Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Prologue

  Part 1: The Songbird’s Book

  Part 2: The Virgin Queen’s Book

  Part 3: The Jolly Swagman’s Book

  Part 4: The Angel’s Book

  Part 5: Moonripple’s Book

  Part 6: Santiago’s Book

  Epilogue

  Chronology

  SANTIAGO: A MYTH OF THE FAR FUTURE

  by

  Mike Resnick

  Copyright © 1986 by Mike Resnick

  www.mikeresnick.com

  Prologue

  They say his father was a comet and his mother a cosmic wind, that he juggles planets as if they were feathers and wrestles with black holes just to work up an appetite. They say he never sleeps, and that his eyes burn brighter than a nova, and that his shout can level mountains.

  They call him Santiago.

  * * * *

  Far out on the Galactic Rim, at the very edge of the Outer Frontier, there is a world called Silverblue. It is a water world, with just a handful of islands dotting the placid ocean that covers its surface. If you stand on the very largest island and look into the night sky, you can see almost all of the Milky Way, a huge twinkling river of stars that seems to flow through half the universe.

  And if you stand on the western shore of the island during the daytime, with your back to the water, you will see a grass-covered knoll. Atop the knoll are seventeen white crosses, each bearing the name of a good man or woman who thought to colonize this gentle world.

  And beneath each name is the same legend, repeated seventeen times:

  Killed by Santiago.

  * * * *

  Toward the core of the galaxy, where the stars press together so closely that night is as bright as day, there is a world called Valkyrie. It is an outpost world, a place of ramshackle Tradertowns filled with dingy bars and hotels and brothels, where the explorers and miners and traders of the Inner Frontier congregate to eat and drink and embellish a few tall tales.

  The largest of Valkyrie's Tradertowns, which isn't really very large, also has a postal station that stores subspace messages the way the postal stations of old used to store written mail. Sometimes the messages are held for as long as three or four years, and frequently they are routed even closer to the galactic core, but eventually most of them are picked up.

  And in this postal station, there is a wall that is covered by the names and holographs of criminals who are currently thought to be on the Inner Frontier, which tends to make the station very popular with bounty hunters. There are always twenty outlaws displayed, never more, never less, and next to each name is a price. Some of these names remain in place for a week, some for a month, a handful for a year.

  Only three names have ever been displayed for more than five years. Two of them are no longer there.

  The third is Santiago, and there is no holograph of him.

  * * * *

  On the colony world of Saint Joan, there is a native humanoid race known as the Swale. There are no longer any colonists; they have all departed.

  Near the equator of Saint Joan, very close to where the colony once lived, there is a blackened swath of land almost ten miles long and half a mile wide, on which nothing will ever grow again. No colonist ever reported it, or if any of them did, the report has long since been misplaced by one of the Democracy's thirty billion bureaucrats—but if you go to Saint Joan and ask the Swale what caused the blackened patch of ground, they will cross themselves (for the colonists were a religious lot, and very evangelical) and tell you that it is the Mark of Santiago.

  * * * *

  Even on the agricultural world of Ranchero, where there has never been a crime, not even a petty robbery, his name is not unknown. He is thought to be eleven feet three inches tall, with wild, unruly orange hair and immense black fangs that have dug into his lips and now protrude through them. And when youngsters misbehave, their parents have merely to hint at the number of naughty children Santiago has eaten for breakfast, and order is immediately restored.

  * * * *

  Wandering minstrels sing songs about him on Minotaur and Theseus, the twin worlds that circle Sigma Draconis, and always he is portrayed as being exactly 217 years old, taller than a belltower, and broader than a barn, a hard-drinking, womanizing Prince of Thieves, who differs from Robin Hood (another of their favorites) primarily in that he takes from rich and poor alike and gives only to himself. His adventures are legion, ranging from his epic hand-to-hand struggle with a chlorine-breathing Gorgon to the morning he went down to hell and spat full in Satan's burning eye, and rarely is there a day that does not witness the addition of a few new stanzas to the ever-evolving "Ballad of Santiago."

  And on Deluros VIII, the huge capital world of the race of Man, the nerve center of the Democracy, there are eleven governmental departments and 1,306 men and women charged with the task of finding and terminating Santiago. They doubt that Santiago is his given name, they suspect that some of the crimes attributed to him were committed by others, they are almost certain that somewhere in their files they possess his photograph or holograph but have not yet matched it with its proper identity—and that is the sum total of their knowledge of him.

  Five hundred reports come to them daily, two thousand leads are followed up each year, munificent rewards have been posted on half a million worlds, agents are sent out armed with money and everything that money can buy, and still those eleven departments exist. They have outlived the last three administrations; they will continue to survive until their function has been fulfilled.

  * * * *

  Silverblue, Valkyrie, Saint Joan, Ranchero, Minotaur, Theseus, Deluros VIII: interesting and evocative worlds all.

