by Mike Resnick
"Well, then?"
"He seeks only to neutralize it on the Frontier, to eradicate its more heinous abuses."
"By stockpiling artwork and murdering small-time smugglers like Duncan Black?"
"Duncan Black was a traitor," she said coldly. "He was executed, not murdered."
"The end result was pretty much the same," commented Cain.
"Have you never executed anyone for deserting what you thought to be a just cause, Mr. Cain?" she demanded.
He was silent for a moment.
"Yes, I have," he admitted at last. "Keep talking."
"You talk about stockpiling artwork, but it's the Swagman that I hear speaking," continued Silent Annie. "In point of fact, he and Santiago had their falling-out because Santiago refused to keep certain pieces that the Swagman wanted, but sold them through the black market, where the Swagman would have had to pay competitive prices for them."
"To pay the troops?" suggested Cain.
"Were you paid on Sylaria or the other worlds where you fought?" she asked.
"No."
"Neither are we," she said. "The troops, as you call them, work for free, Mr. Cain."
"Then what does he need all that money for?"
"You shall see."
"When?"
"Soon."
"Why not now?" he insisted.
"Because you caused a bit of a commotion back in the village when you killed One-Time Charlie," said Silent Annie.
"Moonripple didn't mention anything about my killing him."
She smiled. "I'm not totally isolated here, Mr. Cain. Father William contacted me and told me what had transpired before you had covered half the distance to my house." She paused. "At any rate, while you were totally justified in your actions, it was impossible to keep your identity a secret."
"I never tried to," he interjected.
"Let me amend that," she said. "It was impossible to keep your occupation a secret. That was unfortunate."
"Why?"
"Because a number of the townspeople are willing to lay down their lives to protect Santiago. When Father William is certain that none of them are coming here to try to stop you, he'll contact me again, and then we can leave."
"If one of them shows up, I intend to defend myself," said Cain.
"That won't be necessary," she said. "If need be, Father William will warn them off."
"Why?"
"Because Santiago wants you intact, and Father William will honor his wishes."
"Even if it costs Santiago a couple of followers?"
"It almost certainly won't—but yes, even so."
"You're not exactly making him sound like a saint," remarked Cain.
"He's not. He's a man who has been forced to make more life-and-death decisions than any one human being should ever have to make."
"That was his choice."
"That was his calling," she corrected him.
"What makes me so important to him?" demanded Cain.
"I should think that would be obvious to you," said Silent Annie.
Cain stared at her for a very long moment. Finally he spoke.
"Why should I want to join him?"
"Because you yourself were once a revolutionary."
"The galaxy is lousy with men who were once revolutionaries," he said.
"Most of them have adjusted. You haven't."
"I've adjusted better than most," Cain replied with a touch of irony. "I took what I learned and put it to a new use. I used to kill men for free." He smiled mirthlessly. "Now I do it for a living."
"He's not interested in you because of the men you've killed."
"Then why is he interested in me?"
"Because of the men you haven't killed," said Silent Annie.
He frowned. "I don't think I understand you."
"You let Quentin Cicero live."
"He had a hostage."
"You've given out other pardons, too," she continued. "You spent ten weeks hunting down Carmella Sparks, and let her walk away."
"She had three kids with her," said Cain uncomfortably. "One of them was still nursing. They would all have died."
"That wouldn't have stopped Peacemaker MacDougal or the Angel," she said.
"Then maybe Santiago ought to be talking to them instead of me."
"He has no interest in men who have forfeited every last vestige of their humanity. It is because you are still capable of acts of compassion that he wants you."
"Yeah," said Cain. "Well, I don't know if I want him."
"You will," she said confidently. "He is the greatest man I know."
"How did you meet him?"
"I grew up on Raxar Two," she said. "It had a large alien population, and we had a military government in order to keep them properly pacified." The muscles in her jaw twitched slightly. "When I was eleven years old, I was beaten and raped by three soldiers. The Democracy was having trouble getting more military funding, and they didn't want any incidents that might embarrass them and cost them their money, so they covered it up. The three men were transferred to another world, and were never punished. I spent two years in the hospital."
"Is that where you got the scar?" asked Cain.
"That's just the one you can see," said Silent Annie bitterly. "Anyway, Santiago heard about what had happened, and—"
"How?" interrupted Cain.
"He's been out here a long time," she replied. "He has sources everywhere. Once he learned what they had done to me, he had the three men killed." She forced a grim smile to her face. "I believe the late Altair of Altair was my particular angel of vengeance."
"And then you joined him?"
"Wouldn't you have?" she replied.
"I'd have killed them myself."
"Not all of us are killers, Mr. Cain," she replied. "It requires a certain primal instinct that not everyone possesses."
"Does Santiago?"
"I don't know for a fact that he has ever personally killed another human being."
"Given the number of deaths that he's decreed, that might be construed as cowardice in certain circles," remarked Cain.
"I won't dignify that remark with an answer," Silent Annie said coldly.
