The Widowmaker Unleashed: Volume 3 of the Widowmaker Trilogy
Page 8
“Not interested.”
“You're running through money pretty quickly,” said Kinoshita. “Here's a chance to add to your bankroll. Legitimately.”
“I said no.”
“Why not?”
“Because I'm not the Widowmaker any more. I'm retired. I don't kill men for bounties.”
“You're crazy!” snapped Kinoshita. “They're already dead! What's wrong with hauling them to a bounty station?”
“Nothing's wrong with it,” answered Nighthawk. “I'm just not going to do it.”
“What do you plan to do for money?”
“If I need it, I'll work for it.”
“And this wasn't work?” demanded Kinoshita.
“A century ago it was work. Today it was survival, nothing more.”
“What is work?” persisted Kinoshita. “You're no farmer. You're no artist. You don't know shit about investing. You're too old to do heavy labor. If you're not going to claim these bounties, maybe you'd better consider becoming a marksman in a carnival like that Billybuck Dancer.”
Nighthawk stared at him silently for a long moment, until Kinoshita shifted uncomfortably. Finally he spoke.
“These men were fools. I'd never chase someone onto a world of his own choosing. And having come here, they were even bigger fools for facing me. There's no price on my head, no reward for killing you. If they wanted to kill us, all they had to do was blow our ship away and then leave. We'd have no food, almost no oxygen, and no way of radioing for help.”
“Son of a bitch!” exclaimed Kinoshita. “I never thought of that!”
“Neither did they,” said Nighthawk, making no attempt to keep the contempt from his voice. “But just because they were fools, it doesn't mean all the men out here are fools. The Frontier is a hard place, and it breeds hard men and women. Most of the fools die young, and I don't plan to spend the rest of my life facing what's left. I told you: I spent enough time in death's company that I cherish the years that remain to me. The Widowmaker's retired. For good.”
“But this is a different case,” said Kinoshita. “No one's asking you to go out after the Oligarchy's Most Wanted list. These men are already dead, and there just happens to be paper on them. Why can't we just pack them in the hold and turn them in? You may never have had to worry about money before, but you do now. This ship cost a bundle, and you'll never recoup your loss on Churchill II, and...”
“I said no.”
“But—”
“Why did they come after me?” asked Nighthawk.
“Because you killed three of their friends.”
“And why did those three come after me?”
“Because your first clone killed the Marquis of Queensbury.”
“So I killed one man, and three came after me. Then I killed those three, and eight more came after me. It's a fucking geometrical progression. I'm sure each them has half a dozen friends who will want my blood once they find out that I killed them ... so it stops here. We bury them, we leave the planet, and no one ever knows what happened here.” He paused. “And if no one knows, no one forces me to kill them. Otherwise, one of these days I'll have to go up against one I can't kill.”
“All right,” said Kinoshita. “I see your point.”
“Then let's get to work.”
Nighthawk burned eight graves in the ground with his laser. Then he and Kinoshita rolled the bodies into them and covered them with tons of crystal shards. Finally, because he was a thorough man, he blew away every outcropping within a mile of the graves, so no one could chance upon the one spot where the natural cover have been upset.
And, hopeful that he could finally live the life of tranquility he so coveted, Jefferson Nighthawk took off from Bolingbroke VI and sped deeper into the Inner Frontier.
12.
Nighthawk had been in a black mood since leaving the Bolingbroke system, and Kinoshita had given him as wide a berth as possible within the cramped confines of the ship.
They passed several inhabited worlds. Each time Nighthawk would find some reason not to set the ship down, and they sped further and further away from populated areas of the Inner Frontier.
Finally Kinoshita could take the silence no longer.
“Are you ever going to speak again?” he demanded, rotating his chair to face Nighthawk, who was sitting motionless in the captain's chair.
“I'm speaking right now.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I've got nothing to say,” replied Nighthawk, staring without interest at one of the viewscreens at the front of the small cabin.
“Bolingbroke's nine days behind us and you haven't said ten words since we left,” complained Kinoshita bitterly. “I'm going stir crazy!”
“If you're unhappy, I'll drop you off anywhere you want,” said Nighthawk.
“I don't want to be dropped off!” snapped Kinoshita. “I just need to hear a human voice.”
“You're hearing it right now. Happy?”
“What the hell's the matter with you, Jefferson? We hid all the bodies on Bolingbroke. There's no chance that anyone's going to find them in this lifetime, probably not ever. No one's coming after you. You've got your health. So what's got you so pissed off?”
Nighthawk finally turned to face him. “I would think it'd be obvious,” he said.
“Not to me.”
“Look,” said Nighthawk. “I went into the deep freeze for 112 years. I'd become a monster, and I lived in pain every day for close to a decade before they put me under. I awoke to a universe where everything had changed, where every single person I knew had been dead for decades. But I told myself that I had one advantage: I wouldn't have the problems that usually accrue to retired men in my profession. There'd be no young guns out to build their reputations, no old guns with scores to settle. They were all dead, and I could spend my final years in some semblance of peace and tranquility.”
