The Return of Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future (2 page)

      
"Okay, okay," said the old man. He removed a prosthetic hand, pulled a wad of money out of it, counted out three hundred Maria Theresa dollars, and pushed it across the table.

      
"Thanks," said Danny. He pulled out a tiny computer, retrieved an address, and transferred it to a hologram for the old man to study. "This is it."

      
"You're sure?"

      
"Have I ever been wrong yet?" asked Danny, nodding to another client who entered the Golden Fleece and caught his eye.

      
"No, you never have been," said the old man. "I don't know how you do it."
That's because you and every other fool I deal with would have broken into the kennel's safe tonight and come away with a couple of hundred credits if you were lucky. Not one of you would ever think of stealing a list of the animals' owners, complete with their addresses and the dates that they're gone.

      
"Memorize it," said Danny, indicating the hologram that the tiny computer was projecting.

      
The man studied it, then nodded his head. Danny wiped the information from the machine and deactivated it.

      
"Thanks, Danny," said the old man, getting to his feet. The next client sat down opposite him.

      
Jesus! I rob the data from that computer every three or four months and don't take any other risks, and I get twenty percent of three hundred robberies a year. It's almost
too
easy. Doesn't anyone else on this dirtball have a brain?

      
Their negotiation completed, the man got up and left, and Danny was alone with his drink once again. A redhead, a bit

      
overweight but still pretty, smiled a greeting at him from a nearby table.

      
"Hi, Danny," she said.

      
"Hi yourself, Duchess," said Danny. "I just finished tonight's business. Why don't you come over and join me?" He flashed a wad of money. "I'm solvent tonight."

      
"You never give up, do you?" she said, amused.

      
"Of course not," replied Danny. "You don't hit the moon if you don't shoot for it."

      
"Am I the moon?"

      
"You'll do."

      
"Boy, you sure know how to turn a girl on," she said sardonically.

      
He smiled. "It works with all the other girls."

      
"So turn your charm on one of them."

      
"Anything worthwhile takes effort," he replied. "
You
take effort."

      
"I suppose I'm flattered," said the Duchess.

      
"So join me."

      
"I said I was flattered, not interested."

      
"One of the days you're going to say yes, and it'll be a race to see which of us drops dead from shock first."

      
"One of these days you'll get an honest job, and maybe I'll say yes."

      
"If I had an honest job, I couldn't afford you." He smiled. "I'm sure someone somewhere has based an entire philosophical system on a paradox just like that one."

      
"Not funny, Danny."

      
"Look, some people are great rulers of men, some are great cleaners of stables. I found out what I was good at early on."

      
"I think it's criminal that you feel that way."

      
He smiled again. "Criminal's the word. Still, I'm willing to be shown the error of my ways. Come have a drink."

      
"No, thanks."

      
"You really won't join me?"

      
"I really won't."

      
"But your heart would be broken if I hadn't asked, right?"

      
"Try not asking some night and we'll see."

      
"You drive a hard bargain, Duchess," said Danny. "But one of these days you'll see me as I really am."

      
"Maybe I already do."

      
"Fate forfend," he said in mock dismay.

      
A moment later he got up and made his way to the men's room. As he was washing his hands the door dilated and two burly men entered the small cubicle.

      
"Hi, Danny," said the taller of them.

      
"Hi, Mr. Balsam," replied Danny, trying to hide his apprehension. "Hi, Mr. Gibbs."

      
"That's
Commander
Balsam."

      
"And
Lieutenant
Gibbs," added the shorter, wider man.

      
"That's only when you're on duty," said Danny. "And if you were on duty, you wouldn't be drinking in a tavern."

      
"We're not drinking," said Balsam. "And it's still Commander."

      
"Whatever makes you happy," said Danny. "Good evening, Commander."

      
"Well, it didn't start out that way, but it's improving," replied Balsam. A grin that boded no good spread across his face. "You fucked up big time tonight, Danny."

      
"I don't know what you're talking about. I've been in the bar all night."

      
"No, you've been swiping data from a kennel. We've got you cold."

      
"You have holographs of me breaking into a kennel? I doubt that."

      
"Of course we don't have any holos, Danny. You disabled the cameras, remember?"

      
"Fingerprints, then? Or maybe voiceprints, or a retinagram?" suggested Danny.

      
"We know you've wiped your prints, and you've got contacts that give a false retina reading," said Gibbs.

      
"Well, you're certainly welcome to search me for this mysterious data you're referring to."

      
"You're a bright lad, Danny," said Balsam. "You've either got it hidden away or committed to memory."

      
"I wish I could help you," said Danny with a smile, "but aren't you supposed to have evidence before you start making accusations?"

      
"Oh, we've got it, Danny. Holographs, retinagrams, voiceprints, everything."

      
Danny frowned. "But you just said—"

      
"We didn't get it at the kennel," said Balsam. "We got it at the market."

      
"What market?"

      
Balsam grinned again. "For a smart guy, you did a really dumb thing, Danny. You went to the biggest, best-protected market in town, and you bought a dead
minipor
to feed the animals if they got noisy."

      
"I assume you're going to get to the point sometime this evening," said Danny, already scanning the room for some means of escape.

