Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future (15 page)

“Sounds thrilling,” she said
unenthusiastically. Then she stood up. “Well, I suppose I’d better be going.”

“If you insist on continuing your
quest, why don’t you at least wait until dark?” he suggested.

“Because I don’t know my way
around the city,” Virtue replied. “Why give them an advantage?” She paused.
“Besides, they’re less likely to try to kill me in the daylight. Damn, but I
wish my partner was here! This is more his kind of situation than mine.”

“Who’s your partner?”

“Sebastian Cain. Ever hear of
him?”

“The Songbird?” he said, looking
at her with newfound interest. “
He’s
working with
you?”

She nodded.

“I agree with you. This situation
is made to order for a man like Cain. Why are you here instead of him?”

“He’s out in the Altair region.”

The stringer looked impressed.
“Allow me to hazard a guess: Is he after Altair of Altair?”

“Yes.”

He let out a low whistle. “I don’t
know what you two are up to, but you sure aren’t going about it the easy way,
are you?”

“Evidently not,” she said, looking
out the window once more and noticing that the three men were no longer
stationed opposite the news office.

“Well, I wish you luck,” said the
man. “You’re going to need it.”

“Thanks,” she said, walking to the
door. “One mile due west, right?”

“Right,” he replied.

She pulled a small pistol out of
her satchel and tucked it in her belt, then stepped out into the humid
Goldenrod air. A number of people were walking down the street in twos and
threes, and she stood still for a moment, scrutinizing them, trying to see if
any of them seemed to be paying more than casual attention to her as they went
about their business.

This is
ridiculous,
she thought as she watched the townspeople.
Who the hell knows what a hired killer looks like?

She remained motionless for
another minute, half expecting to hear a shot ring out or feel a laser beam
searing through her flesh, then walked up to the corner and turned left. She
made three more lefts, coming to a stop in front of the news office and trying
to ascertain if anyone had followed her, then decided that on a world where the
only law was a bandit who lived in a fortress atop a distant hill, the less time
she spent presenting herself as a potential target, the better.

She headed off in a westerly
direction, staying within the shadows of buildings for as long as she could.
When she had traveled some two hundred yards, the town came to an abrupt end,
and she could see a colorful tent set in the middle of a rolling field almost a
mile away. She took one more look around, saw nobody following her, and began
walking briskly toward it, checking behind her every few moments.

She had covered half the distance,
and had temporarily dipped out of sight of the tent while crossing a low area
of the field, when she saw an elderly couple strolling back toward town. The
man was wearing a very formal suit, obviously donned in honor of Father
William, and walked with a cane. The woman carried a picnic basket and a
parasol. Keeping her hand very near the butt of her pistol, Virtue stopped and
greeted them.

“Is Father William through
speaking?” she asked.

“Oh, goodness, no!” said the old
woman, obviously amused by the suggestion. ‘I’m just going home to take my
medication, and perhaps a little nap, and then we’ll be coming back”

“We haven’t seen you before, have
we?” asked the old man.

“No,” answered Virtue. “I heard
Father William was touching down for a couple of days, so I thought I’d come by
to hear him. I’m from Salinas Four.”

“Really?” said the old man. “I
hear it’s a lovely world.”

“It is.”

“We’re from Seabright originally,”
said the old woman. “But we came out to the Frontier to make our fortunes.”

“That was close to forty years
ago,” chuckled the old man. “Can’t say we’re any richer, but Goldenrod is a
pretty nice place to retire to. And of course, it’s on Father William’s regular
circuit.”

“By the way, can I offer you a
sandwich?” asked the woman, holding up her basket.

“No, thank you,” said Virtue.

“I wish you would,” persisted the
woman. “I hate to see it go to waste, and we’ll just throw it out once we get
home. We’re having dinner with friends.”

“I appreciate the offer, but I’m
really not hungry.”

“Here,” said the woman, fussing
with the lid of the basket. “Just take a look at it, and maybe you’ll change
your mind. There are sandwiches, and tea biscuits, and—”

Suddenly Virtue saw a movement out
of the corner of her eye and hurled herself to the ground.

