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

  "It was a stupid decision," said Nighthawk. "My mercy is in short supply these days."

  "How do you think I killed all those men and aliens?" she continued. "By shooting them?"

  "I assume you're going to tell me," said Nighthawk.

  "No," she said, still smiling. "I'm going to show you."

  And suddenly she wasn't Cleopatra Rome any longer. She was Sarah, her binoculars slung over her shoulder, a bird guide in her hand.

  "Look!" she said, pointing to a tree that suddenly seemed to spring into existence. "A silver-throated sunbird!"

  "This is wrong," said Nighthawk, frowning.

  "Okay," said Sarah. "What do you think it is?"

  Nighthawk felt uncomfortable. Something was bothering him, but he couldn't put his finger on it. He looked at the avian sitting on the end of the branch.

  "It's a blue-crested sunbird," he said, wondering why he felt such uneasiness.

  "You're right," she said, peering through the binoculars. "You always had the most remarkable vision."

  "How did we get here?" asked Nighthawk. "I was in a bar on New Barcelona."

  "You had a dream," said Sarah. "You told me about it at breakfast, don't you remember? We're on Goldenhue."

  "Goldenhue," he said, nodding. "We're on Goldenhue."

  "I'm getting tired, Jefferson. Will you take the book from me? It's very heavy."

  "Sure," he said, reaching out and taking the book. Suddenly he frowned. "That's funny."

  "What is?"

  "I thought books were supposed to be flat. This one is round."

  "It's a new style," said Sarah. "I picked it up Roosevelt III."

  Nighthawk blinked, shook his head vigorously, and suddenly threw the book through a window on the side of the tavern. A moment later there was a small explosion. He drew his burner and pointed it at Sarah, who was once again Cleopatra Rome.

  "Where'd you learn to do that?" he asked.

  "You don't learn something like that," she replied, unfazed by his weapon. "You're born with it, and over the years you learn to refine it. Where did I make my mistake? The bomb?"

  "No, I believed it was a book."

  "Then what?"

  "Sarah's never been to the Roosevelt system."

  She sighed and shook her head. "It's my own fault for improvising."

  "Improvising?"

  "I pulled Sarah's face and figure and speech patterns out of your mind, but I improvised the bit about the Roosevelt system. It just seemed like a good answer at the time. Stupid of me. Once you spot anything wrong, however slight, the whole illusion vanishes. I guess I'll have to try one that you don't know as well,"

  And as quickly as the words left her mouth, she was a lovely young girl, still in her teens, with auburn hair that cascaded down almost to her waist, clear blue eyes, a delicate nose and chin, a small bustline, narrow waist, slender legs.

  "Hello, Jeff," she said in a melodic voice. "It's been a long time."

  Nighthawk simply stared at her without answering.

  "Why won't you speak to me, Jeff? I waited and waited for you for all these years. I even stayed young for you, exactly the way I was the day you left. Aren't you glad to see me?"

  "Belinda," he said. It sounded more like a croak.

  "Look at you, Jeff," she said sadly. "You've become an old man. You used to be so handsome. Now you're all gnarled and twisted. What happened to you?"

  "Life did. Eplasia did." He suddenly felt the burden of his years. "Life did."

  "You never wrote. You never left a sub-space message. You never came back, and I waited for so long. Why?"

  "I had things to do."

  "Were they more important than me?"

  "No," he admitted. "But they seemed more important at the time."

  "It's not too late, Jeff," she said. "You still have a few years left. We can still be together."

  "It's tempting," he said.

  "All you have to do is come back to me," said Belinda. "I'll be waiting."

  "But you're here right now," said Nighthawk, a puzzled look on his face.

  "I have to go back home and tell my parents that all my hopes and prayers weren't in vain. It would be cruel to leave with you and not let them know. They love me very much."

  "Send them a message."

  She shook her head. "I have to say good-bye properly. After all, they cared for me all these years that you've been away. Give me a day to break the news to them, and then come for me."

