Items related to The Return of Santiago
They say his father was a comet and his mother a cosmic wind, that he juggled planets as if they were feathers and wrestled with black holes just to work up an appetite. They say he never slept, that his eyes burned brighter than a nova, that his shout could level mountains. That he killed a thousand men, and saved a hundred worlds.
They called him Santiago.
Bandit, assassin, rebel, thief, he strode across the galactic rim, blazing a legend as rich and wild as the Inner Frontier itself. Then, at the height of his glory, he vanished, leaving behind a trail as elusive as starlight in the empty realms of space.
Now, a century later, the name of Santiago is once again whispered along the Galactic Rim ...
They called him Santiago.
Bandit, assassin, rebel, thief, he strode across the galactic rim, blazing a legend as rich and wild as the Inner Frontier itself. Then, at the height of his glory, he vanished, leaving behind a trail as elusive as starlight in the empty realms of space.
Now, a century later, the name of Santiago is once again whispered along the Galactic Rim ...
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
A decade ago, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author Mike Resnick captivated the imaginations of a generation of readers with his star-spanning saga Santiago, an epic tale of a daring outlaw and rebel whose life had become legend. The novel won high praise from readers and critics alike and was hailed as a modern masterwork of science fiction adventure. Now, at last, Resnick offers a new chapter in this spellbinding saga with The Return of Santiago.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
1
SOME SAY THAT HE'S A HUNDRED,
SOME SAY THAT HE IS MORE;
SOME SAY HE'll LIVE FOREVER -
THIS OUTLAW COMMODORE!
THAT WAS THE LAST VERSE ever written by Black Orpheus, the Bard of the Inner Frontier. Though Santiago's name doesn't appear in it, it is generally considered to have been about the notorious King of the Outlaws.
And with that, Black Orpheus history of the Frontier was done. Not finished in the sense that it was complete, but done. Shortly after writing those words he disappeared forever. Some say he found an idyllic world on which to live out his life. Others say that Santiago himself gunned him down. A handful believe that he found the task of codifying the entire history of the Inner Frontier in verse too daunting, and that he simply gave it up and went off to live out his years in solitude.
At the moment that he became a catalyst for history, Danny Briggs knew little of Santiago and even less of Black Orpheus. Like most kids, he'd grown up thrilled by legends about both, but that was the extent of his knowledge and his interest. On the third night of the fifth month of the year 3407 of the Galactic Era, Danny Briggs had other things on his mind as he scaled the end of a long, low building, a cloth bag slung over his right shoulder.
He moved slowly, carefully, trying not to make a sound-but then the wind shifted, carrying his scent to the creatures below, and all his precautions were for nothing. A huge Moondevil, two hundred pounds of muscle and sinew, saw him creeping across the roof and began howling. A Polarcat, glistening white in the moonlight, leaped up from its own enclosure and tried to dig its claws into Danny's leg.
As the young man sidestepped the Polarcat, two more animals of a type he'd never seen before launched themselves toward him, falling back as they hit the edge of the gently pitched roof.
Danny cursed under his breath. There was no sense moving cautiously any longer. The only way to shut all the animals up was to get out of their sight as quickly as possible. He raced the length of the roof, ignoring the increasing din, and finally jumped down to a small atrium. He adjusted his pocket computer to set up a signal that disrupted the security cameras, found the door he was looking for, used the code he had stolen months earlier, and entered the office.
He ignored the safe and instead activated the computer. In seconds he had accessed the data he needed. He pulled out his tiny scanner, transferred the data to it, and put it back in a pocket. Then he deactivated the computer. The entire operation took less than a minute.
He considered killing the security system and just walking out the front door, but that would have given away the fact that he'd been there, and all his efforts would be wasted if the police suspected that anyone had invaded this particular office--especially when they discovered that no money had been taken.
Instead he went back the way he'd come. The animals were silent now, but he knew they wouldn't stay that way for long. Choosing speed over stealth, he climbed onto the roof of the long, low building again and raced the length of it in the face of the ever-increasing howls, growls, and screams. When he came to the Moondevil, he reached into his cloth bag, withdrew a small dead animal, and tossed it into the Moondevil's enclosure. Now if enough neighbors reported
all the noise and the police investigated, they'd find the remains of the animal and assume that it had somehow wandered into the kennel and caused all the commotion.
An hour later he was sitting at his usual table at the Golden Fleece, a tavern on the outskirts of New Punjab, a small city that had nothing in common with the original Punjab except the subjugation of its natives, in this case the orange-skinned humanoids of Bailiwick. The world wasn't a very large or very important one: it held no fissionable materials, few precious stones or metals, and the farmland wasn't the best. But it did have two million natives-- it had had close to five million before the Navy pacified them--and three human cities, of which New Punjab, with almost forty thousand residents, was the largest.