  But an even more interesting world in the strange tapestry of Santiago's life is the outpost world of Keepsake, at the heart of the Inner Frontier; for Keepsake is the home, at least temporarily, of Sebastian Nightingale Cain, who dislikes his middle name, his profession, and his life—not necessarily in that order. He has fought what he believes to have been the good fight many times over, and he has never won. Not much excites his imagination anymore, and even less surprises him. He has no friends and few associates, nor does he seek any.

  Sebastian Nightingale Cain is by almost every criterion a nondescript and unremarkable man, and yet our story must begin with him, for he is destined to play a major role in the saga of the man known only as Santiago....

  Part 1: The Songbird’s Book

  1.

  Giles Sans Pitié is a spinning wheel,

  With the eye of a hawk and a fist made of steel.

  He'll drink a whole gallon while holding his breath,

  And wherever he goes his companion is Death.

  * * * *

  There never was a history written about the Inner Frontier, so Black Orpheus took it upon himself to set one to music. His name wasn't really Orpheus (though he was black). In fact, rumor had it that he had been an aquaculturist back in the Deluros system before he fell in love. The girl's name was Eurydice, and he followed her out to the stars, and since he had left all his property behind, he had nothing to give her but his music, so he took the name of Black Orpheus and spent most of his days composing love songs and sonnets to her. Then she died, and he decided to stay on the Inner Frontier, and he began writing an epic ballad about the traders and hunters and outlaws and misfits that he came across. In fact, you didn't officially stop being a tenderfoot or a tourist until the day he added a stanza or two about you to the song.

  Anyway, Giles Sans Pitié made quite an impression on him, because he appears in nine different verses, which is an awful lot when you're being th
e Homer for five hundred worlds. Probably it was the steel hand that did it. No one knew how he'd lost his real one, but he showed up on the Frontier one day with a polished steel fist at the end of his left arm, announced that he was the best bounty hunter ever born, foaled, whelped, or hatched, and proceeded to prove that he wasn't too far from wrong. Like most bounty hunters, he only touched down on outpost worlds when he wasn't working, and like most bounty hunters, he had a pretty regular route that he followed. Which was how he came to be on Keepsake, in the Tradertown of Moritat, in Gentry's Emporium, pounding on the long wooden bar with his steel fist and demanding service.

  Old Geronimo Gentry, who had spent thirty years prospecting the worlds of the Inner Frontier before he chucked it all and opened a tavern and whorehouse on Moritat, where he carefully sampled every product before offering it to the public, walked over with a fresh bottle of Altairian rum, then held it back as Giles Sans Pitié reached for it.

  "Tab's gettin' pretty high," he commented meaningfully.

  The bounty hunter slapped a wad of bills down on the bar.

  "Maria Theresa dollars," noted Gentry, examining them approvingly and relinquishing the bottle. "Wherever'd you pick 'em up?"

  "The Corvus system."

  "Took care of a little business there, did you?" said Gentry, amused.

  Giles Sans Pitié smiled humorlessly. "A little."

  He reached inside his shirt and withdrew three Wanted posters of the Suliman brothers, which until that morning had been on the post office wall. Each poster had a large red X scratched across it.

  "All three of 'em?"

  The bounty hunter nodded.

  "You shoot 'em, or did you use that?" asked Gentry, pointing toward Giles Sans Pitié's steel fist.

  "Yes."

  "Yes what?"

  Giles Sans Pitié held up his metal hand. "Yes, I shot them or I used this."

  Gentry shrugged. "Goin' out again soon?"

  "In the next few days."

  "Where to this time?"

  "That's nobody's business but mine," said the bounty hunter.

  "Just thought I might offer some friendly advice," said Gentry.

  "Such as?"

  "If you're thinking of going to Praeteep Four, forget it. The Songbird just got back from there."

  "You mean Cain?"

  Gentry nodded. "Had a lot of money, so I'd have to guess that he found what he went looking for."

  The bounty hunter frowned. "I'm going to have to have a little talk with him," he said. "The Praeteep system's got a Keep Out sign posted on it."

  "Oh?" said Gentry. "Since when?"

  "Since I put it up," said Giles Sans Pitié firmly. "And I won't have some rival headhunter doing his poaching there and picking it clean." He paused. "Where can I find him?"

  "Right here."

  Giles Sans Pitié looked around the room. A silver-haired gambler on a winning streak, decked out in bright new clothes made from some glittering metallic fabric, stood at the far end of the bar; a young woman with melancholy eyes sat alone at a table in the corner; and scattered around the large, dimly lit tavern were some two dozen other men and women, in pairs and groups, some conversing in low tones, others sitting in silence.

  "I don't see him," announced the bounty hunter.

  "It's early yet," replied Gentry. "He'll be along."

  "What makes you think so?"

  "I've got the only booze and the only sportin' ladies in Moritat. Where do you think he's gonna go?"

  "There are a lot of worlds out there."

  "True," admitted Gentry. "But people get tired of worlds after a while. Ask me—I know."

  "Then what are you doing on the Frontier?"

  "People get tired of people, too. There's a lot less of 'em out here—and I got me my fancy ladies to cheer me up if ever I get to feelin' lonely." He paused. "'Course, if you want to hear the story of my life, you're gonna have to buy a couple of bottles of my best drinkin' stuff. Then you and me, we'll mosey on out to one of the back rooms and I'll start with chapter one."

