The Widowmaker Reborn: Volume 2 of the Widowmaker Trilogy Read online

  “You saw me over a century ago?”

  Friday nodded his head, setting his ears to flapping again. “My race is very long-lived. I saw you kill seven men without aid of any kind on—”

  “—Dimitri IV,” concluded Nighthawk.

  “Then it is you.”

  “In a manner of speaking. But my question remains: why have you sought me out?”

  “Where the Widowmaker goes, Men die. And now, after being gone for a century, you are back, and Men will die again.” Friday paused. “For almost a century I have worked in the mines across the Inner Frontier, opening them when they were discovered, sealing them when they were played out. My specialty is explosives, and I tell you that there is none who knows them better. But one of the problems with a lifespan as long as the Projastis is that eventually one becomes bored, even in a field where one has no equal.” It paused and stared into Nighthawk's eyes. “I am tired of using my explosives on inanimate mines, Widowmaker. I wish to work with you.”

  “You don't even know who or what I'm up against.”

  “It makes no difference to me.”

  “What if I've been commissioned to blow up Marius II?” asked Nighthawk.

  “Have you been?”

  “No.”

  “All other worlds are equally unimportant to me.”

  “You just want to play with your explosives, right?” said Nighthawk.

  “I want to kill Men.”

  “Why should I help you?”

  “Why not? You will kill them for money and I will kill them for pleasure, and in the end, what difference will it make which of us does the killing?”

  “How do I know you won't kill me, too?”

  “Can you be killed?”

  “Not by you.”

  “There you have it.”

  “How much do you propose to charge me for your services?

  “Nothing,” responded Friday. “I will save you from failure and you will save me from boredom. It will be a fair trade.”

  Nighthawk stared at him for a long moment, waiting for a gut instinct, pro or con, to kick in. Finally it did.

  “Okay,” he said at last. “You're working for me now.”

  “When do we leave?”

  “A day or two. You know which ship is mine?”

  “I followed you from it.”

  “Right. Okay, then ... vanish for a day and then come to the ship.”

  “I will go there right now.”

  “Do what I say. You might terrify one of the occupants, and the other might shoot you.”

  “All right, then: One day from this moment,” agreed Friday.

  “Aren't you curious to know who's on the other side?”

  “I already know,” said Friday.

  “Oh?”

  “You make war with Ibn ben Khalid.”

  “Why should you think so?”

  “Against who else would the Widowmaker need my expertise?” answered Friday. “Have you been commissioned to kill him, or merely to rescue the human girl?”

  “Both. You know where I can find them?”

  “I have no idea. I did not expect to be at war with him until I recognized you.” Friday paused. “How very exciting this is! Not only has the Widowmaker returned, but I am working for him, and together we shall kill millions of Men!”

  “Try not to get too excited about wiping out my race.”

  “I will try,” promised Friday with a dubious expression on his alien face.

  9.

  Blue Eyes looked up from his pocket computer as Nighthawk entered the Blue Dragon.

  “Welcome back, my friend,” he said. He deactivated the computer. “Numbers,” he said. “I hate numbers.”

  “You don't look like you're losing money.”

  “I wasn't cut out to be a business owner.”

  “Then why don't you stop pretending to be one?”

  Blue Eyes stared at Nighthawk for a long moment, then threw back his head, rolled his eyes, and hooted.

  “You're good, Widowmaker! How long did it take you to find out?”

  “Less than a day.”

  “That's all? And I've managed to keep it secret for almost ten years.”

  “Maybe nobody else cared,” suggested Nighthawk.

  “While you were checking me out, I was doing the same to you.”

  “And?”

  “You don't exist.”

  “I seem to remember explaining that to you.”

  “Let me finish,” said Blue Eyes. “You don't exist—but you did once.”

  “I told you...”

  “I know what you told me. But the Master Computer on Deluros VIII says you have the same fingerprints, voiceprint, and retinagram as the original Widowmaker. I'll wager that if you let me draw some blood or take a skin scraping, you've got the same DNA, too.”

