Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future (3 page)

“Then what caused this change of
heart?”

“Hear tell the Angel has moved in.
Wouldn’t want no outsider picking up the bounty fee.”

“What makes you think he will?”
asked Cain.

“You know what they say about
him,” replied Gentry. “He’s the best. I’ll bet you Black Orpheus gives him a
good twenty verses when he finally gets around to meetin’ him. So,” said the
old man, taking yet another swig, “I’m hedging my bets as best I can. The Angel
collects that money, he’ll be back on the Rim before he has a chance to spend
it. But if
you
get it, you’ll spend a goodly chunk
of it on Keepsake.”

“If I don’t retire.”

“Oh, you won’t retire,” said
Gentry with assurance. “Men like you and Sans Pitié and the Angel, you like
killing too damned much to quit. It’s in your blood, like wanderlust in a young
buck.”

“I don’t like killing,” replied
Cain.

“Gonna give me that bounty hunter
guff about how you only kill people for money?” said the old man with a
sarcastic laugh.

“No.”

“That makes you the first honest
one I’ve met. How many men did you kill for free before you found out there was
gold in it—two? Three?”

“More than I hope you can
imagine,” replied Cain.

“Soldier?”

Cain paused before answering. “I
thought so once. I was wrong.”

“What the hell does
that
mean?”

“Never mind, old man.” Suddenly
Cain sat erect in his chair. “All right—how much do you want for the name?”

“What kind of currency can you lay
your hands on?”

“What kind do you want?”

“Credits’ll do, I suppose,”
replied Gentry. “Though I’d be real interested in Bonaparte francs or Maria
Theresa dollars if you got any.”

“I haven’t seen a Bonaparte franc
in ten years,” said Cain. “I don’t think they’re in circulation anymore.”

“I hear tell they’re still using
‘em in the Binder system.”

“Let’s make it credits.”

The old man did a quick mental
calculation. “I think ten thousand would do me just fine.”

“For the name of a man who might
or might not have seen Santiago ten or twenty years ago?” Cain shook his head.
“That’s too much.”

“Not for a man like you,” said
Gentry. “I saw the poster for the body you brought in. I know how much you got
for it.”

“And what if this man is dead, or
if it turns out he didn’t see Santiago after all?”

“Then you got a free pass to
fertilize my flowers for a full month.”

“I visited your garden last
night,” said Cain. “It needs weeding.”

“What are you quibbling about?”
demanded Gentry. “How long have you been on the Frontier, Cain?”

“Eleven years.”

“In all that time, have you ever
met anyone who’s seen Santiago? Here I am offering you what you ain’t never
found before, for maybe a tenth of what you just picked up on Praeteep, and
you’re haggling like some Dabih fur trader! If you’re gonna just sit there and
insult the most beautiful blossoms on the Frontier and haggle with an old man
who ain’t got the stamina to haggle back, we ain’t going to be able to do no
business.”

Cain stared at him for a moment,
then spoke.

“I’ll tell you what, old man. I’ll
give you twenty thousand.”

“There’s a catch,” said Gentry
suspiciously.

“There’s a condition,” replied
Cain. “You don’t supply the name to anyone else.”

Gentry frowned. “Ever?”

“For six months.”

“Make it four.”

“Deal,” said Cain. “And if you’re
lying, may God have more mercy on your soul than
I
will.”

“Ain’t got no reason to lie. Only
two more of you fellers due in here in the next four months, which means one of
‘em’s probably dead, and there’s only a fifty-fifty chance the other’d come up
with the money. Not everyone makes out as well as you and Sans Pitié.”

“All right. Where do I find this
man?”

“I ain’t seen no money yet.”

Cain pulled out a sheaf of bills,
peeled off the top twenty, and placed them on the table. Gentry picked them up
one at a time, held each up to the light, and finally nodded his head and
placed them in his pocket.

“Ever hear of a world named Port
étrange?”

Cain shook his head. “Where is
it?”

“It’s the seventh planet in the
Bellermaine system. That’s where he’ll be.”

“And his name?”

“Stern.”

“How do I locate him?”

