Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future (51 page)

“That was pretty impressive,” said
Virtue when he came back into the tavern. “How long is this charade going to
continue?”

“What charade?” he asked.

“Pretending to be Santiago.”

He stared at her expressionlessly.
“I’m not pretending.”

“What about the reward?” she
asked.

“I imagine it’ll go up,” he
replied. “The Angel was working for the Democracy.”

She met his gaze and was surprised
at what she saw there. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

He nodded silently.

“Then what about my story?” she
asked.

“What story?”

“I’ve got a recording of the Angel
killing Santiago.”

He shook his head. “
I’m
Santiago. You have a recording of a bounty hunter
killing an imposter.”

“We’ll jet the viewers judge for
themselves.”

Cain shrugged. “It’s a pity,
though,” he said softly.

“What is?” she asked suspiciously.

“That your story has to end here.”

She looked at him curiously.

“And that you never got your
interview,” he added.

“Oh?”

“There were so many things you
could have learned,” he continued. “Enough for ten pieces.”

“Enough for a book?” she asked
meaningfully.

“Who knows?”

“I’ll have to think about it,”
said Virtue.

The door opened and a doctor,
flanked by three assistants, entered the tavern.

“Not for too long,” Cain told her.

The medics carried Father William
and Moonripple out on air-cushioned stretchers, and the doctor walked over to
Cain.

“I’ll be back for the other two
later,” he said. “But I’m going to have to work fast to save Father William.”

Cain nodded. “Just come back for
this one,” he said, gesturing to the Angel. “I’m taking the other home with
me.”

The doctor looked down at
Santiago, then at Cain, and nodded his head.

Cain waited until he and Virtue
were alone again before speaking.

“I’d better pull my vehicle up and
load him into it,” he said. He walked to the door, then turned to her. “I’ll
need your decision before I go.”

He turned back and found himself
facing the Jolly Swagman.

“I saw everyone else leaving, so I
decided that this might be an opportune time to come over,” he said with a
smile. “I’m glad to see you’re still alive.”

He walked past Cain and stared at
the two corpses.

“Well, I’ll be damned!” he
muttered. “Both of them!” He turned back to Cain. “I thought I saw two bodies
being carried out.”

“Father William and Moonripple,”
said Cain. “They’re still alive.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I’ve got a
sneaking fondness for that fat old man.” He rubbed his hands together. “Well,
here we are—the Three Musketeers! Who would have thought that we’d actually
make it?”

“What do you want?” asked Cain.

“What do you mean, what do I
want?” laughed the Swagman. “You’ve got the reward, Virtue’s got her story—I
want the artwork.”

“No deal,” said Cain.

The Swagman frowned. “What are you
talking about, Songbird?”

“My name’s not Songbird.”

“All right—Sebastian.”

“It’s not Sebastian, either.”

“Well, what
do
you want to be called?”

“Santiago.”

The Swagman laughed heartily.
“He’s got
that
much stashed away?”

“What I have is none of your
business.”

“All right,” said the Swagman.
“This has gone far enough. We made a deal. The artwork’s mine!”

“You made a deal with a man who no
longer exists,” said Cain.

“Now listen to me!” said the
Swagman. “I don’t know what kind of double cross you’re trying to pull, but
it’s not going to work. You’ve got the reward; I want the artwork.”

“What you want doesn’t interest
me.”

“Do you think that just because
you’re the one who killed him you’re entitled to everything?” demanded the
Swagman. “It doesn’t work that way, Sebastian!”

“His name’s Santiago,” said
Virtue.

“You, too?” he said, turning to
face her.

“I’m his biographer,” she said
with a smug smile. “Who knows Santiago better than me?”

The Swagman turned back to Cain.
“I don’t know what kind of scam you two have worked out, but you’re not getting
rid of me that easily. I’ve put as much work into this as you have; I deserve
something for my time.”

“Some alien artwork?” suggested
Cain.

“Of course some alien artwork!
What the hell do you think I’ve been talking about?”

“All right,” said Cain. “You’re
entitled to something.”