  “Coincidence,” said Nighthawk with a shrug.

  “If you thought I'd believe that, you'd also think I was too stupid and gullible to work with.”

  “The Widowmaker was born more than a century and a half ago,” said Nighthawk. “Do I look that old to you?”

  “You look maybe two months old,” said the dragon with as much of a grin as his facial structure allowed. “I pulled some strings and found out that the original Widowmaker has been frozen for more than a hundred years. He's still there.” He stared at Nighthawk. “I've never seen a clone before. They did a fine job, Widowmaker.”

  “Better than the last one,” agreed Nighthawk.

  “They've cloned you more than once?” asked Blue Eyes, surprised.

  “One other time.”

  “And that clone is...?”

  “Dead.”

  “Good. I don't think I'd feel comfortable in a galaxy with hundreds of Widowmakers on the loose.”

  “It's not going to happen. Cloning a human being is a felony on every world in the Oligarchy.” Nighthawk walked over to the bar, reached down behind it, and brought up a bottle of Cygnian cognac. He opened it and took a swallow.

  “Careful with that stuff!” cautioned Blue Eyes. “It costs me two hundred New Gandhi rupees a bottle.”

  “It doesn't cost you a thing,” replied Nighthawk. “Now that you know who I am, I think it's time you told me who pays the two hundred rupees, and why you're fronting for him.”

  “Haven't you guessed?”

  “I never guess. I pulled some strings too, and my creators have a lot of strings to pull. It's Ibn ben Khalid.”

  “Right the first time,” said Blue Eyes. “All the profits go into maintaining his organization.”

  “How many bars does he own across the Frontier?”

  “Bars, restaurants, assay offices, hotels, boarding houses—maybe three hundred, maybe a little more.”

  “Does he travel under his own name?”

  “Depends on his mood.”

  “Does he ever show up here?”

  “Once every few years.”

  Suddenly the dragon was staring into the cold muzzle of a sonic pistol.

  “Have you told him I'm after him?”

  Blue Eyes reached out and gently pushed the pistol aside. “If I had, you couldn't have made it from your ship to the Blue Dragon without being attacked.”

  “I was followed.”

  “Not by anyone connected to Ibn ben Khalid,” said Blue Eyes. “And that's a fact.”

  “All right,” said Nighthawk. “You work for him. Why haven't you warned him?”

  “Look at me and tell me what you see.”

  “A dragon who's closer to getting blown away than he knows.”

  “The operative word, my friend, is ‘dragon'. Not Man. What do I care if Ibn ben Khalid overthrows some human government and starts giving orders himself? What do I care if he doesn't? None of it affects me.”

  “I begin to appreciate your position,” said Nighthawk. “The only thing that affects you is his death. Then the Blue Dragon gets a new owner, right?”

  “Where does it say that greed must be confi
ned to the race of Man?”

  Nighthawk took another swallow of the cognac. “As long as it's not yours yet...” He closed the bottle and put it back behind the bar. “Are there likely to be any other claimants to the Blue Dragon and the hotel?”

  “It depends on the circumstances of Ibn ben Khalid's death,” replied Blue Eyes. “And how much of his organization remains.”

  “I couldn't care less about his organization. I just plan to do my job and get the hell out.”

  “Then yes, there will be claimants. Why?”

  “I just want you to know that as long you're willing to help me, I'll back up your claim.” He paused. “I can be a pretty useful ally to have on your side.”

  “That's very thoughtful of you,” said Blue Eyes. “And what if I decide at some point not to help you after all?”

  “Then I'll mourn at your funeral.”

  “So much for a relationship based on mutual trust,” said the dragon.

  “Would you rather I lied to you?”

  “I'd rather you didn't begin our partnership with a threat.”

  “First, I didn't begin with a threat; I ended with one. And second, I don't have any partners. You're working for me, not with me.”