“Just pass the word you’re looking
for him.
He’ll
find
you.
”

“What’s he like?” asked Cain.

“A real sweet feller, once you get
used to a couple of his little peculiarities.”

“Such as?”

“Well, he drinks too much and he
cheats at cards, and he ain’t real fond of people or animals or aliens, and he
out-and-out hates priests and women, and he’s been known to have an occasional
disagreement with the constabularies. But taken all in all, he’s no worse than
most that you find out here, and probably better’n some.”

“Should I use your name?”

“It ought to get him to sit up and
take notice,” said Gentry. “When are you planning on leaving?”

“Tonight,” said Cain, getting to
his feet.

“Damn!” said Gentry. “If I’d of
known you were that anxious, I could’ve held out for thirty!”

“I’m not anxious. I just don’t
have any reason to stay here.”

“I got seven absolutely splendid
reasons, each and every one personally selected and trained by Moritat’s very
favorite son, namely me.”

“Maybe next time around.”

“You got something better to spend
it on?”

“That depends on whether you told
me the truth or not,” said Cain, walking to the door. Suddenly he stopped and
turned to Gentry. “By the way, I assume your friend Stern is going to want to
be paid for this?”

“I imagine so. Man sells his soul
to the devil, he spends the rest of his life trying to stockpile enough money
to buy it back.” Gentry chuckled with amusement. “Have fun, Songbird.”

“That’s not my name.”

“Tell you what,” said Gentry. “You
bring in the head of Santiago, and I’ll hold a gun to old Orpheus until he gets
it right.”

“You’ve got
yourself a deal,” promised Cain.

He’s Jonathan
Jeremy Jacobar Stern,

He’s got lust
in his heart, and money to burn;

He’s too old
to change, and too wild to learn,

Is Jonathan Jeremy Jacobar Stern.

They say that Black Orpheus caught
Stern on an off day, that in point of fact Stern never stopped changing and
learning, until he’d changed so much that nobody knew him any longer. He began
life as the son of a miner and a whore, and before he was done he’d set himself
up as king of the Bellermaine system. In between, he learned how to gamble and
did a pretty fair job of it; he learned how to steal and became more than
proficient; he learned how to kill and did a bit of bounty hunting on the side;
and somewhere along the way he learned the most important lesson of all, which
was that a king with no heirs had better never turn his back on anybody.

Nobody knew why he hated priests;
rumor had it that the first time he’d gone to jail it was a priest who turned
him in. Another legend held that he’d once trusted a couple of priests to keep
an eye on his holdings while he was fleeing from the authorities, and when he’d
finally come back there’d been nothing waiting for him but a note telling him
to repent.

It wasn’t all that difficult to
figure out why he hated women. He grew up in a whorehouse, and the women he met
once he went out on his own weren’t much different from the ones he’d known all
his life. He was a man of enormous appetites who couldn’t leave them alone and
couldn’t convince himself that their interest in him wasn’t as cold and
calculating as his interest in them.

A lot of people whispered that
that was the real reason he’d set up shop on Port étrange, that since he
couldn’t control his passion for women he’d decided to do without them and had
hunted up a world with a humanoid race that willingly allowed him to commit
terrible crimes of pleasure for which nobody had yet created any words.

Port étrange itself had a long and
varied history. Originally a mining world, it had since been a glittering
vacation spa, then a low-security penal colony, and finally a deserted ghost
world. Then Stern had moved in, set up headquarters in a once luxurious hotel,
and turned a small section of the human habitation into a Tradertown, while
allowing the remainder to linger in a state of disrepair and decay. Despite
reasonably fertile fields which sustained the native population, the citizens
of the Tradertown imported all their food and drink from a pair of nearby
agricultural colonies. When the men began outnumbering the women, they imported
the latter, too, until Stern put a stop to it.

All this Cain learned during his
first hour on Port étrange. He had landed his ship at the local spaceport—only
huge worlds like Deluros VIII and Lodin XI possessed orbiting hangars and
shuttle service for planetbound travelers—and rented a room at the larger of
the two functioning hotels, then descended to the ground-floor tavern he’d
spotted on the way in.