It was said that Black Orpheus had once spent a night on Bailiwick, but there were no holograms or other records to prove it. Bailiwick's main claim to fame was Milos Jannis, who had been born there and was now the Democracy's middleweight freehand champion. Two minor actors and a second-rate novelist were the only other things Bailiwick had to brag about.
Danny Briggs didn't want to add to that total. He was content to remain relatively unknown and unapprehended. He shunned publicity the way bad politicians seek it out. Even when he turned a profit at what he considered to be his business, he always made sure to deposit and spend it offworld.
He ordered a drink and sat there, staring at himself in the mirror behind the bar. He wasn't thrilled with what he saw: He stood a few inches under six feet in an era when the average man stood two inches over six feet. He was thin; not emaciated, but somewhere between slender and wiry. His head was covered by nondescript brown hair. He didn't like his chin much; too pointy. For the hundredth time he considered growing a beard to cover it, but his mustache was so sparse he hated to think of what a beard would look like. His ears stuck out too far; he figured one of these days he was going to lose one or both in a fight.
No, on the whole, there wasn't much about Danny Briggs that he liked. Hell, he didn't even like the way he made his living. He didn't believe in God, so he didn't believe that God had some nobler purpose for him. He had no fire burning in his belly, but rather a certain unfocused dissatisfaction, a desire to make some kind of mark, to scratch his name on the boulder of Time so people would know he'd been here. Not that he was a hero, because he wasn't; not because he would someday make a difference to the handful of misfits and criminals that formed his circle of friends, because he knew he was incapable of making one; but simply to show those who came after him that once upon a time there was a man named Danny Briggs, and he had lived right here on Bailiwick, and that, just once, he'd done something worth remembering.
Except that everything he'd done up to now was aimed at letting no one know he'd been here, and far from remembering him, he wanted nothing more than for the police and the Democracy to completely ignore his existence.
Interesting conflict, he thought wryly. The urge to be known versus the need to be hidden. Perhaps someday he'd resolve it, though he doubted it.
A grizzled, white-haired man with a noticeable limp entered the Golden Fleece, looked around, and walked directly to Danny's table.
"I'm not too early, am I?" he asked.
"No, I've got it," said Danny.
"The usual price?"
"Three hundred Maria Theresa dollars up front and twenty percent of whatever you make."
"It was two hundred fifty last time," grumbled the man.
"Success breeds inflation."
"You sure you won't take Democracy credits?" asked the old man.
?I don't want anything to do with them," said Danny. Besides, he added mentally, you start spending too many Democracy credits, you start attracting a little too much Democracy attention--but I guess you haven't figured that out, have you?
"Okay,"okay," said the old man. He removed a prosthetic hand, pulled a wad of money out of it, counted out three hundred Maria Theresa dollars, and pushed them across the table.
"Thanks," said Danny. He pulled out a tiny computer, retrieved an address, and transferred it to a hologram for the old man to study. "This is it."
"You're sure?"
"Have I ever been wrong yet?" asked Danny, nodding to another client, who had entered the Golden Fleece and caught his eye.
"No, you never have been," said the old man. "I don't know how you do it."
That's because you and every other fool I deal with would have broken into the kennel's safe tonight and come away with a couple hundred credits if you were lucky. Not one of you would ever think of stealing a list of the animal's owners, complete with their addresses and the dates that they're gone.
"Memorize it," said Danny, indicating the hologram that the tiny computer was projecting.
The man studied it, then nodded his head. Danny wiped the information from the machine and deactivated it.
"Thanks, Danny," said the old man, getting to his feet. The next client sat down opposite him.
Jesus! I rob the data from that computer every three or four months and don't take any other risks, and I get twenty percent of three hundred robberies a year. It's almost too easy. Doesn't anyone else on this dirtball have a brain?
Their negotiation completed, the man got up and left, and Danny was alone with his drink once again. A redhead, a bit overweight but still pretty, smiled a greeting at him from a nearby table.
"Hi, Danny," she said.
"Hi yourself, Duchess," said Danny. "I just finished tonight's business. Why don't you come over and join me?" He flashed a wad of money. "I'm solvent tonight."
"You never give up, do you?" she said, amused.
"Of course not," replied Danny. "You don't hit the moon if you
don't shoot for it."
"Am I the moon?"
"You'll do."
"Boy, you sure know how to turn a girl on," she said sardonically.
