The Return of Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future (11 page)

      
"I'm sure it was a burden for Orpheus," agreed Tyrannosaur. "But that's because someone had to be first. He paved the way. It should be a cakewalk for you."

      
"It'll be harder for me."

      
"Don't have the talent, huh?"

      
"I don't know. That's for others to judge. But Orpheus had a unifying theme."

      
"What theme was that?" asked Bailey.

      
"He had Santiago."

      
"Santiago wasn't a theme. He was a man."

      
"He was both. Everyone in the poem is valued based on how he related to Santiago."

      
"What are you talking about?" said Bailey. "I grew up on that poem! I can quote whole sections of it to you, and we both know that most of them never even knew Santiago!"

      
"The outlaws were compared to him, never very favorably. The bounty hunters and lawmen were measured based on how close they got to him. Preachers, thieves, aliens, even an itinerant barmaid, they all formed a kind of nebula around him. They were caught in the field generated by his strength and his charisma; Orpheus knew it, even if they didn't."

      
"So who's
your
Santiago?" asked Bailey.

      
"I don't have one . . . yet." The poet sighed. "That's why my job's harder."

      
"And you may not live past noon tomorrow."

      
Dante smiled ruefully. "That's another reason why my job's harder."

      
"So what's your name—Danny or Dante?"

      
"Dante Alighieri—but they call me the Rhymer."

      
"Who does?"

      
Dante made a grand gesture that encompassed half the universe. "Them."

      
"Them?"

      
"Well, they will someday."

      
"We'll see," said Bailey dubiously.

      
"What makes you an expert on poetry?" demanded Dante.

      
"I'm not," answered Bailey. "I'm an expert on survival." He stared at Dante. "You've already made a lot of mistakes. You're lucky you're still alive."

      
"What mistakes?"

      
"You hooked up with my friend Virgil, who attracts outraged moralists everywhere he goes. You made some kind of mistake at the spaceport, or Wait-a-bit Bennett would never have spotted you. You made a third mistake by sticking around after he made you that offer. He probably has a confederate watching your ship, but by tonight he'll be there himself, and I guarantee he's more dangerous than anyone he might hire." He paused. "How long have you been on the Frontier, poet? A week? Ten days? And you've already made three fatal blunders. Tomorrow you'll probably make a fourth."

      
"I don't know what I can do about it," said Dante. "I can't raise 50,000 credits by tomorrow morning."

      
"Sell your ship."

      
"Uh . . . it's not exactly
my
ship," said Dante.

      
"Make that
four
fatal blunders. The spaceport's got to have reported the registration back to the Democracy. You'll have another warrant out on you by dinnertime, and you've almost certainly got a squad of soldiers already flying out here to reclaim the ship—after they kill you for putting them to the trouble."

      
"So what do you think I should do?"

      
"I thought you'd never ask," said Tyrannosaur with a grin. "What you should do is hire a protector, someone who can stomp on Wait-a-bit Bennett as easily as you stomp on an insect."

      
"If I can't afford to buy him off, I can't afford to pay you to protect me," explained Dante.

      
"I don't want your money."

      
"What do you want?"

      
Bailey learned forward. "How many verses did you give Bennett? I want the truth, now."

      
"Three," said Dante.

      
"Then the man who kills him ought to get at least four, right?"

      
"Maybe five," agreed Dante.

      
Tyrannosaur extended an enormous hand. "You've got yourself a deal, poet."

      
Dante shook the giant's hand. "Call me Rhymer," he said with a smile.

      
"Rhymer it is!" said Bailey, gesturing to the purple-skinned Stelargan barmaid. "This calls for a drink!"

      
This calls for more than that. It calls for some serious thought. Here I am, the objective observer, the non-participant, the man who reports history but doesn't make it, and I've just commissioned a man's death. Sure, it's a man who's planning to kill me, but that's his job, and he did offer me a way out.

      
And then:
I'm the only historian out here, as well as the only poet. What I write will become future generations' truth. Is Tyrannosaur Bailey worth five verses? Was Bennett worth three? What criteria do I apply—who saves me and who threatens me? Is that the way history really gets created?

      
And because he was nothing if not a realist, he had one last thought:

      
What the hell. Orpheus didn't leave any guidelines for the job, either. I'll just have to play it by ear and do the best I can—and how can I serve history or art if I die tomorrow at noon?

      
"Here you are, Rhymer," said Tyrannosaur, taking a drink in his massive paw and handing another to Dante.

      
"Thanks."

      
"Here's to five verses!"

      
"You've got 'em, even if he runs."

      
"Bennett?" asked Tyrannosaur. "He won't run."

      
"But he can't beat you." Suddenly Dante frowned. "Can he?"

      
"Not a chance."

      
"Well, then?"

      
"A man in his profession can't run," said Bailey. "He's got to believe he's invincible, that nothing can kill him, even when he knows better. Otherwise he'll never be able to face a wanted killer again. He'll flinch, he'll hesitate, he'll back down, he'll run, he'll do
some
thing to fuck it up."

      
"But
if
he wants to back down, if it's his last day as a bounty hunter, let him walk," said Dante. "You'll get your verses anyway."

      
"Whatever you say," agreed Tyrannosaur. "But he won't back down."

      
"Against a monster like you?" said Dante, then quickly added: "Meaning no offense."