It was crowded, and despite the
chrome tables and hand-crafted chairs—leftovers from the hotel’s halcyon days
of glory—it felt as dingy and seamy as any other Tradertown bar. The only chair
available was at a small table that was occupied by a short, slender man who
sported a shock of unruly red hair.

“Mind if I sit down?” asked Cain.

“Be my guest,” said the man. He
stared at Cain. “You new around here?”

“Yes. I just got in.” Cain glanced
around the room. “I’m looking for somebody. I wonder if you can point him out
to me?”

“He’s not here now.”

“You don’t know who I’m looking
for,” said Cain.

“Well, if it isn’t Jonathan Stern,
we’ve got a hell of a news story breaking here.” said the man with a chuckle.
“He’s the only person anyone ever comes to Port étrange to see.”

“It’s Stern,” said Cain.

“Well, I suppose I can pass the
word. You got a name?”

“Cain. Tell him Geronimo Gentry
sent me.”

“Pleased to meet you, Cain,” said
the man, extending a lean white hand. “I’m Terwilliger. Halfpenny Terwilliger,”
he added as if the name was expected to mean something. He watched Cain for a
reaction, discerned none, and got up. “Back in a minute.”

Terwilliger walked over to the
bar, said something to the bartender, and then returned to the table.

“Okay,” he said. “He knows you’re
here.”

“When can I see him?”

“When he’s ready.”

“How soon will that be?”

Halfpenny Terwilliger laughed.
“That all depends. Does he owe Gentry money?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then it’ll probably be sooner
rather than later.” He pulled out a deck of cards. “Care for a little game of
chance while you’re waiting?”

“I’d rather have a little
information about Stern.”

“I don’t doubt it,” said
Terwilliger. “Tell you what. You bet with money, I’ll bet with pieces of
Stern’s life. I’ll match every credit with a story.”

“Why don’t I just pay you twenty
credits for what I want to know and be done with it?” suggested Cain.

“Because I’m a gambler, not a
salesman,” came the answer.

“At a credit a bet, you’re not
likely to become a very rich one,” observed Cain.

Terwilliger smiled. “I got into my
first card game with one New Scotland halfpenny. I was worth two million pounds
before it was over. That’s how I got my name.” He paused. “Of course, I lost it
all the next week, but still, it was fun while it lasted, and no one else ever
had a run of luck like that one. Been trying to do it again ever since.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Oh, maybe a dozen years,” said
Terwilliger with another smile. “I still remember how it felt, though—like the
first time I was ever with a woman, except that it lasted longer: six days and
five nights. That’s why I always start small—out of respect for times past. If
you want to raise the stakes later, we can.”

“If I raise the stakes, what can
you bet to match it?”

Terwilliger scratched his head.
“Well, I suppose I can start betting rumors instead of facts. They’re a lot
more interesting, anyway—especially if they’re about the
fali
.”

“What’s a
fali
?”
asked Cain.

“It’s what the natives call
themselves. I don’t suppose it’s the best-kept secret in the galaxy that our
friend Stern’s got a couple of tastes that are just a bit out of the ordinary.”

“Let’s stick to facts for the time
being,” said Cain. He nodded toward the cards. “It’s your deal.”

They played and talked for more
than an hour, at the end of which Cain knew a little bit more about Stern, and
Terwilliger was some forty credits richer.

“You know, you still haven’t told
me why you want to see him,” remarked the gambler.

“I need some information.”

“Who do you plan to kill?” asked
Terwilliger pleasantly.

“What makes you think I want to
kill anyone?”

“You’ve got that look about you.
I’m a gambler, remember? My job is reading faces. Your face says you’re a
bounty hunter.”

“What if I told you I was a
journalist?” asked Cain.

“I’d tell you I believed you,”
replied Terwilliger. “I don’t want no bounty hunter getting mad at me.”

Cain laughed. “Can you tell
anything from Stern’s face?”

“Just that he’s been with the
fali
too long. Not much human left in it.”

“What do these
fali
look like?” asked Cain.

“Either pretty good or pretty
strange, depending.”