      
"The
minipor's
a rare item, Danny. And the reason it's a rarity is because it comes from Churchill II. The store has security cameras showing you buying the only
minipor
imported to Bailiwick in the past half year—and there was enough of its skeleton left in the Moondevil's enclosure so that we could identify it." He paused. "It was a nice scam, Danny. Of all the scum I deal with, only
you
would have figured out there was a hundred times more profit in a list of empty houses than in the kennel's cash box."

      
Danny glanced at the small window on the back wall of the washroom.

      
"Don't even think of it," said Gibbs. "You'd never fit through, and we'd tack on another two years for trying to escape."

      
"Who's escaping?" said Danny pleasantly. "I hope you have a comfortable cell. My lawyer doesn't like getting up before noon, so I'll be spending the night with you."

      
"This night and the next thousand," said Balsam. He withdrew a pair of glowing manacles. "Hands behind your back, Danny."

      
"Can I get a drink of water first?"

      
"Okay, but no funny stuff."

      
"You tell me what's funny about a glass of water," said Danny, pulling a cup out of the wall and holding it beneath the faucet. "Cold," he ordered.

      
Cold water filled the cup, and Danny drank it down.

      
"One more?"

      
"Come on, Danny. You had your drink."

      
"You know what the water's like in jail," said Danny. "Let me have one more drink. How can it hurt."

      
Balsam shrugged. "Yeah, okay, go ahead."

      
"Thanks," said Danny. He turned to the sink and held the glass under the tap as the two officers relaxed and waited for him.

      
"Hot!"
he croaked.

      
Boiling hot water filled the glass, and in a single motion he hurled it in Balsam's face, grabbed the manacles, connected Gibbs' wrist to the sink, and raced out the door.

      
Danny had a three-step lead on Balsam as he raced to the door of the Golden Fleece. The Commander pulled out a screecher, a sonic pistol that would put him out for the rest of the night and give him a headache for a week, but as he was running after Danny and taking aim, the Duchess stuck out a foot and tripped him. He fell with a bone-jarring thud.

      
Danny raced back to the table, took her hand, and began pulling her toward the door.

      
"I didn't mean to do that!" she said, panic-stricken. "It was instinct! I just didn't want him to shoot you!"

      
"
I
believe you!" said Danny urgently. "
He
never will! Come on! He's not going to stay down forever, and he's got a partner!"

      
Suddenly Gibbs, the manacle hanging from his wrist, burst into the tavern.

      
"Now!"
said Danny urgently. The Duchess took a quick glance at Gibbs, screamed, and actually beat Danny out the door.

      
"Left!" he whispered as he caught up with her. They reached the corner and had just turned out of the line of sight when the two policemen emerged, weapons in hand, from the tavern.

      
"Now they're going to kill us!" whispered the Duchess, terrified.

      
"They're never going to find us," answered Danny. "Just trust me and do what I say."

      
They ran through the streets, turning frequently, never seeing any sign of their pursuers, always moving farther and farther from the center of the small city. After a few minutes the buildings took on new and different shapes: some were triangular, some trapezoidal, some seemed to follow no rational plan at all.

      
"Where are we?" asked the Duchess, as Danny led her down narrow winding streets that seemed totally patternless.

      
"The native quarter," he said. "They won't follow us here."

      
"Is it dangerous?" she asked, looking around.

      
"It is if they know you work for the Democracy. They'll leave us alone."

      
"How do you know?"

      
"I've spent a lot of time here," said Danny, nodding to an orange-skinned being who stared right through him as if he didn't exist. "They know I won't do them any harm."

      
"You have alien friends?"

      
"They're not aliens, they've natives," answered Danny. "And yes, I have friends here."

      
She began looking panicky again. "I can't believe it! I'm a fugitive, and I'm hiding out in the alien quarter!"

      
"Calm down," said Danny. "You're safe now."

      
"
You
calm down!" she snapped. "Maybe you're used to having the police after you, but it's a new experience for me, and I don't like it very much!"

      
"They won't come to the quarter," he said confidently.

      
"Are we going to spend the night here?"

      
He shook his head. "We'll give the police half an hour to figure out where I went, and another couple of minutes to decide it's not worth the effort to search for us here."

      
"Then what?"

      
He smiled. "Then we have our choice of 53 empty houses."

      
She lit a smokeless cigarette. "So it's not enough that I helped a criminal escape capture," she said bitterly. "Now the police can add breaking and entering to the charges."

      
"I'm grateful that you stopped my friend Commander Balsam from shooting me," said Danny, "but no one asked you to. It was your choice to hinder a police officer in the pursuit of a criminal, so don't blame me."

      
"I told you: I wasn't thinking clearly," she said. "I was just reacting."

      
"Believe me, no one's going to arrest you," Danny assured her. "Any red-blooded man who was at the tavern will swear that Balsam tripped over you."

      
"Do you really think so?"

      
"I do. Besides, if
I
don't know your real name, neither do they. If you choose to stay with me, all they know is they're after someone who called herself the Duchess. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'll give plenty of ten-to-one that that's not the name on your ID disk or your passport."

      
"It isn't. I didn't like my name, so I changed it."