Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future Read Online Free PDF Page A

how long you’ve been alone,”
answered Terwilliger.
    “You still haven’t told me what
they look like.”
    Terwilliger grinned and ruffled
the cards. “Shall we up the stakes a little?”
    Cain shook his head. “They’re not
worth more to me than Stern is.”
    “They might be, when I tell you
what they do.”
    “Hearsay?”
    “Experience.”
    Cain cocked an eyebrow. “I thought
you disapproved of them.”
    “Anybody’s allowed to try
something new once or twice, just to get the feel of it,” explained
Terwilliger. “What I object to is addiction, not experimentation.”
    “I don’t plan to be here long
enough to do either,” said Cain. “You can put the cards away.”
    “Oh, we can always find a little
something to wager about,” said Terwilliger. “For fifty credits a hand, I could
tell you where to find the Suliman brothers.”
    “You’re too late. They were taken
a week ago.”
    “All three?”
    Cain nodded.
    “Damn!” said Terwilliger. “Well,
for a hundred, I might tell you about some competition that’s moved into the
area.”
    “I know about the Angel.”
    “News sure travels fast,”
commented Terwilliger ruefully.
    “Tell you what,” said Cain. “I’ll
play for a thousand a hand if you have any information about Santiago.”
    “You and five hundred other guys.”
The gambler shook his head. “It beats me how he can still be free after all
these years with so many people looking for him.”
    Just then the bartender walked
across the room and came to a stop in front of their table.
    “Are you Cain?” he asked.
    “Yes.”
    “He wants you.”
    “Where do I find him?” asked Cain.
    “I’ll show you the way,” offered
Terwilliger.
    The bartender nodded and returned
to his duties.
    “Follow me,” said the gambler,
getting to his feet.
    Cain stood up and left a few bills
on the table.
    They walked out through a side
door, across the dusty road that had once been a major thoroughfare, and into
the smaller of Port étrange’s two functioning hotels. Terwilliger led him
through a lobby that had once been quite elegant but was now showing the signs
of age and neglect: sleek chrome pillars were now tarnished, the ever-changing
choreopattern of colored lights was out of synch with the atonal music, the
front door remained dilated for almost a full minute after they passed through
it.
    They approached a bank of
elevators and walked to the last one in line. Terwilliger summoned it with a
low command.
    “This’ll take you right to him,”
he announced.
    “Has he got a room number?”
    “He’s got the whole damned floor.
Take one step out and you’re in the middle of his parlor.”
    “Thanks,” said Cain, stepping into
the elevator as it arrived. As the doors closed behind him he realized that he
didn’t know the floor number, but then the elevator began ascending swiftly and
he decided that it only went to one floor.
    When it came to a stop, he emerged
into a palatial pent-house. It was fully fifty feet by sixty, and filled to
overflowing with objets d’art gathered—or plundered—from all across the galaxy.
In the center of the room was a sunken circular tub with platinum fixtures, and
sitting in the steaming water was an emaciated man with sunken cheeks and dark,
watery eyes. His narrow arms were sprawled over the edges of the tub, and Cain
noticed that his fingers were covered by truly magnificent rings. He smoked a
large cigar that had somehow avoided becoming waterlogged.
    Standing on each side of the tub
were a pair of humanoid aliens, both obviously female. Their skins, covered
with a slick secretion that may or may not have been natural, glistened under
the lights of the apartment. Their arms seemed supple and boneless, their legs
slender and strangely jointed. Each had a round, expressive face, with a
generous, very red triangular mouth and pink eyes that were little more than
angular slits. Both were nude and were devoid of any body hair. They had no
breasts, but