by Mike Resnick
"Very interesting," said Dante. "I'm impressed."
"That's kindergarten stuff," said Wilbur. "I just used it for a simple-to-understand example. There are investments and machinations that can give you a tenfold return in half the time. You'll need to pay an army, to supply them with weapons and ship, to keep lines of communication open. It all costs money. You need me, Rhymer."
"I'm sold," said Dante. "But it could take awhile before we're ready for you, before we have anything for you to invest."
"I'm not going anywhere," said Wilbur. "I hate Heliopolis, but I'm probably safer hiding out in this hellhole than anywhere else." He sighed. "Almost makes me wish I'd stayed a banker."
"And we won't have an army, not in the normal sense of one."
"Neither did the Kalimort—but they sure killed a lot of people."
"That doesn't bother you?"
"My job is making money. I'm not responsible for what you do with it."
"That's a refreshing attitude," commented Dante.
"But if you use it against the Democracy, I won't be unhappy."
"Why should that be?"
"There's been a price on my head ever since I worked for the Kalimort," said Wilbur. "I've got two grandchildren in the Deluros system that I'll never see. That's reason enough."
"How will I get in touch with you?"
"I'm at the Royal Khan." The old man looked at him. "Have you found your Santiago yet?"
"I'm interviewing a very promising candidate tomorrow," said Dante.
"I didn't know they could apply for the job."
"They can't."
"But you just said—"
"He doesn't know what I want to talk to him about," said Dante.
"Well, if you're here for anyone, it's got to be the One- Armed Bandit," said Wilbur.
"What's your opinion of him?"
"You could do worse."
"That's all you've got to say?"
"My job is making money," said Wilbur. "Your job seems to be deciding who I make it for. I wouldn't let you tell me how to go about my business; I don't propose to tell you how to go about yours."
"You're going to be a pleasure to work with, old man."
"If you really think so, Rhymer, you might put me in a verse or two next time you're working on your poem."
"I might, at that."
The Grand Finale got to his feet. "I'm going back to my room now. No sense waiting til the sun starts coming out. It's hot enough as it is."
"We'll talk again soon," promised Dante.
"Not necessary," replied Wilbur. "I've told you what I can do and you've agreed to hire me. Contact me again when you're ready for me."
He walked out of the bar, crossed through the lobby, and went out the airlock while Dante sipped his beer and watched him bend over as the force of gravity hit him.
The poet considered going back to sleep, but decided that he didn't feel like wrestling the Injun for his bed, so he activated the bar's holo set and watched news and sports results from back in the Democracy until the first rays of the huge sun began lighting the streets.
He checked his timepiece, decided it was still a couple of hours too early to visit the Bandit, and walked out to the lobby.
"May I help you, sir?" said the night clerk.
"Yeah. Where do I go for breakfast around here?"
"We have our own restaurant."
"I know. But it doesn't open for another hour, and I'm hungry now."
"It's against our policy to recommend any other restaurants, so I am not permitted to tell you that The Deviled Egg is an excellent establishment and is located 60 yards to your right as you leave the Tamerlaine," said the clerk with a smile. "I hope you will forgive my reticence, sir."
Dante flipped him a coin. "All is forgiven and forgotten," he said, walking to the airlock.
The heat hit him the second he stepped outside. So did the gravity. He had a feeling he was adjusting to the thin air, because he walked the block to the restaurant without panting.
He walked through the near-empty Deviled Egg, found a table in the corner where he could look out through the front window and observe the few people who were out on the street, and ate a leisurely breakfast.
He sipped his coffee, checked his timepiece again, and decided that it was almost time to leave for the Royal Khan. He wondered if he should have Matilda come with him, but decided against it. He couldn't help feeling that she was a little bit in love with the One-Armed Bandit, and while he had no problem with that, he felt he'd rather present the proposal alone, with no emotional undercurrents distracting the Bandit.
