Soothsayer

by Mike Resnick

  “I do not fear you, Mendoza.”

  “No one ever said you did. The question is whether you believe me.”

  “I do not think so.”

  “I'm offering you two million credits to say you do,” said the Iceman. “That's a hell of a profit for avoiding a fight.”

  Three-Fisted Ollie stared at him for a long moment.

  “And two million more for my partner,” he said.

  “Just take the money and tell him the girl isn't here.”

  “He knows that she is here,” said the alien.

  “That's pretty dangerous knowledge,” said the Iceman.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that every bounty hunter who knew she was here died for his trouble,” said the Iceman. “All the ones who believe she's somewhere else are still alive.”

  “You're suggesting I kill him?” said Three-Fisted Ollie with another inscrutable grin.

  “You don't need a partner if she's not here,” answered the Iceman. “And you won't have anyone to split the money with.”

  “I have always said that you were the most interesting human I ever met, Mendoza,” said Three-Fisted Ollie.

  “I'll accept that as a compliment.”

  “Tell me,” continued the alien, “when you were a young man, would you have made me this offer?”

  “Probably,” said the Iceman. “That's how I lived to be a middle-aged man.”

  “It's a very interesting proposition, Mendoza,” said Three-Fisted Ollie after some consideration. “I think I shall have to discuss it with my partner.”

  “I'll wait here,” said the Iceman. “I wouldn't want to intrude on your deliberations.”

  “One thing first,” said the alien. “I must see the money.”

  “How do I know you won't kill me and take it, and still go after the girl?”

  “How do I know you have the money at all?”

  “We'll have to trust each other,” said the Iceman.

  “Maybe I'll just kill you now.”

  “You can try,” said the Iceman. “But there really is a weapon pointed right at you.”

  “Now it's only one?”

  “Now it's only one,” agreed the Iceman. “But one is enough. If I were you, I'd think very carefully before I did anything I might not live long enough to regret.”

  The alien stood silent and motionless for a moment.

  “Three million for the pair of us,” it said at last.

  “Deal,” said the Iceman. “Signal him to join us.”

  “I'll take the money to him.”

  The Iceman shook his head. “I've got to know he agrees to leave without the girl before I pay either of you.”

  Three-Fisted Ollie seemed to consider it for a moment, then waved to Cemetery Smith, who began approaching the cluster of buildings.

  The Iceman watched the human walk down the dirt road, and tried to keep his mind absolutely blank, to avoid even the hint of a decision about what he might do next.

  “What's going on here?” demanded Cemetery Smith when he was still about two hundred yards away.

  “This is Mendoza,” said Three-Fisted Ollie. “Do you remember him?”

  “Thought he was dead,” said Smith, continuing to approach them. He squinted in the bright sunlight. “You've changed, Mendoza.”

  “He's made us an interesting proposition,” said the alien.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes. He has offered us three million credits to—”

  As Smith turned his attention to the alien, the Iceman pulled out his hand weapon and shot the bounty hunter through the chest, then hurled himself to the ground, rolled over once, and fired at Three-Fisted Ollie. The alien clutched his belly and fell onto his side.

  “All right,” said the Iceman, getting painfully to his feet and facing the rooming house. “You can come out now.”

  The Mouse was the first one out the door.

  “I didn't think you could pull it off!” she exclaimed.

  “Neither did somebody else, I'll wager,” said the Iceman meaningfully, brushing the dust from himself and panting heavily.

  Penelope and the Mock Turtle come out of the house and climbed down off the porch to join the Mouse.

  “Well, we can finally leave,” said the Mouse.

  “It can't be that simple,” said the Iceman. He looked at the little girl. “Can it?”

  Penelope glared at him, and suddenly the fear was gone from her face.

  “No,” she said.

  Suddenly the Iceman felt a searing pain in his hip and on the back on his left leg, as a laser beam burnt through cloth and flesh, right down to the bone. He fell to the ground and clutched his leg with his hands, turning his head to see what had happened.

  Three-Fisted Ollie had propped himself up on his side, and held a laser pistol in his free hand.

  “You lied to me, Mendoza!” he whispered hoarsely. He aimed the pistol at Penelope and tried to steady his hand. “We had a deal. If I can't have her, nobody can!”

  “Shoot him!” screamed Penelope, running toward the Mouse.

  The Mouse instinctively threw her arms around the little girl as Three-Fisted Ollie's laser pistol and the Mock Turtle's silent weapon both came to life and meted out death.

