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

  "He got a message—a plea for help—from Pallas Athene," said Kinoshita.

  "Who the hell is Pallas Athene?"

  "Jason took a little more than one hundred men, women and aliens to Pericles IV. We won, which is to say we overthrew Cassius Hill and his government—but we had only five survivors: Jason, Cassandra Hill, me, an alien called Friday, and Pallas Athene."

  "Was she human?" asked Jeff.

  Kinoshita nodded. "As brave and skilled as any man or alien I've ever encountered. Well," he amended, "anyone who isn't named Nighthawk. Somehow you knew that whatever happened in that charnel house, Jason and Athene would survive it."

  "She sounds formidable," commented Nighthawk.

  "And then some," said Kinoshita.

  "And she called for help?" continued Nighthawk. "From what you say, she must be in one hell of a jam."

  "She must be," agreed Kinoshita. "Anyway, he got her message and announced that he was leaving the hospital. The details are a little hazy—Cassandra was very upset—but I gather the doctors told him he couldn't leave, so he ripped every tube and monitoring device out of his body, got dressed, and started walking out. When an orderly—a six-hundred-pound Torqual— tried to stop him, Jason cut him up pretty badly with a scalpel he'd managed to get hold of. Then he put tourniquets on the wound, stopped at the front desk long enough to tell them where the Torqual was and to send an emergency medical team up to him, and left."

  "One day after major surgery?" said Jeff.

  "Yes."

  "Does Cassandra have any idea where Jason's gone?"

  Kinoshita shook his head. "They met Pallas Athene on Sylene IV, but she hasn't lived there for three years."

  "It shouldn't be that hard to find her," said Nighthawk. "The message had to come to him at the hospital. They'll keep it on file, and we can run a trace on it."

  "We?" repeated Kinoshita.

  "He's a Jefferson Nighthawk," said Nighthawk.

  "And he wouldn't have been in the hospital in the first place if it hadn't been for me," said Jeff. "I'm coming too."

  "I appreciate the help . . ." began Kinoshita.

  "With no insult intended," said Nighthawk, "we're not helping you. We're helping him."

  "And he's going to need it," added Jeff. "If Pallas Athene is everything you say she is, and she can't handle the problem herself . . ."

  "You'd be surprised what Jason can do under duress," said Kinoshita.

  "Two days ago they cut him open and performed a pair of major organ transplants," said Nighthawk, "and today he's flying off to face somebody that Pallas Athene can't handle alone. I'd say that in this cane duress is an understatement." He got to his feet. "We're wasting time here. Let's get to the ship."

  The other two men followed him out the door. They summoned an aircar, and half an hour later Jeff's ship, which was larger than Nighthawk's, was reaching light speeds and heading for Giancola II. Jeff and Kinoshita elected to enter Deepsleep pods for the journey, but Nighthawk remained awake, speaking to the computer, learning what he could about the death of Cassius Hill, studying the fall of Hill's government. Jason had hidden his tracks well; there was no mention of Jefferson Nighthawk or the Widowmaker, no mention of Kinoshita or of anyone named Friday or Pallas Athene, only a passing mention of Cassandra Hill.

  He was still seeking details when the ship began approaching the Giancola system and Jeff and Kinoshita awakened. Both were hungry—the Deepsleep pods slowed the metabolism but didn't stop it, and one usually awoke with an empty stomach and a ravenous appetite. By the time they'd eaten and returned to the control room, the navigational computer was receiving landing instructions from the spaceport.

  There was a delay at the Customs and Immigration booth when two Jefferson Nighthawks with identical fingerprints and retinagrams presented their passports, but while such an occurrence was beyond the robot agent's experience and programming, Nighthawk pointed out that it wasn't illegal, and finally it gave them each a twenty-four-hour visa.

  They took a shuttle to the hospital, got out, and entered the lobby. A slim, dark-haired woman ran up to Kinoshita and threw her arms around him.

  "I'm so glad you came, Ito!" said Cassandra Hill. "I just didn't know what to do!"

  Suddenly she seemed to notice his companions for the first time. "You're the original," she said, studying Nighthawk's face. "He was going to look just like you in another twenty years, before his cosmetic surgery." She turned to Jeff and her whole demeanor changed. "You're the one who put him here."