The old man dropped the cane he
had swung at her and began fumbling with his pocket. Virtue flung herself at
his legs, heard something crack inside one of them, and leaped to her feet, her
pistol in her hand. The old woman had withdrawn a gun from the inside of the
basket—Virtue couldn’t tell if it was laser, sonic, or projectile—and was
pointing it at her.

“You have very good reflexes, my
dear,” said the old woman with a smile.

“What happens now?” asked Virtue,
ignoring the old man as he moaned and writhed on the ground. “Do we kill each
other or call a truce while you move the wounded warrior off the battlefield?”

“Well, I
could
wait for reinforcements,” said the old woman. “I do have them, you know.”

“Yes, I’d heard there were three
of you.”

The old man groaned again.

“But my dear husband is in a bad
way,” added the old woman. “He had trouble walking even before you so callously
broke his leg. So I suppose I’ll either have to dispatch you immediately, or
else agree to your truce.”

“If you shoot, so will I,” said
Virtue.

“Ah, but will a properly placed
head shot allow you the opportunity to retaliate?” asked the woman, raising her
aim from Virtue’s chest to a point between her eyes.

“Then perhaps I’ll shoot first,”
said Virtue, a tiny section of her mind wondering how Cain would handle the
situation and deciding he wouldn’t have gotten into it in the first place. “And
then who will be left to take care of your husband?”

“There is
that
to consider,” agreed the old woman regretfully. “We’re really getting a little
old for this.”

“Have you done it often?”

“Twelve times,” she said, not
without a touch of pride. “People always expect assassins to look like they do
on the videos—mean and powerful. We’ve made quite a substantial living from
it.” She lowered her voice confidentially. “Black Orpheus even wanted to write
us up, but we explained that the only thing we really had on our side was the
element of surprise, and that publicity could drive us out of business.” She
smiled. “He respected our wishes—but then, he was always a gentleman.”

The old man tried to roll over,
moaned in agony, and passed out.

“All right, my dear,” said the old
woman with a sigh. “You get your truce. I really must find a doctor.”

“Not quite so fast,” said Virtue.
“Who’s the third member of your team?”

“I can’t jeopardize his life by
telling you that,” she said primly. “Besides, if he doesn’t kill you, I’ll have
to come after you again once I get Henry to a doctor.”

Virtue considered the problem,
then nodded in agreement.

“All right—we’ve got a truce.”

“Then please put your weapon
away,” said the old woman.

Virtue smiled. “You first.”

“I’m counting on your being an
honorable woman,” said the old woman, opening the top of her basket and tossing
her gun into it.

Virtue tucked her pistol back into
her belt and quickly disarmed the old man. “If I were you,” she said. “I’d get
Henry to the house and stay there. The next time I see you I’ll have to kill
you.”

“Help me move him into the shade,
won’t you?” said the woman, indicating a tree some twenty feet away. “It may
take me some time to find a doctor and bring him back out here, and I don’t
want to leave poor Henry out in the sun.”

“You’re kidding, right?” said
Virtue unbelievingly.

“If we leave him here, he may die.
He’s a very old man.”

“He’s a very old man who just
tried to kill me.”

“That was business,” said the old
woman. “And as you can see, he’s quite unable to present any threat to you in
his present condition.”

Virtue shrugged and nodded her
head, struck by the lunacy of helping one of her potential murderers drag
another of them to shelter. “All right—but leave your basket on the ground.”

“Certainly.” said the old woman,
placing the basket down.

The two women walked over to the
old man, bent over, and began adjusting his weight so that they could pull him
by his arms and shoulders. Virtue noticed the old woman’s hand snaking down
toward Henry’s pocket and grabbed her by the wrist just as she was withdrawing
a knife.

“I thought we had a bargain,” said
Virtue with a nasty smile.

“Business comes first,” said the
old woman, red-faced and panting from her exertions. “What are you going to do
to me?”