He paid his bill, got up, and walked back into the hot, humid, thin Heliopolis air. The Royal Khan was half a block away, and he headed toward it.
A young woman was walking in his direction. As they passed each other she veered slightly and brushed against him. He thought nothing of it until he reached the lobby of the Royal Khan. A human waiter seemed to be charged with the task of bringing every person who entered the lobby a cold drink, and Dante reached into his pocket to grab a coin and tip him. Instead, he found a folded piece of paper which the woman had obvious placed there. He unfolded it and read it:
I know why you are here. The Scarlet Infidel thinks you will be raising an army, but that's not the way Santiago fought in the past, and it's not the way to fight now.
"That goddamned Injun's got a big mouth," muttered Dante. He continued reading.
I have no love for the Democracy. If you would like to discuss matters of mutual interest, fold this up and put it back in your pocket, and I will contact you after you speak to the man you came to Heliopolis II to see.
Virgil hadn't known he'd be seeing the Bandit this morning. Which meant she'd figured it out herself. It didn't make her a genius, but it made her bright enough to talk to. Dante carefully folded the note and replaced it in his pocket.
He looked around to see who was watching him. The lobby was empty and there was no one in the street outside, but somehow he knew that his action had registered with someone.
He tipped the waiter, who had waited impatiently while he'd read the note, and then went to the airlift. He was going to the Bandit's room as the successor to Black Orpheus; he had every hope that he would leave as the creator of Santiago.
17.
A blossom, a petal, an odor so nice,
The Flower of Samarkand's sugar and spice.
She eschews the moral and practices vice,
With a passion that's hot, and a heart cold as ice.
The door slid open and Dante entered the room. It was a little larger than his room at the Tamerlaine, but the air conditioning didn't seem to be working as well. Then he found himself gasping for breath, and he realized that the window was half-open.
"You sure you want the bring the outdoors in?" he asked, pointing to the window.
The One-Armed Bandit, who was floating a few inches above the ground on an easy-chair that constantly remolded itself to his body's movements, glanced at the window.
"You can shut it if you like, Mr. Alighieri."
Dante walked over and commanded the window to close. It sealed itself shut an instant later.
"Don't you find the heat uncomfortable?" asked Dante curiously.
"Of course I do."
"Then why—?"
"Because then I find the outdoors a little less uncomfortable, and that's where I do most of my work."
"Makes sense," said Dante. He looked around and saw an empty chair by the desk. "Do you mind if I sit down?"
"You're my guest, Mr. Alighieri," said the Bandit. "You can have this chair if you like."
"The desk chair will be fine," said Dante, as he walked over and sat down. "I take it you're free for the day?"
"My services aren't needed." The Bandit paused. "So far, anyway."
"I think you're wrong," said Dante. "I think your services are needed more than you can imagine."
"Have the Unicorns—?"
"This has nothi
ng to do with the Unicorns," said the poet. "Shall I continue?"
The Bandit nodded.
"What do you know about Santiago?"
"Not very much," admitted the Bandit. "They say that he was King of the Outlaws, and that he died more than a century ago. Why?"
"He was an outlaw, all right," said Dante. "But what if I told you that it was just a cover?"
"A cover?" said the Bandit, frowning. "For what?"
"That's what we're going to talk about," said Dante. "You want a cold drink? This is going to take some time."
"Later."
"Good. Now let's talk about what Santiago really was, and why he lasted so long."
Dante spent the next two hours giving the Bandit the full history of Santiago as he understood it. He explained in detail how Santiago made war against the excesses of the Democracy, but always hid it behind a cloak of criminality, because while the Democracy was content to send bounty hunters after the King of the Outlaws, they would have spared no expense hunting him down had they know he was actually a revolutionary. He explained that the first Santiago had trained his successor, and the next three had done the same, that the various Santiagos had included a farmer, a bounty hunter, a thief, even a chess master. Finally, he told the Bandit how the last Santiago and his infrastructure had been wiped out by the Democracy, which didn't even know he was on the planet of Safe Harbor when they turned it to dust.
