The Widowmaker: Volume 1 in the Widowmaker Trilogy Read online

  “I thought the Oligarchy didn't look too kindly on upstart emperors,” remarked Nighthawk wryly. “Even when the total populations of their empires don't equal the population of Solio II.”

  “We're doing them a favor,” answered the Marquis firmly. “No matter how vast the military becomes, the galaxy's always going to be too big for us to gobble up whole. So out here on the Frontier, enterprising men assimilate it piecemeal. In the long run, what difference does it make to history whether the Oligarchs control these planets or I do? They're controlled by the race of Man, and that's what really matters.”

  “That's as eloquent a justification for pillage, plunder and wholesale slaughter as I've heard,” said Nighthawk.

  “I thought so,” agreed the Marquis, still smiling. “You don't like that explanation? Then try this one: you'll have more power than you ever dreamed of.”

  “I don't know,” said Nighthawk. “I have pretty big dreams. I might even want something you have.”

  The smile vanished and the Marquis stared coldly at him. “You try to take anything that's mine and you're the sixty-fifth footnote to my biography, just a slab of dead meat waiting to be carted away.” He paused. “On the other hand, do what I tell you to do, and do it well, and you'll find that everything's negotiable.”

  “Including the Pearl of Maracaibo?”

  “Almost everything,” amended the Marquis. “She's private property, Widowmaker. Don't even think of it.”

  “I told you: I'm not the Widowmaker. And she's free to make her own choice.”

  “Nonsense. No one's ever free. You belong to your masters on Deluros—and when you leave them, you'll belong to me.”

  “And who do you belong to?” asked Nighthawk.

  “I owe bits and pieces of me all across the Frontier.”

  “I thought you were in the business of killing and robbing people, not owning them.”

  “Would you rather I killed and robbed you?” asked the Marquis with an amused laugh. “I can, you know.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I thought I just proved it out in the casino.”

  “You're as good as you're going to get,” responded Nighthawk seriously. “I'm still learning.”

  “A telling point. Let's hope we never have to find out how much you've learned.”

  Nighthawk got to his feet.

  “You leaving?” asked the Marquis.

  “Just looking around at the spoils of conquest,” replied the younger man, studying the alien artifacts in the display cases.

  “I haven't got an eye for art,” said the Marquis. “I just pick up what appeals to me. The rest gets sold to collectors on the black market.”

  “How did you get started?” asked Nighthawk. “Were you a thief? Or a killer?”

  “Me?” said the Marquis. “I was a detective.”

  “You're kidding!”

  “Not at all. About fifteen years ago I tracked down a suspect out here on the Frontier. Jewel thief. He was sitting on a pair of diamonds as big as your eyes. I tried to take him alive, but he put up a fight and I had to kill him. Well, the more I got to thinking about taking those diamonds back and turning them over to my superiors, who I knew were corrupt enough to pocket the diamonds and kill my report, the more it seemed like an exercise in futility.”

  “And they were worth a fortune.”

  “And they were worth a fortune,” agreed the Marquis. “So they vanished, and I vanished with ‘em. I took a new name, got into some trouble, shot my way out of it, and then I became the Marquis of Queensbury.”

  “What's a Marquis?” asked Nighthawk.

  “Damned if I know, but some guy called the Marquis of Queensbury created the rules for karate, or maybe it was judo. Anyway, on my world I create the rules, so it seemed an appropriate name.” He paused for a moment as images of the past flashed through his mind. “After a couple of years I realized that a competent motivated man could become a hell of a lot more than a successful thief out here. He could, in fact, become an emperor. I started with Tundra and Yukon—it's not hard to take over a couple of worlds that haven't got two thousand inhabitants total—and then I just started expanding.”

  “What does owning a world entail?”

  “Well, for starters, I'm the tax collector.”

  “Protection money?”

  “That's such a vulgar term,” said the Marquis with an expression of distaste. “I prefer to call it a Security Assessment.”

