Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future (21 page)

The Swagman looked at her,
surprised only that he felt no surprise. “I suppose you would, at that.” He
paused. “The nearest major planet is Kakkab Kastu Four. Can you at least drop
me there?”

She considered his suggestion for
a moment, then nodded. “I suppose another few hours doesn’t matter, as long as
I get where I’m going.” She turned to him. “But you’ll pay for the extra fuel.”

“We’ll subtract it from your half
of Sitting Bull’s fee.”

“I never agreed to pay Sitting
Bull,” she said. “I could have gotten the same information from Cain.”

“If he’s still alive.”

“If he’s not, I want half the
reward if you kill Santiago.”

“You’re quite an operator, my
dear,” said the Swagman, shaking his head with mock weariness.

“One does what one must,” said
Virtue.

“Spare me your platitudes,” he
said dryly.

“I consider them words to live
by.”

“Only until you
meet the Angel,” he predicted. “Then may God have mercy on your soul, for He’ll
be presented with it soon enough.”

The Jolly Swagman’s Book

Come if you
dare, come but beware,

Come to the
lair of Altair of Altair.

Offer a prayer
for the men foul and fair,

Trapped in the
snare of Altair of Altair.

They tell a lot of stories about
Altair of Altair out on the Frontier.

Some say that, like the Jolly
Swagman, she was raised by aliens and grew up with a bitter hatred of her own
race that the Swagman somehow avoided.

Others say she wasn’t human at
all, but that she could change her shape at will and enticed her victims to
their deaths with an irresistible siren song.

Homer of Troy, the self-proclaimed
People’s Poet who spent half a lifetime trying unsuccessfully to write a saga
of the Frontier that would rival Black Orpheus’ epic in popularity, swore that
she was a mutant who killed her enemies by the use of mental thunderbolts that
shattered their minds.

There was even a group on
Walpurgis III, a planet colonized by covens and devil-worshipers, that believed
she was a devoted practitioner of the Black Arts who brought destruction through
spells and potions.

As for Black Orpheus himself, he
went directly to the source, as always. It took him almost a month to track her
down after he’d reached the Altair system, and then he had to wait another week
before she would agree to see him. When they finally met face to face, he took
one look at her and decided that she was the most beautiful woman he had seen
since the death of his beloved Eurydice.

By the time he left some twenty
minutes later, he wasn’t even sure that she
was
a
woman—but he knew that she was the most formidable killer he had ever
encountered.

He never spoke of her again,
although he did write a couple of verses about her, and when others asked about
Altair of Altair he always found a way to change the subject. Nobody knows what
happened during their one brief meeting, but it obviously had a profound effect
upon him, one that lasted for the remainder of his life.

One of the people who wished that
Black Orpheus had written a little more about her was Sebastian Cain, if only
so he would have some idea of what to expect when he finally reached her.

It had taken him two weeks to
discover that she did not live
on
Altair III, but
rather
under
it, and now he stalked, gun in hand,
through the labyrinthian network of tunnels and corridors that led to her
chamber. It had cost him ten thousand credits just to find out how and where to
enter the seemingly endless maze, and he had then spent the better part of two
days losing the trio of men who had been tailing him since he had touched down.
Finally, reasonably certain that he was no longer being followed, he had
entered the subterranean world of Altair of Altair.

That had been two hours ago. Since
then the temperature had dropped somewhat, and the air had become dank and
stale. The corridors themselves were illuminated by diffuse blue light that
gave them a surreal glow, but none of them were marked or labeled, and after he
found himself back where he had started, he withdrew a small knife and began
carving crude directional symbols at every intersection.

He paused, wiped some sweat from
his face, and cursed under his breath. There
had
to
be a quicker way into her headquarters, and he decided to give himself one more
hour. If he found her by then, well and good; if not, he would retrace his steps,
return to the surface, take his money back from the man who had sold him his
information and possibly kill him as well, and start his search all over again
from scratch. If he went back to his hotel, he was sure to pick up his troika
of followers once more; possibly he would separate one from the others and find
some means, painless or otherwise, of extracting the information he needed.

