Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future (20 page)

“You mean you haven’t got the
guts!” snapped Virtue.

“We fear no one,” said Sitting
Bull, pulling back his lips and exposing a row of bright yellow teeth. “Even
the Democracy cringes in fear of the Great Sioux Nation.”

“Which in turn cringes in fear of
Santiago, a common criminal with a price on his head.”

“Santiago is not the only Man with
a price on his head,” said Sitting Bull meaningfully. “You would do well to
remember that.”

“Is that a threat?” demanded
Virtue. “If there’s a price on
my
head, it was put
there by a criminal on Pegasus—and if you try to cash in on it, you’re going to
find out just what happens to self-important aliens who go around killing human
journalists! Have you got that straight?”

Sitting Bull merely stared at her
and made no reply.

“Now let’s talk business,” said
Virtue. “We’re in a hurry.”

The alien continued staring at
her.

“Now listen, you—” she began
heatedly.

The Swagman touched her arm.
“That’s enough,” he said. “He’s not trying to jack up the price; he means what
he says. And in case you’ve forgotten, we’re surrounded by his enforcers.”

“Are you trying to tell me that we
came all this way for nothing?” demanded Virtue. “We talk to him for thirty
seconds and just give up, is that it?”

“Not entirely,” replied the
Swagman. “We can at least find out how the competition is doing.” He turned
back to Sitting Bull. “We also seek information that does not concern
Santiago.”

“I will listen.”

“There is a bounty hunter known as
the Angel. Where is he now?”

They went through the same ritual
about whom such information could and could not damage, after which Sitting
Bull acknowledged that he could come up with the Angel’s present location in a
matter of minutes. He summoned a blue alien named Vittorio, asked him something
in a tongue Virtue could not identify, dismissed him, and turned back to the
Swagman.

Then the haggling began. Sitting
Bull demanded 20,000 Bonaparte francs; the Swagman laughed in his face and
countered with 750 credits. Ten minutes later they were still at it, 236
credits apart, and finally the Swagman gave in. The negotiated bill came to
6,819 credits, payable in advance.

The Swagman dug into his pocket
and pulled out a sheaf of bills. Vittorio was summoned, emerged from a nearby
wigwam, said something to Sitting Bull, collected the money, and then
positioned himself a few paces behind Sitting Bull, his thin arms folded across
his narrow chest.

“Now we will smoke a peace pipe,”
announced Sitting Bull. “And then I will give you that which you have
purchased.”

He nodded, and a brown, sluglike
creature that Virtue had thought was a log undulated over to him and produced a
long, meticulously crafted wooden pipe from somewhere within the folds of its
thick, crusted skin.

Sitting Bull withdrew a tiny laser
device, rekindled the logs between himself and the two humans, and gestured to
the yellow caterpillar, which slithered over, picked up a burning twig, and
held it just above the end of the pipe. Sitting Bull took a number of deep
puffs, grunted his satisfaction, and then passed the pipe to the Swagman, who
filled his mouth with smoke, seemed to analyze the taste of it for an instant,
and then released it.

When it was Virtue’s turn, he
handed it to her and whispered, “Don’t inhale.”

She followed his instructions,
took a couple of mouthfuls of thick gray smoke, made sure nothing went down her
throat, and finally blew them out.

“What is it?” she asked, making a
face and handing the pipe to the yellow alien, who ambulated away with it. “It
seemed sickly sweet.”

“Some kind of hallucinogenic
compound,” he replied softly. “It’s one of his favorite parlor tricks.” He
grimaced. “My guess is that he insists on smoking it just so he can watch
humans make asses of themselves. Get one puff of that stuff in your system and
you’d still be seeing things a week from now.” He turned to Sitting Bull. “May
I have my information?”

“Vittorio says that the man you
seek is currently on the planet of Glenovar, in the system of Zeta Halioth.”

The Swagman frowned. “You’re
sure?”

“I am sure.”

“There’s no possibility of a
mistake, or that you might have the wrong man?”

“None.”

“All right.” He paused. “I’ll give
you one last opportunity to talk about Santiago. We are prepared to make you a
very handsome offer.”

