Soothsayer Read online

  “No matter. He knew we were lying anyway.”

  “Will he report us, do you think?”

  “To whom?” asked the Mouse with no show of concern. “He's as close to being the law as you can get out here. Besides, he doesn't know who we are.”

  “He'll find out.”

  “You can see that in the future?”

  Penelope shook her head. “No ... but sooner or later they always find out.”

  “Maybe not this time,” said the Mouse. “I want to have a little chat with the Forever Kid.”

  “But he's a killer!”

  “But not a bounty hunter.”

  “What's the difference?” asked Penelope.

  “There's a difference between capturing you and killing you,” explained the Mouse. “Most of the men and women who are after you want you alive. This isn't the kind of man they'd hire to find you. His specialty is death.”

  “Maybe he was hired to kill whoever I'm with.”

  “It's a possibility,” admitted the Mouse. “That's why I want to talk to him alone. If he's available, I want to hire him to protect us until we can hook up with Merlin again.”

  “What about me?”

  “You're going to stay in the room. I'll bring your dinner back to you.”

  “But I can help you,” protested Penelope. “If he wants to kill you, I'll know.”

  “Even if he wants to kill me, he won't do it until he knows where you are.”

  “The bartender will tell him.”

  “Not unless he tells the bartender who he's looking for, and why ... and killers tend to be pretty close-mouthed, especially when there's a reward for their victims.” The Mouse paused. “It's a gamble, but we've got to take it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he's got to have a ship,” she explained patiently. “If I can hire him to protect us until we can connect up again with Merlin, it means we won't have to drive out into the desert and try to steal a ship from one of the miners—and I've got a feeling they protect their ships as devoutly as they protect their diamonds.”

  Penelope frowned unhappily. “I thought we were supposed to be a team,” she said.

  “We are,” the Mouse assured her. “But different members of a team have different duties. I don't perform Merlin's magic tricks, you know.”

  “What's my duty?” asked the girl.

  “For the next few days, it's to warn me of danger,” said the Mouse. “But only if showing yourself doesn't put us in even more danger.”

  “All right,” said Penelope thoughtfully. “That seems fair.”

  “Good.” The Mouse lay back on the bed. “I'm exhausted. That heat seems to have drained me. I'm going to take a nap.” She reached into her pocket, withdrew a credit cube that she had appropriated on Westerly, and tossed it to Penelope. “Why don't you watch the video, and wake me at twilight?”

  “All right,” said the girl.

  Penelope shook the Mouse awake a moment later.

  “What is it?”

  “The cube doesn't work,” said the girl.

  “Hmm. I guess the owner reported that it was missing.” The Mouse dug into her pocket and withdrew three more cubes. “Throw that one away and try these. One of them ought to work.”

  She lay back again, and a moment later heard Penelope giggling at something she saw on the holographic screen. Then she fell into a deep, exhausted sleep, and didn't move a muscle until Penelope tapped her gently on the shoulder.

  “Didn't any of the cubes work?” asked the Mouse, momentarily disoriented.

  “It's almost dark out,” responded the girl. “You've been asleep all afternoon.”

  The Mouse sat up, scratched her close-cropped hair vigorously, and then stretched her arms and looked out the window.

  “I've got time for a dryshower,” she announced, and went off to the bathroom to cleanse the dirt and dried sweat from her small, wiry body. She wished that she had some fresh clothes, but she settled for tossing her outfit into the dryshower for a few minutes. It came out wrinkled but clean, and a few minutes later she walked out into the hall and down the stairs, after warning Penelope not to let anyone else into the room.

  A handful of miners were seated at the table nearest the door. They were hard, grizzled men who quaffed their beer as if it meant the difference between life and death, and complained long and loud to each other about everything from the weather to the price of industrial and investment-grade diamonds.

  Then the Mouse looked toward the far end of the room, and there, sitting in the shadows, his back to the wall, an expression of boredom on his handsome face, sat a young man with a shock of unruly blond hair who seemed scarcely old enough to shave. His clothes were sporty without being ostentatious, and bulky enough to hide half a dozen weapons. There was a container of water on the table in front of him.

  The Mouse walked around the miners’ table, grateful that they were too absorbed in their conversation and their beer to offer any catcalls or whistles, and approached the young man.

  “Good evening,” she said pleasantly.

  “Is it?” he replied, looking up at her, and she was suddenly struck by how bored and ancient his blue eyes seemed.

  “It might be, if you'd invite me to sit down.”

  He nodded toward a chair opposite him. “Be my guest.”

  “What'll it be, Miz Mother?” Ryan called out from behind the bar. “Another glass of water?”

  The Mouse shook her head. “Make it a beer.”

  “Coming right up.”

  “And a dinner menu,” she added.

  Ryan chuckled. “You make it sound like there's a choice.”

  “Isn't there?”

  “Out here? We're lucky to have any food to serve at all. I'll bring you a plate when it's ready. Be another five minutes or so.”

  “Thanks.”

  “How about the little girl?”

  “She's sleeping,” replied the Mouse, studying the young man to see if he reacted to the news that she was traveling with a child. His face remained expressionless. “I'll bring a plate up to her when I'm done.”

