by Mike Resnick
He approached to within a mile, then slowed the powersled to half speed, alert for any possible danger. Small white animals scurried to and fro, some even racing alongside the sled for a moment, but they veered off as he neared the main gate.
Finally he came to a halt in front of the Ice Palace and stepped off his sled. He looked around for guards and was mildly surprised not to find any. He walked up to the gate and tried it. It was locked, and he turned his laser pistol on it, melting both the locking mechanism and the latch itself.
He stepped cautiously inside. The walls and floor still seemed to be made of ice, but his spacesuit told him that the temperature was 23 degrees Celsius. He cautiously removed his helmet, then quickly slipped out of his suit. He touched some icicles that hung down from the ceiling; they were quartz, quite warm to the touch. Spheres of light, not quite solid, with no discernable power source, floated near the ceiling, illuminating the room.
He walked through a number of chambers, accompanied by about half the spheres, which seemed to sense his presence and anticipate his needs, racing to provide light whenever he turned his head to look in a new direction. The walls and floors glittered like polished diamonds. Some of the chambers were furnished with pieces that matched the magical decor of the palace, others were empty. Nowhere was there any sign of life. No humans, no aliens, no pets, no guard animals, nothing.
Finally he came to an exceptionally large room, perhaps sixty feet on a side. Lilting alien music came from a tiny speaker that hovered near the ceiling at the exact center of the room, and a number of the light spheres floated about it in a stately dance that had no pattern but displayed a form and grace that seemed to match the music perfectly. Lining the walls were exquisite statues of ice, or perhaps quartz that resembled ice; Nighthawk couldn't tell which they were.
As he crossed the room, a door slid into place behind him. He whirled, gun in hand, as he heard the sound, then quickly moved toward the next doorway. A glittering white door slid shut before he was halfway there.
A low chuckle told him that he wasn't alone, and he turned to find himself facing a small, lithe woman with wild dark hair and matching eyes. She was dressed in a form-fitting black outfit made of a delicate lace.
“How did you get in here?” demanded Nighthawk.
“This is my home,” she replied. “I come and go as I please.”
“You're Spanish Lace?”
“And you are Jefferson Nighthawk.”
“Who told you so?”
“I have my sources,” she replied. She stared at him. “Of all the lackeys the Marquis of Queensbury has sent, you are the youngest. You must be very skilled at your trade.”
“I'm not a lackey.”
“But you are a killer?”
“I'm many things,” he said. “That's one of the less important ones.”
She uttered a mocking laugh. He stared at her for a moment, then began examining the room, walking through it, studying the artifacts, while she stood perfectly still, watching him intently. Finally he stopped and turned back to her.
“What's so special about you?” he asked. “Why does he want you dead?”
“He wants me dead because he fears me,” said Spanish Lace.
“He doesn't strike me as a man who is afraid of anything,” replied Nighthawk.
“If he doesn't fear me, why did he send you to do his dirty work?”
“Because I'm not afraid of you either—and he's got all the money,” answered Nighthawk with a smile.
“Have you thought of how you are going to get back?”
“Same way I got here.”
“I don't think so,” she replied. “Why not go and check for yourself?”
“After you.”
She shrugged and retraced his route through the palace. Doors dilated or slid back as she approached, and in less than a minute she came to the main gate. As it slid into the wall, she stepped aside and Nighthawk saw what remained of his powersled, a crushed, twisted mass of metal.
“What the hell happened to it?” muttered Nighthawk, more to himself than to Spanish Lace.
“Poor Jefferson Nighthawk,” she said. “How are you to leave here?”
Suddenly Nighthawk was aware of the freezing cold, of the wind whipping across his face and body. He turned to Spanish Lace, who stood next to him, totally oblivious to the wind and cold. His first instinct was to stay out there and outlast her, to prove that he could stand anything she could stand, but he quickly realized that it was precisely that kind of machismo which could get him killed, for she seemed truly impervious to the elements.
He turned and walked back into the Ice Palace. Spanish Lace fell into step behind him.
“You asked a question a few moments ago,” she said when they had reached the chamber they had left.
“I did?”
“I think your precise words were: ‘What the hell happened to it?'” She smiled. “I happened to it.”
“You were with me.”
“I know.”
“You did it before you came into this room?”
“I did it while I was in this room,” she replied.
“How?”
“I promise you that you will discover that before this day is over, Jefferson Nighthawk.” She sat down in a chair that looked like sculpted ice. “Have you decided how you will kill me yet? Will it be death by heat or death by sound? Will I die before a weapon, or beneath your fists? Will my end be swift or slow?”
“I haven't said I would kill you at all,” replied Nighthawk. “I only said that I was sent to kill you.”
“Ah,” she said, smiling again. “You await a counter offer.”
“Not necessarily.”
She looked puzzled. “Then what?”
“Let's just talk for awhile.”
“Why?”
“Have you got anything better to do?” asked Nighthawk.
She stared at him for a long moment. “What kind of killer are you?”
“A reluctant one. Why does he want you dead?”
“I am a rival, and he is very territorial. What better reason is there?”