“I will not betray Santiago.”

“I thought your livelihood
consisted of betraying Men,” interjected Virtue coldly.

“Only to the detriment of other
Men,” replied Sitting Bull placidly.

The Swagman stood up and helped
Virtue to her feet. “Then I think it’s time that we took our leave of you.”

“You seek no other information?”

“No.”

“Are you not curious about a
shipment of anthracite sculptures in transit from Pisgah to Genovaith Four?”
suggested the feathered alien, his lips curled back in what seemed to be a
grin.

The Swagman smiled back at him. “I
was so curious about it that I gave orders to waylay it when it passed by the
Karobus system. That would have occurred, oh, about an hour ago.”

“Truly?”

“Truly,” said the Swagman.

“You are a very resourceful
villain, Jolly Swagman,” said Sitting Bull.

“In that case, perhaps I should
apply for membership in the Great Sioux Nation,” he replied wryly.

“You are not acceptable,” said
Sitting Bull. “Your weapons have been placed in your vehicle.” He turned away
and waddled back to his wigwam.

After the feathered alien had
disappeared behind a flap in the tent, the Swagman turned to Virtue.

“We’ve got problems,” he announced
grimly.

“Oh?”

He nodded. “The Angel’s a lot
closer to Santiago than I thought he’d be at this time.”

“Closer than we are?” she
demanded.

“Probably.”

“How can that be? If you know who
he’s seeing, why didn’t we see this person first?”

“I don’t know who he’s seeing.
What I
do
know is that there are three or four lines
of pursuit for someone who’s hunting Santiago. We’re following the one that’s
tied in to his smuggling operations; if the Angel’s on Glenovar, he’s following
a money trail.” He frowned. “And he’s doing a damned good job of it: he’s
gotten as far in four weeks as you have in almost a year—and he didn’t have
Cain helping him. I’ve got a feeling that he’s within three or four worlds of
someone who can probably give him Santiago’s headquarters planet, and might
even be able to toss in his address and room number.”

“Will Altair of Altair be able to
do the same for Cain?” asked Virtue.

The Swagman shrugged. “I don’t
know. Perhaps.”

“But you doubt it.”

“I really don’t know,” he replied.

Virtue stood up and turned to
Sitting Bull’s wigwam.

“Hey. Sitting Bull!” she hollered.
“Come back out.”

The alien emerged a moment later.

“What is your price for killing
the Angel?” she asked him.

He was silent for a minute, as if
weighing his expenses.

“Five million credits,” he
announced at last.

“Five
million?”
she repeated incredulously. “You must be joking! That’s more
than the Democracy is offering for any criminal except Santiago!”

“It will take many of my warriors,
and most of them will die.” He paused. “The Songbird is a killer, and he is
also your partner. Why do you not ask him to kill the Angel?”

“Because I’m asking
you
,” she snapped, wondering irritably if there was anyone
on the Frontier who
didn’t
know she had teamed up
with Cain.

“I have told you my price. Will
you pay it?”

“Not a chance,” she replied.

Sitting Bull went back into his
wigwam without another word.

“Where will the Angel be heading
after he leaves Glenovar?” asked Virtue as she and the Swagman began walking
back to the landcar.

He shrugged. “Who knows? The
Lambda Karos system, probably. Sooner or later most money trails pass through
there.”

“Perhaps we should try to get
there first and eliminate his contact,” she suggested.

“I don’t know who his contact
is—
and even if I did know, I think it’s a fair assumption
that from this point on, all of his contacts are pretty good at taking care of
themselves. You’d need a specialist for that, someone like Cain.”

“Well?” she said expectantly.

He sighed. “Out of the question.
We also need him for our own line of inquiry. Of the three of us, he’s the most
likely to survive a meeting with Altair of Altair and some of the others who
are waiting along the way. You have many wonderful qualities, Virtue—you lie
and cheat and blackmail and bluff with great panache, and you’re thoroughly
delightful in bed—but you simply aren’t a skilled professional killer.”

Virtue took a deep breath, held it
for perhaps half a minute, then released it explosively.

“You think the Angel is going to
get there first, don’t you?” she said bluntly.

