Read The Return of Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future for Free Online Page A

Duchess shot back. "In the meantime, you'd better work at making the name of Danny Briggs worth something."
           He shook his head. "That's no name for a Bard."
           "Did you have one in mind?"
           "Give me a few minutes," he said, walking to a computer and activating it.
           She went to the kitchen to pour herself a beer, and she drank it before returning. When she entered the room he looked up at her, a happy smile on his face.
           "You found one," she said.
           "We may be going to worlds that seem like paradise, and we may be going to worlds that reek of hellfire. Now I'm prepared for both." He paused. "From this day forward, my name is Dante Alighieri."
     
     

     
                                       3.
     
                  They call him the Rhymer, a wordsmith by trade,
                  He can bring you to tears or use words like a blade.
                  He roams the Frontier writing down what he sees,
                  And he makes men immortal, dotting i's, crossing t's.
     
           That was the first verse Dante Alighieri ever put to paper. Internal evidence suggests he wrote it while still on Bailiwick, though of course that is impossible to prove.
           It wasn't true when he wrote it. No one had yet called him the Rhymer (or even Dante), and he had never been to the Inner Frontier. But before long the verse would gain an aura of absolute truth, and eventually it was so widely accepted that people forgot that it was merely a prediction when it first appeared.
           Finding Black Orpheus' manuscript may have given him his initial impetus to go to the Frontier, but it was the arrival of the police that gave him a more immediate reason.
           "Hey, Danny!" hissed the Duchess, staring out the kitchen window.
           "I keep telling you," he replied irritably, looking up from his coffee cup, "the name's Dante."
           "I don't care what the name is!" she snapped. "Whoever you are today, you'd better know a way out of here!"
           "What are you talking about?" asked Dante.
           "Take a look," she said. "We've got company."
           "You must be mistaken. The owners aren't due back for almost two weeks!"
           "These aren't the owners! They're the police!"
           He raced to the window and saw two policemen standing about fifty feet away, staring at the house and speaking to each other. "Shit!"
           "I thought you told me no one could see in!" said the Duchess accusingly.
           "They can't," answered Dante. "But I should have figured once Balsam knew what I'd stolen from the kennel, he'd put a lookout on every house that was boarding an animal there."
           "So they're just going to set up shop out there and watch the house?" she asked.
           "Probably," he said. "But we can't count on that. They might decide to check and see if anything's been stolen."
           "They don't seem to be moving any closer."
           "They could be waiting for orders to enter, or for a back-up team, or for some heat and motion sensors that will tell them we're here." He stepped back from the window. "We're not going to wait for that."
           "What will we do?"
           "Leave, of course."
           "You're crazy!" she said. "It's broad daylight, and neither of us is armed."
           "I don't like guns. If you carry one, sooner or later you have to use it. I'm a thief, not a killer." He paused. "By nighttime they'll definitely have the place under electronic surveillance. We're better off leaving right now."
           "You think we can just go out the door and wave to them as we walk past?" she said sardonically.
           "They're both in front," said Dante. "We'll go out the back. With a little luck and a little maneuvering, we can keep the house between us and them