“Offhand, I can think of hundreds,” said Nighthawk. “Why is life held so cheaply on the Frontier?”
“Probably because it is the Frontier. Life is never very expensive on the furthest borders of civilization.”
“You people have pasts and futures. Don't you want to hang on to them?”
“You have a past and a future too,” she pointed out. “Why should anyone else's attitude puzzle you?”
He shook his head. “I have no past, and my future is, at best, uncertain.”
“How can you have no past?” she demanded.
He merely stared at her.
Suddenly her dark eyes widened. “Of course! You're a clone!”
He nodded an affirmative.
“Remarkable! I've never seen one before.” She got to her feet and approached him. “And that explains why you are so young.” She reached out a hand. “May I touch you?”
He shrugged and made no reply as she ran her fingers over his face and neck.
“Remarkable!” she said again. “You feel human.”
“I am human.”
“I mean that there is nothing artificial about you.”
“That goes with being human.”
She stared at him, obviously fascinated. “And who were you, Jefferson Nighthawk? A mass murderer? A decorated soldier? A celebrated lawman?”
“I am ... I was ... the Widowmaker.”
“Ah! A bounty hunter!”
“And a lawman.”
“Perhaps, but that is not why we all remember you.” She returned to her chair. “So I am to be killed by the Widowmaker!”
“I told you, I just want to talk.”
She closed her eyes and nodded her head. “Of course you do. Poor little clone, with all the Widowmaker's skills and none of his experiences. He chose to become a killer, was probably driven to it, doubtless reveled in it. But you
were created to become one, ordered to be one. No one ever asked you if you wanted to kill, did they? No one ever thought you might have other goals and desires.”
Nighthawk exhaled deeply. “You understand.”
“Certainly I do. Even among the outcasts and misfits who inhabit the Frontier, you are different, as I am. You were given certain physical attributes that you did not ask for, as was I. You find yourself an outsider in a galaxy of outsiders, as do I. How could I not understand?”
“What do you mean?” asked Nighthawk. “You look normal to me.”
“Never trust the eye, which sees only the facade and never the truth,” she replied. “You appear perfectly normal to me, too—and yet you are the Widowmaker, and how many men did he kill? Two hundred? Three hundred?”
“A lot.”
“But less than me,” she said proudly.
He frowned. “You've killed three hundred men?”
“More. And before this day is over, I will add to that total.”
“We have nothing to fight about,” said Nighthawk. “As you pointed out, we're two of a kind.”
“What I didn't point out is that I'm as territorial as the Marquis, and you have invaded my home.”
“I'll tell him I couldn't find you.”
“Poor clone,” she said with mock sympathy. “You may need a friend and confidant, but I do not. My life was not forced upon me; I have chosen to be an outlaw and a killer. You will not leave here alive.”
“This is stupid!” he protested. “I'm offering you your life! I could kill you in two seconds if I wanted to!”
“Try,” she said, amused.
“Don't push me!”
“Push you?” she repeated with a laugh. “I challenge you, Widowmaker!”
“I don't want to kill you.”
“But I want to kill you.”
“You're not carrying any weapons. This is murder.”
“Do you really think the Marquis would want me dead if I were harmless?” responded Spanish Lace. “I don't carry my weapons like you lesser beings. I am a weapon.”
Nighthawk faced her and reached for his laser pistol. It leaped out of his holster before he could touch it and hovered, tantalizingly, about four feet away from him.
“What the hell?” he exclaimed.
“What is the loss one weapon to a man like you?” she said, still amused. “Try another.”
He reached for his sonic pistol. He closed his fingers on the handle and pulled. Nothing happened. He tightened his grip and yanked. And found that he couldn't budge it so much as a millimeter.
“Now do you know what happened to your powersled?” she asked.
“You're telekinetic?”
She nodded. “I have always had the ability to move material objects with the power of my mind alone. In fact, I think I was seven or eight years old before I realized that no one else could do it.” She held out her hands to grab his weapons as each in turn left him and flew across the room into her grasp. “How do you feel now about killing a poor, helpless woman?”
“A lot better,” he said, reaching into a boot, removing a knife, and hurling it at her, all in one fluid motion. It flew straight and true toward her heart, and then froze in space about six inches from its target.
“Fool!” she said, allowing a contemptuous sneer to replace the look of amusement on her angular face. “Don't you realize that you are completely helpless?” Nighthawk heard a sound above him and dove to one side just before a section of the ceiling crashed down where he had been standing. “Can you fight the Ice Palace itself?”
He began approaching her cautiously. Just as he was tensing his muscles for the final charge, a small chair flew into his back, sending him sprawling on the glittering floor.
He was on his feet in an instant, and managed to duck another chair that came at him out of nowhere.
“Very good, Widowmaker,” she said. “You inherited good instincts—if ‘inherit’ is the proper word, and I suspect it isn't. I shall almost be sorry to dispose of you.”
He stared at her, reluctant to approach, unwilling to retreat.
“Now, how shall I kill you?” she continued. “It might be amusing to use your own weapons.”