"All that happened more than a century ago," said the Bandit. "It's interesting, Mr. Alighieri, but what does it have to do with me?"
"More than you think," said Dante. "The Democracy's abuses have grown since Santiago vanished. They confiscate property, they illegally detain and kill men and women, they destroy planets that pose no threat to them."
"I know all that," said the Bandit. "That's why I'm here on the Inner Frontier."
"But the Democracy's forces are here on the Inner Frontier, too."
"True."
"Well?"
"What do you expect me to do about it?"
Dante smiled. "I thought you'd never ask."
The Bandit stared at him. "Me?" he said at last.
"Why not you?" Dante shot back. "You're as decent a man as I've met out here. You're absolutely deadly when you feel you must be, yet you're not bloodthirsty or you'd have wiped out the Unicorns. You disapprove of the Democracy. You're generous to a fault; I saw an example of that last night. I have a feeling that you've never met anything that frightens you."
"That's not so," admitted the Bandit uncomfortably. "Failure frightens me."
"So much the better," said Dante. "I consider that a virtue."
"But—"
"We've been waiting 106 years for Santiago to reappear. Are you going to make us wait even longer?"
"I wouldn't know how to go about being Santiago."
"That's what you'll have me and Matilda for, at least until you're comfortable with it."
"Just the three of us against the Democracy?" asked the Bandit, looking at him as if he was crazy.
"There's more. I found us a financial wizard last night."
"Why?"
"Money is the mother's milk of revolution. We'll need this man to set up and fund a network throughout the Frontier. Dimitrios of the Three Burners will work for the cause. So will Virgil Soaring Hawk."
"I've heard of Dimitrios."
"Virgil's in the poem as the Scarlet Infidel."
"Well, if you thought enough of him to write him up . . ." said the Bandit.
"There are more. And that's without any of them knowing we have our Santiago."
The Bandit was silent for a long moment, then another. Finally he looked up at Dante, his face filled with self-doubt. "What if they won't follow me?"
Dante smiled. "Why wouldn't they?"
"I'm just . . . just me," said the Bandit. "I'm nothing special, that men should die for my cause."
"It's the cause that's special, not its leader," said Dante. "Though he's special too," the poet amended quickly. "He has to be a man of his word, a resourceful man—and he has to be a man who won't back off from doing what's necessary. He has to know that if his cause is just, it doesn't matter that every citizen of the Democracy thinks he's an outlaw or worse; in fact he has to strive for that to protect his operation and his agents." Dante paused. "I think you're such a man."
"I think you're wrong."
"Santiago must also be a modest man, even a humble one—a man who thinks he's nothing special, when it's apparent to everyone else that he's very special indeed."
"I'll have to think about it, Mr. Alighieri."
"Think hard," said Dante. "Think of the difference you could make, the things you could do." He paused. "I can't rush you. There are no other candidates for the job. You're the man we want. But the sooner you agree, the sooner we can put everything in motion."
"I understand, Mr. Alighieri."
"Dante."
"I appreciate your confidence in me," said the Bandit. "I'll give you my answer tonight."
"When and where?"
"There's a restaurant called The Brave Bull. Meet me there for dinner, an hour after sundown."
"I'll see you then," said Dante. He walked to the door, then turned back. "Do you want me to open the window again?"
"No," said the Bandit. "I'm going down to the lobby to have some coffee."
"I'll join you."
"I'd rather you didn't. I've got a lot to consider, and I do my best thinking when I'm alone."
"Whatever you say," replied Dante. He turned and walked out the door, then took the airlift down to the main floor.
A very pretty woman was smiling at him. It took him a moment to place her; then he realized that she was the same woman who had bumped into him and placed the note in his pocket.
He walked over and stood in front of her. "Good morning," he said. "My name is—"
"I know who you are, and I know why you're here."
