by Mike Resnick
“Mind if I join you?” asked Father Christmas, emerging from his cabin and walking down the corridor toward the galley and the control cabin.
“Why not?” said Nighthawk without enthusiasm. “You heard it all?”
“Yep. Hard to keep secrets on a ship. Especially one as small as this.” He paused. “Sounded like a soap opera. Makes for an entertaining trip.”
“So how do I make the Roller like him?”
“You don't,” said the older man. “They choose one person, and when all is said and done they're a lot more loyal than any man or woman I've ever met.”
“You're not much help, are you?” said Nighthawk bitterly.
“I would be, if you'd ever listen to me.”
“You don't say anything I care to hear.”
“Nobody ever really wants the truth,” agreed Father Christmas.
“Let it be.”
Father Christmas shrugged. “Whatever you say.” He glanced at the viewscreen. “Malloy still tracking us?”
“Yeah. I tried to raise him, but he's not answering his calls today.”
“Assuming the Marquis was telling the truth—always a dangerous assumption—I wonder who the hell Malloy is working for?”
“I don't know.”
“Why don't you think about it for a minute?” said Father Christmas.
“I'm thinking,” said Nighthawk. “Nothing's coming.”
“You know, the guys who built you could have spent two less school days on killing people and two more on spotting subterfuges.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Use your brain, son,” said Father Christmas. “What is Malloy doing?”
“Tracking the ship.”
“Why?”
“I don't know,” said Nighthawk, feeling just like a frustrated schoolboy.
“What do you know?”
Nighthawk frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Let's assume for a moment that the Marquis is telling the truth, that he has nothing to do with Malloy or the ship. What does that tell you?”
Nighthawk looked blank.
“Look,” said Father Christmas patiently, “if he's not here for the Marquis, and he's not here for you, and he's not here for me, who the hell else is there?”
Nighthawk's eyes widened. "Melisande?"
“Right.”
“But why?”
“Beats me,” admitted the older man. “But I'd say she's probably a little more than she seems to be.”
Nighthawk said nothing, but sat motionless, petting the Holy Roller absently, lost in thought. Finally he looked up, cleared his throat, and spoke.
“Maybe his employer wants to know where the Marquis is and what he's doing.”
“Would you send someone like Malloy up against the Marquis of Queensbury?” retorted Father Christmas. “If it was up to me, I'd hire someone who could handle himself when the going got rough—someone like you.”
“Then why is he following us?”
“I've got a notion or two, but let's wait a little longer and see what happens.”
“How much longer?”
Father Christmas shrugged. “We'll know before we get to Deluros.” He pulled out a deck of alien cards. “Care for a quick game of jabob?”
Nighthawk shook his head. “They never taught me the rules.”
“The rules are easy,” said the older man with a smile. “The odds are impossible.”
“Then why do so many humans play it?”
“Because the rules are simple,” answered Father Christmas. “So they figure they ought to be able to beat it.” He paused. “Most men don't suffer from an abundance of intelligence—or hadn't you noticed?”
“I've noticed,” said Nighthawk.
The two of them sat silently for a few minutes, the older man shuffling and reshuffling his cards. Then the Marquis emerged from his cabin once again.
“Still here, I see,” he said.
“See what I mean?” whispered Father Christmas. Then to the Marquis he said, “We're traveling at 64 times the speed of light in a 3-man ship. Just where the hell did you think I'd be?”
The Marquis shrugged. “Sleeping. Eating. Pissing. How should I know?”
Father Christmas laughed aloud. “You'd better work on your muscles, son,” he said to Nighthawk. “It's a cinch she's not hanging around with him because of his brainpower.”
“Watch your mouth, old man,” said the Marquis ominously. “I want part of your haul. I don't need it. Never forget that.”
“My sincere and most humble apologies,” said Father Christmas, bowing low from his seated position and somehow losing his smile before he straightened up again.