  "I made a mistake," said Jeff. "I'm here to make amends."

  "You practically kill a man who's closer to you than a brother, and all you can say is that it's a mistake?" demanded Cassandra.

  "I was wrong, and I'm sorry," said Jeff.

  "That's not much of a comfort."

  "I know."

  There was an awkward silence.

  "Let's go sit in a corner where we won't be overheard," said Nighthawk, walking off to the farthest set of chairs and sofas he could find. The other three followed him.

  "Do you have any idea where he is?" asked Kinoshita, when they were all seated.

  She shook her head. "He wiped the message so that no one could follow him. He knew you'd be keeping tabs on him, and he didn't want anyone else risking their lives." She grimaced in frustration. "Damn it! I fought side by side with him against my father! We've made a life together! I had a right to go with him!" Suddenly the anger vanished, to be replaced by concern. "The doctors say that the first major shock to his system—even a blow to the stomach—will probably kill him. And of course he left without his medications."

  "We'll find him," said Kinoshita soothingly.

  "Do you mind if I ask a couple of questions?" interjected Nighthawk.

  Cassandra nodded. "Go ahead. I'll try my best to answer them."

  "What was the nature of this threat that Pallas Athene couldn't handle it by herself?"

  "I don't know—but I know her. She wouldn't have asked if there was any chance she could face it alone."

  "Did she say whether it was coming from a single source?" continued Nighthawk.

  "I don't know."

  Nighthawk signaled them to silence as a pair of doctors walked by, then spoke when they were out of earshot. "Do you know what weapons he took with him? Anything exotic, like a molecular imploder?"

  "Just what was on his ship," she said. "The usual. He didn't use exotic weaponry."

  "One last question," said Nighthawk. "What race did the alien called Friday belong to?"

  "Friday?" she repeated, surprised. "I haven't thought of him in years. He was a Projasti."

  "Never heard of them," said Nighthawk. "What planet do they come from?"

  "Marius II."

  "If Jason thought he'd need help, would he have approached Friday?"

  "They didn't like each other," said Kinoshita.

  "That wasn't my question." Nighthawk turned back to Cassandra. "Well?"

  "He might have," said Cassandra slowly.

  "All right," said Nighthawk. "We'll find him."

  "How?" blurted Kinoshita.

  "The spaceport will have a record of how much fuel he had in his ship," said Nighthawk, "and we'll compute how far he could go with it. We'll run a quick trace on his ship's registry, and if it doesn't show up at any fueling station, we'll be able to figure out the maximum distance he could have gone. He may be crazy to go out in that condition, but he's not suicidal, so I think we can eliminate any high-gravity worlds; they'd practically rip him open." He turned to Jeff. "While Kinoshita is getting the information we need from the spaceport, I want you to find out if Friday is on Marius II."

  There was a brief commotion as a team of doctors and nurses raced to the emergency room.

  "I don't think he'd been back to the Marius system in decades," said Cassandra when they had passed through the lobby. "And I don't know his real name. Jason couldn't pronounce it, so he just dubbed him Friday."

  "All right, let
me think for a moment," said Nighthawk, closing his eyes. Suddenly he opened them. "Remember you were asking about that last bounty, Jeff—the one on the Wizard? Your fingerprint and retinagram are the same as mine." He pulled a disk out of his pocket and handed it to the young man. "Take as much money out of my account as you need and spend whatever it takes to have some underpaid and mildly corrupt civil servant track Friday down for us. Same with Pallas Athene. Go up to a million credits for each of them if you have to."

  "How?" asked Jeff. "We don't even know his real name."

  "We know that a Projasti was on Sylene IV five years ago. So was she. That will show up on their passports, and you'll find out his real name as well. Start there and follow them forward."

  "That could take awhile."

  "Tell whoever you're dealing with that part of the fee depends on speed. When you're done, we'll know if Jeff enlisted Friday's aid, and we'll have a pretty good idea where Pallas Athene is."

  "Where will you be?" asked Jeff.