He began walking again, wondering
if he wouldn’t be better off going immediately to the surface and searching for
a more direct route. Then he came to yet another intersection and found that
the right-hand tunnel glowed a rich red, as opposed to the usual blue. He
entered it without hesitation.

It twisted to his right, then
straightened out for a few hundred feet, and finally seemed to make a sweeping
semicircle to the left, never once intersecting with any other corridor.
Finally it broadened out, the walls gradually forming artificially perfect
right angles with the floor and ceiling, and he noticed that the illumination was
considerably brighter.

Suddenly the corridor came to an
abrupt end, and he found himself standing in a small vestibule that led to a
large, well-lit chamber. He started to enter it, then jumped back as he
discovered that his way was blocked by an electronic force field.

He approached the entrance more
cautiously and looked into the chamber. It was perhaps sixty feet on a side,
and its smooth stone walls sparkled like polished prisms in the artificial
light. He had no idea how high the ceiling was, because the room faded into
darkness some thirty feet above the floor. Lining two of the walls, to a height
of perhaps eight feet, were enormous water tanks filled with alien aquatic
life-forms and contained not by glass walls but by translucent energy screens.

In the very center of the room was
a desk with a computer console and five small screens; one of them displayed
some type of readout, and the other four seemed to show various areas of the
labyrinth. Just to the left of the desk were two couches. One was empty, and on
the other reclined a breath-takingly beautiful woman. Her features were human,
but they were so exotic that they seemed somehow alien. Her skin was chalk
white, her hair was long and black, her large eyes were almost too blue beneath
her oddly arched eyebrows. Her facial features, from her full lips and delicate
nose to her not-quite-pointed ears, were exquisitely chiseled. Her single
garment, which was draped around her supple body like a corkscrew and exposed
far more than it concealed, was made of some metallic fabric that seemed to
change colors every time she breathed or moved.

“Welcome, Sebastian Cain,” she
said in a lilting, singsong voice. “I have been watching you work your way
through my labyrinth.”

“You’re Altair of Altair?”

“Of course.”

“I’ve come a long way to talk to
you,” he said.

“I will enjoy talking to you. We
have many things in common.” She paused. “That is why I allowed you to find me.
You are only the third person ever to enter this chamber.”

“I haven’t entered it yet,” he noted.

“I must protect myself,” she said
apologetically. “After all, I have a price on my head, and you are a bounty
hunter.”

“I have no professional interest
in you,” he assured her. “I just want to talk.”

“And yet you have been carrying
your gun in your hand since entering my labyrinth.”

“You’re not the only person who
feels the need for protection,” he replied. “I wouldn’t be the first man you’ve
killed.”

“We are
both
killers,” said Altair of Altair. “Shall we declare a truce?”

“For how long?”

“You will be warned before it is
over.”

“I’m willing.”

“Then leave your gun in the
vestibule. You can pick it up when you leave.”

“Not a chance,” he said.

“Will you at least replace it in
your holster?”

He did so, and she rose, walked to
the computer, and touched a small octagonal button.

“The, shield is down,” she
announced. “You may enter now.”

“Thank you,” he said, walking
gingerly through the doorway and stepping into the chamber. The floor was
covered by a soft yielding substance that was more resilient than it looked and
glowed with different colors every time he set his foot down.

“I have been wanting to meet you
for a long time,” said Altair of Altair.

“Have you?”

“Yes,” she said. “Killing is a
lonely profession. It is so rare that one gets to visit with one’s peers.”

“We’re not exactly peers,”
answered Cain. “You’re an assassin; I’m a bounty hunter.”

“But many facets of our work are
the same,” she pointed out. “The endless waiting for the prey to appear, the
moment of exultation at the kill, the distrust of confederates, the craving for
solitude. Do you not agree?”