Suddenly his three pistols—laser, sonic, projectile—formed a line just to her left, five feet above the ground, and spun until they were aimed directly at him.
He dove behind the couch to get out of the line of fire. An instant later the couch moved rapidly to his left, and he scrambled on hands and knees to remain behind it as her laughter reverberated through the large chamber. He saw a doorway some fifteen feet away and dove for it. Weaponfire followed him, but he made it intact and raced through another doorway.
He moved quickly from room to room, aware of the danger behind him, unwilling to plunge blindly into potentially greater dangers ahead of him. Once he was too slow, and a beam of solid light singed his ear.
And then he came to a room from which there was no exit. It contained a huge circular bed that spun slowly a few inches above the floor, a pair of glittering silver chests, a large mirror, and a holograph of Spanish Lace herself. A small circular computer hovered near the bed. Dominating the room were some fifty clocks of all types and makes, from an ancient grandfather clock to a complex mechanism giving digital readouts in 36 different languages to a rotating holographic representation of Yukon divided into time zones. Nighthawk pulled his tiny circular camera out and tossed it onto the bed; if he was going to die, Malloy might as well see how it happened so the next man the Marquis sent would be better prepared.
“Ah, here you are!” said a voice from the doorway. He spun around and found himself facing Spanish Lace, with his weapons still floating in the air just next to her. “You led me quite a chase, Jefferson Nighthawk, but now it's over.”
Nighthawk's gaze darted around the room, trying to find something, anything, he could use to his advantage.
He survived a hundred or more battles. Some of them had to be against aliens or mutants with even greater powers than she possesses. Think! What would he have done?
“These are my prizes,” she said, gesturing to the clocks. “My booty. All else I sell or trade, but the clocks I keep, to tick off the minutes and hours of my life, until I am no longer in bondage to this unwanted body.” Her face suddenly became a mask of fury. “And you dare to stand among them and insult me?”
A shot rang out and a bullet ripped into the wall behind him, spraying his face with dust. He dove behind the nearest chest for cover. Two small alien statues stood atop it. He grabbed one of them, hurled it at her, picked up the second as the first bounced off an invisible barrier a foot from her head, and hurled it more carefully. She grinned as it whizzed harmlessly by her, but it hit what Nighthawk was aiming at, shattering the sonic pistol and careening off the projectile gun.
“You think I need weapons?” she said harshly, as a portion of the ceiling came loose and fell on top of him. He was up again in an instant, positioning himself directly in front of the mirror. When he sensed the laser pistol was about to fire, he fell to the floor, and the beam bounced off the mirror. The angle brought it within inches of Spanish Lace. She ducked instinctively, then grabbed the laser pistol and hurled it through the doorway into a corridor.
You ducked! You weren't expecting the beam to bounce back at you, and you had to duck. That means it takes you a fraction of a second to erect those invisible walls and shields. Now, if I can just find a way to use that...
“On your feet, Jefferson Nighthawk.”
He saw no reason to keep hiding, so he stood up and faced her. “What now?”
“Now we end it,” she said.
And suddenly the furniture, the walls, the ceiling, everything began closing in on him. Vases flew at his head, lamps at his chest, the floor began swaying beneath his feet. He struggled futilely to keep his balance, fell heavily to the floor, got up again, and backed away from her until he was pressed up against the ancient grandfather clock, clinging
to it desperately.
Another section of the ceiling came away, burying him. He moaned once, then lay absolutely motionless in the rubble.
Spanish Lace approached him cautiously, poking his spine to see if there was a reaction. There wasn't. She knelt down next to him, still half-expecting him to jump at her, but he was motionless.
“All right, clone,” she murmured, turning him onto his back and feeling for his identity disk. “Let's see if you're who you said you were.”
She deftly removed the disk, and as she was studying it his hand suddenly rose and came down on the back of her neck—burying the grandfather clock's minute hand into the base of her brain. She fell across him without a sound, dead.
Nighthawk shoved her body off his and stood up. He reached out a foot and turned her over. Her face was serene in death, as if an overwhelming burden had somehow been lifted.
You were as much of a freak as me. You could have been my friend. Why did you make me kill you?
He shook his head, as if to physically rid it of that train of thought. It didn't help.
The Widowmaker must have had brothers. Maybe cousins. Maybe even a son or two no one knows about. There could be twenty or thirty men carrying his blood. None of them are doomed to spend their lives killing everyone they meet. Why me?
But of course, they were carrying some of the Widowmaker's blood. He was carrying all of it, because he was the Widowmaker. Not a brother. Not a son. Not Version 2.0. But the Widowmaker. And what the Widowmaker did was kill people. Even people who might have been his friends.
Suddenly he found that he was shivering, and he realized that what had kept the interior of the Ice Palace warm was not a furnace or any heating plant, but Spanish Lace, who had used a tiny portion of her abilities to keep the molecules of air in constant motion, spinning them fast enough to make the temperature habitable.
He began searching the room. The chests contained only clothes, but behind the mirror he found a small safe embedded in a quartz wall. He couldn't open it, so he cut it out with his laser pistol, tucked it under his arm, and was about to return to his ship when something caught his eye.