  "Whatever you say." Then: "I don't know where you live."

  "Where I've always lived," said Belinda. "On Rasputin. Do you remember the address?"

  Nighthawk stared at her.

  "The address, Jeff—do you remember it?"

  "No."

  "I'll write it down for you," she said, withdrawing a long, gleaming stylus from her belt. "Do you have any paper with you?"

  Nighthawk shook his head.

  "I'll write it on your shirt," she said. "You can copy it onto a computer when you get back to your ship."

  She reached forward, preparing to write an address on his chest, when his hand shot out and slapped the stylus out of her hand. It clattered across the floor, a shining knife with an eight-inch blade.

  He had completely forgotten the burner in his hand. The flat of his other hand smashed into her neck. There was a cracking noise, and she careened into a wall and collapsed. As the light of life began vanishing from her eyes, she stared at him, the question written across her face.

  "There was never a Belinda," he said. "She was my idealized woman—at least, she was a century and a half ago, when I was maybe fourteen years old. She seemed so real to me that you plucked her out of my mind and didn't know the difference. And," he admitted, "neither did I. But in my fantasy, I imagined she lived on a world named Rasputin, a crazy man I read about when I was a kid, and the world was never as real to me as the girl."

  Her eyes had clouded over, and he wasn't sure she'd lived to the end of his explanation.

  He took another swallow of the Alphard brandy, put it back on its shelf, and then, because he was every bit as thorough as Kinoshita believed, he sat down and tried to comprehend exactly what he had experienced so that he could be better prepared if he ever met another person with the same ability.

  He tried to figure out how she'd managed to pull meaningful memories and images out of alien minds, how she'd been able to read or interpret them at all. This was a remarkable woman he had just dispatched, and he found himself actually wondering what kind of team they might have made if her offer to join him had been legitimate.

  This is ridiculous, he told himself harshly. She was right. I'm an old man, surviving by luck and instinct. I don't need any partners. I don't even know what the hell I'm doing here. I should be back with Sarah on Goldenhue, watching birds, trying to make those goddamned roses grow, and reading my books.

  And because he was nothing if not honest, he added: Still, this is the most alive I've felt in a long, long time. Maybe you can only truly appreciate life when it's forceably impressed on you just how ephemeral it really is.

  After a few minutes he walked to the door and stepped out into the street.

  "What happened?" asked Kinoshita. "I didn't hear a sound."

  "It's over. Get an airsled."

  Kinoshita stuck his head through the doorway. "What weapon did you use on her?"

  "Her ignorance and her carelessness."

  "Ignorance and carelessness?"

  "Yes," said Nighthawk. "When you stop and think about it, they're the best weapons in anyone's arsenal."

  16.

  Kinoshita went off to find an airsled. When he returned he found Nighthawk sitting at a table in the still-deserted tavern, sipping his Alphard brandy.

  "This is expensive stuff," said Nighthawk. "Pour some for yourself before we leave. It'll be a long time before you get another opportunity to drink it for free."

  Kinoshita went behind the bar, found an empty brandy snifter, poured in a
few ounces from the bottle that was still on the bar, and walked over to join Nighthawk.

  "They already know she's dead," he said, nodding toward the street.

  "Of course they do. They knew when you came out alive and brought back an airsled."

  "Well, if anything catches Jeff's attention, it has to be taking Bellamy and Cleopatra Rome in two days' time." Kinoshita paused. "I got a lot of dirty looks when I came back here with the airsled. Maybe we should warn Jeff that the Widowmaker's not too popular on New Barcelona."

  "If we knew how to contact him, I wouldn't be here shooting bad guys," said Nighthawk. "Besides, no one's going to bother him."

  "But—"

  "They hate the Widowmaker. And after two days here, they know he's a wrinkled, gray-haired old man. Jeff's a kid in his early twenties. They won't give him a second glance."

  "I hadn't thought of that," admitted Kinoshita.

  "No reason why you should have," said Nighthawk. "It's not you they want to kill."

