Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future (39 page)

“If you want him, he’s yours,”
offered Cain.

“You mean it?”

“View it as my belated
contribution to church,” said Cain wryly.

“Praise the Lord, I’ve got another
convert!” laughed Father William, pulling out his skinning knife.

“Come outside,” said Cain to
Moonripple. “You don’t want to watch this.”

“What is he going to do?” she
asked, staring at the preacher with horrified fascination.

“Nothing that concerns us,”
replied Cain, walking her to the doorway.

She went out into the street with
him, still trembling, as the townspeople poured out of their stores and houses
to converge on the tavern. Cain ignored them and kept walking until he and
Moonripple were well clear of the crowd.

“Will you be all right, or would
you like me to take you to a doctor?” he asked.

“I’m fine, sir,” she said.

“You’re sure?” he asked as the
sound of Father William’s voice came out of the tavern, reassuring the
onlookers that no crime had been committed and that another sinner had been
sent to Satan a few years ahead of schedule.

“Yes, sir,” said Moonripple. “I’m
all right, really I am.”

“Good. That was a pretty close
call.”

She looked up at him. “You saved
my life. Why?”

“I like you,” replied Cain. “And
I’ve never been very fond of people like One-Time Charlie.”

“What can I do to repay you?” she
asked.

“You can tell me the truth about
Santiago.”

She considered his request
silently for a moment, then nodded.

“If that’s what you want,” she
said.

“Father William is waiting for
him. When is he due to show up?”

“He’s already here,” said
Moonripple.

“Santiago’s on Safe Harbor right
now?” asked Cain, startled.

“Yes.”

“How long has he been here?”

“For years, I guess,” answered
Moonripple. “He lives here.”

“Well, I’ll be damned!” muttered
Cain. “Can you take me to him?”

“No. But I can introduce you to
someone who can.”

“When?”

She shrugged. “Right now, if you’d
like.”

Cain was suddenly aware of Father
William’s presence and turned to find the preacher standing some twenty feet
away, his grisly trophy in his hand.

“You’re very persistent, Sebastian
Cain,” he said. “I admire that in a man.”

“If he’s been here all along, why
haven’t you gone after him yet?” asked Cain.

“I don’t want him.”

“Why not?”

“I have my reasons,” said Father
William.

“Well, I have mine for wanting to
find him.”

“So I’ve been given to
understand.”

“I’ve got nothing against you,”
said Cain seriously. “But if you try to stop me, I’ll kill you.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” said Father
William, holding his hands out from his laser pistols.

“Do you plan to be here when I get
back?” asked Cain.

“
If
you
get back,” the preacher corrected him.

“I’ll see you then,” said Cain. He
paused. “Aren’t you going to wish me luck?” he added ironically.

“God be with you, my son,” said
Father William sincerely.

Then Cain was following Moonripple
down the street, half expecting to feel the searing pain of a laser in the
small of his back. He was mildly surprised when he turned the corner intact and
unharmed, with Father William’s parting words still echoing in his mind.

Silent Annie
never speaks,

Never murmurs,
never shrieks,

Doesn’t
whisper, doesn’t call—

But someday,
someday, she’ll tell all.

Orpheus had a feeling about her.

There was an indefinable
something—
a look, an attitude, a way of carrying
herself—that made him think she carried some enormous secret within her.

He had no idea how right he was.

Her name was Silent Annie. She
wasn’t mute, but she might as well have been.

All anyone knew about her was that
something pretty bad had happened when she was eleven or twelve and living on
Raxar II. She spent two years in the hospital, and when she emerged she was
physically recovered—but she never spoke again. She was
capable
of speech, her doctors said; but the experience she had undergone had
traumatized her, possibly forever.

She turned up in some mighty odd
places over the years—Altair III, Goldenrod, Kalami II—but she never stayed for
long. Nobody knew what she did on those worlds, and very few people knew that
she called Safe Harbor home.

“Silent Annie?” repeated Cain when
Moonripple told him where she was taking him. “She’s here, too?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It seems like half the people
Black Orpheus ever wrote about are on Safe Harbor,” he said.

