Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future (7 page)

Deadly Nightshade wasn’t much to
look at by the time Cain and Terwilliger arrived. Its hull was pockmarked by
small, hastily repaired meteor holes, one of its docks had been damaged beyond
repair by an errant tug, and it had come into contact with enough cosmic dust
and debris so that the entire exterior needed refurbishing.

Still, it wasn’t Deadly Nightshade
that they had come to see, but rather the woman who owned it, so Cain carefully
maneuvered his ship up to a dock, waited for an enclosed mobile walkway to be
attached to his airlock, and followed Terwilliger to the interior of the
station.

The floor curved gently away from
them in both directions, and a narrow mat of indeterminate properties seemed to
grab hold of their feet.

“You didn’t tell me it was zero
gravity in here,” commented Cain.

“Just make sure one foot is always
on the mat,” replied Terwilliger. “You won’t float away.”

“I’ve been on G-mats before,”
replied Cain irritably. “I just don’t like null-gravity situations too soon
after a meal.”

“You should have told me.”

Cain was about to reply that he
hadn’t known that there was no gravity inside the station but decided that he
didn’t feel like repeating the entire conversation again.

Suddenly a humanoid being with a
large cranium, deep-set golden eyes, and orange, reticulated skin began
approaching them.

“What the hell is that?” asked
Cain.

“An Orange Monkey,” replied
Terwilliger. “The Rose uses them as security guards.”

“I never saw one before,” said
Cain. “Where is it from?”

“Varien Four,” said the gambler.
“They call themselves Hagibens; we call ‘em Orange Monkeys. It fits them
better. They work cheap, they learn the language pretty fast, and they love
zero gravity. It’s a hard combination to beat—especially when you consider how
many alien races won’t work at all and couldn’t care less about money.”

The Orange Monkey stopped in front
of them.

“Your business, please?” it said
in a lilting voice that sounded more like song than speech.

“We’re here to see the Sargasso
Rose,” replied Terwilliger.

“The Sargasso Rose prefers not to
deal personally with our customers,” replied the alien. “If you will tell me
what you need, I will direct you to the proper areas.”

“She’ll deal personally with
us,
” said Terwilliger. “I’m an old friend.”

The Orange Monkey looked at him.
“You are Halfpenny Terwilliger, who was forcibly removed from Deadly Nightshade
for cheating various staff members in a card game.” It paused. “
I
was among those who escorted you to your ship.”

“You were?” asked Terwilliger,
surprised but unembarrassed.

“I was.”

“Sorry I didn’t recognize you, but
all you Orange Monkeys look alike to me.”

“That is perfectly
understandable,” said the alien. “We are all quite beautiful.”

“Well, as long as we’re old
friends, how about telling the Rose we’re here?”

“I will tell her, Halfpenny
Terwilliger, but she prefers not to deal directly with the customers.”

Cain stepped forward. “Do it
anyway,” he said in very level tones. “Tell her our business concerns a mutual
friend.”

The Orange Monkey stared at him
for a moment, then turned and headed off to another area of the space station
after summoning a companion to keep watch on them. It returned a few minutes
later and walked up to Cain.

“The Sargasso Rose has instructed
me to take you to her,” it said in its placid, singsong voice. If it was
surprised or disappointed, it kept its feelings well hidden.

Cain and Terwilliger followed it
through a trio of large storage rooms and up to a small door.

“She is in here, said the Orange
Monkey.

“Thanks,” said Cain. He opened the
door and stepped into a cluttered office, followed by Terwilliger.

Sitting behind a chrome desk that
no longer gleamed, wearing a metallic gold outfit that no longer glistened, was
a rather plain woman. Her hair was a dull brown, her eyes a lackluster green,
her nose prominent, her chin weak. She was neither fat nor thin, but if she had
ever possessed an attractive figure, that time had long since passed. Attached
to her hair was a small white rose, which Cain took to be artificial.

She stared directly at the bounty
hunter.

“You wished to see me, Mr. Cain?”

“You know my name?”

She smiled. “I know many things
about you, Sebastian Nightingale Cain. What I don’t know is who referred you to
me.”

