Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future (30 page)

“Why not tell them who you really
are?” asked Virtue. “It’s not as if bounty hunting is illegal.”

“It tends to scare off one’s prey
and alert one’s competition.”

“Then why ever identify yourself
at all?” she persisted.

“I don’t care who knows I’ve been
to a world once I’ve left it,” replied the Angel disdainfully.

The radio came to life again.

“Attention,
Southern
Cross.
We need to know how many other sentient entities are aboard your
ship.”

“One other, besides myself,” replied
the Angel.

“Please identify.”

“Virtue MacKenzie, passenger, race
of Man, who boarded at New Ecuador two Standard days ago.”

“What was your business on New
Ecuador?”

“Tourism.”

“Proposed length of stay on
Sunnybeach?”

“I have no idea,” said the Angel.

“I require a definite answer,”
said the voice petulantly.

“I propose to stay here for ten
days.”

“The Sunnybeach economy is based
on Plantagenet sovereigns. Will you require the use of a currency exchange?”

“All I require is a clearance to
land my ship.”

“Please maintain orbit,” said the
voice, and again the connection was broken.

“I feel like I’m right back in the
Democracy,” commented Virtue.

“It’s a bother,” he agreed. “When
I have my own planet, I won’t tolerate this bureaucratic nonsense.”

“Your own planet?” she repeated.

He nodded.

She laughed. “Are you laboring
under the delusion that a grateful Democracy is going to give you your very own
planet just for killing Santiago?”

“No.”

“Then what are you talking about?”

He turned to her, and for just a
moment she thought he might put a forceable end to her unwanted questioning
then and there. Instead, he instructed his ship’s computer to create a hologram
of a cross section of the Galactic Rim.

“Do you see this?” he asked,
indicating a glowing yellow star.

She nodded.

“It’s a G-Four star with eleven
planets, the fourth of which is named Far London. Its population has grown to
almost three hundred thousand since it was initially colonized.” He paused.
“Far London has been ruled by a hereditary monarchy, the last descendent of
which died a few years ago and left a considerable debt. The government has
advertised for a new monarch.”

“The stipulation being that you’ll
pay off the late lamented family’s debts?” asked Virtue.

“In essence,” said the Angel.

“How much more do you need?”

“Killing Santiago should just
about do it.”

“And then you’ll retire to a quiet
life of ruling the peasants?” she asked.

“I’ve always wanted to have my
very own world to rule.”

“Well,” she said, “at least
there’ll be one world where we don’t have these idiot delays before we can
land.” She paused. “Have you thought about what other improvements you’ll
make?”

“No. But I think I can make one
guarantee.”

“Oh? What is that?”

“It will be safe to walk the
streets of my city.”

“I don’t suppose I’d like to be a
lawbreaker in your city,” she agreed. “What does the populace think of this
idea?”

“Given the previous few monarchs,
they’ll approve.”

“And if they don’t?”

“Then they’ll learn to adjust,” he
said softly.

Suddenly the radio crackled with
static.

“
Southern
Cross,
you are cleared for landing. We will now feed the coordinates
into your computer.” There followed two seconds of high-pitched humming, after
which the ship began decelerating and heading downward toward the surface of
Sunnybeach.

“I trust your passport is in
order,” remarked the Angel. “I don’t suppose customs will be any less pompous
and self-important.”

“Of course,” she replied.

But when they landed, she found
herself the object of some ten minutes’ worth of mild harassment, since her
passport hadn’t been scanned or registered since Pegasus. When they finally
released her, the Angel was nowhere to be seen, and she walked rapidly through
the spaceport, looking for him. She passed a handful of human vendors, as well as
a number of aliens selling everything from indigestible sweets to
incomprehensible wood carvings, and eventually found the bounty hunter at a
tobacco stand, purchasing a fresh supply of cigars from a pink, tripodal being
from Hesporite III.

“This place is simply lousy with
aliens,” she remarked. “I didn’t know Sunnybeach was so cosmopolitan.”