  Kinoshita took a sip of his brandy. "This is awfully good, maybe the best I've ever had. I can see why it costs a couple of hundred credits for a glass."

  "You can take the bottle back to the ship if you want," said Nighthawk. Suddenly he smiled. "I don't think anyone will try to stop you."

  Kinoshita considered it, then shook his head. "No. Just about the time I got used to it it'd be gone, and I can't afford to drink it on a regular basis."

  "We just made close to twenty million credits in two days," said Nighthawk. "It's not that expensive."

  "That's your money, not ours. You killed them, you get the reward."

  "We'll worry about whose money it is when we see what's left after we pay Jason Newman's hospital bills." He paused. "You know, I almost felt like I was talking to myself back on Giancola. A younger version, with a different face, but me. I never once felt that way with Jeff."

  "Jason knows every thought you ever had until five years ago, and has experienced—or thinks he has experienced— everything you ever did up until that day," said Kinoshita. "Jeff was a blank slate that you tried to mold into your successor, but Jason was you."

  "It gets confusing," said Nighthawk.

  "It's probably more confusing for Jason than for you or Jeff. Your memories are real, and Jeff doesn't have any. But Jason knows that everything he remembers from more than five years ago is false, that all his dreams and thoughts are on permanent loan to him."

  "He seems to have adjusted."

  "Of course he has," said Kinoshita. "He's Jefferson Nighthawk too."

  "Spare me the hero worship, and if you're through drinking, let's get the body loaded and onto the sled."

  "Do you want me to find a blanket, something to cover her?" asked Kinoshita.

  "No," replied Nighthawk. "The more people who know she's dead, the more people will talk about it. Who knows what it takes to get word out to wherever the hell Jeff is?"

  "So we're just going to walk her right through the District and up to the police station, the same as we did with Hairless Jack?"

  "That's right," said Nighthawk, getting to his feet and walking over to Cleopatra Rome's corpse.

  "Did it ever occur to you that we'll make pretty easy targets doing that?" asked Kinoshita, helping to heft the body onto the airsled.

  "No one will bother us."

  "I admire your confidence," said Kinoshita. "But can I ask what makes you so sure?"

  "Killing Hairless Jack Bellamy might have been luck," said Nighthawk, "but taking Bellamy and Cleopatra Rome in two days' time means that I'm really not someone you want to mess with." He smiled at Kinoshita. "I know it's difficult for you to believe, but you'll be safer today than you were yesterday."

  "I hope you're right," said Kinoshita. "What were her skills? All I see is a knife."

  "It's all she needed," said Nighthawk. "She wasn't an alien, but given her abilities she must have been a mutant. She could create the most believable illusions."

  "What kind of illusions?"

  "Comforting ones."

  "That doesn't tell me much."

  "She could appear to be someone you trusted, could make you believe you were somewhere else, somewhere safe with an old friend or an old lover—or a current one."

  "How the hell did you beat someone like that?" asked Kinoshita as they walked out the door and stepped onto the street.

  "Did you ever have a dream, and at some point you realized it was a dream because something was wrong?"

  "Yes."

  "Same thing."

  "She'd made close to one hundred kills," said Kinoshita. "You must have been the first guy who was able to pierce the illusion she created."

  "I doubt it," said Nighthawk. "But I was the first one to pierce it in time to save myself."

  They turned in the direction of the police station. Most passersby avoided them, a few refused even to meet their gaze. But a handful walked up and stared at the body, just to convince themselves that the notorious Cleopatra Rome was truly dead. As they neared the edge of the district, a familiar-looking Lodinite waddled over to them.

  "I see that you have killed her," it said.

  "That's right."

  "But you did not seek her out at the Royal Ascot," continued the Lodinite.

  "Why face her in her lair?" asked Nighthawk. "It figured to be very well protected. Besides, I knew she'd be at the shuttle stop."

  "I risked my life telling you where she lived."

  "I risked my life facing her," said Nighthawk. "Put your hand down."

