"Hey, I'm just a poet and an historian," said Dante. "I don't plan on challenging anyone."
"And I'm a lover," said Virgil wryly. "Problem is, you don't always have a choice."
"As far as I know, no one ever called Black Orpheus out for a duel to the death."
"Yeah—but he was the real thing. You're just an apprentice Orpheus."
"Keep talking like that and I may tear up your verse," said Dante.
"Keep thinking you're above the fray and you may not live long enough to write a second one."
The ship jerked just then, as it entered Tusculum II's stratosphere at an oblique angle.
Dante stared at his instrument panel. "Now what?"
"Now you land."
"But no one's fed any landing coordinates into the navigational computer."
"You're not in the Democracy any more," said Virgil. "Have the sensors pinpoint the larger Tradertown, and then find the landing field just north of it."
"And then?"
"And then tell it to land."
"Just like that?" asked Dante.
"Just like that."
"Amazing," said Dante after issuing instructions to the sensors and the computer. "Have you ever been to Deluros VIII?"
"Nope."
"It's got more than two thousand orbiting space docks that can each handle something like ten thousand ships. There are dozens of passenger platforms miles above the planet, and thousands of shuttles working around the clock, carrying people to and from the surface. I don't think a ship has actually landed on Deluros VIII in two millennia." He shook his head in wonderment. "And here we just point and land."
"You'll get used to it."
"I suppose so."
The ship touched down, and the two men soon emerged from it.
"I assume there's no Customs or Passport Control?" asked Dante.
"You see anything like that?" responded Virgil, walking over to a row of empty aircarts. "We'll take one of these into town."
"Fine," said Dante as he climbed in.
"Uh . . . you want to let it read your retina?" said Virgil.
"Is something wrong with your eye?"
"Something's wrong with my credit. It won't start until the fee has been transferred to the rental company's account."
"No problem," said Dante, walking up to the scanner. His credit was approved in a matter of seconds, and shortly thereafter they were skimming into town, eighteen inches above the ground.
"Tell it to stop here," said Virgil as they cruised along the Tradertown's only major street.
"Why don't you tell it yourself?"
"Your credit, your voiceprint. It won't obey me."
Dante ordered the aircart to stop. "The casino's up the street."
"Yeah, but we need a place to stay. We'll register at the hotel first, and then go hunting for dinosaur."
They entered a small hotel, and Dante ordered two adjacent rooms, both of which were to be billed to his account.
They decided to stop at the hotel's restaurant for lunch before going to the casino, and they emerged half an hour later, ready to meet Tyrannosaur Bailey.
A nondescript man of medium height and medium build was standing outside the hotel, leaning against a wall. As Dante and Virgil emerged, he stepped forward and faced them.
"You're Danny Briggs, right?" he said.
"I'm Dante Alighieri."
"Well, yeah, you're him, too," agreed the man. "But it's Danny Briggs I want to speak to."
"Never heard of him," said Dante, trying to walk past the man, who took a sidestep and blocked his way again.
"That's too bad," said the man. "Because I have a business proposition for Danny Briggs."
"I know who you are," said Virgil. "Get the hell out of our way."
"Now, is that any way to talk to a businessman?" asked the man. His hand shot out and pushed Virgil backwards. The Scarlet Infidel took a heavy flop onto the street, and his hand snaked toward his pocket.
"Don't even think about it, Injun!" said the man harshly. "If you know who I am, you know I don't die as easily as those assholes you took out on New Tangier."
Virgil tensed, then looked into the man's eyes, and slowly, gradually relaxed again.
"Good thinking, Injun," said the man. "You get to live another day and deflower another corpse." He turned to Dante. "My name is Wait-a-bit Bennett. Does it mean anything to you?"
"No," said Dante.
"We have something in common, Danny. You come from the Democracy, and I work for the Democracy. On a freelance basis, anyway."
"Get to the point."
"The point is that the bank account the aircart computer okayed was in the name of Danny Briggs, not Dante Alighieri." Bennett smiled. "It seems that the Democracy has issued a 50,000- credit reward for you, dead or alive."
"Bullshit!" said Dante. "That dead or alive crap is for killers. I never killed anyone."
"Sure you did," said Bennett. "You killed Felicia Milan, alias the Duchess, back on Bailiwick."
"I didn't kill her!" snapped Dante. "The police did!"
"The Democracy says you did," replied Bennett. He smiled. "What's a poor bounty hunter to believe?"
"You're going to believe whoever's offering the money, so why are you wasting both our time talking about it?"
"I do believe you've got a firm grasp of the situation, Danny, my boy," said Bennett. "I always believe the man with the money. That could be you."
"What are you talking about?" demanded Dante.
"A business deal," said Bennett. "A transaction, so to speak." Suddenly he turned to Virgil. "Keep those hands where I can see 'em, Injun!" Then back to Dante: "Before I can get paid, I have to take your body back to the Democracy for identification, or to one of the Democracy outposts, and I think the nearest one is fifteen hundred lightyears away. That's a lot of bother."
"My heart bleeds for you," said Dante.
"It doesn't have to. Bleed, I mean."
"So what's the deal?"
"Pay me the 50,000 credits and I let you walk."
"When do you need an answer?" asked Dante.
"I'm a reasonable man," said Bennett. "If I wasn't, you'd be dead already." He looked up toward the sky. "It's getting toward noon. I'll give you until noon tomorrow. Either you hand me the money then, or I'll kill you and your pal."
"Why Virgil?"
"I don't like him very much."
"He hasn't done anything to you."
"No corpse is safe around him. That's reason enough." He turned to Virgil. "I'm going into the hotel now. I think it might be a good idea for you to stay where you are until I'm inside."
He turned and walked through the hotel's doorway and vanished into its interior.
"Wait-a-bit Bennett," said Dante, staring after him. "You never mentioned him to me."
"I didn't know he was in this part of the Frontier."
"Tell me about him."
"There's not much to tell," said Virgil, finally getting to his feet. "He's a bounty hunter. A good one. He's up around twenty kills, maybe twenty-five."
"Then let's go meet Tyrannosaur Bailey and get the hell off the planet before morning," said Dante.