“Not really, sir,” replied
Moonripple. “There’s just you, and me, and your ship, and Father William, and
Silent Annie.”

“Didn’t Orpheus say that she was a
deaf-mute?”

“She doesn’t talk, but she can
hear everything you say.”

“What’s her link to Santiago?”

“She works for him, sir,” said
Moonripple.

“You’re sure?”

Moonripple nodded her head. “Yes,
sir.”

“By the way,” said Cain, “you can
stop calling me sir. My name’s Sebastian.”

“Thank you, sir. It’s a very
pretty name.”

“You think so?” he asked
dubiously.

“Yes, I do. Don’t you?”

“I suppose it’s better than
Songbird,” he said. He looked around. “Does Silent Annie live in the middle of
a cornfield?” he asked.

“Of course not,” laughed
Moonripple.

“Well, that’s just where we’re
headed,” he noted. “We’re almost a mile out of town.”

“She has a little house about half
a mile up the road, sir.”

“Sebastian,” he corrected her.

“Sebastian.”

“How did you meet her?”

Moonripple shrugged. “I don’t even
remember. At church, probably. It couldn’t have been in the tavern, because she
doesn’t drink.”

“And you’re good friends with
her?”

“Not
best
friends,” she said, accentuating the word. “I’ve never had a best friend.”

“How well do you know her?”

“Sometimes she stops by in the
morning and we have tea together, and once in a while I visit her on my day
off,” answered Moonripple.

“What makes you think she’ll take
me to Santiago?” persisted Cain.

“Why wouldn’t she?”

“Because I’m a bounty hunter.”

“Santiago knows that, sir.”

“Santiago knows about me?” asked
Cain, startled.

“Santiago knows everything,” she
said.

He stared at her but made no
comment, and they spent the next few minutes walking in silence.

“There it is, sir,” she said,
pointing to a small structure set in about fifty feet from the road.

“It looks empty,” said Cain.

“Oh, she’s home, sir,” said
Moonripple decisively.

“What makes you so sure?” he
asked.

“Where else would she be?”

“Beats the hell out of me,”
answered Cain, turning off the road and following a narrow path up to the front
door.

He waited for the security system
to scan the two of them, and just as he was sure that he had been right about
the home being deserted, the door slid back into the wall and he found himself
facing a small, slender woman dressed in a very old military daysuit.

She was perhaps thirty years old,
and her features were sharp and stark. She had a scar that began on her
forehead and ran through her right eyebrow and down her cheek, which even
cosmetic surgery had been unable to hide. She wore no makeup, which made her
thin lips seem even thinner.

“Hello, Annie,” said Moonripple.
“This is Sebastian Cain. He’d like to meet you.”

Silent Annie motioned for them to
enter the house, and Cain followed the two women through a small foyer into a
living room that was larger than it appeared from the outside. The walls were
covered by shelving units, which in turn were covered by disorganized stacks of
books and tapes. A dust-covered computer sat on a battered desk in one corner,
and Cain could see from the text on the screen that she had been reading when
they had interrupted her.

The furniture matched the decor of
the room: old, not very comfortable, and arranged without any concern for
design or order. Silent Annie pointed first at Cain and then at the largest of
the chairs, and he sat down, while Moonripple sat cross-legged on the floor
next to him.

Silent Annie made a pouring
gesture.

“Yes, I’d love some tea,” said
Moonripple. “What about you, sir?”

“Tea will be fine,” said Cain.

Silent Annie forced a smile to her
lips, then left the room for a moment and returned with a chipped porcelain pot
and three cups carried on a plastic tray.

“Thank you,” said Cain, taking one
of the cups.

Silent Annie made a squeezing
gesture with her hand.

“I don’t understand,” said Cain.

“She wants to know if you’d like a
slice of lemon,” said Moonripple.

“No, thanks,” said Cain as
Moonripple reached out and took a cup for herself.

