realized I had picked it up until just now. Sorry, Gretta. Nothing personal."
"Of course... Aahzmandius!"
The record keeper seemed suddenly excited.
"Excuse me?" I said, puzzled.
"Gretta, this won't require a file search after all. Bring me the file on Aahzmandius... it will be in the dropout file... three or four centuries back if I recall correctly." Once the apprentice had scampered off, the record keeper returned his attention to me once more. "I'm sorry, Mr. Skeeve. I just managed to recall the individual you're looking for. Refusing to shake hands with apprentices was the tipoff. It was one of his least objectionable quirks. Aahzmandius! After all these years I can still remember him."
After searching so long I was reluctant to believe my luck.
"Are you sure we're talking about the same person? Aahz?"
"Oh my, yes. That's why the name rang a bell. Aahz was the nickname Aahzmandius would use when he was exercising his dubious love of practical jokes... or doing anything else he didn't want reflected on his permanent record, for that matter. There was a time when that name would strike terror into the hearts of any under-classman on campus."
"I take it he wasn't a particularly good student?" I said, trying to hide my grin.
"Oh, on the contrary, he was one of the brightest students we've ever had here. That's much of why the faculty and administration were willing to overlook the... um, less social aspects of his character. He was at the head of his class while he was here, and everyone assumed a bright future for him. I'm not sure he was aware of it, but long before he was slated to graduate, there was a raging debate going on about him among the faculty. One side felt that every effort should be made to secure him a position with the institute as an instructor after he graduated. The other felt that with his arrogant distaste for inferiors, placing him in constant contact with students would... well, let's just say they felt his temperament would be better suited to private practice, and the school could benefit best by simply accepting his financial contributions as an alumni... preferably mailed from far away."
I was enthralled by this new insight into Aahz's background. However, I could not help but note there was some thing that didn't seem to fit with the record keeper's oration. "Excuse me," I said, "but didn't I hear you tell Gretta to look in the dropout file for Aahz's records? If he was doing so well, why didn't he graduate?" The Pervect heaved a great sigh, a look of genuine pain on his face.
"His family lost their money in a series of bad investments. With his financial support cut off, he dropped out of school... left quietly in the middle of a semester even though his tuition had been paid in full for the entire term. We offered him a scholarship so that he could complete his education... there was even a special meeting held specifically to get the necessary approvals so he wouldn't be kept dangling until the scholarship board would normally convene. He wouldn't accept it, though. It's a shame, really. He had such potential."
"That doesn't sound like the Aahz I know," I frowned. "I've never known him to refuse money. Usually, he wouldn't even wait for it to be offered... not nailing it down would be considered enough of an invitation for him to help himself. Did he give any reason for not accepting the scholarship?"
"No, but it was easy enough to understand at the time. His family had been quite well off, you see, and he had lorded his wealth over the less fortunate as much or more than he had harassed them with his superior abilities. I think he left school because he couldn't bear to face his old cronies, much less his old victims, in his new cash poor condition. Basically, he was too proud to be a scholarship student after having established himself as a campus aristocrat. Aahzmandius may not refuse money, but I think you'll find he has an aversion to charity... or anything that might be construed as such."
It all made sense. The portrait he was painting of Aahz, or as he was known here, Aahzmandius, seemed to confirm the Butterfly's analysis of my old mentor's financial habits. If he had suffered from embarrassment and seen his plans for the future ruined because of careless money management, it stood to reason that he would respond by becoming ultra conservative if not flat out miserly when it came to accumulating and protecting our cache of hard cash.
"Ah! Here we are."
I was pulled out of my musings by the record keeper's exclamation at Gretta's return. I felt my anticipation rise as he took the offered folder and began perusing its contents. For the first time since arriving on Perv, I was going to have a solid lead on how to find Aahz. Then I noticed he was frowning.
"What's wrong?"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Skeeve," the record keeper said, glancing up from the folder. "It seems we don't have a current address for your associate. The note here says Traveling.' I guess that, realizing his financial situation, we haven't been as diligent about keeping track of him as we've been with our other alumni."
I fought against a wave of disappointment, unwilling to believe that after everything I had been through, this was going to turn out to be another dead end. "Didn't he have a school or business or something? I met one of his apprentices once."
The Pervect shook his head.
"No. That we would have known about. He may have been willing to instruct a few close friends or relatives... that's not uncommon for someone who's studied here. But I think I can say for sure that he hasn't been doing any formal teaching here or on any other dimension. We would have heard, if for no other reason than his students would have contacted us to confirm his credentials." Now that he mentioned it, I did recall that Rupert, the apprentice I had met, had specifically been introduced as Aahz's nephew. Overcome with a feeling of hopelessness, I almost missed what the record keeper said next. "Speaking of relatives. We do have an address for his next of kin... in this case, his mother. Perhaps if you spoke to her, you might find out his current whereabouts."