The Return of Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future (32 page)

      
"They won't have a choice. You just find them; I'll handle it from there."

      
"Whatever you say, Santiago," replied Dante.

      
"You don't need me for that," said Matilda. "I think I could serve you better by contacting some of the people I know and recruiting them."

      
The Bandit nodded his approval. "Keep in touch," he said, dismissing her. She left the room and he turned back to Dante. "Will you need to spread any money around to find out who's in charge of each ring?"

      
"Almost certainly."

      
"Take whatever you think you'll require. We're going to get it back anyway."

      
"You're going to kill the leaders?" It wasn't really a question.

      
"My job is protecting the citizens of the Inner Frontier," replied the Bandit. "They are preying on
my
people."

      
"We might be able to buy them off, get them on our side," suggested Dante.

      
The Bandit stared at him expressionlessly. "We don't want them on our side. They're parasites, nothing more."

      
Which is precisely what we'll become when we take over their organizations. I wonder how you rationalize that—or does Santiago just not consider such things?

      
"Killing their leaders will be an object lesson to the rank and file," continued the Bandit. "No one rises to a position of authority in such an organization without being totally ruthless. This will convince them that Santiago is an even more ruthless killer. That should impress them and keep them on our side."
Why do I feel uneasy about this,
wondered Dante.
This is exactly what Santiago is supposed to do, so why does it worry me when you talk about doing it?

      
"That's all," said the Bandit, dismissing him. "Let me know when you have the information."

      
"Yes, Santiago," said Dante, getting up and leaving the office.

      
Matilda was waiting for him in the corridor. "Well," she said as they walked past a number of holographs of savage alien animals to the living room, "what do you think?"

      
"About what?"

      
"About
him
," said Matilda. "He's growing into the role exactly as we'd hoped."

      
"If you say so."

      
"You don't think so?"

      
He shrugged. "I don't know."

      
"What's bothering you?" she asked.

      
"I can't put my finger on it," said Dante.

      
"He was right to want to kill the old woman, you know," said Matilda. "It would have been suicide to have left her behind."

      
"There were alternatives."

      
"What? Take her along for a month and then turn her loose? She'd still have betrayed us."

      
"Nonsense," he replied irritably. "All he had to do was turn to me or Virgil, address us as Santiago, and ask if we wanted him to do anything else."

      
She stared at him, surprised. "Hey, that's not bad."

      
"Yeah—but
he
didn't think of it."

      
"Not everyone's as devious as you are."

      
"You asked, I answered." He paused. "Also, he really gets into giving orders. The 'misters' and 'ma'ams' vanished pretty fast."

      
"He's Santiago. It's his job to give orders."

      
"I know, I know—but good manners ought to last a little longer."

      
"He's adaptable. And he's a born leader. Look at his decision to rob the bank, and burn Santiago's name into the wall. Look at the other ideas he's had." She paused. "What does he want you to do?"

      
"Find the biggest smugglers and drug runners in the sector."

      
"Whom he'll then proceed to kill?"

      
Dante nodded. "And take over their operations."

      
"Isn't that precisely the kind of thing that Santiago is supposed to do?"

      
"I suppose so. I just don't like it."

      
"That's why you're the Rhymer and he's Santiago."

      
"Probably you're right," he said.

      
"Then let's get going," said Matilda. "We both have work to do."

      
Dante sought out Virgil and handed him a wad of credits and Maria Theresa dollars.

      
"What's this for?" asked the Injun.

      
"The best drugs you can buy."

      
"That's my job?" asked Virgil with a happy smile. "I could really get into working for this guy."

      
"Just buy them, don't take them," said Dante.

      
"I'm ambidextrous," said Virgil. "I can do both."

      
"You heard me," said Dante firmly. "Buy it, and see if you can find out who sells it."

      
"The guy I buy it from."

      
"Find out who he works for, as high up the line as you can go."

      
"But I can't take any of the drugs?"

      
"That's right."

      
"This fucking scheme was a lot better when it just had me thinking about it," muttered Virgil.

      
"And let me know where you're going, so we don't visit the same worlds."

      
"You're buying drugs too?"

      
"That doubles our chances of finding the headman."

      
"Do you get to take any?"

      
"You can have mine when this is all over and we've got our man," said Dante disgustedly.

      
Virgil grinned. "That's more like it!" he said, and headed off toward the newly-poured slab that housed all their ships.

      
Dante stopped by his room, packed a small bag, made sure he had enough money left, and then walked to the tiny landing slab. He fired up the pile on a one-man ship, climbed into it, had the navigational computer throw up a globe of the sector and its populated worlds, and decided on Alibaster, about 16 light-years distant. He radioed his destination to Virgil to make sure they didn't both visit the same planet, and then took off. He hit the stratosphere about 90 seconds later, then jumped to light speeds.

      
He slept through most of the voyage, and awoke when the ship's computer told him he was in orbit around Alibaster. The world was almost totally covered the fleecy white clouds that gave it its name. The ship turned over control of its functions to the spaceport's landing tower, and touched down without incident.

      
Dante emerged, passed through Customs, and caught a subterranean monorail that took him into the underground city of Snakepit. There were too many cyclones and tornadoes on the surface, so Man had built this commercial outpost where none of the planet's weather could bother him.