  Three-Fisted Ollie grunted once, rolled over, and died. The Mouse fell to her knees, a smoking burn mark on her torso.

  “Penelope?” she said, trying to focus her eyes.

  “I love you, Mouse,” said Penelope sadly, but with neither tears nor hysteria.

  The girl stepped back, and the Mouse fell to the ground.

  “I am sorry,” said the Mock Turtle. “She died to save you.” It paused. “I should have fired sooner. It was my fault.”

  The Iceman, still clutching his leg, turned back to the girl and the Mock Turtle.

  “You're as big a fool as she was!” he grated. “Tell him whose fault it was, Penelope!”

  “I loved her,” said Penelope.

  “Then why didn't you tell the Turtle to shoot sooner? You knew what he was going to do.”

  “It's your fault!” shouted Penelope, her face filled with childish fury. “You made her stop loving me!”

  “You killed her, as surely as if you had fired the gun yourself,” said the Iceman, trying to ignore the burning pain in his leg.

  “She wasn't going to be my friend anymore,” said Penelope petulantly. “She was going to leave me.”

  The Iceman looked at the alien.

  “Well?” he demanded. “Aren't you going to finish the job?”

  The Mock Turtle turned to Penelope. “What is your desire, Soothsayer?”

  Penelope looked at the Iceman, sprawled in the dirt, his leg blood-soaked and useless.

  “He's just an old man,” she said contemptuously. “He can't harm us anymore.”

  “You'd better kill me now,” said the Iceman. “If you don't, I'll come back and hunt you down.”

  “You can't hurt me,” said Penelope confidently. “No one can hurt me.”

  “You were lucky,” he answered, his face contorted with pain. “Next time you won't be.”

  She approached the wounded man and stared down at him. “Do you really think it's just luck that my friend and I are the only two who lived? Do you really think that?”

  “Come, Soothsayer,” said the Mock Turtle placidly. “It is time to leave.”

  The Iceman tried to reach his pistol, but it had fallen too far away, and he couldn't drag his body over to it.

  “I'll find you,” he promised.

  “No, you won't,” said Penelope. “The Mock Turtle and I are going to go away now, not to Summergold, but to some place where no one can find me. And I'm going to grow up, and I'm going to learn more about being the Soothsayer, and someday, when I'm ready, I'll come back.” She turned to look at the Mouse's body. “And I'll never love anyone ever again.”

  “I'll be waiting,” said the Iceman, his vision becoming blurred.

  “You?” sai
d Penelope. “You'll be an old man with one leg.” She smiled. “If they don't come out to help you, you won't even live through the day.” She turned to the Mock Turtle and reached for its hand. “It's time to go.”

  “Yes, Soothsayer,” it replied, taking her hand and walking down the long dirt road to its ship.

  The Iceman watched them until he lost consciousness.

  34.

  When he awoke, he was in a hospital on McCallister II, and he spent the next few weeks getting used to his prosthetic leg.

  After he had completely recovered, he went back to Killhaven. The twelve bodies had been buried out behind the boarding house. Since nobody had known who they were, there were no identifying markers on the tombstones. He arbitrarily decided that the one on the left belonged to the Mouse, and laid a handful of wildflowers on it.

  Then he went to the restaurant before returning to his ship.

  The pudgy woman wasn't there, and nobody recognized him, and he had a quiet meal. Finally the waiter, a young man with dark brown hair and the start of a sparse mustache, approached him with his bill.

  “I couldn't help noticing you looking at the graves over there,” he said. “Were you related to any of them?”

  “No,” said the Iceman.

  “It was a hell of a battle,” said the young man, his face flushed with dreams of heroism. “I wish I'd been there.” He paused, then added confidentially: “They say the Forever Kid was one of them.”

  “You don't say?”

  The young man nodded. “As near as anyone can tell, the whole thing was about some little girl. There were ten bounty hunters after her, and the girl was hiding right in the rooming house across street! Isn't that exciting?”

  “Sounds exciting to me,” agreed the Iceman, waiting patiently for his check.

  “We ought to hang a plaque or something,” continued the waiter. “After all, ten people died because of her.”

  “Twelve,” the Iceman corrected him.

  “That's right,” said the waiter enthusiastically. “I'd almost forgotten. There was a man and a woman who gave their lives to protect her.” He smiled. “At least they died heroes’ deaths.”

  “If you say so,” replied the Iceman.

  He paid his bill and walked out into the dry, dusty street.

  THE END

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