by Mike Resnick
Father William, for example, loved the limelight; Schussler dreaded it. Socrates enjoyed power; Schussler disdained it. Sebastian Cain sought solitude; Schussler hated it. The Angel had killed men almost without number; Schussler cherished all life but his own. The Sargasso Rose had no use for human contact; Schussler longed for it. The men and women and aliens that Orpheus put into his song were all bigger than life; Schussler was bigger than any of them, and wanted only to be smaller.
Most people saw him as a miracle of science, a shining testament to the melding of man and machine—but Black Orpheus looked beneath the gleaming surface, past the wonders of an alien technology, straight into Schussler's tortured soul, and wept at what he saw.
They met only once, on Altair III. Orpheus stayed with him for a day and a night, while Schussler poured out his strange, unhappy story. They parted the next morning, Orpheus to continue his journey among the stars, Schussler to serve his mistress and wait, without hope, for the release of death.
Things began to change when the Jolly Swagman landed on Altair. By rights he and Schussler should have had a lot in common, since one of them had been raised by aliens and the other had been rebuilt by them; but the accumulation of other people's property was the driving force in the Swagman's life—while Schussler, who was property, found all forms of private ownership immoral.
Still, each of them had a major stake in Cain's meeting with Altair of Altair, so they quickly reached an accommodation and awaited the outcome.
It was midafternoon when Cain emerged from the labyrinth, shielding his eyes from the pale yellow sun with his hand. He looked around the barren red landscape and saw a very small spaceship of inhuman design about eighty yards away. An elegantly dressed man was leaning against it, but when he saw Cain he immediately began walking toward him.
"I can't tell you how delighted I am that you survived!" he said with a distinct accent.
"You're Schussler?" asked Cain, starting to sweat already.
"I'm afraid not. People call me the Jolly Swagman."
"Virtue MacKenzie sent me a message that I might be running into you," said Cain. "Aren't you a little out of your bailiwick?"
"Not while you're here, I'm not," replied the Swagman easily. He looked around at his bleak surroundings. "Though one could wish for a more interesting world, I suppose. I can't imagine why anyone chooses to live here: I suspect the only things that grow on Altair Three are dust and bugs."
"Any deal Virtue may have cut with you was hers, not mine," said Cain firmly. "Where's Schussler? Aboard the ship?"
"In a manner of speaking." The Swagman grinned. "He is the ship."
"What are you talking about?" demanded Cain, slapping at a large red insect that had landed on his neck.
"Schussler," said the Swagman. "He's a cyborg."
Cain looked at the ship, its hull shining in the midday sun. "There's never been a cyborg like that," he said with conviction.
"Well, there is now. Orpheus gave him three verses."
"Orpheus writes so damned much, it's hard to keep up with all of it," replied Cain.
"Maybe you should have tried," said the Swagman. "Then you'd have known about Schussler."
Cain stared at the ship again. "He's really a spaceship?" he asked dubiously.
"Why should I lie to you?"
"Offhand, I can think of a hundred reasons." He waved his hand at a cloud of tiny, gnatlike insects, frightening them away. "How does he communicate?"
"He's got a speaker system. It sounds just the same as a ship's intercom."
"I've got to talk to him."
"He's not going anywhere," said the Swagman, turning slightly to protect his face from the dust raised by a sudden hot breeze. "Why don't you talk to me first?"
"About what?"
"About Santiago."
"Not interested," answered Cain.
"In Santiago?"
"In talking to you," said Cain. "I've heard about you, Swagman."
"All lies, I can assure you," said the Swagman smoothly.
"Can you now?"
"Absolutely," replied the Swagman with an amused laugh. "Anyone who can tell you the truth about me is safely dead and buried." He pulled out a thin cigar and lit it. "If you don't want to talk about Santiago, then how about Virtue?"
"What about Virtue?"
"What Altair of Altair told you is absolutely true. She's on her way to join the Angel."