“Perhaps,” he said noncommittally.
“But the differences are even greater, and the fact remains that you will
commit murder for anyone who pays your fee, and I kill criminals at the behest
of my government.”

“True,” she said thoughtfully.
“But then, even among bounty hunters you are a unique individual.”

“Oh? In what way?”

“Most of those who make their
living by killing lawbreakers were once lawbreakers themselves. Peacemaker
MacDougal was a smuggler, Giles Sans Pitié and Barnaby Wheeler were bandits,
even the Angel was an assassin. Of them all, only you have always operated
within the law.”

“You’re wrong,” he said. “I once
had a price on my head, too.”

“You were fighting on behalf of
what you believed to be a legal government in exile,” she replied with a smile.

“How do you know that?”

“I have been studying you for a
long time,” said Altair of Altair. “In our business, one does not live long
without knowing the face of the enemy.”

“I’m not your enemy.”

“And Santiago is not yours,” she
replied. “Why do you want him dead?”

“What makes you think I’m after
Santiago?” he asked.

“Who else could have brought you
this far from Keep-sake?” she replied. “I repeat: Why do you wish to kill him?”

He smiled. “Have you seen the size
of the reward?”

“You are a very successful bounty
hunter. You have no need of money.”

“Everyone needs money.”

“A man like you must have another
reason,” she persisted.

He stared at her, then shrugged.
“It would
mean
something,” he said at last.

“Ah!” She smiled. “I knew you were
different!” She walked back to the couch and sprawled on it. “Do you know that
not a single murder I have committed has ever meant anything?”

“What about killing the governor
of Alsatia Four?” he asked.

“One second later there was a new
governor, and what had changed?” She shook her head. “No, the beauty of the
assassin’s profession is that nothing ever means anything, and hence the
perceived need for assassination never diminishes. Only you, of all the killers
I know, want your actions to make a difference.”

“Tell me about some of the killers
you know,” said Cain.

“Had you someone in mind?”

“Santiago.”

“I have never met him.”

“I think you have,” persisted
Cain.

“Why?”

“Because you killed a man named
Kastartos.”

“What has one to do with the
other?” she asked.

“Kastartos planned to double-cross
Santiago,” answered Cain. “He tried to get Jonathan Stern to help him. Stern
didn’t think it was worth the risk, and sent word of Kastartos’s plans to
Santiago. It stands to reason that Santiago commissioned his death.”

She stared at him pleasantly but
made no comment.

“If the order came directly from
him, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that you’ve met him and know where
he is, would it?” he continued.

“He has never directly commissioned
my services,” she replied. “He works only through intermediaries.”

“Who are they?”

“That is not your concern.”

“If you’re saying that from fear
of reprisal, there’s no reason for Santiago to know that we ever met.”

“He already knows.”

“How?”

“Because he is Santiago.”

“You make him sound like some kind
of superman,” said Cain.

“He is just a man, and he can be
killed like any other man,” she replied. “You have much in common with him.”

“You mean because we can both be
killed?” he asked sardonically.

“That, too,” she said with an
enigmatic smile.

Suddenly there was a flurry of
motion in one of the aquarium tanks, as a bright orange eyeless fish, slim as a
dagger, burrowed into the soft sand at the bottom and emerged with a yellow-and-black-striped
crustacean. The orange fish tossed the crustacean up above him and darted for
its soft underbelly, guided unerringly to its most vulnerable parts by what
Cain assumed was some form of sonar. The water around them turned pink with the
fluid that coursed through the crustacean’s veins, and instantly half a hundred
other marine forms of perhaps ten different species had gathered in a feeding
frenzy.

“They are beautiful creatures, are
they not?” said Altair of Altair, a look of almost inhuman excitement on her
face. “And savage,” she continued in a singsong chant. “They kill for food, and
when they are sated, they kill for the love of killing.”