“Nothing quite as bad as you were
going to do to me,” replied Virtue. “Let’s get dear old Henry into the shade
first—and if you try anything else, or go for that gun in your basket, I’ll
kill you.”

Once she had dragged the old man
over to the tree, she turned to his wife and drew her pistol.

“I’m going to ask you once
more—how can I recognize the third killer?”

“That really would be a breach of
my professional ethics,” said the old woman. “Besides, if you shoot me, there’s
every possibility that he’ll hear the sound of the gun and know where you are.”

“True enough,” said Virtue. She
landed a heavy kick on the old woman’s knee, felt the tendons and ligaments
give way as the woman fell to the ground and let out a scream, and stood back.

“That should keep you off the
playing field for the rest of the day,” said Virtue, walking over to the basket
and withdrawing a storage bottle. She opened it, saw that it was iced tea,
closed it again, and walked back to where the old woman was sobbing and
clutching her knee.

“It’s a hot day,” said Virtue.
“There’s every chance the two of you will dehydrate before someone finds you.”

The old woman kept crying but
offered no comment.

“Tell me what Number Three looks
like and I’ll leave this with you.”

The old woman stared at her
through tear-filled eyes. “Do your worst,” she said. “I won’t betray a trust.”

“Last chance,” said Virtue. “I
can’t waste any more time with you.”

The woman shook her head.

Virtue shrugged and tossed the
bottle on the ground about twenty yards away from them. Then she returned to
the basket, removed the weapon, put it into her satchel, and headed off toward
the tent.

When she arrived, she entered at
the back. There were forty or fifty rows of benches on each side of a broad
center aisle, and all but the last few were completely filled. Up front, at the
makeshift pulpit, there was an electronic sound synthesizer that provided a
soft, continuous background of hymns.

A huge man stood at a podium,
staring out at his audience with fierce green eyes. He had wild red hair and a
beard streaked with gray, he was clad entirely in black, and the polished
handles of his laser pistols were plainly visible atop his holsters.

“And if thy hand offends thee, cut
it off,” Father William was intoning in a rich, resonant baritone. “For the
Lord is more than an ideal, more than an object of affection, even more than a
Creator.” He paused for effect. “Never forget, my children, that the Lord is also
a surgeon. And He doesn’t use the sword of redemption. He uses the scalpel of
justice!”

Virtue took an aisle seat in the
next-to-last row.

“Yes, brethren,” continued Father
William, “we’re talking about infection. Not the infection of the body, for the
body is the province of the doctor, but the infection of the spirit, which is
the province of the Lord and such temporal emissaries as He deigns to have
represent Him.”

He paused and reached for a glass
that was filled with a blue liquid, took a long swallow, and then resumed
speaking.

“Now, they’ve got a lot in common,
the body and the spirit. First and foremost, they can bring pleasure to the
Lord, the body by being fruitful and multiplying, the spirit by worshiping Him
and singing His praises. But they’ve got something else in common, too. Both of
them can be overrun with infection; they can become pustules of decay,
unsightly in the eyes of both man and God.”

A gaunt man with a handlebar
mustache and thick, bushy sideburns entered the tent, looked around for a seat,
and finally approached Virtue.

“Do you mind moving over just a
bit?” he whispered.

She moved to her left, making room
for him.

“I meant to get here sooner, but
one of my harvesters broke down,” he added apologetically. “Have I missed
much?”

She shook her head and placed a
finger to her lips.

“Sorry,” he muttered, turning his
attention to Father William.

“Now, if the body gets a mild
infection, what do we do?” The preacher glared out at his audience, as if
daring them to answer. Nobody said a word. “We give it antibiotics. And if it
gets a major infection, we give it other drugs.” He gripped the edges of the
podium with his massive hands. “And when it gets infected by a cancer, what do
we do?” He made a slashing motion with his right hand. “We cut it out!” he
shouted.

He paused and drew a deep breath,
releasing it slowly. “But what about the soul? What do we do when
it
becomes infected? How do we inject an antibiotic into
its bloodstream? How do we amputate a piece of the soul before the infection
can spread?”