"How do you know what she told me?" asked Cain sharply.
"I was a spectator at your little encounter," said the Swagman, dropping an ash on the ground and just missing a ten-legged purple-and-gold Altairian beetle with it.
"How did you manage that?"
"With the help of our cyborg friend here," replied the Swagman easily. "He's hooked into her computer." He smiled. "I would be less than candid if I didn't confess that I knew you were here to obtain information from Altair of Altair, and based on everything I knew about her, she wasn't very likely to give it to you. So, since there was no sense in both of us risking our lives, I hunted up Schussler and gave you silent moral support while we observed you from up here." The Swagman paused. "Just what did she do to you at the end there?"
"What did it look like?" asked Cain, curious.
"Nothing special. She kept urging you to cross a brook, but we couldn't see any—and I guess she tried to convince you that your gun was a stick?" His inflection made it a question as much as an observation.
"Something like that."
"Well, I must say that you're every bit as good as Virtue said you were. Any bookmaker would have made Altair of Altair a ten-to-one favorite to kill you, especially on her own territory."
"Doubtless your moral support made all the difference," said Cain dryly. "What would you have done if she'd killed me?"
"There's very little I could have done," admitted the Swagman. "With you dead and Virtue gone over to the enemy, I'd have been out of partners."
"There are worse things than being out of partners," said Cain. "Such as not being out of them." He paused. "Why did Virtue go out after the Angel?"
"I should think that would be obvious," replied the Swagman. "She's come to the conclusion that he's got a better chance to kill Santiago than you do."
"That's what she told you?"
"Of course not. What she told me was that she planned to spy on him and perhaps feed him some false information."
"Bullshit," said Cain.
"My feelings precisely. On the other hand, I wouldn't take her defection too seriously. Based on what I know of the Angel, her life expectancy once she meets him is, not to be too pessimistic about it, perhaps ten minutes."
"She's a lot harder to kill than you might think," commented Cain. He was silent for a moment, then looked directly at the Swagman. "All right," he said. "So Virtue's gone off to join the Angel. What makes you think I'm looking for another partner?"
"You needn't look at all," said the Swagman with a confident smile. "I'm right here in front of you."
"And what do you think you can bring to this proposed partnership?" asked Cain skeptically.
"A lot more than Virtue did," replied the Swagman, pulling out a handkerchief and wiping the sweat from his face. "For one thing, I used to work for Santiago. I can identify him for you."
"I can identify him myself."
"You mean by his scar?" The Swagman laughed. "And what will you do if he's wearing gloves, or has a prosthetic hand?" His eyes narrowed. "I know other things, too," he said persuasively. "I know what world the Angel is going to run into trouble on. I know half a dozen men who are still in Santiago's employ. I know a number of his drop points for stolen goods." A satisfied smile crossed his face. "How does that compare with what Virtue MacKenzie could do for you?"
"What do you want in exchange for all this?" asked Cain, eyeing him warily.
"Nothing that would interest you," said the Swagman. "Though if you felt it incumbent upon you to give me a piece of the reward, I probably wouldn't
refuse it."
"And just what is it that interests you?"
"Do you know what I do for a living?" responded the Swagman.
"You rob, you smuggle, and you kill," said Cain.
The Swagman laughed. "Besides that, I mean."
"Suppose you tell me."
"It would not be inaccurate to say that I'm an art collector. You want the reward money; I have no interest in it. I want certain of Santiago's possessions; you have no interest in them. Virtue, on the unlikely assumption that she was actually telling me the truth and hasn't tried to team up with the Angel, wants only a journalistic feature. None of our desires overlap at any point. Therefore, I see no reason why we shouldn't be able to work together."
"Why don't you go after him yourself?" asked Cain, rubbing his eye as some sweat rolled into it. "That way you'd have the reward and the art objects."