"How did you find him?" asked Cain, declining to apologize for his comment.
"He makes it very easy, when he wants to be found."
"I think I'd be willing to debate that," he said wryly.
"Do you honestly think you could have found him if he hadn't wanted you to?" she asked.
"Based on what you've told me, no," he admitted.
"He makes the way more difficult for some than for others," she continued.
"I'll testify to that, at least," said Cain.
"For Moonripple, it was perhaps easiest of all."
"I thought you said she landed here by chance."
"It was pure chance that she landed on Safe Harbor when she did," explained Silent Annie. "But sooner or later she was bound to arrive."
"Why?"
"Her parents worked for Santiago. The Democracy captured and killed them when she was only four years old." She paused. "He couldn't reach out for her then, because there was too great a chance that she was being watched. So he became her guardian angel. Wherever she went, whatever world she worked on, there was always someone watching over her, protecting her. Finally, when we were sure that the Democracy had given up on her, it was subtly suggested that her wanderings should take her in the direction of Safe Harbor. When she finally arrived, we waited to make absolutely sure she hadn't been followed, and then she was told the truth."
"By you?"
Silent Annie shook her head. "She doesn't know I can speak."
"By Santiago himself?" asked Cain.
"She's never met him." Silent Annie paused. "She's a very sweet girl, but our battle isn't hers. She's already suffered enough casualties. The less she knows, the better."
"Then why did Santiago endanger himself by letting her know anything at all?"
"He wanted her
to stay on Safe Harbor, where he could better protect her should the need ever arise."
"And if she wants to leave?" asked Cain.
"She's free to go."
"Even knowing that this is Santiago's world?"
"Even so."
Cain lowered his hand, lost in thought. Finally he looked up at Silent Annie.
"I'd like to meet him," he said.
"You shall."
"I'm also aware that this could be a trap."
"Why would we use such an elaborate one?"
"I don't know," he admitted. "But if you've been lying to me, he's a dead man."
"I'm not lying." She walked over to a communicator. "Father William should have given us the all-clear signal before this. I'd better check in at the tavern and see what the problem is."
"Maybe you'd better let me," volunteered Cain. "Moonripple might answer, and you're supposed to be a mute."
Silent Annie smiled. "If she answers, I'll just ask for Father William. Since she's never heard my voice, she's hardly likely to identify it."
"I stand corrected," said Cain.
Silent Annie spent a moment speaking in low tones, then broke the connection and turned to Cain.
"It's all right," she announced. "We can leave now."
"What was the holdup?"
"He got to drinking beer and consuming food, and totally forgot about us," she said with a semitolerant smile.
"It sounds like him," agreed Cain. Suddenly he frowned. "We'll have to put this off for an hour or so."
"What's the matter?" she asked.
"There's something I have to do first."
"Does it have to do with Santiago?" she asked suspiciously.
"Indirectly. There's a promise I have to keep."
"To whom?"
"To a friend." He walked to the door. "I'll be back."
She nodded, and he left her small house and began walking down the road that led through the little village. Within half an hour he had arrived at his destination.
"You look unhappy," said Schussler as he came through the hatch.
"I am," answered Cain.
"Then you were wrong about Safe Harbor?"
He shook his head. "I was right."
"Santiago's coming?" asked Schussler excitedly.
"He's here now."
"Thank God!" said Schussler with a sound that was as close as a thing of metal and machinery could come to a sigh of relief.
There was a momentary pause.
"Do you remember our bargain?" asked the cyborg.
"That's why I'm here."
"You're an honorable man, Sebastian."
"How do I go about it?" asked Cain, walking over to the panel that hid Schussler's essence from view. "Is there a way I can disconnect you without causing you too much pain?"
"I can't feel pain," said Schussler. "If I could, I might even choose to live."
"That's a stupid thing to say."
"Only to a man who can feel, Sebastian."
"All right," said Cain, touching the code that exposed Schussler's tiny enclosure. "What do I do now?"
"I am compelled to obey your orders, even at the cost of my own existence," said Schussler. "Simply order me to cease functioning and I'll die."
Cain stared at the small box. "You mean that's all there is to it?"
"Yes."
"I could have done that at any time."
"But we had an agreement," said Schussler. "I was also compelled to fulfill my end of it."
"Are you ready?" asked Cain.
"Yes.... Sebastian?"
"What?"
"I've put down on oxygen planets, and chlorine, and methane. I've been to Deluros Eight, and to the most obscure dead worlds on the edges of the Frontier. I've flown faster than light, and twisted my way through meteor storms."
"I know."
"There's one thing I've never done, one place I've never been."
"Where is that?"
"I've never seen the inside of a star."
"Nobody has."
"Then I'll be the first," said Schussler. "What a beautiful image to carry with me into eternity!"
"Then I so command it," said Cain unhappily.
"Thank you, Sebastian," said the cyborg. "You'd better leave me now."
"Good-bye, Schussler," said Cain, walking to the hatch.