  “I don't know if I'm all that pleased with this arrangement.”

  “You don't have to be. You'll be pleased when it's over and you can get obscenely rich from the Blue Dragon.”

  “First let's see if I live long enough, and if no one tries to take over the business while I'm gone,” muttered the dragon. “You know, a million to two isn't a lot better odds than a million to one.”

  “Actually, it's a million to five.”

  “Well, that's a start. How many more are you going to recruit before you go after him?”

  “None.”

  Blue Eyes possessed four separate and distinct stomachs. At that instant, he was sure all four were coming down with ulcers.

  10.

  “Did you find anyone?” asked Nighthawk, when he, Melisande and Kinoshita were all together on the ship again.

  “I found four men who believe in his cause, but no one who knows how to find him,” answered Melisande. “Do you want to interview them further?”

  “No. There are millions of men and women who came to the Frontier because they hate the Oligarchy. Most of them will believe in Ibn ben Khalid's cause. What I need is someone who knows where he is.” He paused. “It's possible that I've got a couple. We'll have to find out.”

  “Who?” asked Kinoshita.

  “The dragon and that linguist—what's his name?—Nicholas Jory. Blue Eyes admits that Khalid owns the bar and hotel, and Jory actually said that he'd seen him before.”

  “If that's the case, why did we waste our time at the jail?” demanded Kinoshita.

  “Because I believe in being thorough. Since Melisande can't tell us for sure if the dragon's lying or not, we can never take his word for anything. And it's more than possible Jory was lying, building himself up. Why should a dead-broke drunken linguist have access to the most powerful revolutionary on the Frontier?”

  “Now I'm confused again,” said Kinoshita. “You just said you might have a couple of people who know how to find Ibn ben Khalid. Now you've all but eliminated them. So do they know how or not?”

  “I plan to find out before we leave.”

  “Are you going to have Melisande check Jory out?”

  “If it's convenient. Given that she seems to have trouble reading drunks, it probably won't be.”

  “Then how—?”

  “There are ways,” said Nighthawk so coldly that Kinoshita decided he didn't want to know what the ways were.

  “So when do we plan to leave?”

  “Tomorrow. I've recruited a couple of aliens to our team: Blue Eyes, and one you haven't met yet called Friday. They'll both show up about an hour before we take off.”

  “Do you trust them?” asked Kinoshita.

  “I don't even trust you,” responded Nighthawk.

  Kinoshita looked offended, but chose not to argue, and a few minutes later Nighthawk got to his feet.

  “Wait here,” he said. “I've got to go out.”

  “We're not leaving for another day,” protested Kinoshita. “Why should we have to stay in the ship until then?”

  “So I'll know where to find you.”

  “You're getting awfully dictatorial.”

  “I'll let you know when this becomes a democracy,” replied Nighthawk. “Either you take orders from me, or you walk. There's no third way.” He put his hands on his hips. “Well?”

  “You know the answer,” said Kinoshita. “I'm staying. But you don't have to be such a goddamned dictator. You could ask instead of ordering.”

  “Waste of time.”

  “Why?”

  “You might say no, and then I'd just have to order you.”

  Kinoshita smiled in spite of himself. “You've got a unique way of looking at things.”

  Nighthawk left the ship without returning his smile. It was dark, and there was a thick ground fog. He walked to within a block of the Blue Dragon, then sat down in the recessed entryway to a boarding house, his back propped against the wall, and waited.

  Men and women came and went, aliens passed within feet of him without ever knowing he was there, and still he sat, absolutely motionless. If anyone had seen him, they would have thought he was asleep. They'd have been wrong. He was waiting for his quarry as patiently and silently as a jungle beast waits for its prey—and eventually his patience was rewarded.

  He got to his feet and stepped out onto the pavement so quickly that the man he had been waiting for almost collided with him.

  “I'm sorry!” said Nicholas, pivoting awkwardly and almost falling to the ground. “I didn't see you.”

  “That's all right,” answered Nighthawk. “I saw you.”