      
Snakepit extended about two miles in each direction. Since the planet had never been inhabited by a sentient race, the native quarter—the exclusive domain of offworld non-Men—was a little smaller and more upscale than usual. There were a number of banks—all far more heavily-guarded than the one on Heliopolis II—and the usual array of traders, assay offices, hotels, brothels, casinos, restaurants, subspace stations, holo theaters, and permanent residences.

      
Dante checked into a hotel and then decided to take a look around and get the feel of the place. The first building he passed was a grocery selling fruits from Pollux IV, vegetables from Greenveldt and Sunnyblue, mutated beef from Alpha Bezerine IV, even some wine from distant Altagore.

      
He continued walking, came to a grubby bar, and entered it. He studied the faces he found there. These weren't the hard men who traveled the Frontier, living by their wits and their skills. These men weren't traveling anywhere, and such skills as they had once possessed were long gone.
You're the bottom of the food chain. There will be too many connections between you and the man I'm after.

      
He turned and left, ignoring the catcalls that followed him, then began looking into store windows until he found one that sold formal wear. He went in, purchased the finest outfit they had, waited while the robot tailor shortened the sleeves and took in the waist, then returned to his hotel and napped until dinnertime.

      
Then he donned the formal outfit, changed some of his larger bills at the hotel desk so that his roll of money would look even bigger, and had the desk clerk direct him to the most expensive restaurant in Snakepit. He wasn't very hungry, and found the food mediocre and overpriced, but he stayed long enough to be seen by a goodly number of people. Then, after he paid his bill with cash, flashing his huge roll of the money, he went off to the Golden Flush, the most expensive casino in town.

      
He made quite a production of peeling bills off his roll to bet at the craps table, broke even after half an hour, then wandered over to the
jabob
table (the one alien game that had taken hold on the Frontier's casinos), and dropped a quick fifty thousand credits.

      
Next he went to the men's room, ostensibly to rinse his face off, actually because it was the most private spot in the casino and the one where he was most likely to be approached. And sure enough, a blond man with almost colorless blue eyes followed him in.

      
"I saw you at the tables," he said.

      
There was a long silence. Dante wasn't going to make it any easier on the man. He'd sell harder if Dante offered him no encouragement.

      
He hadn't asked any questions, so Dante offered no reply.

      
"You look like a man with money to spend," continued the man. "You ever spend it on anything besides the tables?"

      
"From time to time," replied Dante.

      
"How about tonight?"

      
Dante finished wiping off face, then turned to the blond man. "The only thing I buy is seed, and I don't buy it from flunkies."

      
"I'm no flunky!" said the man angrily.

      
"Bullshit," said Dante. "I can smell a flunky a mile off. You go tell your boss I'll make a buy, but only from him."

      
The man seemed to be considering his answer, and whether to admit that he even had a boss. Finally he said: "He doesn't deal with the customers."

      
Dante pulled his wad out. "I've got two million credits here. I have another million Maria Theresa dollars back on my ship. I'm going to spend it on seed. Now, I can spend it with your boss, or I can buy it from someone else, it makes no difference to me." He paused. "But it'll make a difference to you, because I'll pass the word that you're the reason I went elsewhere."

      
"Maybe I'll just kill you and take your money," said the man menacingly as he stepped closer and loomed over the much smaller Dante.

      
"Just how dumb do you think I am?" said Dante, allowing his contempt to creep into his voice. "See this diamond stickpin I'm wearing? It's a miniaturized holo camera. Your face, your voiceprint, everything you've said since you came in here are already in half a dozen computers."

      
It was a lie, but told with utter conviction, and the blond man hesitated uneasily. "Why should I believe you?" he demanded.

      
"Because we're alone in a bathroom on your turf, and if it wasn't true I'd be inviting you to blow me away. Is everyone in your organization as stupid as you?"

      
"You call me stupid once more and I'll kill you, camera or no camera!" snarled the blond man.

      
Don't push it too hard. These guys shoot first and ask questions later.

      
"Okay, we're at an impasse. I've got millions to spend, your boss has millions to unload. You know I won't deal with anyone else. Do you take me to him, or do I spend my money somewhere else? It's getting late; I need a decision."

      
The blond man frowned. Finally he said: "It may take a while to reach him."

      
"That's not my problem. All he has to know is that my name is Dante Alighieri, and I'm staying at the Cheshire Hotel. He can find me there." He walked to the door, then turned back to the man. "I'm leaving in the morning. If I don't hear from him by then, I won't be back."

      
He walked out of the men's room without waiting for a reply, kept walking past the bar and tables of the Golden Flush, and didn't stop until he reached his suite at the Cheshire a few minutes later. Then he considered his situation. By now they'd checked out his identity and his ship's registration. They wouldn't be able to find out where he got his money, but they'd be able to assure themselves that he was who he said he was, that he wasn't a Democracy undercover agent. It would take a few hours for the man to round up some muscle and come to the hotel. He had time to get out of his uncomfortable formal outfit, take a quick Dryshower, and get into his regular clothes.

      
He finished dressing and had spent the next two hours hovering a few inches above the floor on a form-adapt chair, staring out his window at the city, watching the artificial lights play on the rough underground walls, when the Spy-Eye alerted him that he had visitors and showed him holographs of the seven humans who were standing at the door to the suite. He ordered it to open, then had his chair turn until he was facing his visitors.