He smiled."It works with all the other girls."
"So turn your charm on one of them."
"Anything worthwhile takes effort," he replied. "You take effort."
"I suppose I'm flattered," said the Duchess.
"So join me."
"I said I was nattered, not interested."
"One of these days you're going to say yes, and it'll be a race to
see which of us drops dead from shock first."
"One of these days you'll get an honest job, and maybe I'll say
yes."
"If I had an honest job, I couldn't afford you." He smiled."I'm
sure someone somewhere has based an entire philosophical system on a paradox just like that one."
"Not funny, Danny."
"Look, some people are great rulers of men,...
SOME SAY THAT HE'S A HUNDRED,
SOME SAY THAT HE IS MORE;
SOME SAY HE'll LIVE FOREVER -
THIS OUTLAW COMMODORE!
THAT WAS THE LAST VERSE ever written by Black Orpheus, the Bard of the Inner Frontier. Though Santiago's name doesn't appear in it, it is generally considered to have been about the notorious King of the Outlaws.
And with that, Black Orpheus history of the Frontier was done. Not finished in the sense that it was complete, but done. Shortly after writing those words he disappeared forever. Some say he found an idyllic world on which to live out his life. Others say that Santiago himself gunned him down. A handful believe that he found the task of codifying the entire history of the Inner Frontier in verse too daunting, and that he simply gave it up and went off to live out his years in solitude.
At the moment that he became a catalyst for history, Danny Briggs knew little of Santiago and even less of Black Orpheus. Like most kids, he'd grown up thrilled by legends about both, but that was the extent of his knowledge and his interest. On the third night of the fifth month of the year 3407 of the Galactic Era, Danny Briggs had other things on his mind as he scaled the end of a long, low building, a cloth bag slung over his right shoulder.
He moved slowly, carefully, trying not to make a sound-but then the wind shifted, carrying his scent to the creatures below, and all his precautions were for nothing. A huge Moondevil, two hundred pounds of muscle and sinew, saw him creeping across the roof and began howling. A Polarcat, glistening white in the moonlight, leaped up from its own enclosure and tried to dig its claws into Danny's leg.
As the young man sidestepped the Polarcat, two more animals of a type he'd never seen before launched themselves toward him, falling back as they hit the edge of the gently pitched roof.
Danny cursed under his breath. There was no sense moving cautiously any longer. The only way to shut all the animals up was to get out of their sight as quickly as possible. He raced the length of the roof, ignoring the increasing din, and finally jumped down to a small atrium. He adjusted his pocket computer to set up a signal that disrupted the security cameras, found the door he was looking for, used the code he had stolen months earlier, and entered the office.
He ignored the safe and instead activated the computer. In seconds he had accessed the data he needed. He pulled out his tiny scanner, transferred the data to it, and put it back in a pocket. Then he deactivated the computer. The entire operation took less than a minute.
He considered killing the security system and just walking out the front door, but that would have given away the fact that he'd been there, and all his efforts would be wasted if the police suspected that anyone had invaded this particular office--especially when they discovered that no money had been taken.
Instead he went back the way he'd come. The animals were silent now, but he knew they wouldn't stay that way for long. Choosing speed over stealth, he climbed onto the roof of the long, low building again and raced the length of it in the face of the ever-increasing howls, growls, and screams. When he came to the Moondevil, he reached into his cloth bag, withdrew a small dead animal, and tossed it into the Moondevil's enclosure. Now if enough neighbors reported
all the noise and the police investigated, they'd find the remains of the animal and assume that it had somehow wandered into the kennel and caused all the commotion.
An hour later he was sitting at his usual table at the Golden Fleece, a tavern on the outskirts of New Punjab, a small city that had nothing in common with the original Punjab except the subjugation of its natives, in this case the orange-skinned humanoids of Bailiwick. The world wasn't a very large or very important one: it held no fissionable materials, few precious stones or metals, and the farmland wasn't the best. But it did have two million natives-- it had had close to five million before the Navy pacified them--and three human cities, of which New Punjab, with almost forty thousand residents, was the largest.
It was said that Black Orpheus had once spent a night on Bailiwick, but there were no holograms or other records to prove it. Bailiwick's main claim to fame was Milos Jannis, who had been born there and was now the Democracy's middleweight freehand champion. Two minor actors and a second-rate novelist were the only other things Bailiwick had to brag about.
Danny Briggs didn't want to add to that total. He was content to remain relatively unknown and unapprehended. He shunned publicity the way bad politicians seek it out. Even when he turned a profit at what he considered to be his business, he always made sure to deposit and spend it offworld.
