The Return of Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future (9 page)

      
"You killed them!" exclaimed Dante, staring in fascination at the corpses. "All three of them!"

      
"They would have killed you," said Virgil. "And me, too, if they thought they could get away with it."

      
"You just walked right over and killed them!" repeated Dante. "In front of witnesses."

      
"So what?"

      
"So they'll report what they saw."

      
Virgil stared at him. "To who?"

      
Dante blinked rapidly. He tried to come up with an answer but realized he had none.

      
"Welcome to the Inner Frontier, poet."

      
"Just who the hell are you?" demanded Dante,

      
Virgil got up to leave. "You're the new Bard of the Inner Frontier," he said. "I'm sure
you'll
tell
me
before we hit the next world.

      
      
      
      
      
      
5.

      
      
      
The Scarlet Infidel is odd—

      
      
      
He has no quality of shame.

      
      
      
He spits into the eye of God,

      
      
      
And commits sins that have no name.

      
Virgil Soaring Hawk's skin wasn't really red, but Dante decided to exercise some poetic license, especially since Virgil kept referring to himself as a redskin.

      
Besides, the Scarlet part didn't interest Dante anywhere near as much as the Infidel part. Virgil would never discuss any details, but from what Dante heard on his first few worlds, the poet concluded that if a race of oxygen breathers—
any
race—was divided into sexes, Virgil had spent a night or two with a female member of that race and another night with a male. There were a few races that boasted more than two sexes, and Virgil had sampled some of their wares as well.

      
Virgil also didn't speak much about his other areas of physical prowess, but Dante noted most people were content to disapprove of the Scarlet Infidel from afar, that no one wanted any part of him in a fight.

      
As for Virgil, he was thrilled to be written up by the new Orpheus, and was constantly nagging Dante to give him more verses.

      
"Come on, now," he was saying as Dante's ship neared Tusculum II. "Orpheus gave Giles Sans Pitie nine verses. Giles Sans Pitie, for Christ's sake! Take away his metal hand and he was nothing, a second-rate bounty hunter. I mean, really, who the hell did he ever kill?"

      
"Who did you?" asked Dante.

      
"I'm not a bounty hunter, so I'm not in a position where I can brag about it without certain legal repercussions. But the things I've done, the places I've been, surely they're worth as many verses as Giles Sans Pitie!"

      
"He only gave one verse to the Angel," Dante shot back. "And Peacemaker MacDougal and Sebastian Cain got just three apiece. Are you sure you
want
all those verses?"

      
Virgil grimaced. "Well, I was sure until about twenty seconds ago. Now I have to think about it."

      
"While you're thinking, suppose you tell me why we're going to the Tusculum system?"

      
"You said you wanted to meet Tyrannosaur Bailey."

      
"What makes you think he'll be on Tusculum II?"

      
Virgil smiled. "He owns it."

      
"He owns the whole world?"

      
"Well, there's not that much to own—a couple of Tradertowns and a landing field."

      
"How did he get to own a world?" asked Dante. "Did he win it in a card game?"

      
"Nothing so romantic," replied Virgil. "He killed the man who owned it before him."

      
"I take it the laws of inheritance don't work quite the same out here as in the Democracy."

      
"Well, yes and no."

      
"What does that mean?"

      
"It means they might very well work the same, but no one felt compelled to argue the point with Tyrannosaur."

      
"No one hired any mercenaries?" asked Dante. "I mean, hell, with a whole planet at stake . . ."

      
"Tyrannosaur Bailey eats mercenaries for breakfast," answered Virgil.

      
"Has he got a price on his head?"

      
"A big one," said Virgil. He smiled. "He eats bounty hunters for lunch."

      
"How did you get to know him?"

      
"I met him at a gaming table out on the Rim, years ago. One of the players accused him of cheating, and he killed him. Literally ripped his head off his body."

      
"
Was
he cheating?"

      
"Absolutely."

      
"But you didn't complain?"

      
"I don't have that kind of death wish," said Virgil.

      
"So you just kept playing?"

      
"For another hour or so," replied Virgil. "I won forty thousand New Stalin ruples. He asked me if I was cheating, and I said of course I was, that after playing a couple of hands I just naturally assumed everyone at the table was supposed to cheat. Well, he could have killed me for that, but instead he laughed so hard I thought he'd bring down the ceiling, and we've been friends ever since."

      
"How many men has he killed?"

      
"You'll have to ask him. First, I don't know, and second, even if I
did
know it's been better than a year since I've seen him, and he's probably added to his total since then."

      
"If he's such a fearsome killer, why does anyone else live on Tusculum II?" asked Dante.

      
Virgil stared at him. "The Bard of the Inner Frontier doesn't ask stupid questions."

      
"
Was
it a stupid question?"

      
"Figure it out."

      
Dante considered it for a moment, then nodded. "Of course. They're there for protection." He paused. "How does it work? They pay him a fee to live there, and he doesn't allow any bounty hunters to land?"

      
"Well, you got the first part right. They pay for the privilege of living on Tusculum. But Tyrannosaur will let anyone land. He owns a casino, and he doesn't much care whose money he takes. He just makes it clear that if you kill a resident, one of 'his children', as he calls them, you won't live to enjoy the reward."