  Suddenly the young man's eyes widened in recognition. “Nighthawk!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting.”

  “For what? Or who?”

  Nighthawk made no reply.

  “For me?” said Nicholas at last. “Why?”

  “We have to talk.”

  “About what?”

  “Ibn ben Khalid.”

  “I don't know any more about him than you do,” said Nicholas nervously.

  “I've got a Balatai woman back on my ship,” said Nighthawk. “She can tell me if you're lying.”

  “Bring her along. I've got nothing to hide.”

  “You said you would speak to Ibn ben Khalid next time you saw him,” continued Nighthawk. “That implies you've seen him before.”

  “You misunderstood me!” protested Nicholas. “I meant that if I ever saw him, I'd speak to him.”

  Suddenly the cold muzzle of a sonic pistol was pressed against Nicholas’ head.

  “Let's try again,” said Nighthawk.

  “But I told you: I've never met him!”

  “I know. But I don't believe you.”

  “You can't shoot me down in cold blood!” said Nicholas. “Blue Eyes told me all about you. You were a lot of things, but you were never a murderer!”

  “I'm an officer of the law,” said Nighthawk. “My credentials may be a century old, but they're still valid. And you're a tax evader.”

  “That's a goddamned misdemeanor!”

  “But resisting arrest isn't.”

  “It'll be your word against—”

  “Against what?”

  Suddenly Nicholas froze. “All right. What do you want to know?”

  “Where can I find him?”

  “I don't know. He's stopped by the Blue Dragon twice in three years.” Nicholas paused to regain his composure. “He and Blue Eyes go into the back room and come out a few minutes later. Then he has a drink and leaves. That's all I know!”

  “Where does he come from?” asked Nighthawk. “Where does he go?”

  “How the hell should I know?” shot back Nicholas. “He has to file a flight pla
n somewhere. Why don't you check the spaceport and leave me alone?”

  “I already did. The spaceport doesn't have a record of Ibn ben Khalid landing here. He must have used another name. What was it?”

  “I don't know!”

  Nighthawk took the safety off the sonic pistol. “This will scramble your brains as if they were eggs over a campfire. It's not a death I'd wish on anyone.” He paused. “I'm only going to ask once more: what name did he use?”

  All the life seemed to go out of Nicholas. He slumped and seemed to sink within himself.

  “I'm all out of answers,” he said wearily. “I don't know what name he used. You might as well shoot and get it over with.”

  Nighthawk stared at him for a long moment, then put his pistol back in its holster.

  “Go home.”

  “Soon,” said Nicholas. “But first I'm going to the Blue Dragon for a drink.”

  “No. I mean, go home—back where you came from.”

  Nicholas frowned. “Are you ordering me off this planet?” he asked, puzzled.

  Nighthawk shook his head. “No. But I'm taking the dragon with me tomorrow. You won't have anyone left to study.”

  “How long are you taking him for?”

  “For as long as it takes to find Ibn ben Khalid.”

  “Finding him should be the easy part,” observed Nicholas. “What comes next is harder.” He paused, as if considering his options. “Still, you're the Widowmaker. You might actually pull it off. I think I'll wait until I hear you're dead before I leave the planet.”

  “I thought you wanted Blue Eyes, not me.”

  “If they can kill you, they'll have already killed him.”

  Nighthawk shrugged. “Do what you please.”

  “I'm free to go?”

  “Yes. And tell Blue Eyes that I expect him to show up on time.”

  Nicholas scurried off into the fog.

  Nighthawk walked around the area for another hour, not searching for anything in particular, but not without purpose. He looked at buildings, vehicles, Men, aliens, shadows, all with the uneasy feeling that something was wrong, that as careful as he'd been he had overlooked some tiny detail that could come back to haunt him. It was nothing he could put his finger on, but the feeling persisted, and he had learned in his previous incarnation never to ignore his instincts. So he walked, and searched, and walked and searched some more.