The Marquis glared at him silently for a long moment, muttered “Old fool!", then ordered a drink from the galley.
“Well, Nighthawk,” he said at last, “are you still looking forward to killing the Widowmaker?”
“That's why I'm here,” answered Nighthawk.
“It must feel a little like killing your father.”
“Not really.”
“Ah, I forgot,” said the Marquis. “You don't have a father, do you?”
“Well, if I do, he's been dead a couple of centuries,” said Nighthawk.
“Then maybe it's really more like killing your brother,” suggested the Marquis. “Perhaps you are Cain to the Widowmaker's Abel.”
“If you say so.”
“I don't say anything. I'm just trying to understand what it feels like, as one killer to another.”
“I'll tell you after I've done it,” said Nighthawk. He sighed deeply. “I rather suspect it'll feel like laying a bad memory to rest.”
“I thought you'd never seen him,” said the Marquis. “How can you remember him?”
“Maybe I expressed myself poorly,” replied Nighthawk. “He's the ideal to which I have always been compared. His accomplishments created the hopes and expectations that I've been measured against.” He paused thoughtfully. “Most young men simply have to forget the role models that have been chosen for them. Me, I get to eliminate mine permanently. I find that a very satisfying notion.”
“If he's half of what they say he was, you might not be able to kill him.”
“He's a diseased, disfigured old man who can't move or breathe without help,” said Nighthawk. “Besides, I have no intention of waking him up. This is an exorcism, not a contest.”
“An exorcism,” repeated the Marquis with a smile. “I like that.”
“I'll like it when I've finished it.”
Melisande stepped through the cabin door then, sauntered into the galley, and paused to run her hands through the Marquis’ tousled hair.
“I want a drink,” she announced.
“Order it yourself.”
“I don't like this galley,” she complained. “It doesn't mix them right.”
“What the hell do you want me to do about it?” asked the Marquis.
She nodded toward Nighthawk. “Make him mix me a drink.”
“I don't mix drinks,” said Nighthawk.
“Just a minute,” said the Marquis, turning to face Nighthawk. “It's okay for me to tell her you don't make drinks. It's not okay for you to.”
“Why not?” said Nighthawk. “Has she suddenly become my commanding officer?”
“No,” replied the Marquis. “But I give the orders around here, so when I'm around you don't refuse any request until you find out what I want you to do about it.”
“Some chain of command,” said Father Christmas with a contemptuous snort.
“You stay out of this, old man,” snapped the Marquis. He turned to Nighthawk again. “Fix her a drink.”
“I don't do coolie labor,” said Nighthawk. “Let her fix her own.”
“I'm ordering you to.”
“I kill very dangerous people for you,” said Nighthawk. “That's my job, and I'm goddamned good at it. It's not my job to mix Melisande's drinks just so you can prove to her that you can give me orde
rs. Everything that makes you look good in her eyes makes me look like shit. If you want a drink mixed, mix it yourself.”
The Marquis got to his feet. His left arm moved out slowly, sweeping Melisande behind him.
“I'm ordering you one more time. Mix her drink.”
“Go fuck yourself,” said Nighthawk, still sitting comfortably on his chair.
“I'm not going to ask you again,” said the Marquis ominously.
“You didn't ask me a first time,” said Nighthawk. “Besides, what are you going to do? Fire me and make me walk home?”
“That's not a bad idea.”
“Of course it's not,” said Nighthawk. “You didn't think of it.”
“You guys don't want to fight in here,” said Father Christmas suddenly. “A stray shot could go right through the bulkhead and kill us all.”
“Then it's damned lucky for you I never miss, isn't it?” said the Marquis.
Suddenly the Holy Roller, distressed by the tension in the room, became rigid and started humming.
“Turn that damned thing off or I'll kill it,” warned the Marquis.
“I wouldn't even if I knew how,” said Nighthawk, finally getting to his feet. “Which of us are you going to shoot first, and what do you think the other's going to be doing in the meantime?”