He walked to Santiago’s body,
knelt down, and removed a gold ring from one of his fingers.

“Here you are,” said Cain. “Now go
away.”

The Swagman looked at the ring,
then hurled it against the wall.

“I’ll tell what I know,” he said
threateningly.

“Do whatever you think you have to
do,” said Cain.

“I’m not bluffing, Sebastian. I’ll
tell them he’s dead.”

“And next month or next year
another navy convoy will be robbed, and everyone will know that Santiago is
still alive,” replied Cain calmly.

The Swagman stared at Cain. “This
isn’t over yet,” he promised.

“I know,” said Cain. “For one
thing, you’re going to be protecting me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“There’s still a price on my head,
and you know I live on Safe Harbor. If any bounty hunter makes it this far, I’m
going to assume that you told him where to find me.” He smiled grimly. “I would
take a very dim view of that.”

“How can I keep tabs on every
bounty hunter who’s looking for Santiago?” demanded the Swagman in
exasperation.

“You’re a clever man,” said Cain.
“You’ll find a way.”

The Swagman seemed about to
protest, then sighed and turned to Virtue.

“You’re really going along with
this deception?” he asked.

“What deception?” she replied
innocently.

“Wonderful,” he muttered. “You
know,” he added thoughtfully, “it occurs to me that you’ve run through most of
your advance already. You’re not going to do much more than break even.”

“Have you any suggestions?”

He smiled with renewed
self-confidence. “Hundreds of them, especially for a famous art critic like
yourself.”

“We’ll talk about it later,” she
said, unable to completely hide her interest.

“I’ll be at the boarding house for
a few more days. That is,” he added sardonically, “if it’s all right with
Santiago?”

“Two days,” said Cain.

“Then, if there are no further
objections, I think I’ll take my leave of you,” he said, walking to the door.
“I crave the company of honest men and women.”

“I doubt that the feeling is
mutual,” said Cain.

The Swagman chuckled and left the
tavern.

“I was afraid that you were going
to kill him,” remarked Virtue.

“Cain might have. Santiago will
find a use for him.”

“But all he has to do is tell the
navy where to find you.”

“But he won’t,” said Cain
confidently as he walked to the door. “If the navy kills me, the Democracy will
appropriate all my belongings, including the artwork.”

It took Cain another five minutes
to load Santiago’s body into his vehicle. Then he and Virtue drove the fifty
miles out to the farm.

Jacinto was waiting for him, and
while Virtue remained at the house, the two men gently carried Santiago down to
the dell, where a third grave had been dug that morning.

“He loved this place,” said
Jacinto after they had filled in the grave. He looked around. “It
is
beautiful, isn’t it?”

Cain nodded.

Jacinto stared down thoughtfully
at the unmarked grave. “He was the best of them all.”

“Was he a bounty hunter, too?”
asked Cain.

Jacinto shook his head. “He came
here as a colonist almost twenty years ago, and built the Barleycorn Tavern.”

“What about the one before him?”

“A professor of alien languages.”

“And a chess player?” asked Cain.

Jacinto smiled. “A very fine one.”

Cain walked to a shaded area
beneath a gnarled tree. “When you bury me, I want it to be right here,” he
said.

Jacinto drew himself up to his full
height and looked into Cain’s eyes. “Santiago cannot die,” he said firmly.

“I know. But when you bury me,
remember what I asked.”

“I will,” Jacinto promised.

Cain walked back to the three
graves.

“Go on up to the house,” he said.
“I’ll join you in a little while.”

Jacinto nodded and began walking
away, while Cain lowered his head and stared at the three mounds of earth. He
stood there silently for almost half an hour, then sighed deeply and returned
to the house.

Virtue was waiting for him on the
veranda, camera in hand.

“Are you ready?” she asked
eagerly.

“In a minute. I’ve got to say
something to Jacinto first.” He turned to her. “By the way, there’s a
condition.”

“What is it?”

“You’re to take no holograph of my
face. You’ll use the little camera I took from you yesterday and aim it at my
hands.” He paused. “That’s my ground rule. Do you agree to it?”