He paused, and Kinoshita could see the bitterness on his face as well as hear it in his voice. “So what happens? I find out that not only don't I have that advantage, but I don't even know the men who want to kill me, or why they're after me.”
“We had to create those clones to pay for your upkeep. You know that.”
“Damn it, Ito—I didn't have to go into the fucking cryonics lab! I'm not afraid to die, and 112 years ago death would have come as a welcome relief. I submitted myself to the freezing process because I weighed all the possibilities, and I could see myself enjoying a comfortable, tranquil old age once they developed a cure. If I'd known that I was going to be hunted by men I never saw before...” He shrugged. “I think I might have endured the pain for one more month a century ago and gotten it over with.”
“Don't even think that!” said Kinoshita firmly. “If you'd died, there would be a hell of a lot more evil abroad in the galaxy today.”
Nighthawk stared curiously at him. “I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Your clones did what they had to do, what they were created for,” answered Kinoshita. “They went out and killed the bad guys—and for every enemy they made, they earned the gratitude of hundreds more.”
“That's comforting in a detached, academic way,” replied Nighthawk. “But no one's shooting at my clones.”
“There are tens of thousands of oxygen worlds on the Frontier. I'm sure we can find one where nobody knows you, where no one's ever even heard of the Widowmaker.”
“Didn't someone quote me some very discouraging odds about that not too long ago?” asked Nighthawk with an ironic smile.
“What do you want me to say?”
“Nothing,” came the reply. “It was you who wanted me to talk, remember?”
“All right,” said Kinoshita, leaning back in his chair and rotating it from one side to another. “We'll talk about something else.”
“Fine.”
“So how did you become, well, what you are, in the first place?”
“What I am is an old man, and I got here by outliving
my friends and my enemies.”
“You know what I mean,” said Kinoshita doggedly. “I became a lawman because I saw my parents shot down in our own house by a thief who panicked when they stumbled upon him. How did you become the Widowmaker?”
Nighthawk shrugged. “I had a talent for killing people.”
“What kind of answer is that?” demanded Kinoshita. “How did you know you had this talent? When did you develop it? According to the history books, you were already the Widowmaker when you were eighteen. How old were you when you killed your first man?”
“I was very young.”
“How young?”
“Very.” Kinoshita shot a quick look at Nighthawk, who seemed more disinterested in giving answers than uncomfortable about them.
“Who did you kill?”
“Someone who deserved it.” Nighthawk paused. “I don't think I've ever killed anyone who didn't deserve it. At least, once upon a time I thought that ... but I suppose I could be wrong. Age tends to make you second-guess yourself.”
“Who was the toughest killer you ever went up against?” continued Kinoshita.
“They were all tough.”
“I mean—”
“I know what you mean,” interrupted Nighthawk. “You want me to name one notorious outlaw, a Santiago or a Conrad Bland. Well, I can't.”
“Why not?”
“Think of it this way: just about everyone on the Frontier carries some kind of weapon, don't they?”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever seen a dead man walking around with one?”
Kinoshita frowned. “Of course not. I don't know what you're getting at.”
“What I'm trying to say is that every man you see walking around with a weapon in his holster is undefeated in mortal combat ... and if there's paper on him, you know he's been a participant at least once. Reputations mean nothing. You have to treat each and every one of them as if they're the toughest opponent you'll ever face.”
“You're a cautious man,” remarked Kinoshita.
“That's how you stay alive out here.”
“Your second clone was like that, too.”
“Why shouldn't he have been?” replied Nighthawk. “After all, he was me.”
“The first clone didn't possess that sense of caution.”
“From everything I've been given to understand, the first clone was cannon fodder. They created him with no memories and sent him off on his mission.”
“It was the best they could do at the time—and he did accomplish that mission.”
“They should have waited until they found a way to give him my memories, the way you did with the second one.”
“If they'd waited another two months, you'd have been awakened and evicted while you still had eplasia,” answered Kinoshita.
“Still, it was murder, sending him out with no experience, no memory, nothing but some physical skills.”
“They were your skills.”
“There's a difference,” said Nighthawk. “I developed them to survive in my environment. They became a part of me, and I used them intelligently. This poor clone may have had my gifts, but he couldn't possibly have had my instincts. That's why it was murder.”
“The second clone thought so too,” said Kinoshita. “That's why he killed Colonel Hernandez.”
“He saved me the trouble,” said Nighthawk. “Or the pleasure.”
“I thought you didn't take any pleasure from killing people,” observed Kinoshita.
“Usually. But I think I'd take an enormous pleasure in avenging Jefferson Nighthawk.”
“You make it sound like Colonel Hernandez killed you.”
“He did. A version of me, anyway.”
“Both of the clones seemed to feel an almost mystical bond with you,” said Kinoshita. “Do you feel it too?”
Nighthawk shook his head. “I'm the original. I don't owe either of them anything, except a vote of thanks for earning enough money to keep me alive. They owe me everything, including their existence.”