  “Have you ever had to supply security?”

  “Not yet, knock wood,” answered the Marquis. “But I've got enough manpower to hold off almost anyone except the Navy.”

  “If those three I killed were an example of it, I'd say you're in big trouble if someone tries to move in.”

  “Apples and oranges. They were just three men, and you're the Widowmaker. That's different from sending 300 hardened killers against an expeditionary force controlled by another...”

  “Warlord?” suggested Nighthawk.

  “I was going to say entrepreneur,” replied the Marquis.

  “Yeah, well, I still wouldn't count too heavily on them.”

  “I don't,” replied the Marquis. “I'm counting on you.”

  “My first obligation is to find Trelaine's assassin.”

  “I'm counting on that, too.” The Marquis flashed him a grin. “You know he couldn't have killed Trelaine without my approval. You know you can't beat his name out of me, and that if you luck out and kill me, you still won't get it. So the logical course of action is for you to do such a brilliant job that you win my trust and place me under obligation to you—right?”

  “Perhaps,” agreed Nighthawk. “On the other hand, I may disappoint you and find the assassin without your help.”

  “I've been disappointed before. I'll survive.” You may not, was the strong implication, but I will.

  “Still, until I do find him, I might as well work for you. I'll need a job once my current one is over.”

  “Even the Widowmaker must genuflect to logic,” said the Marquis with a satisfied smile.

  “From time to time,” agreed Nighthawk. “Where do I start? What do I do?”

  “First, you take a few days to recover. I'm just egocentric enough to think I did you some damage. Use the time to learn your way around Klondike, meet some of the men and women who work for me. I keep a suite on the 6th floor of the hotel down the block; it's yours for the time being.”

  “Where will you stay?”

  “On the 10th floor,” replied the Marquis with a grin. “I like penthouses.” He paused. “Anyway, I'll send a medic by to stitch you up and straighten your nose. If there's anything you want, just order it though room service. If you go anywhere in town for food, drink, clothes, anything at all, just tell ‘em who you are until they get to the point where they recognize you. I'll pass the word before you leave that you're working for me.”

  “Does everyone who works for you get this kind of service? I'm surprised the merchants haven't left for better pickings.”

  “I'm a businessman, not a philanthropist,” laughed the Marquis. “How can I tax them if they don't make any money? No, only you and Melisande have carte blanche.”

  “Melisande?”

  “That's the girl you're never going to touch.”

  “The Pearl of Maracaibo?”

  “Her professional name. Like The Marquis of Queensbury, or the Widowmaker.”

  “Okay, she's Melisande and I'm Jefferson Nighthawk. Who are you, really?”

  “My name wouldn't mean a thing to you.”

  “I'd like to know it anyway.”

  “I'm sure you would,” said the Marquis. “But I've no intention of telling it to you. It's much better if everyone thinks I'm dead.”

  “As you wish,” said Nighthawk with a shrug. “But it hardly seems fair.”

  “Of course it's not fair,” said the Marquis. “I'm the boss and you're not. What's fair got to do with anything?”

  “Not much, I guess.�
��

  “You have an interesting expression on your face.”

  “I do?”

  The Marquis nodded. “It says, ‘Someday when he least expects it, I'm going to remind the Marquis of what he just said—probably after I take his woman away and shoot his legs out from under him.'” He paused. “Forget it. It's not going to happen.”

  “It's your fantasy, not mine,” said Nighthawk.

  “What's yours—and how many women does it involve?”

  “None.”

  “No women at all? What kind of fantasy is that?”

  “I'll tell you someday when I know you better,” said Nighthawk. “I might even enlist your help.”

  “How comforting.”

  “It is?”

  “Certainly,” said the Marquis with a smile. “It means that it doesn't involve killing me.”

  “To borrow an old expression,” said Nighthawk, “I've got bigger fish to fry.”

  And perhaps a very old one to kill, before his attorneys and medics decide to kill me.

