The Widowmaker Reborn: Volume 2 of the Widowmaker Trilogy

by Mike Resnick

  “Now I see.” She paused. “But if he's armed, how can you be sure Friday will be able to kill him? If there's any kind of commotion his friends might hear it.”

  “You'll have the advantage. You'll know he's there before he knows you are.”

  “I'm no killer. My question remains.”

  “When I hired you, you were in the business of making men think only about you. If need be, I'm sure you can do it long enough for Friday to sneak up and bludgeon him.” Suddenly he smiled. “Trust me, if the first thing a man sees is you, he won't immediately start looking for an alien explosives expert.”

  “Just how many explosives is Friday going to plant?”

  “As many as necessary.”

  “And how many men will we be responsible for killing?” she continued.

  “Less than you think.”

  “What if I say no?” asked Melisande.

  Nighthawk sighed. “Are you saying no?”

  “I'm considering it.”

  “Then you'll book passage back to Barrios II and that'll be the end of it.”

  “No repercussions, no threats at gunpoint from the Widowmaker?”

  He shook his head. “This isn't what I hired you for. The rules of the game have changed, and so have the players. If you want to leave, I'll pay you what I owe you and see you safely to the spaceport.”

  She stared at him for a long moment. “You're telling the truth.”

  “Of course I'm telling the truth,” said Nighthawk. “I know better than to lie to a Balatai woman.”

  “Everyone else knows you as a killer called the Widowmaker,” said Melisande. “I know you as a man named Jefferson Nighthawk who has never lied to me. So I want to ask Jefferson Nighthawk one last question.”

  “Ask away.”

  “Is Cassius Hill really such a terrible man that you're willing to betray your creators, pervert your mission, and possibly sacrifice your life, just to bring him down?”

  He looked into her eyes. “He is.”

  “And your feelings for Cassandra Hill haven't influenced you?”

  “Possibly they have,” he replied. “But not as much as meeting him did.”

  “All right, Jefferson Nighthawk,” she said after a long pause, as she analyzed his emotions and found him to be telling the truth, at least as he knew it. “I'll do what you ask. And God have mercy on both our souls, as He'll be receiving them soon enough.”

  27.

  Nighthawk stood at the bar of the Blue Dragon, waiting for Blue Eyes to bring him a drink.

  “Are we ever leaving Sylene again?” asked the dragon as he approached Nighthawk, carrying a blue concoction in a uniquely-shaped glass.

  “You worked here for years. What's your hurry?”

  “I know what's at the other end of the rainbow.”

  “It hasn't rained on Sylene for close to a century. All the water's underground. You wouldn't know a rainbow if it spit in your eye.”

  “It's an expression I picked up.”

  “Well, in answer to your question, what's at the other end of this particular rainbow is a lot of bloodshed, probably including yours. So I repeat: what's the rush?”

  “For the first time I think we can take that bastard,” answered Blue Eyes. “I'm anxious to do it.”

  “There's a handful of us and millions of them,” noted Nighthawk.

  “But you're the Widowmaker. You'll find a way. Besides...”

  “Yes?”

  “You wouldn't go there if you thought you wouldn't come out alive,” said the dragon. “I've been watching you for weeks. You're the most cautious man I ever met.” He paused. “Seems a strange characteristic in a man who was known all over the Frontier as a killer.”

  “I was a lawman, not an assassin,” replied Nighthawk.

  “Same thing. You killed people.”

  “I killed killers. It's not the same thing at all, though you'd never know it from a couple of biographies of the Widowmaker that I read in Cassandra's apartment.”

  “Six of one, half a dozen of the other,” said Blue Eyes with a shrug. “The main thing is, I figure the closer to you I stay, the more likely I am to come out of this with my beautiful skin unblemished.”

  “You're not standing anywhere near me,” said Nighthawk.

  “Why not?”

  “First, because you're mistaken about standing next to me being the safest place, and second, because I don't trust you.”