  "My hand?" said the Lodinite, puzzled. "I do not understand."

  "An expression," said Nighthawk. "Roughly translated, it means thanks for the help and the good wishes, but since I already paid you five thousand credits and didn't even use your information about the Royal Ascot, you're not getting one credit more."

  The Lodinite looked at the body again. "At least she will kill no more of my people," it said at last.

  "Or mine," agreed Nighthawk.

  "You are absolutely sure you do not wish to thank me in a meaningful way for my advice and support?"

  "I killed her," said Nighthawk. "That should be thanks enough."

  The alien walked off without another word.

  "He's going to tell everyone that you refuse to pay for information," said Kinoshita. "He'll conveniently forget about the five thousand credits."

  "Just as well," said Nighthawk. "If word gets out that I'm paying for information, every resident of the District is going to try selling out his best friend, his partner, his boss, and his bedmate. I don't need that kind of hassle. I'm just here to force Jeff to pay us a little visit."

  "You mean you really wouldn't kill another notorious murderer if you didn't think it would help bring Jeff here?" asked Kinoshita disbelievingly.

  "No, I really wouldn't." Nighthawk paused to light a smokeless cigar, then grabbed the sled as it started drifting away. "Do you know how many men and aliens I've killed in my life?"

  "Not precisely."

  "Believe me, there were a lot, more than I think you can imagine," said Nighthawk. "Now look around you at the District. Nothing's changed."

  "But this is the District. It's a tiny area that's set aside for criminals like these."

  "So you're saying that if I leave the planet I won't find any more killers, that Jason and Jeff are wasting their time looking for bad guys on every world they touch down on?"

  "No," admitted Kinoshita. "No, of course I'm not saying that."

  "Argument ended."

  "But if you've felt this way all along, why did you remain the Widowmaker?"

  "Because I was the best at my job, and because things would have been worse if I'd quit, or if I hadn't created Jeff."

  "And that's the only reason?" said Kinoshita. "You did it because you could do it?"

  "Have you got a better reason?" asked Nighthawk as they crossed out of the District and headed toward the police station. They stopped for a moment when they came to the cigar s
hop. Nighthawk left Kinoshita outside with the airsled and a growing crowd of awestruck children while he entered, bought a Greenveldt cigar, and told the woman behind the counter that Cleopatra Rome would not be making her flight connections after all.

  Then he rejoined Kinoshita and the two walked to the police station.

  "I don't suppose you'd consider joining the force, Mr. Nighthawk?" said the captain as they brought the airsled inside.

  Nighthawk smiled and shook his head. "Just have the money transferred here, and then place it in my account."

  "We'll do it," said the captain, "but it may take an extra day or two."

  "Oh?"

  "Yeah" was the answer. "There's been a killing at the bank. We've shut it down until we get everything we need from the crime scene."

  "Robbery?"

  "Not that we can tell."

  "Who got killed?"

  "One of the vice presidents. He seems to have been shot trying to stop the thieves from doing something—but we don't know what. They could have incinerated one of the robot clerks and run off with some money, but they apparently weren't interested in that."

  "Safety deposit boxes, perhaps?" suggested Kinoshita.

  The officer shook his head. "They didn't go near them."

  "What the hell else does a bank have besides money and lock boxes?" asked Nighthawk.

  "We're still trying to find out."

  "Well, I wish you luck," said Nighthawk. "Let me fill out the paperwork and we'll get out of your way."

  He spent a few minutes describing the death of Cleopatra Rome to a computer and had just finished letting it register his retina and thumbprint in lieu of a signature when another officer approached the captain.

  "We've got it, sir," he announced.

  "Good," said the captain. "Let's have a look at it."

  Suddenly a life-sized holo of two men appeared. They stepped over the lifeless body of the bank's vice president and began working on his computer. After a moment one of them inserted a small glowing cube in it—a "code-buster", the captain called it —and suddenly the area above the computer was alive with holographs of data streams.

  "Well, that's obviously what they were after," commented the captain.