  Ryan approached the table, handed a glass of beer to the Mouse, and retreated to his station.

  “Well, that's over with,” said the young man with the ancient eyes. “Now what can I do for you?”

  “That all depends,” answered the Mouse.

  “On what?”

  “On who you are.”

  “My name's Bundy.”

  “I don't care what your name is.”

  The young man shrugged. “I don't much care what yours is, either. Why don't you just say what's on your mind?”

  “I need protection,” said the Mouse. “I think you can provide it.”

  “So you can live another 50 years?” he asked. “Take my word for it—it's not worth it.”

  “I want your protection anyway.”

  “Do I look like the protective type?” asked the young man. “Hell, lady, I'm just a kid.”

  “A 200-year-old kid,” said the Mouse, staring into his clear blue eyes.

  “223 years, to be exact,” replied the Forever Kid, displaying neither surprise nor anger that she knew who he was.

  “That's a long time to stay alive out here on the Frontier,” said the Mouse. “Especially for a man in your line of work.”

  “Longevity is a greatly overrated virtue,” replied the Kid.

  “I'm 37,” said the Mouse bluntly. “I stand a good chance of not reaching 38 if I can't find someone to help me get away from here.”

  “You have my sympathy,” said the Kid, his voice as bored as his eyes.

  “I need more than your sympathy.”

  “My sympathy is freely given,” said the Kid. “Everything else costs money.”

  “How much?”

  “How far away do you want to go?”

  “Very far.”

  “Then it'll cost very much.”

  “You haven't named a price,” noted the Mouse.

&n
bsp; The Forever Kid smiled for the first time. “You haven't named the opposition.”

  “I don't know who it is.”

  “Then I hardly see how I can help you.”

  “But I'm traveling with someone who will know.”

  “The little girl?”

  “You know about her?”

  The Kid nodded. “The bartender isn't exactly close-mouthed. Who are they after, you or her?”

  “Right now, both of us.”

  “And you want my protection.”

  “And your ship,” added the Mouse.

  “That's going to cost more.”

  “I don't know how much you cost to begin with.”

  “I don't come cheap,” said the Kid.

  “I couldn't use someone who did.”

  He stared at her for a long moment. “100,000 credits a week.”

  The Mouse took a deep breath. “That's awfully high.”

  “How highly do you value your life?”

  “You'll go wherever I tell you to?”

  The Kid nodded.

  “I might have to pay in some other currency.”

  “New Stalin ruples or Maria Theresa dollars are acceptable. I won't take Far London pounds.”

  “Deal,” said the Mouse, wondering where she could get the money and what the Forever Kid might do to her if she didn't come up with it.

  “I'll want a week's pay in advance.”

  “That's out of the question.”

  “How do I know you can pay me?”

  “You'll have to trust me.”

  “I trusted someone two centuries ago,” said the Forever Kid, and suddenly his eyes briefly blazed to life. “She lied to me. I haven't trusted anyone since.”

  “But I haven't got the money now,” protested the Mouse.

  “Then you'll have to get it before I leave.”

  “When is that?”

  “I have a little business to transact later tonight. I plan to leave in the morning.”

  “You're here on a contract?”

  The Kid almost looked amused. “Nobody comes to Ophir for his health.”

  “A miner?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “Because you've been hired to kill someone, not rob him,” said the Mouse. “Let me come along with you. If he's got 100,000 credits worth of diamonds, we can still make a deal.”

  “What makes you think I won't appropriate his diamonds myself?” asked the Kid.

  “You're a killer, not a thief,” she said adamantly.

  The Kid actually smiled at her. “What makes you think the two are mutually exclusive?”

  “Because I am a thief, and if I was a killer too, I wouldn't need you.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, and she shifted uncomfortably on her chair. “You amuse me,” he said at last.

  “I assume that means it's no deal?” said the Mouse dejectedly.

  “I haven't met an amusing woman since before you were born,” continued the Forever Kid. He paused and stared at her again, then nodded his head. “Okay, we've got a deal.”

  The Mouse extended her hand. “Shake.”

  The Kid stared at her outstretched hand. “I never shake hands.”

  “Have it your way,” said the Mouse with a shrug. “When do we leave?”

  “Another hour or so. I want to give them time to relax.”

  “Them?” said the Mouse.

  The Kid nodded.

  “Just how many miners do you plan to kill tonight?”

  “Eight.”

  “Eight?” she repeated incredulously.

  “Don't look so upset,” said the Kid. “You'll have that much more opportunity to raise some capital.”

  “Eight,” said the Mouse again. “That's awfully high odds.”

  “I charge awfully high prices.”

  “If you waited until midnight or so, you might be able to sneak up on them,” suggested the Mouse.

  “I doubt it.”

  “Why?”

  “I sent them a message this afternoon that I was coming,” said the Kid.

  “You sent them a message? Why?”

  “There's always a chance,” he said almost wistfully.

  “A chance they'll kill you?” she asked, not quite understanding.

  He stared off into the distance for a long moment. “No,” he said at last. “No, they won't be that lucky.” He sighed. “And neither will I.”