"I'm no killer," replied the Swagman. "As I said, I'm still not sure exactly what it was that Altair of Altair tried to do to you down there, but I'm certain that I wouldn't have survived it—and I can assure you that she was much easier to kill than Santiago will be. I'll supply the information; you'll supply the expertise. That's the deal."
"I'll take it under consideration."
"You'd better consider it quickly."
"Why?" asked Cain sardonically. "Will you find yourself another killer?"
"No," said the Swagman seriously. "You're the one I want. After all, you killed Altair of Altair. Do you know how many bounty hunters have died trying to do just that?" He slapped at a flying insect that was buzzing around his face. "But you're in a race, and every minute you delay is another minute the Angel gains on you."
"I thought you said something about a planet that's going to give him problems."
"I did," the Swagman assured him. "But he'll overcome them. He's the best."
"Then why didn't you offer your services to him?"
"Because he doesn't need them. You do." He reached out his hand. "Well, have we got a deal?"
Cain stared at his hand without taking it.
"What have you got to lose?" added the Swagman.
Cain stared at him for a long moment, then finally nodded his head almost imperceptibly. "All right—until your information proves wrong."
"It won't."
"Let's put it to the test. Where does Virtue MacKenzie plan to find the Angel?"
"Lambda Karos Three if she's lucky."
"And if she's not?"
"Either New Ecuador or Questados Four. It depends on what he learns on Lambda Karos."
Cain stared at him for a moment. "Halfpenny Terwilliger is waiting for me back at my ship. I think I'd better send him off to keep an eye on Virtue while she's keeping an eye on the Angel, just so we know where we stand."
"Can you trust him to tell you the truth?" asked the Swagman.
"I can trust him to act in his own self-interest," replied Cain. "And he'll get a lot richer by staying loyal to me than by deserting me."
"Just out of curiosity, if he's on your payroll, why wasn't he helping you against Altair of Altair?"
"For the same reason you weren't," said Cain. "He'd just have been in the way."
"Touché," said the Swagman with a chuckle. "By the way, if he's the same Terwilliger I've heard about, ManMountain Bates is hot on his trail."
"I know. That's another reason why he'll stay loyal to me." Cain paused for a moment while the Swagman tossed his cigar onto the red-brown dirt and ground it out with his heel. "And now, if you've got nothing further to add, I think I'd better go talk to Schussler."
"Be on your best behavior," said the Swagman, falling into step beside the bounty hunter as he headed off toward the spaceship. "He may be a little bit strange, but we need him."
"Him? You mean Schussler?"
The Swagman nodded his head. "I'm not the only one with information, and his is different from mine. He knows every place Altair of Altair has been, everyone she's seen. Even if she never met Santiago, it was almost certainly Schussler who received the order to terminate Kastartos; he has to know where it came from."
"What does one offer a spaceship?" asked Cain wryly. "He can't have any use for money."
"I'm sure he'll think of something," said the Swagman.
"I don't know," said Cain. "Any guy who wanted to become a spaceship..."
"I have a feeling that want was never the operative word."
They reached the ship and came to a halt. Suddenly a hatch door opened.
"You go ahead," said the Swagman, pulling out another cigar. "I'll join you in a few minutes."
"Why?" asked Cain suspiciously.
The Swagman held up his cigar. "He doesn't like me to smoke inside him."
Cain grimaced. "I probably wouldn't want someone smoking in my stomach, either, if push came to shove."
He entered the compact ship through the hatch and found himself in a brightly illuminated cabin. The control panels and terminals were like nothing he had ever seen, and even the digital readouts on the screens were in an unfamiliar language.
"Schussler?" he said hesitantly. "Are you here?"
"I am always here," replied Schussler, his melodic voice not at all what Cain had expected.
"I'm Cain."
"I know. I can see you."
"You can?" asked Cain, surprised. "How?"
"I am tied in to various sensing devices."
"So you can see inside yourself as well as outside?"
"And hear, and smell, and use senses no human can conceive of."
"It must be handy," remarked Cain.
"If one likes being a spaceship."
