As they disappeared inside the school, the Bandit turned to Dante, who was still sprawled in the dirt.
"I will not tolerate another display of disloyalty," he said coldly.
"Goddammit to hell!" spat Dante. "Do you realize what you've done?"
"I got us the bullion."
"You killed 300 kids!"
"They were Democracy children," said the Bandit with an unconcerned shrug. "Why wait until they grow up to exterminate them?"
Dante stared long and hard at his hand-picked Santiago. My God—what have I done?
Part 4: SILVERMANE'S BOOK
25.
There are those who will swear he's a hero,
Born to fulfill Mankind's dreams.
But listen to those who now are his foes:
Santiago is not what he seems.
The door opened and Matilda entered her room.
"Lights," she said, and instantly the room was filled with light.
She turned to walk to a closet, then jumped as she saw Dante Alighieri seated in a chair by her desk.
"What the hell are you doing here?" she demanded.
"We have to talk."
"I've spent two weeks on the road recruiting members for the organization. I'm tired. We'll talk tomorrow."
"Now," he said, and something in his voice convinced her to sit on the edge of her bed and face him.
"All right," she said, staring at him. "What's up."
"We've made a terrible mistake."
"What are you talking about?"
"The Bandit."
"You mean Santiago?"
"He's no more Santiago than I am," said Dante. "He never was."
"Just because he doesn't fit your image of—"
"Shut up and listen!" snapped Dante.
Again she stared at him. "Just what the hell did he do?"
"What would you say if I told you he killed 300 kids for no reason except that someday they'd grow up to be members of the Democracy?"
"Did he?"
"Yes. On Madras IV."
"He must have had some reason."
"I just gave it to you."
She frowned. "300 children?"
"In cold blood." Dante paused. "You and I can argue about whether he should have killed that crazy old lady back on Heliopolis. After all, she was a witness to a crime and could describe Santiago. But these were just kids. They never saw us, we never saw them."
"That doesn't seem like him."
"The hell it doesn't. He killed a couple of thousand people in the Blixtor Maze. This isn't the same guy we knew three months ago—or if it is, then we were terrible judges of character."
"Of course he's the same man. We didn't set out to select an angel."
"We don't want an angel," agreed Dante. "But we want someone who can discriminate between a Democracy officer or bureaucrat and a child who lives in the Democracy."
"Maybe we defined the parameters of the job wrong," suggested Matilda. "Maybe he thinks—"
"You're not paying attention," interrupted Dante. "Fuck the definitions. Do we want a Santiago who'll wipe out 300 kids for any reason at all?"
She sighed deeply. "No," she said at last. "No, we don't."
"Part of it is my fault. I told him to lose the 'sirs' and 'ma'ams', and never to apologize, that Santiago didn't do that. But he's gone overboard. I should have known it would happen before we ever set foot on Madras."
"How could you?"
"Virgil's helped me out of some tight spots, and introduced me to some people I wanted to meet . . . but let's be honest: he's a lying, drug-addicted killer who's probably sent half a hundred bedmates to the psycho ward. Whatever he is to me, he's nothing to Santiago—and yet thousands of men and aliens died in the Blixtor Maze just so the Bandit could set him free. That's not loyalty; that's out-and-out crazy."
"All right," said Matilda. "When you put it that way, I can't disagree with you."
"I don't know where it started going wrong," continued the poet. "I never met a more decent, more humble man than the One- Armed Bandit. He practically reeked with concern for his fellow man. How could just calling himself Santiago change him so much?"
"You can ponder that for the next few years," she answered. "The more immediate question is: what do we do about him?"
"I don't know," admitted Dante. "We certainly can't take him out by ourselves. I've seen him wipe out twenty hired guns without working up a sweat." He paused. "Besides, there probably aren't half a dozen men on the Frontier who can kill him. Do you want someone that formidable, that potentially uncontrollable, to become our Santiago? We'd just be replacing one problem with another."
"If we can't tolerate him and can't remove him, just what do you propose to do?" demanded Matilda.
"I don't know. That's why we're talking."
"I suppose we can wait until there's an opportunity . . ." began Matilda.
"To do what?"
"To kill him, of course," she replied. "He doesn't have any reason to suspect we're turning against him. Sooner or later he's got to drop his guard, relax, turn his back, do something to give us a chance."
"And then what?"
"Then we find another Santiago, or you go back to writing your poem without him and I go back to being the best thief on the Frontier." She stood up and began nervously pacing back and forth across the room. "Hell, I just wanted a Santiago so the Democracy would have a bigger target than me. If I can't have one, I can't have one. I was doing just fine before I met you, Rhymer; I can do fine again."
"It's more than my poem," said Dante. "The Inner Frontier needs Santiago. Hell, the human race needs him."
"Even if he kills 300 innocent children?"
"He's not Santiago."
"He is now. Just ask him. Or your ladyfriends from Snakepit. Or the survivor from Jackrabbit Willowby's little army. Like it or not, Santiago is abroad in the galaxy once more, all thanks to us."
"We created him," agreed Dante. "We have to find some way to un-create him."
"Short of finding an even better killer, I don't know what we can do," said Matilda. "We given him an organization. We've set him up in the drug trade, and robbed millions from a bank. We've supplied him with Wilbur's services, and that's probably doubled his money already. We've hired two dozen guns, and we've got a couple of ladies like Blossom who'll do anything, no matter how perverse, if it's for the good of the cause. We did more the create him; we made him successful."
"Some of them might leave if we give the word," said Dante with more conviction than he felt.
"Name one, besides Virgil," she challenged him.
He grimaced. "I can't."
"I know."
"Still, we have to do something. Somehow, in his mind, he's equated being against Santiago with being for the Democracy. The originals knew the difference. They didn't expect anyone to thank them, or to understand what they were doing. Santiago didn't get to be a myth that's lived for over a century by killing children and old ladies."