Silent Annie walked over to a
couch that was covered by a blanket, placed the tray on a nearby table, and sat
down, staring questioningly at Cain.

“He wants to meet Santiago,”
volunteered Moonripple. She paused for a moment. “I told him you’d take him
there.”

Silent Annie arched an eyebrow.

“I promised him, Annie,” said
Moonripple.

Silent Annie made a gesture with
her hands that Cain could not interpret.

“Because he saved my life.”

Another gesture.

“A very mean man came into the
tavern and tried to hurt me, and he stopped him.”

Silent Annie stared at Cain,
appraising him.

“Will you take him, Annie?”

Silent Annie sat motionless for a
moment, then nodded her head.

“Thank you!” said Moonripple
happily. “I knew you would!”

Silent Annie continued to stare at
Cain, who met her gaze. Finally she turned back to Moonripple and made another
gesture with her hands.

Moonripple turned to Cain. “She
wants me to leave now.”

“How will I talk to her?”

“She’s very good at making herself
understood,” Moonripple assured him.

“Let’s hope so,” he said. “I
didn’t know what the hell she was doing when she spoke to you with her hands.”

“She’s been teaching me sign
language, but she has other ways of communicating.”

“Then I thank you for your help,”
said Cain, getting up and helping her to her feet. “I hope we meet again.”

“You’re a very nice man,
Sebastian,” she said, standing on her tiptoes and kissing his cheek. Then,
suddenly embarrassed, she turned and scurried out of the room.

“How soon can we start?” asked
Cain.

Silent Annie held up her hand,
palm outward, signaling him to wait, then walked to the window. When Moonripple
reached the road and began heading back toward the village, she turned back to
him.

“Soon,” she said.

“What?” said Cain, startled.

“We’ll start soon enough,” she
replied in a firm voice. “But first I think we’d better have a little speak.”

“I thought you couldn’t speak.”

“I can, when I have something to
say, Mr. Cain,” said Silent Annie.

“Why do you pretend to be mute?”
he asked.

“So I won’t have to answer stupid
questions.” She sat down and sipped from her cup of tea. “You’ve come to kill
him, haven’t you?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Why?”

“There’s a price on his head.”

“And that’s the only reason?”

“How many more do you need?”
replied Cain.

“I had rather hoped for something
more meaningful,” said Silent Annie. “I would hate to think that we had
misjudged you.”

“Misjudged me?” repeated Cain.

“We’ve been waiting for you, Mr.
Cain, ever since Santiago told Geronimo Gentry to start you off on the trail
that eventually led you to Safe Harbor.”

“Let me get this straight,” said
Cain, confused. “Are you saying that Santiago
wanted
me to find him?”

“That is precisely what I am
saying.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Believe whatever you want,” said
Silent Annie with a shrug. “How do
you
think you got
here, after all those years of virtually no progress?”

He stared at her and said nothing.

“I shouldn’t imply that he made it
easy for you,” she continued. “That wouldn’t have served his purposes. But he
did make it possible; he decided to give you the initial impetus.”

“Why?”

“He’s been studying you for a long
time, Mr. Cain,” continued Silent Annie. “Ever since you came out to the
Frontier.”

“Still why?”

“Because he studies everyone.”

“But he doesn’t allow everyone to
find him.”

“No,” she replied. “You are only
the second.”

“Who was the first?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Silent
Annie. “He’s dead now.”

“What about Father William?” asked
Cain.

“What about him?”

“
He
found Santiago.”

“You’re wrong, Mr. Cain,” replied
Silent Annie. “He’s not hunting for Santiago.”

“Then what’s he doing here?”

“I’m not sure you’d believe it if
I told you,” she said.

“Perhaps not,” agreed Cain. “But
why don’t you tell me anyway, and let me make up my own mind?”

“He’s here to
protect
Santiago.”

“From me?” asked Cain skeptically.
“Then why didn’t he take me on when he had the chance?”

“He’s not worried about you.”

Cain was silent for a moment. “The
Angel?” he asked at last.

She nodded. “He’ll be here before
too much longer.”