"Of course you do," he said. "But I don't know who you are or why you're here. Perhaps you'd care to enlighten me?"
"First things first. Did he agree?"
"I think he will."
"Good. Let's go back to your hotel."
"Why?"
"So we don't distract him," said the woman. "I've been studying him for weeks. Whenever he needs to think out a problem, he comes down here and drinks coffee."
"All right, let's go," said Dante, leading her to the airlock. He took two steps outside and felt like melting. "My God, it's even worse than yesterday."
"If you plan to stay here for any length of time, you really should go to a doctor for help or acclimatization—adrenaline, blood oxygenating, muscle stimulants, the whole works."
"I have high hopes of leaving Heliopolis II in a day or two and never seeing it again," Dante assured her as they began the seemingly-endless two-block walk to the Tamerlaine. "And now, who are you?"
"My name is Blossom."
"Very pretty name," said Dante. "Where are you from?"
"Samarkand."
"Where the hell is Samarkand?"
"It was a city back on old Earth, or so they tell me," she replied. "In my case, it's a planet in the Quinellus Cluster."
"Okay, Blossom," he said, and found himself gasping for breath again. "I'll wait until we're at the hotel to talk to you. I think I'm going to need all my oxygen just to get there."
"I could give you a pill."
"Don't bother," he rasped. "We'd be at the hotel before it had a chance to take effect."
They trudged down the block in silence. Dante stopped at a corner, leaned against a building until his head stopped spinning, and then walked the rest of the way to Tamerlaine without any further incident.
"The Bandit must keep some doctor in business, considering how much time he spends outside," said Dante when they'd passed through the hotel's airlock and were back in comfortable gravity and temperature.
"He doesn't take any medication," answered Blossom. "He doesn't believe in it."
"Oh, he knows it works. He doesn't believe in putting any foreign substances in his body."
"Better and better," muttered Dante, taking her to one of the lounges and collapsing in a chair. She sat down opposite him. "All right, Blossom—suppose you tell me why you sought me out and what this is all about?"
"I had a long talk with Virgil Soaring Hawk last night," she began.
"I didn't know he talked to women," interrupted Dante. "I thought he just pounced on them."
"He tried." She showed off a steel-toed boot. "He'll be walking bow-legged for the next few days."
Dante smiled his approval. "Good for you."
"Anyway, he told me that you found Black Orpheus' manuscript, and were taking his place."
"I'm continuing his work," Dante corrected her. "That's not quite the same thing."
"Close enough," said Blossom. "Anyway, he mentioned that you were looking for a new Santiago to write about."
"I'm looking for a new Santiago because the Inner Frontier is in desperate need of him," said Dante, idly wondering if he was telling the truth, and then wondering if all writers had that particular problem. "My being able to write about him is very unimportant compared to that."
She stared at him for a moment, making no effort to hide her disbelief, and finally shrugged. "Your motivation is no concern of mine," she said at last. "I just want to know when you've found him."
"Why?"
"Because I want to offer him my services."
"And just what are your services?" asked Dante.
"Whatever the job requires."
"We're not dealing with nice people."
"I know that," said Blossom.
"The job could require you to sleep with some men you can't stand the sight of, or perhaps even kill them."
"As long as it hurts the Democracy, I'm in."
"Just what do you have against the Democracy?"
"My parents were missionaries. The Democracy had a chance to evacuate them before they pacified Kyoto II. They didn't. The first attack killed them." She lowered her voice, but continued talking. "My husband's mother was a diplomat; he grew up on Lodin XI. His closest friend was a Lodinite. They were like brothers. During the Lodin insurrection, the Democracy killed my husband's friend for unspecified crimes, none of which he had committed, and then they executed my husband for being a collaborator." She paused, her jaw set, her face grim. "You just tell me what I have to do, and if any member of the Democracy suffers because of it, I'll do it."