The Return of Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future (3 page)

      
"They do that on the Inner Frontier, not here on the Democracy worlds. How can the government keep tabs on you if they don't know who you are?"

      
"I never thought of it that way," she said, "but maybe choosing a new name wasn't a bad idea."

      
"Beats the hell out of being a Myrtle."

      
"Do I look like a Myrtle to you?"

      
He stared at her and shook his head. "You look like a Duchess who saved my life. Of course, you won't drink with me, but if I have to choose between your doing one or the other . . ." He ended with a smile.

      
"Well, you look exactly like a Danny Briggs."

      
"That bad, huh?"

      
"If you don't like the name, change it like I did."

      
"What would I change it to?"

      
"That's for you to decide."

      
"I never had a hero," he admitted. "I guess I'll keep it and stay who I am."

      
They stood in silence for a few more minutes, engulfed in angular shadows. Then Danny checked his timepiece.

      
"We've been here almost an hour," he announced. "I think we can start hunting up a place to stay while we figure out our next move."

      
"Where are we going?" she asked as he began walking back toward the city.

      
"Where do you want to go?"

      
"You know that little hill at the south end of town, the one overlooking Lake Belora?" she said. "Have you got anything there?"

      
"I've got two houses in the area," he replied. "I won't know if either of them has a lake view until we get there."

      
The first house was actually in a valley just beyond the hill, but the second, still luxurious but less impressive, looked like they would be able see the lake from the second level.

      
"It's too bad I didn't know this would be happening," remarked Danny. "There's an empty villa fronting the lake. It even has a dock and a couple of boats."

      
"So let's go there."

      
He shook his head. "It's going to be robbed sometime tonight. We don't want to be anywhere near it, just in case."

      
"How will we get in?" asked the Duchess as they approached the front door of the house they had chosen. "I don't know
how
to break into a house. Won't it have a security system?"

      
"Have a little trust in the man whose life you saved," he replied, kneeling down to study the computer lock.
"Shit!"

      
"What is it?"

      
"I can crack the combination in a couple of minutes, but it's got a bone reader."

      
"A bone reader?"

      
"Yeah. I can get around almost any retina ID system, but bone readers are tough. They scan your skeleton and compare it to anyone who the computer's been programmed to accept. I've got a couple of healed fractures that won't match up against anyone else's."

      
"Then we'll do without our lake view and go to the other house."

      
"Give me a minute," he said. "There's never been a security system that couldn't be penetrated."

      
"By you?"

      
"By somebody." He flashed her a smile. "I am but a talented amateur."

      
"Sure," she retorted. "And I'm a millionaire virgin."

      
"That gives me all the more reason to find a way into the house."

      
He touched the lock, and a holographic screen appeared in the air, filled with dozens of icons. His fingers began moving expertly over the lock, and the icons began racing across the screen in near-hypnotic patterns.

      
"How's it coming?" asked the Duchess after a few minutes.

      
"Oh, it's been unlocked for awhile," he said.

      
"But you can't hide your fractures."

      
"I'm not trying to."

      
After another minute he stood up. "Okay," he said. "I'm done."

      
The door dilated, and she began to step through it. He grabbed her arm and held her back.

      
"Gentlemen first," he said, stepping through.

      
The door slammed shut in her face. He disappeared for a moment, then opened the door and invited her in.

      
"What was that all about?" she said, entering the house.

      
"I fed the computer the data about my skeleton and told it I'd been approved. But I didn't know what your skeletal history might be, so after I went in I deactivated the security system." He paused. "I also ordered all the windows to polarize. We can see out, but no one on the outside can see in, even if we have the lights on."

      
"Do you do this kind of thing often?" she asked.

      
"Certainly not," he replied. "I get people who are hungrier than I am to do it for me."

      
She stared at him with an expression that was a cross between concern and admiration. "There's a lot more to you than meets the eye."

      
"Thank you," said Danny. "I won't even offer an obscene rejoinder." He looked around. "So what do you think of our new quarters?"

      
"Elegant," she said, walking through the entry room. The carpet anticipated her steps and thickened as she walked, and the mural on the wall slowly, almost imperceptibly, began turning into a three-dimensional scene, then gradually added motion. It went back to being a flat painting as they passed into the next room.

      
"This is some house!" she said. "I've never been close to anything like this!"

      
"Yeah, a person could get used to this without much effort," agreed Danny, as a chair positioned itself to accommodate him.

      
"As long as we're going to be stuck here for a day or two, let's go upstairs and see if we can see the lake," suggested the Duchess.

      
"Why not?" assented Danny, following her to a staircase. As they put their feet on the first wide stair, it metamorphosed into a carpeted escalator, totally silent, and gently transported them up to the second floor.

      
They walked to a window and stared out.

      
"You can
almost
see it," she said. "If we were even one floor higher we'd have a magnificent view."

      
"I saw a third level of windows when we were outside," said Danny. "There's probably an attic above us somewhere. We should be able to see it from there."