  “Really?” said the Marquis, interested. “So you think the assassin is a bigger fish than I am?”

  “You want the truth?”

  “Definitely.”

  “I think you are the assassin.”

  “I told you I wasn't,” replied the Marquis.

  “I know. But I don't believe you.”

  “What do you plan to do about it?”

  “I plan to hunt for evidence. As slowly as I can. And hope that you're right.”

  “I don't think I understand,” said the Marquis, frowning. “I thought you explained to me that your first obligation was to bring in the assassin.”

  “My first obligation is to hunt for him. I'll be just as happy if I don't find him.”

  “Ah, I was right!” said the Marquis with a smile, finally comprehending. “You fulfill your mission and it's back into the vat with you.”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  “Just stay out here and they'll never find you.”

  “There's one man back there who can find me wherever I go,” responded Nighthawk.

  “Nonsense! You're the Widowmaker!”

  “So is he—and if they cure him, he'll be after me the next morning.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “It's what I'd do—and I'm him.”

  “It's foolish,” protested the Marquis. “Why should the Widowmaker want to kill his clone—especially if no one is paying him to do so?”

  “You can't have two Jefferson Nighthawks walking around at the same time. I've got something that he spent his whole life acquiring: his identity. He'll want it back.”

  “I don't know how you can be so sure.”

  “Because I want to kill him for the same reason,” answered Nighthawk. “As long as he lives, I'm just a shadow. I'm not even legally alive. Every credit I make is his, everything I do, both good and bad, accrues to him.” He paused, trying to order his thoughts. “Jefferson Nighthawk's just a name. I can answer to it as well as any other. But Widowmaker's a definition. I won't be the Widowmaker until he's dead.”

  “But he doesn't have that problem,” noted the Marquis. “He is the real"—Nighthawk winced—"forgive me, the original, Widowmaker. His money, his identity, they're his own.”

  “But who will they hire when they want the Widowmaker—an old man they can't even stand to look at, or me? He can't let me live any more than I can let him live. God didn't mean for there to be two of us alive at the same time.”

  The Marquis stared at the young man for a long minute. “I wouldn't have your dreams for anything,” he said at last.

  “My dreams are very pleasant,” said Nighthawk wryly. “It's just my life I have problems with.”

  “Well, we'll simplify and improve it, starting tomorrow.”

  “I hope so,” said Nighthawk, getting up to leave. He heard a door dilate behind him and saw the Pearl of Maracaibo's image in a mirror as she emerged from another room, one with a large unmade bed in it.

  But somehow I doubt it, he added mentally as he left the office and went back to join Malloy in the casino.

  And for just a moment it seemed that a very old, very diseased man was walking beside him with an unseemly vigor.

  You think it's going to be this easy? asked the old man. You think you're going to kill the bad guys and get the girl and spend your life hunting villains on the Inner Frontier?

  I hadn't thought that far ahead, admitted Nighthawk. But it's a pleasant future.

  It's a pipe dream. Do you really think I'll let you live once I'm out of that frozen tomb? God made one Widowmaker, not two.

  How will you stop me? You're an old man, and I'm in my prime.

  But I'm the real Widowmaker. You're just a shadow that will vanish in the light of my day. Think about it: the better you are, the sooner I can dispose of you.

  Then the image vanished ... but the words stayed with Nighthawk long after he reached the casino.

  6.

  The Marquis proved to be a man of his word. Whatever Nighthawk asked for, he received, and payment was never requested.

  Nighthawk spent a couple of days exploring the city of Klondike. He visited each of its four restaurants, all of its many bars and casinos and brothels. The drug dens he avoided; his borrowed memories were increasingly vague as they were replaced with his own experiences, but those that remained told him that nothing good or useful ever came of drugs or users.