      
"None taken," said Bailey. "But size isn't everything. They say the guy who killed Conrad Bland wasn't much bigger than you are. And I know the Angel was supposed to be normal in size, maybe even a little undernourished. Men have developed more than two hundred different martial arts, and we've picked up dozens more from aliens. Those are great equalizers." He uttered a sigh of regret. "Size just isn't what it used to be."

      
"Then why does everyone come here to live under your protection?"

      
"Because I've mastered seventy-two of those martial arts, and I'm the best shot you ever saw with a burner or a screecher."

      
"Yeah, those are good reasons," agreed Dante. "And the fact that half the guys you fight can't reach your head probably doesn't hurt either."

      
"Neither does spreading the word."

      
"I beg your pardon?"

      
"When I was a young man, I was an adventurer," answered Bailey. "I wanted to pit my skills against the best opponents I could find. I was a mercenary, and for two years I was the freehand heavyweight champion of the Albion Cluster, and I even put in some time as a lawman out in the Roosevelt system. But eventually a man wants to settle down."

      
"What does that have to do with spreading the word?" asked Dante, confused.

      
"I still needed an income, so I passed the word that anyone who was willing to tithe me ten percent of their income and their holdings could live here under my protection. My reputation drew more than a thousand immigrants to Tusculum II and kept an awful lot of bill collectors and bounty hunters away."

      
"I see."

      
"You're a man of letters," continued Bailey, "so let me ask you your professional opinion about something."

      
"Shoot."

      
"I think Tusculum II is a really dull name for a world. I'm thinking of changing it."

      
"To what?"

      
"I don't know. Tyrannosaur's World, maybe." He looked across the table. "You don't like it."

      
"It's a little too, well, egomaniacal."

      
"I'm open to suggestions."

      
"How many planets are there in the system?"

      
"Six."

      
"Okay," said Dante. "As long as you're a Tyrannosaur, name them after periods in Earth's prehistory."

      
"I
like
that. What are the periods?"

      
"Damned if I know—but there were dozens of them. Have you got a pocket computer?"

      
"Sure. Don't you?"

      
"No."

      
"How do you write?"

      
"With a quill pen, just like Orpheus."

      
Bailey withdrew his computer and slid it across the table to Dante, who instructed it to list the various prehistoric eras.

      
"All right, this should work," announced Dante. "Call the first planet Cambria. This world is Devonia. The next four, in order, are Permia, Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous. If any of them have moons, name the moons after the animals that existed in their eras."

      
"You've got a head on you, Rhymer!" enthused Bailey. "It would have been a shame to let Wait-a-bit Bennett remove it from your shoulders." He paused. "What'll we call the star?"

      
"Well, it's on all the charts as Tusculum, but that shouldn't matter. All the planets are Tusculum I through VI, but if you're giving them names that appeal to you, there's no reason why you can't do the same to the star. How about Dinosaur, since that's the idea that gave birth to all the names?"

      
"Sounds good to me," said Bailey. "Tomorrow I'll have the spaceport computer start signaling ships that we're Dinosaur."

      
"Make sure it adds that you were formerly Tusculum or you'll drive 'em all crazy."

      
"Right. I'm sure glad I ran into you, Rhymer."

      
"Not half as glad as I am," said Dante as Wait-a-bit Bennett entered the casino.

      
Bennett saw Dante and walked over to him.

      
"Got my 50,000 credits yet, Danny?" he asked pleasantly.

      
"No."

      
"Well, you've got a little over half a day left. I'm sure a bright young lad like you can come up with the money." Bennett paused. "But until that happy moment occurs, I'm not letting you out of my sight."

      
"You've made two mistakes, Wait-a-bit Bennett," said Tyrannosaur.

      
"Oh?"

      
"First, his name's Rhymer, not Danny, And second, no one's laying a finger on him as long as he stays on Devonia."

      
"Where the hell's Devonia?" asked Bennett.

      
"You're standing on it."

      
"You don't have to stand up for him, Tyrannosaur," said Bennett. "The kid's not worth it."

      
"This is
my
world!" bellowed Bailey, getting to his feet. "I'm the only one who decides who lives and who dies!"

      
"I have nothing against you," persisted Bennett. "My business is with Danny Briggs and no one else."

      
"You have no business on Devonia."

      
"Like I say, my business is with Danny here . . . but if you try to hinder me in the pursuit of my legal livelihood, I'll have to kill you too."

      
Tyrannosaur smiled. "Is that a threat?"

      
"You may consider it such," acknowledged Bennett.

      
His hand moved slowly down toward his burner, but before he could reach it Tyrannosaur's hands shot out with blinding swiftness, one grabbing him by the neck, the other holding his hand away from his weapon.

      
Bailey lifted Bennett straight up two, then three, then four feet above the ground. The bounty hunter struggled to free himself. His free hand chopped at Tyrannosaur's massive arm. He landed a pair of devastating kicks in his attacker's stomach. Bailey merely frowned and began squeezing.

      
Soon Bennett was gasping for air. He landed two more kicks, and poked a thumb at Bailey's right eye, but Bailey simply lowered his head, and Dante could hear the bounty hunter's thumb break with a loud cracking sound at it collided with Bailey's skull.

      
Bennett's struggles became more desperate, and finally Bailey released his grip on Bennett's arm, used both hands to lift the bounty hunter above his head, and hurled him into the wall. There was a strange, undefinable sound as all the air left Bennett's lungs, and he dropped to the floor, where he lay motionless.