  “You've spent all this time with me and you don't trust me?” bellowed Blue Eyes. “Have I ever lied to you? Betrayed you? Tried to do you any harm?”

  “Not to my knowledge.”

  “Well, then?”

  “You're an alien, and—”

  “So now you hate aliens, do you?” demanded the dragon.

  “Let me finish,” said Nighthawk calmly. “You're an alien, and Melisande can't read your emotions. That means until we're in a life-threatening situation, I can't be one hundred percent sure where you really stand, and that's too late.”

  “What about Friday? He's an alien too.”

  “She can read him.”

  “And what about Melisande herself?” continued Blue Eyes. “She's no more human than I am. She can read your emotions, but you can't read hers. How do you know she isn't manipulating you for her own ends? Why do you trust her, and not me—because she's got pink skin and I've got blue scales? She's a Balatai woman!”

  “You say it like it's a separate species,” replied Nighthawk. “Balatai is just a colony world. It was cut off from the Oligarchy, and before that the Democracy, for maybe fifteen or twenty generations, and when we finally made contact again, they mutated and became empaths. But that doesn't mean they aren't human. They're human with an extra ability, that's all.”

  “And you trust any human over any alien, right?” persisted Blue Eyes.

  “I'm a creature of my times,” answered Nighthawk. “Humans don't betray their own. They did once, and I'm sure they will again, but not when we're outnumbered hundreds to one in the galaxy and trying to maintain our primacy.”

  “If they don't betray their own, why are we trying to overthrow Cassius Hill?”

  “There's a difference between a crooked politician robbing his constituency, and that same man selling them out to some alien race. Cassius Hill's as poor an excuse for a man and a governor as you'll ever find, but even he wouldn't sell his people out to an alien power.”

  “I thought we were friends,” said Blue Eyes.

  “We are. I just define it differently.”

  “You're as bad as the rest of them,” muttered the dragon. “Just the thought of touching one of us must make your skin crawl.”

  Nighthawk stared at him for a long moment. Finally he noticed the drink Blue Eyes had brought, took a swallow, and replaced it on the bar. “The closest friend I ever had was an alien.”

  “Sure.”

  “It's the truth. He was a Silverhorn.”

  “A Silverhorn? What's that?”

  “A native of Bonara II. Mildly humanoid, covered with white fleece, and sporting a big silver horn on the top of his head. We were partners for three years.”

  “Let me guess,” said Blue Eyes sardonically. “He took a laser blast or a bullet meant for you.”

  “No, it was meant for him; we had enough enemies to go around. But he would have taken one meant for me if he could have, and I'd have done the same.”

  “Then why can't you afford me the same trust?”

  “He earned it; you haven't.” Nighthawk paused. “You'll get your chance.”

  “So we come back to my initial question: when are we leaving Sylene.”

  “Soon.”

  “How soon?”

  “I'll let you know.”

  “You know already, don't you?” said Blue Eyes. “And you don't want to tell me.”

  “That's right.”

  “Have you told anyone?”

  “No.”

  “Not even Cassandra?”

  “N
o.”

  “Well, I suppose I can take some small comfort from the fact that you don't even trust the woman you're sleeping with.”

  “You take comfort from strange things,” remarked Nighthawk.

  “I don't suppose you're willing to tell me who else is coming with us—I mean, besides our original team and Cassandra?”

  “I don't know yet.”

  “When will you know?”

  “Soon.”

  “How will you choose them?”

  “There are ways,” answered Nighthawk.

  28.

  Nighthawk leaned up against a purple-boled tree in the small yard behind the Blue Dragon. He didn't have long to wait. A very young man, dressed in colorful silks and satins, and wearing shoes made from the sleek glistening skin of some alien reptile, approached him.

  “I heard you were looking for men,” announced the young man, throwing his coat open to reveal a truly stunning arsenal of weapons.

  “That's right,” said Nighthawk.