"Do you?"
"No."
"Then why are you one?"
"It happened seventeen years ago," said Schussler. "I was a businessman, on my way to Alpha Prego for a conference. My ship crashed on Kalkos Two."
"Never heard of it."
"It's an outpost world of a starfaring race called the Graal."
"I never heard of them, either," commented Cain.
"They haven't been assimilated into the Democracy yet," replied Schussler. "Anyway, I crashed, and they found me, but by the time they separated me from all the twisted metal there wasn't much left to work with." The voice stopped for a moment and was considerably shakier when it resumed. "They kept me alive, God knows how, for five months, until I came out of my coma, and then they offered me my choice: they could let me die, quickly and painlessly, or they could offer me life as a cyborg." Schussler sighed. "I was younger then, and there were many things I still wanted to see, so I chose the latter."
"But why as a spaceship?" asked Cain.
"Kalkos Two is a shipbuilding world. They used what they had."
"What about prosthetics?" persisted Cain. "I've got an artificial eye that took a day to hook up, and it sees better than the one I lost."
"They weren't human," explained Schussler.
"They could have contacted a human world."
"There wasn't enough left to work with." He paused. "Would you like to see the real me, the human remnant that's the driving force of this ship?"
Cain shrugged. "Why not?"
"Walk over to the computer terminal nearest the viewscreen."
"This one?"
"That's it."
"The keys don't make any sense."
"They're in the Graal's language. Touch the third from the left, top row."
Cain did as he was told, and Schussler rattled off the directions for hitting seven more keys.
Suddenly an interior wall panel slid back, revealing a small black box, no more than twelve inches on a side, with literally hundreds of wires and tubes connected to it.
"Jesus!" muttered Cain. "That's all that's left of you?"
"Now do you see why they didn't bother with prosthetics?" asked Schussler bitterly as the panel slid shut. "Still, they didn't do too badly, all things considered. When I try to wiggle my fingers, I alter the gyroscopes. When I feel hunger, it is assuaged by fuel fo
r my synthetic body. When I want to speak, I activate a complex system of microscopic vibrational coils which ultimately results in what you are hearing. I am not in control of the ship; I am the ship. I monitor all my functions, navigate myself, communicate with other ships, even aim and fire weapons when the need arises. In fact, I don't yet know the full extent of my powers, since the Graal computers aren't based on binary language or any other system known to the race of Man, and I'm still learning new things about myself every day."
"It sounds like an interesting existence," said Cain without much enthusiasm.
"It is a terrible existence," said Schussler,
"Well, it's better than being dead."
"I thought so once," replied Schussler. "I was wrong." He paused. "I can analyze the air for you, break it down into so many atoms of this and so many molecules of that—but I can't breathe it. There is no meal you can conceive that I can't prepare in my galley—but I can't taste it." There was another pause, and then the beautiful voice spoke again, this time in more anguished tones. "I can count the pores in the skin on a woman's hand, give a chemical breakdown of its composition, measure the fingernails to a millionth of a centimeter—but I can't touch it!"
"If you're that unhappy, why haven't you killed yourself?" asked Cain. "It shouldn't be that difficult to crash into a planet, or fall right into the heart of a star."
"A man could choose to do that," said Schussler bitterly. "A machine can't."
"But you are a man," said Cain. "You're just wearing this ship the way other men wear clothes."
"I wish that were so, but it isn't. I am the ship and the ship is me, and when the Graal joined the two of us in this unholy alliance, they inserted two directives that are so powerful I can't override them. The first of them is to protect my own existence."
"And the other?"
"It cost the Graal a lot of money to build me. They made some of it back by selling me at auction. They explained to me that since my life expectancy is now virtually infinite, they were sure I would be happy to spend an insignificant segment of it helping them amortize my cost." He sighed, a melodic sound that somehow reminded Cain of air flowing through a pipe organ. "My other directive was to obey the commands of my owner for a period of thirty years."