A Gathering of Widowmakers (The Widowmaker #4) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  Chronology

  A GATHERING OF WIDOWMAKERS

  by Mike Resnick

  Copyright © 2005 by Mike Resnick

  www.mikeresnick.com

  Prologue

  The old man looked up from his garden, shaded his eyes from the sun, and stared off into the distance. The clouds were gathering in the west, obscuring two of the three moons; the rain would be here in another two hours, three at the most. He'd have to hurry if he wanted to finish planting his flowers today.

  He walked to the potting shed, picked up the seeds, stuffed them in a pocket, grabbed a hand trowel, and returned to the section of black dirt where he planned to work. But before he could start digging, a woman's voice called to him.

  He turned toward the house. "What is it?" he called out.

  "Lunch is ready."

  "I'm busy," said the old man. "I'll be along in a couple of hours."

  "You'll come right now," said the voice firmly. "I didn't cook this so that it could sit out on a counter and get cold. Whatever you're doing, it can wait."

  The old man looked regretfully at the unturned dirt, then lay his trowel down on the ground with a sigh. He felt a tiny shooting pain in his back when he bent over, and he straightened up very carefully.

  He wiped the sweat off his face with a shirtsleeve, paused for just a moment to watch a flock of avians soaring overhead, and then trudged off to the small house to join his wife.

  He seemed a perfectly ordinary old man. Tall, lean, wrinkles around the eyes and the jawline, hair gray and well on its way to white, a few liver spots on the back of his hands.

  To look at him, one would never guess that he was the most dangerous man alive—or even how many times he had lived before.

  1.

  The two boys looked out through the store window.

  "Are you sure it's him?" asked the first.

  "I've got his holo on my computer," said the second. "It's him, all right. And see that little guy? They say they always travel together."

  "Why would he need any help?"

  "Him?" was the reply. "He doesn't need any help, not now, not ever. Maybe he just wants someone to talk to."

  "But why would he come here to Dominion?" asked the first boy, still unconvinced. "Who do we have that he'd want to come after?"

  "Why don't you go out and ask him?" shot back the second boy.

  "Not me," said the first boy firmly. "They say he kills people just for staring at him."

  The object of their attention suddenly turned and began approaching the store where the two boys were speaking.

  "Omygod, omygod, omygod!" said the second boy, terrified. "He heard you! He's coming in here!"

  "He couldn't have heard me, not through that window."

  "He's the Widowmaker!" said the second boy, almost crying. "He can do anything!"

  "He's too young," said the first boy. "Look at him. He couldn't have killed half as many men as they say. You're wrong; it's not him."

  "The hell I am!"

  "We'll find out soon enough," said the first boy. "Here he comes."

  The door irised, and the young man and his companion entered the store.

  "Welcome to Flynn's Emporium," said the robot clerk. "May I be of service?"

  The young man walked over, disassembled his laser pistol, and placed the battery on a counter in front of the robot.

  "I need half a dozen of these," he said.

  The robot's eyes extended on long metallic stalks and examined the battery.

  "Model H-314," it intoned. "We have seventeen in stock, sir."

  "Six will do."

  "I have already ordered them from the stock room. They will be here in approximately forty seconds, sir."

  "Thanks." The young man looked around the store. He spotted the two boys; they were crouched behind a large holographic landscape projector, created especially for use during long voyages in spaceships that didn't possess Deepsleep chambers. "Who are you hiding from?" he asked pleasantly.

  The second boy stood up, hands straight above his head. "We didn't do anything, sir! Honest we didn't!"

  "Nobody said you did."

  The first boy stood up and approached him, eyes wide. "Are you really the Widowmaker?"

  "That's what some people call me."

  "Some people?"

  "My friends call me Jeff."

  "I know," said the second boy, his hands still reaching for the ceiling. "Jefferson Nighthawk."

  "That's right."

  "Who are you here to kill?"

  "No one," said Jeff.

  "The Widowmaker never lands on a planet unless he wants to kill someone," insisted the second boy. "If you tell us who it is, maybe we can tell you where to find him."

  Jeff looked amused. "Sometimes I go a whole day without killing anyone."

  Both boys looked unconvinced.

  Jeff noticed that his batteries had arrived, and he turned back to the counter. "How much?"

  "Four hundred eighty credits," replied the robot. "I can also accept payment in New Kenya shillings, Far London pounds, and Maria Theresa dollars."

  Jeff nodded to his companion. "Give him his money and let's go."

  The first boy approached him. "Can I have your autograph, sir?"

  "Are you sure you want it?" asked Jeff. "I'm not an athlete or an actor."

  "Yes, please, sir. This way when I tell people I saw you, I can prove it."

  Jeff shrugged. "All right. What do you want me to sign?"