  “You won't find anyone faster,” said the young man confidently.

  “If you say so,” replied Nighthawk with a shrug. “Have you got a name?”

  “Johnny Colt.”

  “That's a little old-fashioned, isn't it? Why not Johnny Laser?”

  The young man's poise vanished momentarily. “There are already two Johnny Lasers on the Frontier, and there's a Johnny Blood out on the Rim,” he replied unhappily. He pulled a pistol out of his belt and offered it, butt first, to Nighthawk. “But this is a genuine Colt, from the days when we were still Earthbound. Take a look at it. It's a museum piece. You wouldn't believe what it's worth on the market today.”

  Nighthawk didn't reach for the pistol. “I'm not a connoisseur.”

  “I thought you were the Widowmaker.”

  “I am,” replied Nighthawk. “And take the Widowmaker's word for it: a hell of a lot more men are killed with weapons costing less than one hundred credits than with weapons costing over a thousand.”

  Johnny Colt returned the gun to its holster, looking somewhat perplexed.

  “Well, am I in or out?” he asked.

  “I plan to find out,” said Nighthawk. He picked up three stones from the ground, walked to a fence some ten yards away, and lined them up at two-foot intervals. “Let's see what you can do with them.”

  “That's no challenge,” said Johnny Colt contemptuously. “Let me stand a couple of hundred yards away.”

  “Forget it,” said Nighthawk. “You hit anything with a pistol from two hundred yards and it's dumb luck. I don't want anyone shooting until they're as close to the enemy as you are to those rocks.”

  “Whatever you say.” Johnny Colt faced the rocks, his fingers just above his pistol.

  “Hold on,” said Nighthawk.

  “What now?”

  “We're not having a fast-draw contest, and I'm not giving points for speed or form. I want your weapon to be in your hand before you confront the enemy.” Nighthawk paused. “And one other thing.”

  “What?”

  “Use your laser pistol.”

  “But my Colt is my trademark.”

  “It's a trademark that'll wake everyone for five miles in each direction,” said Nighthawk. “This is supposed to be a covert operation.”

  Johnny Colt pulled out his laser pistol, held it steady with both hands, took aim at the three stones, and fired three short blasts. The first and third missed their targets; the second hit the middle stone.

  “Kid, you're pissing away your advantage,” commented Nighthawk.

  “I don't know what you're talking about.”

  “One of the nice things about laser pistols, aside from the fact that they don't make a bang, is that you don't have to be all that accurate. You're shooting it just as if you were shooting bullets. Try keeping your finger on the trigger and spraying the target area.”

  Johnny Colt tried again, and this time he melted the other two stones.

  “Not very sporting, is it?” said Nighthawk wryly.

  “Not at all.”

  “Then it's lucky for you we're not going to a sporting contest, isn't it?”

  Johnny Colt just grinned.

  “Do you think you can remember to do that when people are shooting at you?” asked Nighthawk.

  “Sure,” said the young man. “Will I get a chance at Cassius Hill?”

  “Probably not.”

  “You're saving him for yourself?”

  “He's not a trophy; he's a target. I don't care who kills him, as long as he's dead.”

  “Then why not me?”

  “Because if you're close enough to kill him, it means you've disobeyed my orders.”

  “I just want to leave my mark,” explained Johnny Colt. “People will be talking about this for years. I want them to know I was there.”

  “We're not out for glory and we're not out for fame,” said Nighthawk. “If we do our jobs right, no one will ever know we were responsible. If you can't live with that, then you're going to have to stay behind.

  Johnny Colt frowned, then shrugged. “Whatever you say. Am I in or out?”

  “I'll get back to you.”

  Johnny Colt wandered off, and Ito Kinoshita walked out into the yard.

  “Very young and very eager.”

  “So were most of the men in most of the graveyards on the Frontier,” replied Nighthawk dryly.

  “Are you going to take him along?”

  “I don't think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “He's in love with that gun of his, and it'll alert every soldier in the area the first time he fires it.”