“You know, you can be a cold son of a bitch sometimes.”
“We can always go back to not talking.”
“Not if you want me to stay sane, we can't.”
“As you wish,” said Nighthawk, getting to his feet. “But first I'm going to get a beer.”
He walked to the galley, put in his order, waited a few seconds for the mechanism to respond, and made his way back to the pilot's chair.
“Next ship we buy knows how to chill its glasses,” said Nighthawk, taking a long swallow of the beer.
“Are we buying another ship?”
“Depends on whether those guys back on Bolingbroke got off any messages to their friends,” answered Nighthawk. “That's why I'm heading toward the Core on a straight line. It should make it easier to spot anyone who's chasing us.”
“After nine days I think we're safe,” offered Kinoshita. What a damned silly thing to say. We're safe? Hell, whoever's not chasing the Widowmaker is the one who's safe.
“Probably.”
“And you've passed some interesting worlds the last couple of days.”
“One world's pretty much like another.”
“I disagree. There was a beautiful one on the outskirts of that last star cluster.”
“I don't care if it's beautiful,” interrupted Nighthawk. “I care if it's peaceful.”
It may be peaceful now, but it won't be once you land on it. You attract trouble the way honey attracts flies.
“What exactly are you looking for?” asked Kinoshita. “Do you still want to grow flowers and watch birds?”
“I don't know,” responded Nighthawk. “What I mostly want is to be left alone.”
“I don't think it's your nature to be left alone.” And I have a feeling that it's not the galaxy's nature to leave you alone.
“Well, like I told you once before, I'd like a wife, someone to grow old along with me.” Kinoshita seemed about to say something and Nighthawk held up his hand. “Someone who doesn't look like you,” he added with a smile.
“What happens to me when you find her?”
“What do you think should happen?”
“I'm not leaving you,” said Kinoshita adamantly.
“Maybe not, but you're sure as hell sleeping at the other end of the house.”
“I don't know if you're joking or not.”
“About sleeping at the other end?” repeated Nighthawk. “Absolutely not.”
“I mean about my staying.”
“I don't know why you want to.”
“I have my reasons.”
“You plan to share them with me someday?” asked Nighthawk.
“Someday,” promised Kinoshita.
13.
The world was called Tumbleweed. It was the only habitable planet within ten star systems, which gave it more traffic than such a nondescript world would ordinarily receive. There was a refueling station, a shipping depot, an assay office for mining claims in all the neighboring systems, a postal forwarding station for the worlds deeper into the Frontier, a single small city that had evolved from a Tradertown, a huge freshwater sea, and a few enormous totally-automated farms operated by robots laboring under the watchful eye of a tiny handful of human overseers.
“I've got a good feeling about this one,” said Nighthawk as they stepped out of the ship.
“I hope you're right,” said Kinoshita. “I'm tired of traveling.”
“Nobody forced you to.”
“I know.”
“Well, let's get over to Customs.”
Customs was nothing but a machine that registered their passports and added molecular long-term visas to them. Then they were transferred to a bullet-shaped transparent shuttle that glided inches above the ground and took them to the center of the small city.
“Lot of people here, compared to some of the worlds we've seen,” remarked Nighthawk.
“Just the same, I'd hardly call it a megalopolis,” answered Kinoshita.
Kinoshita pulled out a pocket computer and queried it, then looked up. “You've got a little less than two million credits,” he announced. “As far as I can tell, the insurance money on Churchill hasn't come through yet, though it could just be slow registering in your account.”
“Only two million?”
Kinoshita smiled in amusement. “What's so only about two million credits?”
“How much cash did you bring back with you from Pericles?”
“About five million. But the moment I entered the Oligarchy, it was subject to taxes ... so it really came to just under three million.”
“I'm a little confused,” said Nighthawk. “The clones were created because the interest on my principle wasn't enough to pay the cryonics lab, right?”
“That's correct.”
“But that was interest, and you made it up with the money you brought back. What happened to the principle? There must have been six or seven million credits’ worth.”
“The interest kept you frozen,” answered Kinoshita. “The principle paid for the cure and the cosmetic surgery and your rehabilitation. In fact, it didn't quite pay for it; I had to add some of the Pericles money to it.”
“Okay, that sounds reasonable enough,” said Nighthawk with a shrug. “I was just wondering.”
“It's your money. You have a right to ask.”
“We have reached the city limits,” announced the shuttle. “I require an address.”
“I don't have an address,” said Nighthawk. “Take us to the best hotel.”
“I do not know which is the best hotel,” answered the shuttle.
“Okay, take us to the most expensive hotel.”
The shuttle immediately turned left, then right, and soon pulled up to a small hotel.
“Welcome to the Sand Castle,” said a robot doorman, coming forward to take their luggage.
“I don't see any sand,” remarked Nighthawk.
“This entire section of the city is built on a sand dune,” explained the robot. “Hence the name of the hotel.”
“I don't see any castle, either, but let it pass.”