“It isn’t,” said the Angel.
“They’re not allowed to leave the free trade zone around the spaceport.”

“By the way, I want to thank you
for all your help back there at the customs desk,” she said sarcastically.

“
My
papers were in order,” he replied.

“You could have waited.”

“Partners wait. Traveling
companions don’t.”

He paid for the cigars, placed
them in a lapel pocket, and began following the signs to the ground vehicle
rental area. Virtue fell into step beside him.

When they arrived, he stopped and
turned to her.

“You’re not coming with me. Find
your own transportation, and register at the Welcome Inn.”

“Why can’t we go into town
together?” she asked. “It’ll be more convenient.”

“Because you’re feeling followed.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“I didn’t see anybody,” Virtue
protested.

“I did.”

“Then how do you know that
you’re
not the one who’s being followed?”

“Because when I left customs, he
stayed behind and waited for you.”

“What does he look like?” asked
Virtue.

“He’s not that clumsy,” replied
the Angel. “I’ve only gotten two brief glimpses of him.”

“How do you know he’s following me
if you’ve only had two glimpses of him?”

“I know,” he said calmly.

“And now you’re just going to
leave?” she demanded.

“He’s not after
me
,” said the Angel.

“I hope they’re not expecting a
chivalrous king on Far London.”

“They’re not,” said the Angel,
walking toward a rental vehicle.

“Wait!” said Virtue. “What should
I do about this guy?”

“That’s entirely up to you. But if
I were you, I’d try to find out what he wanted before I led him to my hotel.”

“It’s
your
hotel, too,” she said desperately. “If you don’t help me lose him, he’ll know
where you’re staying. That might be worth quite a bit of money to someone.”

“It’s not my hotel,” he answered.

“It isn’t? Then where will you be
staying?”

“That’s not the sort of
information I share with traveling companions.”

“Then how will I find you?”

“
I’ll
find
you
,” he replied. “I’ll meet you in the Welcome
Inn’s lobby at sunset.”

“If I’m still alive,” she said
bitterly.

“If you’re still alive,” he
agreed.

He tossed his single piece of
luggage into the back of the vehicle, climbed into the driver’s seat,
registered it to his account with an identification card, and drove off.

Virtue waited for ten minutes,
casting frightened glances into the shadows, then rented her own vehicle and
drove out into the bright Sunnybeach sun. When she was halfway to town she
realized that she’d left her overnight kit at the spaceport, but decided not to
return for it.

Her initial idea upon reaching the
nearby city, which, unsurprisingly, bore the same name as the planet, was to
walk up and down the streets, window-shopping, until she got a glimpse of her
pursuer. That resolve lasted about thirty seconds. Whoever had named the planet
had possessed a mordant sense of humor: Sunnybeach was a desert world, with
about five hundred miles of beach for every foot of seashore. The heat, once
she left the confines of her air-conditioned vehicle, was oppressive, and she
got the feeling that the only variation in the weather was an occasional
sandstorm.

She had almost collapsed from the
simple exertion of walking half a block when she came to a small, elegant
restaurant. She entered it, requested a table that faced the front door, and
pretended to study the menu while keeping a watchful eye on the doorway.

Some five minutes later a familiar
bearded face, topped by a shock of unkempt red hair, peered in through the
window, and an instant later Halfpenny Terwilliger entered the restaurant and
walked directly to her table.

“Goddamn it!” she snapped, both
relieved and annoyed. “Are
you
the one who’s been
following me?”

“Yeah,” he said breathlessly.
“We’ve got to talk.”

“I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

“You’ve got more to say than you
think,” said Terwilliger, watching the door as intently as Virtue had been
doing a moment earlier. He signaled to the waiter. “Has this place got another
room?”

“Another room, sir?”

“One that can’t be seen from the
street,” explained Terwilliger.

“We don’t open it until
dinnertime,” said the waiter.

Terwilliger waved a
one-hundred-credit note in front of him. “Open it now,” he said. “And close it
as soon as we’re seated.”