  "Right here. Now get going. Take Kinoshita to the bank with you and give him enough cash to encourage someone at the spaceport to tell us what we want to know."

  As the two men left, Cassandra turned to Nighthawk. "I want to thank you for coming," she said. "When I found out Jason was gone, all I could think of was to contact the one man who knew him best. I never even thought of asking you. I suppose, in a way, you know him better than anyone."

  "I suppose," said Nighthawk. "Tell me about—"

  "About Jason?"

  He shook his head. "About Pallas Athene."

  "She was absolutely fearless and totally humorless. I think she enjoyed proving she was better than anyone else—well, anyone but Jason. She was a deadly shot with any weapon, and I don't think even Jason was better with a knife." She stared at him. "Why do you ask?"

  "Because I'd like to know just what kind of threat would make her call for help—and especially to call for a man who'd changed his name and face, a man who'd moved to the Outer Frontier expressly to get away from the kind of conflict she was trying to involve him in."

  "I don't know. I never saw her back down from a fight or ask for help before. Something very dangerous must be threatening her."

  "Probably," agreed Nighthawk. "But I promise you one thing: anyone who has to face a trio of Widowmakers is going to learn what dangerous really means."

  25.

  Kinoshita was the first to report back to the hospital.

  "He filed a flight plan that would take him straight into the heart of the Oligarcy," said Kinoshita. "I assume that's to throw anyone who's following him off the track, and that he plans to stay on the Inner Frontier."

  "Why not the Spiral Arm or the Outer Frontier?" asked Cassandra. "Or even the Rim?"

  "He could eventually wind up there," acknowledged Kinoshita. "But he'd have to refresh his ship's nuclear pile, and we both know he's too careful to do that. Before he'd let us trace him through the ship's registry, he'd steal another one."

  "He's in no condition to steal a ship," said Nighthawk. "He'll be getting stronger every day, but he's pretty weak right now. Besides, if the situation wasn't urgent he wouldn't have left, and that means he doesn't have time to steal ships and avoid pursuit."

  "So we've limited him to a fifth of the galaxy," said Kinoshita. "What do we do now?"

  "We wait," said Nighthawk.

  "He's getting farther away every minute!" said Cassandra. "And he's traveling at light speeds!"

  "We don't have enough information yet. It's a big galaxy out there."

  "You're just like him!" she snapped. "Never worried, never flustered, never anxious! We normal people aren't like you!" There was an uncomfortable silence. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm just so damned worried about him! You're all Jefferson Nighthawk. Why is he the one who always gets the worst of it?"

  "Because I wasn't around to help him."

  "I'd forgotten," she said. "That horrible disease. I guess you've both done your share of suffering."

  "I never asked for sympathy," said Nighthawk. "I'm sure Jason hasn't either."

  "That doesn't mean he doesn't deserve it," she said. "He never had a choice about being the Widowmaker, and as soon as he could, he put the name, the face, and the job behind him."

  "So did I," said Nighthawk. "Well, the job, anyway. But when you're the only person who can do it, and it has to be done . . ."

  She looked at him irritably. "You even use the same words he would use."

  "Why not? He's more like me than the other two. I gather the medics had a hell of a time convincing him he wasn't me when they first woke him up."

  "I find this a very frustrating situation, Mr. Nighthawk," said Cassandra. "I want to be angry with you, but if there was no you there'd be no him—and that terrible calm of yours is precisely what's kept him alive in all the encounters he had on Pericles and since then."

  Nighthawk laid a hand on her shoulder. "He kept me alive until they could cure me. I promise you I'm not going to let him die if there's any way to save him."

  "I know," she said. "I just wish I knew why he has to keep going up against impossible odds."

  "Because he can," said Nighthawk.

  She was about to reply, but realized she had no answer and remained silent.

  Jeff showed up a few minutes later.

  "Well?" said Nighthawk.

  "I came up blank on Pallas Athene," he said. "But I've pinpointed Friday." He grinned. "He must not have much to hide, because he's actually using Friday on his passport. I had them run a check on it, and he was on Sylene IV and Cellestra four years ago. He's got to be the same Friday we're looking for."

  "Where is he now?"

  "Renaissance V."

  "Never heard of it."