"Watch for me, Sebastian," said Schussler. "It will be twilight soon. I'll wait until then, so that you can see me." He paused. "I'll be the first shooting star of the evening."
"I'll be watching," promised Cain.
And an hour later, as he and Silent Annie were finally setting out on their quest, he stopped to look up. For a moment he saw nothing out of the ordinary; and then—and it was probably just his imagination, for the sun was still quite brilliant and Schussler was some eighty million miles distant—he thought, for a fleeting instant, that he could see an unbelievably bright form streaking toward Safe Harbor's golden sun. It moved faster and faster, and then flickered gratefully out of existence.
Part 6: Santiago's Book
22.
His sire was a comet,
His dam a cosmic wind.
God wept when first He saw him,
But Satan merely grinned.
* * * *
An even forty verses: that's what Black Orpheus gave him.
Nobody else ever got more than a dozen—but then, nobody else was Santiago.
Orpheus was faced with a moral and artistic dilemma when he finally confronted the subject of Santiago, for all of his verbal portraits were based on firsthand knowledge, and he had never seen the notorious outlaw. (In point of fact, he had seen him on five separate occasions over the years, and spoken to him twice, but he didn't know it, then or ever.)
On the other hand, he knew that any ballad that aspired to describe the men and events that had shaped the Inner Frontier would be laughably incomplete if it didn't include a major section on Santiago.
So he compromised. He gave him forty verses, but he never once referred to him by name. It was his way of saying that the Santiago stanzas were somehow incomplete.
Sebastian Cain was fast coming to the conclusion that the legend of Santiago was as incomplete as the ballad. He sat beside Silent Annie as her vehicle sliced between lush fields that seemed to writhe and ripple in the dim light of Safe Harbor's moons, finally coming to a halt in front of a small barn.
"First stop," she announced, opening the door and getting out.
"A barn?" asked Cain as the warmth and humidity hit him full force.
She smiled. "I was rather hoping that you'd learned not to judge anything associated with Santiago by its appearance."
She walked up to the prefabricated structure, tapped out a combination on the lock, and the door slowly opened inward.
"Come along, Mr. Cain," she said, uttering a low command that illuminated the darkened building.
Cain followed her into the cool interior of the barn and found himself facing a row of drying bins, each filled to the brim with ears of mutated corn. High above him was a loft that had once contained hay but looked as if it hadn't been used in the past twenty years.
"Well?" he said.
"Take a look in the third bin."
He walked over and stared at it.
"It looks like corn," he said.
"That's what it's supposed to look like," she replied. "Look a little more closely."
He reached in with both hands, tossing ears of corn aside, and came to a gold bar.
"The Epsilon Eridani raid?" he asked, laboriously lifting the bar with both hands and studying it.
She nodded. "We've got about forty of them left."
"All in this bin?"
"Yes."
"What happened to the rest of it?" asked Cain. "I saw one bar with Jonathan Stem back on Port Étrange, but no one seems to know what became of the others."
"Most of them have been dispersed," she replied. "Would you like to know where?"
"Why not?" He shr
ugged.
"Follow me."
Silent Annie walked into the barn's tiny office, which contained two vidphones, a pinup calendar printed on real paper, a small wooden desk, an ancient swivel chair, and a computer. Everything except one phone and the computer was covered by a layer of dust.
She activated the computer, waited for it to identify her retina pattern and thumbprint, and then ordered it to bring up the details concerning the Epsilon Eridani gold.
Cain studied the readout as it appeared on the small screen.
"I see that Father William got about a third of it," he noted.
"He's one of the conduits Santiago uses to feed the hungry and medicate the sick. The bulk of the Epsilon Eridani gold was sold on the Kabalka Five black market."
"Kabalka Five? That's an alien world, isn't it?"
"It doesn't take aliens long to find out what men will do for gold," she replied.
"What became of the money you got for the gold?"
She called up another chart on the screen.
"All of it went to hospitals?" he asked.
"Not quite. It also sponsored a raid on Pico Two."
"What the hell is on Pico Two? It's just a little dirtball of a world, out by the Quinellus cluster."
"Some of our friends were incarcerated there."
"So you got them out?"
She shook her head. "That was impossible."
"Then what?"
"We blew up the jail."
"With your friends inside it?"
"The Democracy will stop at nothing to find Santiago," replied Silent Annie. "These were loyal men, but they would have talked. If torture didn't work, there are drugs that would have."
"So much for loyalty," said Cain dryly.
"He's not a god and he's not a saint," she said. "He's just a man, and he's fighting against the most powerful political and military machine in the galaxy. Our people know what might befall them when they go out on a mission."
Cain made no comment.
"Secrecy is our only weapon," she continued. "It must be preserved at all costs." She paused, searching for the words to drive home her point. "How do you think he's kept his identity and his whereabouts hidden all these years?" she said at last. "We return from our missions, or we die—but we do not allow ourselves to be taken prisoner."