  The bounty hunter reached out for the bottle. "I think I can live without it," he said.

  "You'll be missing out on one helluva good story," said Gentry. "I done a lot of interesting things. Seen sights even a killer like you ain't likely ever to see."

  "Some other time."

  "Your loss," said Gentry with a shrug. "You gonna want a glass with that?"

  "Not necessary," said Giles Sans Pitié, lifting the bottle and taking a long swallow. When he was through, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "How long before he gets here?"

  "You got time for a quick one, if that's what you mean," said Gentry. "Just give me a minute to check and see which of my frail flowers ain't working this minute." Suddenly he turned to the doorway. "Whoops! Here he is now. Guess you'll have to go loveless a little longer." He waved his hand. "How're you doin', Songbird?"

  The tall, lean man, his face angular and almost gaunt, his eyes dark and world-weary, approached the bar. His jacket and pants were a nondescript brown, their many pockets filled with shapeless bulges that could mean almost anything on the Frontier. Only his boots stood out, not because they were new, but rather because they were so demonstrably old, obviously carefully tended yet unable to hold a polish.

  "My name's Cain," said the newcomer. "You know that."

  "Well, it ain't what they call you these days."

  "It's what you'll call me if you want my business," replied Cain.

  "But Black Orpheus, now, he's got you all written up as the Songbird," persisted Gentry.

  "I don't sing, I'm not a bird, and I don't much care what some half-baked folksinger writes about me."

  Gentry shrugged. "Have it your way—and while we're on the subject, what else'll you have?"

  "He'll have Altairian rum, like me," interjected Giles Sans Pitié.

  "I will?" asked Cain, turning to him.

  "My treat." The bounty hunter held up his bottle. "Come on over to a table and join me, Sebastian Cain."

  Cain watched him walk across the room for a moment, then shrugged and followed him.

  "I hear you had pretty good luck on Praeteep Four," said Giles Sans Pitié when both men had seated themselves.

  "Luck had nothing to do with it," replied Cain, leaning back comfortably on his chair. "I understand you didn't do too badly yourself."

  "Not so. I had to cheat."

  "I don't think I follow you."

  "I had to shoot the third one." Giles Sans Pitié held up his steel fist. "I like to take them with this." He paused. "Did your man give you much trouble?"

  "Some," said Cain noncommittally.

  "Have to chase him far?"

  "A bit."

  "You're sure not the most expansive raconteur I've ever run across," chuckled Giles Sans Pitié.

  Cain shrugged. "Talk is cheap."

  "Not always. Suliman Hari offered me thirty thousand credits to let him live."

  "And?"

  "I thanked him for his offer, explained that the price on his head was up to fifty thousand, and gave him a faceful of metal."

  "And of course you didn't then take thirty thousand credits off his body without reporting it," said Cain sardonically.

  Giles Sans Pitié frowned. "The son of a bitch only had two thousand on him," he growled righteously.

  "I guess there's just no honor among thieves."

  "None. I can't get over the bastard lying to me!" He paused. "So tell me, Cain—who will you be going out after next?"

  Cain smiled. "Professional secret. You know better than to ask."

  "True," agreed Giles Sans Pitié. "But everyone's allowed a breach of etiquette now and then. For example, you know better than to make a kill in the Praeteep system, but you did it anyway."

  "The man I was hunting went there," replied Cain calmly. "No disrespect intended, but I wasn't going to let four months' work go down the drain just because you think you own the deed to an entire solar system."<
br />
  "I opened that system," said Giles Sans Pitié. "Named every planet in it." He paused. "Still, it's an acceptable answer. I forgive you your trespass."

  "I don't recall asking for absolution," said Cain.

  "Just the same, it's freely given. This time," he added ominously. "But it would be a good idea for you to remember that there are rules out here on the Frontier."

  "Oh? I hadn't noticed any."

  "Nevertheless, they exist—and they're made by the people who can enforce them."

  "I'll keep it in mind."

  "See that you do."

  "Or you'll brain me with your metal hand?" asked Cain.

  "It's a possibility."

  Cain smiled.

  "What's so funny?" demanded Giles Sans Pitié.

  "You're a bounty hunter."

  "So?"

  "Bounty hunters don't kill people for free. Who's going to pay you to kill me?"

  "I've got to protect what's mine," replied Giles Sans Pitié seriously. "I just want to be sure that we understand each other: if you go poaching on my territory again, we're going to come to blows." He slammed his metal hand down on the table, putting a large dent in it. "Mine are usually harder."

  "I imagine they are," said Cain.

  "Then you'll steer clear of Praeteep?"

  "I'm not aware of any pressing business engagements there."

  "That's not exactly the answer I was looking for."

  "I'd suggest you settle for it," said Cain. "It's the best you're going to get."

  Giles Sans Pitié stared at him for a moment, then shrugged. "It could be years before anyone hides there again, maybe even longer. I suppose there's no law that says we can't behave cordially in the meantime."

  "I'm all for living in peace with my fellow man," said Cain agreeably.