“Of course.” she replied easily.
“It may actually extend my term as your biographer.”

“I’m glad we understand each
other.”

He sought out Jacinto and asked for
a status report’ on Winston Kchanga’s organization.

“We’ve had no reply from them.”
said Jacinto.

“And the Democracy is still
freezing Bortai’s funds?”

Jacinto nodded.

“Then I’m going to have to pay our
associates a little visit,” said Cain grimly. “Load their coordinates into my
ship’s navigational computer. I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“Yes, Santiago.”

He returned to the veranda.

“All right.” he said. “Let’s
begin.”

“Suppose you start by telling me
about this movement of yours,” said Virtue, focusing her camera on the back of
his right hand. “Who are you fighting against?”

“Movement?” he repeated, puzzled.
“I don’t know anything about any movement.” She opened her mouth to protest.
“But I can tell you about the seventeen men and women that I robbed and killed
on Silverblue.”

She grinned and activated the
microphone, and he spoke far into the night, telling her the bloody history of
the most notorious criminal in the galaxy.

Some say that
he’s a hundred,

Some say that
he is more;

Some say he’ll
live forever—

This outlaw
commodore!

That was the last verse Black
Orpheus ever wrote.

Shortly after setting the words
down, he landed on the fourth planet of the Beta Santori system. It was a
beautiful world, a pastoral wonderland of green fields and cool clear streams
and sturdy ancient trees, and the moment he stepped out of his ship he decided
to spend the rest of his life as its only inhabitant.

He named it Eurydice.

Of course, even without Black
Orpheus, life—and death—continued on the Inner Frontier.

Geronimo Gentry, Poor Yorick, and
Jonathan Stern were all dead within a year—one from old age, one from too many
alphanella seeds, and one from a plethora of sins that still had no names.

The Sargasso Rose remained a
lonely and bitter woman, cursing Sebastian Cain nightly for not fulfilling his
promise to her. Skullcracker Murchison lost his unofficial title, regained it,
and finally retired after taking one blow too many to the head.

Peacemaker MacDougal hunted down
Quentin Cicero and Carmella Sparks, then went deeper toward the core of the
galaxy in search of Santiago. Dimitri Sokol served as ambassador for two years
on Lodin XI, resigned when he felt he had accumulated enough political favors,
and moved to Deluros VIII, where he ran successfully for a minor office and
later was offered a major post within the government.

Father William was slow to heal
from his wounds. He remained in the hospital for the better part of six months,
invoking the wrath of God upon all the doctors who refused to release him until
he had lost half his body weight. The day he walked out he began regaining his
lost bulk with a vengeance, but his stamina was gone, and he finally settled on
Safe Harbor, the pastor of that planet’s only church.

As for the Swagman, he actually
did team up with Virtue Mackenzie for a brief period. After they had yet
another falling-out, he returned to Goldenrod and sat down to write his
memoirs. His enthusiasm soon waned, though he never completely abandoned the
project, and before long he had hired a new batch of menials and was once again
adding to his collection in his inimitable way.

Virtue had left the Democracy in
obscurity, but she returned as a celebrity. Her series of interviews with
Santiago won her three major awards, and her biography of the notorious bandit
made her wealthy. She returned to the Inner Frontier every couple of years for
fresh material on the King of the Outlaws and never failed to come up with it.
She drank too much, slept with too many men, and spent too much money—and
enjoyed every minute of it.

Cain carried on his campaign for
nine more years, spending what his network of illicit enterprises accumulated
where it would do the most good, fighting only that handful of battles he knew
he could win, and spreading the myth of Santiago even farther across the
Frontier.

He had always felt that when the
end came it would be at the hands of Peacemaker MacDougal—but it was Johnny
One-Note, making only his ninth kill, who finally hunted him down. He was
sitting on his veranda, gazing tranquilly across the rolling fields of corn and
wheat, when it happened, and he never knew what hit him. Johnny One-Note got to
within half a mile of his ship before they tracked him down and killed him.