      
Dante chuckled. "I take it Tusculum II is a pretty peaceful place."

      
"So far. But you never know what'll happen tomorrow."

      
"You made it sound like no one could kill this Tyrannosaur."

      
"You're on the Inner Frontier now, where just about every man and woman carries a weapon and can be hazardous to your health."

      
"What are you getting at?"

      
"If they're alive and they're carrying weapons, what does it imply to you?"

      
"Stop with the guessing games," said Dante irritably. "What is it
supposed
to mean to me?"

      
"That every last one of them is undefeated in mortal combat," said Virgil. "They don't all have big reputations. In fact, mighty few have reputations to rival Tyrannosaur's. But there's fifty, maybe sixty million people out here, all of 'em undefeated. It seems unrealistic to assume a few dozen of them couldn't kill Tyrannosaur if push came to shove." He paused. "That's why you have to be a little cautious out here. You know the odds, but you never can tell
which
of those nondescript men has it within him to be the next Santiago."

      
"Hey, I'm just a poet and an historian," said Dante. "I don't plan on challenging anyone."

      
"And I'm a lover," said Virgil wryly. "Problem is, you don't always have a choice."

      
"As far as I know, no one ever called Black Orpheus out for a duel to the death."

      
"Yeah—but he was the real thing. You're just an apprentice Orpheus."

      
"Keep talking like that and I may tear up your verse," said Dante.

      
"Keep thinking you're above the fray and you may not live long enough to write a second one."

      
The ship jerked just then, as it entered Tusculum II's stratosphere at an oblique angle.

      
Dante stared at his instrument panel. "Now what?"

      
"Now you land."

      
"But no one's fed any landing coordinates into the navigational computer."

      
"You're not in the Democracy any more," said Virgil. "Have the sensors pinpoint the larger Tradertown, and then find the landing field just north of it."

      
"And then?"

      
"And then tell it to land."

      
"Just like that?" asked Dante.

      
"Just like that."

      
"Amazing," said Dante after issuing instructions to the sensors and the computer. "Have you ever been to Deluros VIII?"

      
"Nope."

      
"It's got more than two thousand orbiting space docks that can each handle something like ten thousand ships. There are dozens of passenger platforms miles above the planet, and thousands of shuttles working around the clock, carrying people to and from the surface. I don't think a ship has actually landed on Deluros VIII in two millennia." He shook his head in wonderment. "And here we just point and land."

      
"You'll get used to it."

      
"I suppose so."

      
The ship touched down, and the two men soon emerged from it.

      
"I assume there's no Customs or Passport Control?" asked Dante.

      
"You see anything like that?" responded Virgil, walking over to a row of empty aircarts. "We'll take one of these into town."

      
"Fine," said Dante as he climbed in.

      
"Uh . . . you want to let it read your retina?" said Virgil.

      
"Is something wrong with your eye?"

      
"Something's wrong with my credit. It won't start until the fee has been transferred to the rental company's account."

      
"No problem," said Dante, walking up to the scanner. His credit was approved in a matter of seconds, and shortly thereafter they were skimming into town, eighteen inches above the ground.

      
"Tell it to stop here," said Virgil as they cruised along the Tradertown's only major street.

      
"Why don't you tell it yourself?"

      
"Your credit, your voiceprint. It won't obey me."

      
Dante ordered the aircart to stop. "The casino's up the street."

      
"Yeah, but we need a place to stay. We'll register at the hotel first, and then go hunting for dinosaur."

      
They entered a small hotel, and Dante ordered two adjacent rooms, both of which were to be billed to his account.

      
They decided to stop at the hotel's restaurant for lunch before going to the casino, and they emerged half an hour later, ready to meet Tyrannosaur Bailey.

      
A nondescript man of medium height and medium build was standing outside the hotel, leaning against a wall. As Dante and Virgil emerged, he stepped forward and faced them.

      
"You're Danny Briggs, right?" he said.

      
"I'm Dante Alighieri."

      
"Well, yeah, you're him, too," agreed the man. "But it's Danny Briggs I want to speak to."

      
"Never heard of him," said Dante, trying to walk past the man, who took a sidestep and blocked his way again.

      
"That's too bad," said the man. "Because I have a business proposition for Danny Briggs."

      
"I know who you are," said Virgil. "Get the hell out of our way."

      
"Now, is that any way to talk to a businessman?" asked the man. His hand shot out and pushed Virgil backwards. The Scarlet Infidel took a heavy flop onto the street, and his hand snaked toward his pocket.

      
"Don't even think about it, Injun!" said the man harshly. "If you know who I am, you know I don't die as easily as those assholes you took out on New Tangier."

      
Virgil tensed, then looked into the man's eyes, and slowly, gradually relaxed again.

      
"Good thinking, Injun," said the man. "You get to live another day and deflower another corpse." He turned to Dante. "My name is Wait-a-bit Bennett. Does it mean anything to you?"

      
"No," said Dante.

      
"We have something in common, Danny. You come from the Democracy, and I work for the Democracy. On a freelance basis, anyway."