He shrugged noncommittally. “The
possibility exists.”

Virtue stared at her companion for
a long moment, and as she did so she found herself concluding that she had put
her money on the wrong horse.

“Maybe I should go out to the
Lambda Karos system and wait for him there,” she suggested with what she hoped
was the proper degree of detachment.

“Him?” repeated the Swagman. “You
mean the Angel? What good would that do?”

She shrugged innocently. “Who
knows? Maybe I can find some way to misdirect him, or at least slow him down.”
She paused. “At any rate, we’ll have a clear idea of where he is and how fast
he’s progressing. That has to be of some use to us.”

“I’m afraid you’re being just a
little transparent, my dear,” replied the Swagman with the hint of an amused
smile. “How can you possibly misdirect him if you don’t know who his contact
is, or what information the contact will feed him? As for having a clear idea
of where he’s at, that’s infinitely less important than possessing a clear idea
of where he’s
going
.” He paused, then chuckled and
shook his head. “You haven’t done your homework very well, Virtue: the Angel
doesn’t take partners. Ever.”

“Who said anything about becoming
the Angel’s partner?” she demanded heatedly, annoyed with herself for being so
obvious. “I just want to keep tabs on him, and possibly send him off in the
wrong direction.”

“Or accompany him in the right
one,” suggested the Swagman wryly.

“You’re a very distrusting man,”
said Virtue. “I suppose it can be blamed on your upbringing.”

“How about blaming it on my
present company?”

“You can waste your time assessing
the blame,” she said. “I intend to spend mine hunting up the Angel.”

“You’re being foolish, my dear,”
said the Swagman. “Or perhaps you weren’t listening to Sitting Bull as closely
as you should have been.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Sokol’s still got a hit out on
you. In fact, the only reason that Sitting Bull didn’t have you killed the
minute you landed is because you were with me, and I’ve sent a lot of business
his way over the years. As soon as you go off by yourself, you’re fair game
again.”

“Do you think I’m going to quake
in terror over a squat little alien who lives in a tent?” she said with a
laugh.

“It could be anyone you might meet.
You don’t know who Sokol may have contacted.” He paused. “As for Sitting Bull,
he doesn’t look like much, and he doesn’t surround himself with luxury, but
he’s a pretty formidable antagonist.”

“And if I stay with you,
you’re
going to protect me?”

“Indirectly. Most people don’t
like to offend me.”

“At least Cain has had a little
experience killing people.”

He smiled. “I
hire
people like Cain, my dear.”

They came to a fallen tree that
was blocking their way and walked around it.

“What’s the greatest single piece
of alien artwork in the galaxy?” she asked suddenly.

He thought for a moment. “There’s
a mile-long tapestry on Antares Three,” he said. “Forty generations of
Antareans have worked on it, and it tells the history of their race in about
two thousand exquisite scenes. I’d say that’s about the rarest. Why?”

“What would you risk to get your
hands on it?”

“Everything I have.”

“Well, Santiago’s the greatest
single story in the galaxy, and I’ll take whatever risk is necessary to find
him.”

“I should add that I wouldn’t risk
my life for that tapestry,” said the Swagman.

“That’s because you’re not hungry
anymore,” said Virtue. “I still am. I want to be the best—and if seeing the
Angel can help me get what I want, then I’m willing to do it.”

They reached the landcar, and the
Swagman picked his pistols up off the seat and put them back into his pockets.

“You’re sure you won’t
reconsider?”

“I’m sure.”

He sighed. “Then maybe I’d better
go with you.”

“There’s no need for both of us to
go out there. I’ll keep you and Cain informed of his whereabouts.” She paused.
“I think your best course of action is to go to Altair and hook up with him
there.”

“Probably,” he agreed reluctantly.
“A question arises, however: How am I going to get there? My ship’s back on
Goldenrod.”

“You’re a resourceful man,” said
Virtue. “I’m sure you’ll find a way.” She paused. “Now please take me back to
my ship.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then I’ll walk, and the result
will be the same, except that I’ll tell Cain that you’re working for the Angel
and that he should kill you on sight.”