  The boy seemed suddenly distressed. "I don't have anything."

  "It's all right." Jeff picked up his discarded battery, took a stylus from his companion, and signed his name on it. "Here," he said, tossing it to the boy. "Now you can tell your friends you've got the battery from the Widowmaker's burner."

  "Wow!" said the boy. "Wow!"

  Jeff and his companion walked to the door. When they reached it, he turned to the second boy. "You can put your hands down now."

  "Thank you, sir," said the second boy, looking as if he might faint at any moment.

  "Don't you ever get tired of it?" asked Ito Kinoshita as he and Jeff stepped out onto the slidewalk and let it take them south.

  "I'm eighteen months old," replied Jeff. "I'm not tired of anything yet."

  "Right," replied his companion. "I've been serving Widowmakers for so long I assume you've all had the same experiences."

  "We share the same DNA, not the same lives," said Jeff. He paused. "I wonder if the old gentleman is keeping track of how his latest creation is doing?"

  "You make yourself sound like some Frankensteinian monster," said Kinoshita. "You're a clone, that's all. And in answer to your question, yes, he knows what you're doing."

  "I t
hought you didn't keep in touch with him."

  "I don't. I'm only to contact him in an emergency, and— knock wood—we haven't had one."

  "Then how does he know what I'd doing?"

  "He's the Widowmaker," said Kinoshita, as if that explained everything.

  "He used to be," said Jeff irritably. "I'm the Widowmaker."

  "I just meant that—"

  "I know what you meant."

  They rode in silence for two more blocks, and then came to the end of the southbound slidewalk.

  "I guess this is where we catch the transit back to the spaceport," said Jeff.

  "Looks like it," agreed Kinoshita. "You know," he added thoughtfully, "Dominion's got a couple of hundred thousand men living on it. As long as we're here, we might as well check and see if there's some serious paper on any of them."

  "Not interested. Leave it to the locals. We've got business on Giancola II."

  "But—"

  "I was created and trained to go after the men no one else can take," said Jeff. "If any of them were here, we'd have known it before we landed."

  "You don't always have to go after the most dangerous men on the Wanted list," said Kinoshita.

  "If I don't, who will?"

  Kinoshita sighed. "Counting you, I've served four Widowmakers—and I don't remember ever winning an argument with any of you."

  Jeff smiled. "Don't give up. There's always a first time."

  They became aware of four more boys peeking at them from behind buildings.

  "More autograph seekers," suggested Jeff.

  "Or advice seekers," said Kinoshita. "Every kid out here wants to grow up to be the Widowmaker. You'd make their whole year if you'd stop and talk to them for a minute."

  "What would I tell them?" asked Jeff with a wry grimace. "Say your prayers, eat your greens, listen to your parents, study hard in school, go to church, shoot first, and don't miss."

  Kinoshita chuckled. "Well, two out of seven isn't bad."

  "Depends which two," replied Jeff. He waved at the boys. Three of them immediately ducked out of sight, the fourth waved back.

  Then the transit vehicle floated down the street, hovered a foot above the ground while the two men got on it, and headed off to the spaceport. When the passengers realized who had boarded the vehicle, they practically fell over each other to climb off at the next stop.

  "Does that bother you?" asked Kinoshita.

  "In the beginning it did," admitted Jeff. "I'm getting used to it."

  "After we finish this," suggested Kinoshita, "what do you say to taking a vacation, maybe go out on the Spiral Arm where no one knows us?"

  "If you need one, take one."

  "I was thinking of you."

  Jeff shook his head. "I've got too much work to do."

  "The bad guys will all be here when you get back."

  "And there'll be another hundred or thousand corpses, too."

  "Don't you get tired?"

  "I don't work that hard," said Jeff.

  "You've worked every single day since I teamed up with you."

  "I work about ten or twenty seconds every couple of weeks. The rest is just busywork and travel time."

  "That's an interesting way of looking at it."

  "I love my work," said Jeff. "I'm the best there is at it, and more to the point, if I stop working people die."

  "When you work, people die," said Kinoshita.

  "The right people die," said Jeff. "How many men can truly say that they've made the galaxy a safer place?"

  "Doctors, soldiers, lawyers, politicians, clerics, police— the same people who said it while we were still Earthbound."

  Jeff looked his contempt. "If they were telling the truth, they wouldn't need me, would they?"

  Kinoshita smiled. "I keep forgetting."

  "Forgetting what?"

  "You seem like such a nice, friendly young man," said Kinoshita. "I keep forgetting that you're a younger version of him."

  "Not really," said Jeff. "I only knew him for three or four months."

  "But you've got that same steel beneath the surface. Your experiences are different, maybe even your thoughts and beliefs, but the core is the same." Kinoshita looked at the young man. "Don't be so quick to take offense. There are worse people to be like."