      
They searched through the rooms, and finally came to an airlift next to a storage closet.

      
"This has got to be it," said Danny. "It's the only thing leading up."

      
"What do we stand on?" asked the Duchess nervously as she looked down to the basement some thirty feet below.

      
"Just step into the shaft," explained Danny. "It'll sense your presence, and you'll stand on a cushion of air that'll take you up to the attic."

      
"You're sure? I've never seen one of these things before."

      
"They're all the rage on Deluros VIII and the bigger worlds," said Danny. "Give it another twenty years and they'll be just as popular here."

      
She looked skeptical, so he stepped into the shaft first. When she saw him standing on air she joined him, and they floated gently up to the attic.

      
"Lights," he ordered, and suddenly the attic was illuminated with soft, indirect lighting. As tidy as the house had been, the attic was that chaotic. Books, tapes, disks and cubes were stacked awkwardly on the floor, paintings were piled against a wall, each leaning on the other. Piles of old wrinkled clothes sat side by side with piles of unmarked plastic boxes.

      
"Take a look, Danny!" she enthused, staring out a window. "You can see the whole lake. It's gorgeous!"

      
"Just a minute," he replied, walking to another window. He knelt down, pushing a few plastic boxes aside. One of the ancient boxes literally cracked open and fell apart.

      
"Don't you just love the way the moonlight plays on the water?" said the Duchess.

      
"Oh, Jesus!"
whispered Danny.

      
"I didn't hear you."

      
There was no answer, and she turned to him.

      
"I thought you were looking out the window," she said, staring at him as he fingered through a stack of ancient, crumbling papers. He paid no attention to her.
"Danny!"
she said irritably. "What's the matter with you?"

      
Finally he looked up, the strangest expression on his face. "Who'd have guessed it?" he whispered. "I mean, this is just another house. Nothing special, nothing to indicate . . ." His voice trailed off.

      
"What are you talking about?" she demanded.

      
He held up a sheet of paper.

      
"We just hit the mother lode," he said in awed tones.

      
      
      
      
      
      
2.

      
      
      
Come if you dare, come but beware,

      
      
      
Come to the lair of Altair of Altair.

      
      
      
Offer a prayer to the men foul and fair,

      
      
      
Trapped in the snare of Altair of Altair.

      
That was the first thing Danny read. Soon he was making his way through the thousands of verses.

      
"They don't even know what they've got here!" he said excitedly. "If they did, it would be under lock and key in a vault, not out in the open in a plastic box that's falling apart."

      
"What is it?" asked the Duchess.

      
"Listen," said Danny. He picked up another page and read to her:

      
"They call him the Angel, the Angel of Death,

      
If ever you've seen him, you've drawn your last breath.

      
He's got cold lifeless eyes, he's got brains, he's got skill,

      
He's got weapons galore, and a yearning to kill."

      
"Is that supposed to mean something to me?" she asked.

      
"That's the Angel he's writing about!" enthused Danny. "
The Angel!
Haven't you heard of him?"

      
She shrugged.

      
"He was the greatest bounty hunter of them all! They say he killed more than two hundred men!"

      
"So you found a poem about the Angel," said the Duchess, her interest fading. "So what?"

      
"You don't understand!" said Danny. He held up a sheaf of papers with the same scrawl on all of them. "This isn't just
any
poem! This is Black Orpheus' original manuscript!"

      
"Yeah?" she said, walking over to look at it. "What makes you think so?"

      
"The verses themselves. They're all about the characters he met on the Frontier. And I've heard about these characters—Altair of Altair and the Angel. Heard about them, read about them. They've even made some videos about them."

      
"But anyone could write a few verses."

      
He opened three more ancient boxes, and pulled verse-covered pages from each. "A few verses, sure. Ten thousand verses, I don't think so. This is
it
!"

      
"What's it worth?" asked the Duchess.

      
"Who knows? Ten million, thirty million. What's history worth to a people who don't have any?"

      
"I don't know what you're talking about," she said.

      
"He was the Bard of the Inner Frontier. There's no law on the Frontier, no government, and there's sure as hell no historians. He was all they had, him and this poem. Bits and pieces have been printed here and there, but no one's ever seen the whole thing." He patted the pile of papers. "Until tonight."

      
"Who would buy a bundle of crumbling old papers?"

      
"Every museum and every library in the galaxy," answered Danny. "And probably every collector." He held up a long, thick feather. "This is the quill pen he wrote with. This alone ought to bring half a million."

      
"You're kidding!"

      
"The hell I am. All I have to do is check through the whole manuscript and make sure it's authentic."

      
"And you can really auction it for that much?"

      
"Not publicly," he said. "I'm stealing it, remember?"

      
"Well, if the people who own this place don't know what they've got . . ."

      
"It makes no difference. The bidders—well, the
legitimate
bidders, the ones I plan to avoid—will want to know how I got it. They'll want to take it away to authenticate it, and once it's out of my possession, I can't control what happens to it."