  Most of his time, though, was spent in the Marquis’ casino, where he was on call for anything the Marquis might want. Lizard Malloy stuck close to him, as if he were the little man's only protection in this hostile environment, and in exchange for offering that protection Nighthawk picked his mind, learning the names and dubious accomplishments of most of the men and woman who worked for the Marquis.

  There was another reason for spending time in the casino, and Malloy was quick to spot it.

  “Don't even think about her,” he said as Nighthawk watched the Pearl of Maracaibo undulating atop her floating platform.

  “Last time I thought about her, it got me a job with the Marquis,” replied Nighthawk.

  “All the more reason not to push your luck twice,” said Malloy.

  “I wonder what she sees in him?”

  “You mean, besides the fact that he's ten feet tall and owns forty or fifty worlds?” asked Malloy.

  “He's not that tall, and he only owns eleven worlds.”

  “Well, that makes all the difference in the universe,” said Malloy sardonically.

  “Where does she come from?”

  “I don't know.”

  “Find out for me, by tomorrow,” said Nighthawk, smiling up at the Pearl of Maracaibo as she finished her dance.

  “You got yourself a serious death wish, you know that?” said Malloy.

  “Just do it.”

  Malloy shrugged and fell silent. A moment later one of the Marquis’ men approached Nighthawk and took him to the office.

  “What's up?” asked Nighthawk as he sat down opposite the Marquis.

  “We've got a little problem over on Yukon that I want you to clean up.”

  “Oh?”

  The Marquis nodded. “Seems someone has set up shop there without my permission. I sent an emissary to explain that this was a breach of etiquette, and she killed him on the spot. We can't allow her to get away with that. Too many other people might start flexing their muscles.”

  “'She'?” repeated Nighthawk.

  “Name's Spanish Lace.”

  “Sounds intriguing.”

  “There's nothing intriguing about her. She's operating on my territory without a permit. That's against the law.”

  “Your law?”

  “You know of any other?” said the Marquis.

  “Not on Yukon and Tundra,” admitted Nighthawk.

  “Well, then, that's your job.”

  “I'm not quite clear,” said Nighthawk. “Do you want me to sell her a permit to operate,
or run her off?”

  “I want you to kill her,” said the Marquis. “And then I want you to take what's left of her and nail her to a cross or hang her from a tree—anything out in the open—as a warning to anyone else who might be having similar ideas.”

  “There are only a few thousand people on Yukon,” noted Nighthawk. “How many are likely to see her stretched out on a cross or spinning slowly in the wind?”

  “It's cold there. She'll keep.”

  “Why not just charge her a couple of million credits and send her packing?” suggested Nighthawk.

  “I'm going to answer you this time,” said the Marquis, “because you've just started working for me and you don't know that I have a reason for everything I do. You haven't learned that you never question one of my orders; that's the same as arguing with me, and I won't tolerate that in an employee.” He paused. “If you ever question another order, you'd better have a nice cemetery plot picked out. I don't care how good you are, I'll kill you on the spot—and if I can't, I've got 200 men who'll see to it that you don't live long enough to leave Klondike.”

  Nighthawk simply stared at him without saying a word.

  “All right,” continued the Marquis. “If you fine her and chase her off Yukon, you'll have made a powerful enemy who'll think that I have wrongly humiliated her and appropriated her money, though of course I have every right to whatever money is brought to one of my worlds. If, on the other hand, you kill her, we'll have at least as much of her money, probably even more, and we won't have a bitter and successful woman out there"—his vague wave encompassed half the galaxy—"plotting out ways to get her money back and to punish me for appropriating it.”

  “So you don't really care whether anyone ever sees the body...”

  “Certainly I do, but that isn't my primary purpose for killing her.” The Marquis paused. “Any more questions?”

  “What's her line, and how many men has she got?”

  “Spanish Lace? It all depends on which world you ask that question. She doesn't believe in specialization. She's a bank robber, an arsonist, an extortionist, an assassin. She usually works alone, but she may have brought a little protection along.”

  “She's an assassin, you say?”