  "So you keep telling me."

  "Have I ever lied to you?"

  "You don't understand," said Jeff.

  "Enlighten me."

  "He's not my father, or my teacher, or my mentor."

  "He's all three," said Kinoshita.

  Jeff shook his head. "He's much more than that: he's my creator. I'm like Adam's rib. I'm part of him in a way no one else will ever comprehend. And sometimes it's a very uncomfortable feeling, to be an exact replica of someone else, an artificially created replica, and to know that somehow you'll never quite be your own person."

  "I think you're looking at it all wrong," said Kinoshita. "He gave you life, he trained you to take over for him, and he turned you loose. You haven't seen him or heard from him since then. He's kept his distance, and kept his hands off. He has no control over you, and he doesn't want any."

  "I know," said Jeff, as the vehicle left the city and turned toward the spaceport. "I can't explain it—but how would you feel if you came face to face with your god, your creator, if you knew he wasn't on some higher plane of existence but was made of flesh and blood and was probably watching your progress through the life he gave you?"

  "Honored."

  "I'm honored. But it's also disturbing to know that everyone else came into life one way, and I came from a blob of protoplasm in a lab."

  "You ever see a holo of a sperm and an egg?" asked Kinoshita. "On those occasions that they're lucky enough to crash into each other, the next step is to become a blob of protoplasm. All you did was eliminate one step from a generally disgusting process."

  "You're probably right, but I can't help feeling uncomfortable when I think about it."

  "If it was me, I'd be much more uncomfortable knowing that so many men and women out here on the Inner Frontier want me dead."

  Jeff shrugged. "That's just business."

  "You're the third clone of Jefferson Nighthawk," said Kinoshita. "I've never asked you before, but doesn't it ever bother you that the first one was killed by his enemies after just a few weeks on the job, and the second got shot up pretty badly in under a year? That's what I'd be worrying about."

  "Then you'd die," said Jeff.

  "I don't follow you."

  "If you feel any uncertainty, any fear at all, you hesitate for a fraction of a second. You can't help it—and that's all the edge most of your opponents need. As the old gentleman explained when he was training me, every man and woman walking around with a weapon is undefeated in mortal combat. You can't afford to ever underestimate them or give them an advantage, and that's what you give them the second you think about what might happen if you lose."

  Kinoshita stared at him for a moment. "That's why you're the Widowmaker and I'm just the hired help."

  "I don't pay you anything."

  "All right, then—I carry your water."

  "I don't understand that expression."

  "It doesn't matter," replied Kinoshita as the spaceport came into view and the vehicle approached the main entrance.

  "Stop putting yourself down," said Jeff. "The old man told me you were a good lawman and a successful bounty hunter."

  "That's what I thought, too," said Kinoshita. "Ten seconds after I saw the first Widowmaker clone in action I realized that I was out of my depth and damned lucky to still be alive. What if one of the bad guys had those skills? That was when I pledged my life to serving the Widowmaker." He smiled ironically. "Little did I know just how many of them there would be."

  "How did you choose which one to serve?"

  "There's never been more than one Widowmaker around at a time."

  "What about—?"

  "The old gentleman, as you refer to him?" said Kino
shita. "He turned the Widowmaker franchise over to you. He's off growing flowers and watching birds."

  "I was about to say, what about the clone who survived? Only the first one died."

  "He's out of the Widowmaker business too. Pity, too—the two of you would have made one hell of a team."

  "I work alone," said Jeff. "Except for you."

  "We have arrived," announced the robot driver as the vehicle came to a stop at the spaceport's main entrance.

  "Which way to the private ships?" mused Kinoshita, searching for the correct color codes.

  "Freeze," said Jeff softly.

  "What is it?" asked Kinoshita, suddenly motionless.

  "MacKenzie Platt," said Jeff, staring at a tall man who was walking toward an exit.

  "Son of a bitch! There's paper on him—75,000 credits last time I looked!"

  Jeff nodded. "As soon as we get to the ship, I'll send a message to the local authorities that he's here."

  "He didn't spot you," said Kinoshita. "Why don't we just follow him until the crowd thins out and burn off the back of his head from a nice safe distance?"

  "He hasn't killed anyone. They want him for robbing a couple of banks on Winslow IV—the wrong people's banks, obviously."

  "I'm almost certain they want him dead or alive."

  "That's their business."

  "If you don't want him, why did you tell me to freeze?"

  "I didn't want him to spot us, or I might have had to kill him here in the spaceport. There's too much likelihood that some civilians would get in the way."

  "Civilians?" repeated Kinoshita. "You make it sound like we're in a war."

  "Damned right we are," said Jeff, heading off to the private ship hangar. "And the next battlefield is Giancola II."