“I beat you before and I can beat you again!” snapped the Marquis.
He pulled out his laser pistol and fired it—and a beam of solid light almost split the Roller in half. It screeched once, burst into flames, and died. But as it did so, Nighthawk had his own gun in his hand and fired one shot. The bullet lodged between the Marquis’ eyes, and he plunged, face forward, to the floor.
Father Christmas knelt down next to the Marquis and rolled him over, examining the wound.
“Goddamned lucky the bullet didn't ricochet off and go through the bulkhead,” he said. “Either of you idiots could have killed us all with one bad shot.”
“What did you want me to do—arm-wrestle him?” said Nighthawk.
“No,” said Father Christmas with a deep sigh. “But you might have mixed the lady's drink. He had information you needed, remember?”
“Fuck it,” said Nighthawk. “I needed that information so I could deliver an assassin and collect enough money to keep the Widowmaker alive until they came up with a cure for what ails him.” He paused. “Well, what's about to ail him is me, and there's no cure for what I plan to do. That makes the Marquis’ information kind of meaningless, doesn't it?”
“What about her?” asked the older man.
“She's mine now,” said Nighthawk, turning to face Melisande. What he found himself facing was the business end of one of the Marquis’ sonic pistols.
“I'll decide who I belong to,” she said coldly. “If you take one single step toward me, you'll be dead on the floor right next to him.” She looked him square in the eye. “I mean it.”
Nighthawk gently holstered his pistol and sat back down on his chair.
“I hate to say ‘I told you so,'” said Father Christmas with an ironic smile, “but...”
20.
“Well,” said Father Christmas, breaking a long, tense silence, “we've got some decisions to make.”
“I've made mine,” said Melisande.
“You don't have the slightest idea of what I'm talking about,” said Father Christmas, making no attempt to keep the contempt out of his voice. “Now put that gun away. I guarantee that Nighthawk's not about to pounce on you while I'm here and there's still a dead body on the floor.”
She stared at Nighthawk for a long moment, then placed the pistol down on the galley table.
“All right,” continued Father Christmas. “First thing we have to do is...
“First thing we have to do,” interrupted Nighthawk, “is jettison what's left of the Roller.”
“Forget it,” said the older man. “We've more important things to consider.”
“How can you stand the smell?”
Father Christmas inhaled deeply, made a face, and nodded his consent. Nighthawk picked up the little Roller's charred corpse, carried it past the galley while Melisande and Father Christmas tried not to retch, and jettisoned it into space. On the way back he activated a small servo-mech that cleaned up the spot where the Roller had bled, and then had it deodorized.
“Better,” agreed Father Christmas when Nighthawk returned to his chair.
“All right,” said Nighthawk. “Now what decisions do you think we have to make?”
“Well, the first one's already out of our hands,” said the older man. “All we have to do is acknowledge it.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We're going to have to alter course,” said Father Christmas. “We can't go to Deluros.”
“Why?” demanded Nighthawk.
“Because Deluros has the best security in the galaxy.” Father Christmas paused. “In fact, we'd better get the hell out of Oligarchic territory while we have the chance.”
“Why should you give a damn about Deluros’ security now?” said Nighthawk. “It didn't bother you when we were planning this job.”
“We didn't have a dead body in the ship when we were planning this job,” answered Father Christmas. “There's no way you can hide that from Deluros security.”
“Then we'll just jettison it, the way I did with the Roller,” said Nighthawk.
Father Christmas turned to Melisande. “Do you want to tell him, or should I?”
“Tell him what?” she asked, honestly confused.
“Jesus!” muttered Father Christmas. “I wonder if either of you have enough brains to write your name in the dirt with a stick!”
“Get to the point,” said Nighthawk irritably.
The older man turned to face him. “You can't jettison the Marquis’ body because a slimy little bastard called Lizard Malloy is still tracking us, and the second you dump it into space he's going to pick it up, and either blackmail us if we to return to Yukon or Tundra, or turn us in for the reward if we stay in the Oligarchy.”