“A man called Stern, back on Port
étrange.”

“Jonathan Jeremy Jacobar Stern,”
she said. “Now
that’s
a name I haven’t heard in
years.” She gestured to a pair of chairs. “Please be seated.” She turned to
Terwilliger. “I understand ManMountain Bates is looking for you.”

“You have excellent sources,”
replied the gambler uneasily.

“Indeed I do,” she agreed. “Not
much goes on in this part of the Frontier that I don’t know about.”

“Then I assume you know why I’m
here,” said Cain.

“I know you’re a bounty hunter,”
she said, “and you’ve told me that Stern sent you, so I can make a pretty good
guess as to why you’re here.” She paused. “But Stern wouldn’t send you to
me
. He would have told you to hunt up Duncan Black.” She turned
back to Terwilliger. “
You
told Mr. Cain to come
here, of course. Stern doesn’t know Duncan is dead, but you do.”

“Well, there wasn’t much sense
trying to have a conversation with Duncan, rest his soul,” explained
Terwilliger defensively.

“And doubtless he has promised to
protect you from ManMountain Bates in exchange for this information.” She
scrutinized Cain for a moment. “You made a poor trade, Mr. Cain. You should
have stayed on Keepsake.”

“What makes you think I come from
Keepsake?” he asked.

She smiled again. “I’ve known your
ship’s registration number since I started tracking you two days ago. In the
intervening forty-eight hours I’ve found out things about you that even
you
may have forgotten. I know the date and planet of your
birth, I know why you left the more populated worlds of the Democracy, I know
how many men you have killed and who they were—and here you are, practically
denying that you work out of Keepsake. If you want
my
honesty, I should think the least you can do is offer me your own.”

“I apologize,” said Cain.

“There’s no need to,” she replied.
“Deceit is no more than I expect from a member of your sex.”

“Will you help me?” asked Cain,
ignoring her comment.

“You’re wasting your time.”

“I’ve got plenty to waste,” he
said. “And I can pay for yours.”

“I didn’t say you would be wasting
my
time,” said the Sargasso Rose. “I have every
intention of selling you the information you need.”

“I’m not sure I understand the
distinction.”

“I’m quite prepared to tell you
what you want to know, but it won’t do you any good. The Angel has moved to the
Inner Frontier.”

“I’m getting a little tired of
hearing about him,” said Cain with a trace of irritation.

“So, I suspect, is every fugitive
within ten thousand light-years,” she replied. “Mr. Terwilliger, I think it is
time for you to leave the room. What I have to say to Mr. Cain is for his ears
alone.”

“Why?” asked the gambler.

“For the same reason that you are
denied free access to the goods in my warehouse: I don’t want you selling
something that’s mine to the first qualified buyer who comes along.”

“I resent that,” said Terwilliger,
trying to muster a show of sincerity and not quite succeeding.

“You are welcome to resent it to your
heart’s content,” said the Sargasso Rose. “What you are
not
welcome to do is remain in my office.”

Terwilliger seemed about to
protest, thought better of it, and walked to the door.

“I’ll be right outside,” he told
Cain. “Yell out if you need me.”

Cain stared at him in amusement,
and a moment later the door slid shut behind the little gambler.

“If you plan to hunt Santiago, you
really should choose your traveling companions more carefully, Mr. Cain,” said
the Sargasso Rose, leaning back in her chair.

“Perhaps.” replied Cain. “But on
his behalf, I should point out that he brought me to you. Otherwise I’d be
wasting my time hunting for Duncan Black, or else I’d be heading back for Port
étrange to beat my money out of Jonathan Stern.”

“True,” she admitted with a shrug.
“May I offer you a drink?”

“Why not?” he said agreeably.

She pressed a button on her
computer console, and a small, furry red alien, definitely not humanoid,
entered by a different door and set a bottle and two glasses down on her desk.

“Do you have any Men at all on
Deadly Nightshade?” asked Cain as the alien left the office.

“The race or the gender?” asked
the Sargasso Rose. “In either case, the answer is no. Both tend to desert you
when you need them the most—especially the gender.”

“It must get lonely up here,”
commented Cain.