He ordered a drink and sat there, staring at himself in the mirror behind the bar. He wasn't thrilled with what he saw: He stood a few inches under six feet in an era when the average man stood two inches over six feet. He was thin; not emaciated, but somewhere between slender and wiry. His head was covered by nondescript brown hair. He didn't like his chin much; too pointy. For the hundredth time he considered growing a beard to cover it, but his mustache was so sparse he hated to think of what a beard would look like. His ears stuck out too far; he figured one of these days he was going to lose one or both in a fight.
No, on the whole, there wasn't much about Danny Briggs that he liked. Hell, he didn't even like the way he made his living. He didn't believe in God, so he didn't believe that God had some nobler purpose for him. He had no fire burning in his belly, but rather a certain unfocused dissatisfaction, a desire to make some kind of mark, to scratch his name on the boulder of Time so people would know he'd been here. Not that he was a hero, because he wasn't; not because he would someday make a difference to the handful of misfits and criminals that formed his circle of friends, because he knew he was incapable of making one; but simply to show those who came after him that once upon a time there was a man named Danny Briggs, and he had lived right here on Bailiwick, and that, just once, he'd done something worth remembering.
Except that everything he'd done up to now was aimed at letting no one know he'd been here, and far from remembering him, he wanted nothing more than for the police and the Democracy to completely ignore his existence.
Interesting conflict, he thought wryly. The urge to be known versus the need to be hidden. Perhaps someday he'd resolve it, though he doubted it.
A grizzled, white-haired man with a noticeable limp entered the Golden Fleece, looked around, and walked directly to Danny's table.
"I'm not too early, am I?" he asked.
"No, I've got it," said Danny.
"The usual price?"
"Three hundred Maria Theresa dollars up front and twenty percent of whatever you make."
"It was two hundred fifty last time," grumbled the man.
"Success breeds inflation."
"You sure you won't take Democracy credits?" asked the old man.
?I don't want anything to do with them," said Danny. Besides, he added mentally, you start spending too many Democracy credits, you start attracting a little too much Democracy attention--but I guess you haven't figured that out, have you?
"Okay,"okay," said the old man. He removed a prosthetic hand, pulled a wad of money out of it, counted out three hundred Maria Theresa dollars, and pushed them across the table.
"Thanks," said Danny. He pulled out a tiny computer, retrieved an address, and transferred it to a hologram for the old man to study. "This is it."
"You're sure?"
"Have I ever been wrong yet?" asked Danny, nodding to another client, who had entered the Golden Fleece and caught his eye.
"No, you never have been," said the old man. "I don't know how you do it."
That's because you and every other fool I deal with would have broken into the kennel's safe tonight and come away with a couple hundred credits if you were lucky. Not one of you would ever think of stealing a list of the animal's owners, complete with their addresses and the dates that they're gone.
"Memorize it," said Danny, indicating the hologram that the tiny computer was projecting.
The man studied it, then nodded his head. Danny wiped the information from the machine and deactivated it.
"Thanks, Danny," said the old man, getting to his feet. The next client sat down opposite him.
Jesus! I rob the data from that computer every three or four months and don't take any other risks, and I get twenty percent of three hundred robberies a year. It's almost too easy. Doesn't anyone else on this dirtball have a brain?
Their negotiation completed, the man got up and left, and Danny was alone with his drink once again. A redhead, a bit overweight but still pretty, smiled a greeting at him from a nearby table.
"Hi, Danny," she said.
"Hi yourself, Duchess," said Danny. "I just finished tonight's business. Why don't you come over and join me?" He flashed a wad of money. "I'm solvent tonight."
"You never give up, do you?" she said, amused.
"Of course not," replied Danny. "You don't hit the moon if you
don't shoot for it."
"Am I the moon?"
"You'll do."
"Boy, you sure know how to turn a girl on," she said sardonically.
He smiled."It works with all the other girls."
"So turn your charm on one of them."
"Anything worthwhile takes effort," he replied. "You take effort."
"I suppose I'm flattered," said the Duchess.
"So join me."
"I said I was nattered, not interested."
"One of these days you're going to say yes, and it'll be a race to
see which of us drops dead from shock first."
"One of these days you'll get an honest job, and maybe I'll say
yes."
"If I had an honest job, I couldn't afford you." He smiled."I'm
sure someone somewhere has based an entire philosophical system on a paradox just like that one."
"Not funny, Danny."
"Look, some people are great rulers of men,...
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- PublisherTor Books
- Publication date2004
- ISBN 10 0765341468
- ISBN 13 9780765341464
- BindingPaperback
- Edition number1
- Number of pages448
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