“Malloy,” repeated Nighthawk. “Shit! I'd forgotten all about him.”
“Well, it's a goddamned good thing that I don't forget the scum that's following me across the galaxy.”
“All right,” said Nighthawk, trying to control his temper. “We can't go to Deluros until we get rid of the body, and we can't jettison the body while Malloy's tracking us. That seems to leave us two choices: we land on a planet long enough to dump the body, or we go back to the Frontier with it.”
“You've only got one choice, son,” said Father Christmas. “You've got to go to the Frontier and lose the body there.”
“But there are hundreds of thousands of planets right here,” protested Nighthawk.
“You might park the ship in an orbiting hangar, or dock it at a space station, without getting searched,” said the older man, “but I guarantee that you'll be thoroughly scanned if you try to put down on a planet, and there's no way to hide the body from the kind of scanning they'll do. And if you can't jettison it with Malloy around, I guarantee you can't jettison it at an orbiting hangar or a space station.”
“But I've got business on Deluros!” insisted Nighthawk.
“That's the seat of human government,” said Father Christmas. “They're more sensitive about security there than anywhere else in the Oligarchy. They'll scan you ten times between the moment you enter the system and the moment you park in orbit around Deluros VIII. And a couple of hundred police will be waiting for you to emerge from the ship once they've spotted the corpse.” He paused. “Now, if you'd have killed him with your hands, we could try to pretend that he tripped and fell against something hard, and if you'd killed him with your sonic pistol we might have been able to blame the Holy Roller, at least if you hadn't jettisoned it—but it's gonna be goddamned difficult to tell them that he shot himself right between the eyes while he was cleaning his pistol. Or your pistol, once they get done examining the bullet. You see what I mean?
”
“I see what you mean,” said Nighthawk. “But I still want to get to—”
“Forget it!” snapped the older man. “First things first. We've got to go back to the Frontier and lose the Marquis. Otherwise, you'll never get within 500 miles of Deluros VIII's surface, and that's a fact.”
Nighthawk fell silent, considering his options, rejecting each in turn. Finally he looked up and stared at the Pearl of Maracaibo.
“Just a minute,” he said, his eyes narrowing.
“What is it?” asked Father Christmas.
“We had a problem a few hours ago. We discussed it, but never solved it—and then, because of the killings, we forgot all about it.”
“I don't think I follow you.”
“Neither does Malloy,” said Nighthawk. “But he follows her. Maybe we should ask why.”
“You're making foolish accusations,” said Melisande angrily. “Malloy is your friend, not mine.”
“What reason would he have for following me?” asked Nighthawk.
“How the hell should I know?” demanded Melisande.
“Nobody knows,” said Father Christmas. “There isn't any reason.” He paused. “Now, what reason does he have for following you?”
“I don't even know him!” she protested. “I've seen him in the casino. He spends most of his time with you.”
“Just a minute,” said Father Christmas. “Suppose you tell us who you worked for before you hooked up with the Marquis.”
“I don't have to tell you shit!”
“That's what you think, lady,” said Father Christmas.
“Leave her alone,” said Nighthawk.
“Damn it, son,” said Father Christmas, “I know you've got the hots for her, but we're in a helluva dangerous situation here. You've killed one of the most powerful men on the Frontier, we've got a potential enemy tracking us—and we might have another one right here in the ship. So stop thinking with your gonads and start using your brain. We are in serious trouble, and I can't get us out of it alone.”
“We'll get out of this,” said Nighthawk. “Just stop harassing her.”
“Goddammit!”
“You heard me.”
“All right,” said the older man with a heavy sigh. “We can't stay in the Oligarchy. We can't jettison the body. I say that we don't return to the Inner Frontier. Too many people know we left with the Marquis; they'll figure out that you killed him. Lord knows I couldn't have done it.”