The waiter took the note with no
sign of embarrassment and led them through a doorway into a smaller room which
possessed only six lace-covered tables.

“Take money for two beers out of
that and keep the rest,” said the little gambler when he and Virtue had been
seated.

The waiter arched a supercilious
eyebrow and left the room.

“What the hell are you doing
here?” demanded Virtue when they were alone.

“Waiting for you,” replied
Terwilliger. “I was going to give you two more days to show up, and then hop
over to Hallmark.”

“Why were you skulking after me
like some kind of criminal?”

“I have my reasons,” he said.

“You mean the Angel?” asked
Virtue. “He doesn’t give a damn who I talk to.”

“I’m not worried about the Angel.”

“Then what
are
you worried about?”

“ManMountain Bates.”

“Is he still after you?”

“The man simply will not let
bygones be bygones!” complained Terwilliger peevishly. “He’s chased me halfway
across the Inner Frontier.”

“You seem to have done the same to
me,” remarked Virtue. “Were you on New Ecuador, too?”

The little gambler shook his head.
“I followed you as far as Questados Four. Then Bates started breathing down my
neck again, so I decided to jump a few worlds ahead of you, just in case he was
using you to find me.” He paused for breath, then continued. “The Swagman told
me that the Angel would probably pass through Sunnybeach or Hallmark, depending
on what he learned on Lambda Karos, and I came here first. It sounded like a
vacation planet.” He grimaced. “They ought to draw and quarter the guy who
named it. Hanging’s too good for him.”

“Why were you looking for me in
the first place?”

“Cain sent me.”

“To spy on me?”

“Well, now,
spy
is a pretty ugly word,” said Terwilliger, pulling a deck of cards out of his
pocket and nervously starting to shuffle them. “Besides, if I was really spying
on you, I’d stay in hiding. You’d never know I was around.”

“I’d just listen for the sound of
a spine snapping,” she said nastily.

He winced. “Don’t remind me.”

“All right,” she said. “You’re not
spying. You’re just here to sample Sunnybeach’s delightful climate.” She
paused. “What
else
are you here for?”

“To appraise the situation.”

“And what’s your appraisal?”

“That’s pretty obvious,” said
Terwilliger. “You’ve jumped ship. You’re working with the Angel now.”

“And you’re going to run back and
tell that to Cain?”

“I don’t have any choice.”

“Of course you do,” said Virtue.
“You can choose
not
to tell him.”

“And risk losing my ten percent of
the reward?” said Terwilliger. “Not a chance.”

The waiter entered the room then
and placed a glass and a container of beer in front of each of them.

“Thank you,” said Virtue,
immediately filling her glass.

“May I take your orders now?”

“This is all we’re having,” said
the gambler.

“Allow me to point out that this
is a restaurant, not a tavern,” said the waiter officiously.

Terwilliger pulled another
hundred-credit note out of his pocket and handed it to the waiter. “Point it
out again in another hour,” he said.

The waiter pocketed the money,
picked up his tray, and pivoted toward the door in one graceful and well-practiced
motion. A moment later they were alone again.

Virtue drained her glass and
turned back to the gambler. “How far has Cain gotten?”

Terwilliger shrugged. “Who knows?
I haven’t been in touch with him since 1 left Altair Three.”

“The Angel mentioned his having
obtained some information from a drug addict on Roosevelt Three.”

“It’s news to me,” said
Terwilliger.

“If you don’t know where he is,
how the hell are you supposed to contact him?”

“Through Schussler.”

“Schussler?” repeated Virtue.
“Who’s he?”

“Schussler’s more of an
it
than a
he,
” answered
Terwilliger.

“That cyborg ship I heard about?”

He nodded.

“Schussler belonged to Altair of
Altair, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“So he’d probably have had access
to any information in her computer banks?”

“I don’t know,” said Terwilliger.
“I suppose so.”

“Then that means that Cain’s got
still another source of information,” she mused aloud. “He might be closer than
we thought.” Suddenly she turned to Terwilliger. “Why did the Swagman leave
him?”