  Ryan arrived just then with the Mouse's dinner. Suddenly she found that she no longer had an appetite.

  7.

  Most deserts are cold at night, but this one, decided the Mouse as she and the Forever Kid drove across the sand in an open vehicle, was merely less hot.

  “You've been very quiet since dinner,” remarked the Kid. “Is anything wrong?”

  “You're kidding, right?”

  “I gave up kidding more than a century ago.”

  “Well, to tell you the truth, I was wondering if I'd be able to find my way back to Ophir in the dark, after they kill you.”

  “You won't have to,” replied the Kid. “I'm not going to lose.”

  “Are you saying that you can't be killed?”

  “I've been cut up pretty bad on occasion,” he replied. “I can be killed, all right—but not tonight, not by these men.”

  “There are eight of them waiting for you out there,” she said, waving a hand in the general direction they were headed. “They'll probably have taken up defensive positions all around the area. Hell, for all you know, one of them might be just a couple of hundred yards ahead of us, waiting to take a shot at you as you drive by.”

  The Kid shook his head. “They'll all be in their camp, taking comfort from each other's presence.”

  “How do you know that?”

  He turned to her. “I've been doing this for two hundred years. I know how hunted men act.”

  “Maybe these men are different.”

  “I hope so,” he said earnestly.

  “Why?” she asked, honestly curious.

  “Because it's been a long time since I've seen anything new.”

  “That's a hell of an answer.”

  “You think it's easy to be the Forever Kid?” he asked. “To know that when everyone now living in the whole galaxy has been dust for millennia, I'll still look the same? To eat the same meals, and fly to the same worlds, and do the same thing day in and month out, year in and century out?” He paused. “Everyone wants to be immortal, but let me tell you, lady, it's not really a consummation devoutly to be wished. Why do you think I got into this line of work? Because sooner or later someone will put me out of my—”

  “Your misery?” she suggested.

  He shook his head. “My boredom.”

  “Maybe it'll be tonight,” said the Mouse. “That's why I'm wondering if I can find my way back.”

  “It won't be tonight,” he replied with conviction.

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “I know how good I am.”

  “Maybe you exaggerate how good you are. You told the bartender that you killed Three-Fisted Ollie, but I know he's alive.”

  “I never said that I killed him,” answered the Kid. “I said that I could kill him.”

  “Not from what I hear.”

  The Forever Kid shrugged. “Believe what you want.”

  They drove another two miles in silence, and then they saw the lights of a small camp off in the distance.

  “That's it,” said the Kid, nodding toward the lights.

  “Then shouldn't we stop the landcar?”

  “Soon,” he said, starting to decelerate. “They don't have any weapons that are accurate at more than 300 yards.”

  “You hope.”

  “I know,” he replied, finally coming to a stop.

  “I thought I saw some movement behind that boulder, to the left of the last bubble,” whispered the Mouse.

  “You did.”

  “Well, what are you going to do about it?”

  The Ki
d got out of the vehicle and stretched lazily. “I'm going to go to work.”

  “What about me?”

  “You stay here until it's over.”

  “A stationery target in a parked vehicle?” said the Mouse, getting out her side of the landcar. “No, thank you.”

  “You'd be safer in the car.”

  “You worry about your safety and I'll worry about mine,” she shot back.

  He shrugged. “As you wish.”

  He began walking off into the shadows.

  “Let me follow you,” said the Mouse, suddenly very uneasy about remaining behind.

  “You'd just be in the way.”

  “There must be something I can do.”

  “There is.”

  “What?”

  “Go into their camp under a white flag and tell them they've got five minutes to make their peace with whatever god they worship.”

  “Me?” repeated the Mouse incredulously.

  The Forever Kid chuckled. “You see anyone else out here?”

  “Not a chance,” said the Mouse vehemently.

  “It's up to you. I'll call to you when it's over.”

  “You know,” said the Mouse, “there's a very fine line between confidence and madness.”

  There was no answer, and the Mouse realized that she was talking to herself. The Kid had gone.

  She stood beside the vehicle, squinting into the darkness, trying to spot the other seven miners in the dim illumination 300 yards ahead.

  After a few minutes, she heard a single piercing scream, and then a number of rifle shots and the buzzing from laser pistols. She ducked down behind the vehicle, just in case the Kid had been wrong about the accuracy of the miners’ weapons, but after a few moments of total silence she peeked around the side.

  Three bodies, two of them grotesquely contorted, lay in the small pool of light beside the camp, and she could see the motionless bare foot of a fourth sticking out of the darkness.

  Then came a high-pitched shriek, unmistakably feminine, and an instant later a woman staggered out of one of the survival bubbles, clutching her abdomen, and collapsed a few yards away from the men.

  “Enough!” cried a man. “I give up.”

  “This isn't a child's game,” replied the Kid from some distance. “You're not allowed to quit just because you're going to lose.”

  Three rifles—two projectile and one laser—tore into the spot where the Kid's voice had come from, and then all was silent again. After a tense moment, two women and a men emerged from their bubbles and cautiously approached the spot when the gunfire had converged. Suddenly one of the women screamed and fell to the ground, and the two remaining miners turned and began firing wildly into the darkness.