  “So tell him not to use it.”

  “It's his trademark,” said Nighthawk sarcastically. “Imagine a seventeen-year-old kid having a trademark.”

  “Didn't you?”

  “I still don't. It makes you too easy to identify.”

  “You don't think he's killed anyone, do you?” asked Kinoshita.

  “Maybe a couple of old men who were looking the other way. But this kid never faced anyone who wasn't afraid to look into his eyes.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Instinct. Experience. Gut feeling.”

  “What if you're wrong?”

  “Then he'll live to fight another day, and maybe write a folk song or two about how we died on Pericles V.”

  “You think we might die?”

  “If everyone does their job, we might get in and out before they know what's happened,” answered Nighthawk. “But there are an awful lot of them and just a handful of us. Getting killed is certainly a possibility.”

  “Then why risk it?”

  “I've told you why: for the Nighthawk who's frozen beneath Deluros VIII.”

  “I know you can't turn Cassandra over to her father,” said Kinoshita, “but can't you bring in some killers with prices on their heads? I mean, there must be some other way to raise the money.”

  “I don't know how quickly he'll need it,” said Nighthawk. “I can't risk being late with it and having him thrown out onto the street.” He paused. “So I'll plan as carefully as I can, and try to cover all the possibilities, and hope that someone in our little group was born lucky.”

  “You're about as lucky as anyone I know,” offered Kinoshita. “Look how long you survived in such a dangerous profession.”

  “I'm good, not lucky.”

  “What's the difference?”

  “Lucky people aren't walking around with eplasia,” replied Nighthawk with an ironic smile.

  “Point taken,” admitted Kinoshita. He looked off and saw a slender woman approaching them. “I think you've got another volunteer.”

  The woman walked up to Nighthawk, totally ignoring Kinoshita. “They say you're looking for volunteers.”

  “That's right.”

  “Here I am.”

  “Name?”

  “Pallas Athene.”

  “Strange name.”

  “It's for the Greek goddess,” she r
eplied. “People take any name they want out here. That's the one I wanted.”

  “Whatever makes you happy.”

  “Killing Cassius Hill will make me happy.”

  “Have you got a personal grudge, or are you just interested in making the Frontier a better place?”

  “Do I ask you your motives?” she demanded. Before he could answer her, she whipped a knife out of her belt and hurled it at a low-flying avian. It caught the creature in the neck, killing it instantly. “That's all you have to know about me.”

  “That's enough to know,” admitted Nighthawk. “You're in. I'll be in touch.”

  “Do you know where to find me?”

  “You found me. I'll find you.”

  She walked away without another word.

  “Give me two dozen like her and we just might pull this off,” said Nighthawk.

  “Take two thousand like her and you might conquer the whole goddamned Oligarchy,” agreed Kinoshita.

  “It's a thought.”

  “So, how soon are we ready?”

  “I just told you: when I find two dozen more like her.”

  “That could take months.”

  “Or hours,” said Nighthawk. “Or weeks. They'll show up when they show up. We're not offering any financial inducements, and besides, everyone I would offer it to has been dead for the better part of a century.”

  “Nicholas Jory was asking me why you haven't recruited him,” said Kinoshita.

  “I don't want him.”

  “He was willing to die to protect Cassandra's identity,” noted Kinoshita.

  “That's one of the reasons I don't want him,” answered Nighthawk.

  “I don't understand.”

  “It's undoubtedly noble that he was willing to die for her,” said Nighthawk, “but I'd rather he'd tried to find some way to kill me instead. I don't want people who are willing to die. I want men and women who want to live, people like Pallas Athene who probably can't even conceive of their own deaths. Don't give me any noble sacrifices, just people who have every intention of returning to Sylene in one piece.”

  “It's an attitude that makes sense in you,” said Kinoshita. “After all, you're the Widowmaker. But if they hold it, they're out of touch with reality.”