  "It was opened while you were . . . incapacitated," said Jeff. "The interesting thing is that it's only about two hundred twenty light years from here."

  "If he went to enlist Friday's help, they're probably both gone by now."

  Jeff grinned. "I don't think so."

  "What do you know that you'd like to share with us?" said Nighthawk.

  "Friday's in a maximum security prison awaiting execution," replied Jeff.

  "Still?"

  "Still. I checked; he was in his cell twenty minutes ago. But I learned something interesting: he had a visitor yesterday."

  "Was it Jason?" asked Cassandra.

  "He gave his name as Xavier MacDonald, but who else could it have been?"

  "It was Jason, all right," said Nighthawk. "Xavier MacDonald is a name I used on New Tahiti before I was frozen. Nobody who ever heard or encountered it would still be alive—but Jason would know the name, because he shares my memory up to five years ago." He looked at Jeff. "And you found absolutely nothing on the girl?"

  The young man shook his head. "Whatever passport she's traveling on, it's not Pallas Athene. I bribed a couple of guys to run her Pallas Athene prints and retinagram against every passport application made in the past four years—but that could take weeks."

  "All right," said Nighthawk. "We've only got one lead. That makes deciding what to do next very easy."

  "I'm coming along," said Cassandra.

  "You're staying here," said Nighthawk.

  "I have more right than—"

  "It's not a matter of rights," said Nighthawk. "He doesn't know we're looking for him, so if he has to send a message, he's not going to send it to us. He'll know you're either here or back at your home, and he'll have it routed that way."

  She instantly saw the logic behind his statement. "Damn you," she said. "Why do you have to be right?"

  "If he does contact you, you've got Kinoshita's code. Jeff, give her yours."

  "Why do I need another?" she asked.

  "What if Kinoshita gets killed?"

  "You're the one who seems to be in charge," said Cassandra. "Why not give me yours?"

  "I will if you want," said Nighthawk. "But Jeff will give you his as well." He paused. "He's a young man
, I'm an old one. If this situation is as dangerous as Jason seems to think, which of us figures to survive the longest?"

  "That's what he'd say, with that cold, relentless logic," said Cassandra. "I don't like it any better coming from your mouth."

  "But you'll stay?"

  "I'll stay—but not in the hospital. There's no reason for me to be here. I'll rent a room in town. If anyone tries to contact me here, I'll have it patched through."

  "All right," said Nighthawk. He turned to Kinoshita. "Are you sure you want to come?"

  "He's my friend—and I've fought beside every Widowmaker. This is my destiny. I'm coming."

  "Then let's go."

  The aircar took five minutes to get them to the spaceport, and they broke through the stratosphere, reached light speeds, and left the Giancola system far behind them in another ten minutes.

  "Tell me about Friday," said Nighthawk as the navigation computer took over the ship's controls and pointed it for the Renaissance system.

  "He's sleek and slim, a glistening red, almost as if he'd been varnished," said Kinoshita. "And his ears flap. They're no bigger than ours, but when he's excited they look like they're trying to fly off with him."

  "Humanoid?"

  "Two arms, two legs, walks upright." Kinoshita suddenly made a face. "He eats bugs. Live ones."

  "Good protein," said Nighthawk.

  "And there aren't a lot of worlds where he'll starve to death," added Jeff approvingly.

  "What was he like?"

  "Unpleasant," said Kinoshita.

  "Then why did Jason tolerate him?"

  "We were taking on an entire planet, complete with its security forces and a standing army, with a team that never numbered much more than one hundred, and Friday was an explosives expert." Kinoshita paused. "As for Friday, he didn't even want any pay. All he wanted was the chance to kill as many Men as possible, and he figured working with the Widowmaker afforded him the very best opportunity. He didn't care who won or lost, who lived or died. He just wanted to kill as many humans as he could."

  "That's too bad," said Nighthawk.

  "What is?" said Kinoshita. "I don't understand."

  "Tell him, Jeff."

  "If Jason went to Renaissance to try to enlist his help, either Jason's in even worse shape than we think, or Pallas Athene actually underestimated the threat. Why else would he be willing to put up with something like Friday?"