“Eventually one gets used to it.”
She filled the two glasses, and Cain stepped over and took one.

“Thank you,” he said after
returning to his chair and taking a sip. Suddenly he laughed in
self-deprecation.

“What is it, Mr. Cain?”

He held up the glass. “I just
realized that there’s normal gravity in this room,” he replied. “Some observant
hunter I am! If I hadn’t noticed that this stuff didn’t float away, I would
never have known.”

“The Orange Monkeys like zero
gravity. I find continued exposure to it a bit upsetting, so I tailor my office
to my own needs.”

“It must cost a fortune,” he
commented.

“It does. Thankfully, I’ve got a
fortune to spare.”

He took another sip. “This is
pretty good stuff.”

“It ought to be,” she said. “It
comes straight from Deluros Eight.”

“You handle merchandise from that
far away?”

“You’d be surprised at what passes
through Deadly Nightshade, Mr. Cain,” she replied. “Or perhaps you wouldn’t.
Exactly how much did Stern tell you about Duncan Black?”

“Only that Black handled stolen
goods, and that he was a middleman between Stern and Santiago,” replied Cain.
“I know he had access to some of the gold that Santiago picked up in the
Epsilon Eridani raid.”

“Now
that
was a cargo!” she said with a smile. “Six hundred million credits’ worth of
pure bullion!”

“I got the impression from
Terwilliger that you decided to follow in Black’s footsteps.”

“Terwilliger talks too much.”

“Most people do,” agreed Cain.

“Besides, they were
my
footsteps to begin with,” she continued. “I was dealing
in stolen commodities long before Duncan Black ever thought of it.” She paused.
“I gave him a share of the business to insure his loyalty.” She looked at Cain.
“Does that seem manipulative and immoral to you?”

“I gave up making moral judgments
a long time ago,” he replied.

“Anyway,” said the Sargasso Rose,
sipping her drink, “Duncan liked dealing with people more than I did, so he
became our front man for places like Port étrange and people like Stern.”

“Then
you
made the initial contact with Santiago, not Black.”

“Actually, Santiago made the
initial contact with
me,
” she answered him. “Though
it took a few years before I knew beyond any doubt that I was dealing with
him.”

“Have you ever met him?” asked
Cain.

She shook her head. “No. Or
perhaps I should say, not to my knowledge.”

“But you might have?”

“Who’s to say?” she replied with a
shrug of her shoulders. “I met any number of people who delivered goods that
Santiago may have stolen—though in truth I can’t imagine why he would have
risked exposure by coming here.”

“Do you know anyone who has
actually met him face to face?” persisted Cain.

“Yes, I do.”

“Who?”

“Before I tell you, Mr. Cain,”
said the Sargasso Rose, “there are a few things I would like to know, just to
satisfy my own curiosity.”

“Such as?”

“You spent most of your young
manhood fighting to overthrow various governments. Santiago, to the best of my
knowledge, has primarily attacked and looted those enterprises that are owned
or controlled by the Democracy, or are at least vital to its well-being. You
were branded as a revolutionary, and once had a price on your head. The
magnitude of his actions is certainly far greater, but he might also be
considered a revolutionary, insofar as most of his crimes are against the State.
You have so many things in common with him that I’m just a little puzzled about
why you want so desperately to kill him.”

“The bulk of his crimes are
committed against the Democracy simply because the Democracy has more assets
than any other potential target,” said Cain. “As for his being a revolutionary,
you might say the same for any train robber back on old Earth who ever robbed a
government payroll. The man’s a criminal, plain and simple.”

“Have you ever known him to kill
anyone?” she asked.

“He killed seventeen colonists on
Silverblue just last year,” replied Cain.

“Rubbish!” said the Sargasso Rose.
“He hasn’t been to the Outer Frontier in years.”

“You know that for a fact?” he
asked sharply.

“Why else would the Angel have
moved into this area?” she replied.

“Maybe he’s chasing him,”
suggested Cain.

“You don’t believe that for a
moment. The Angel
catches
anyone he chases.”

“He’s just a bounty hunter, not a
superman.”

“You still haven’t told me why you
want to kill Santiago.”