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

  The alien walked off to the far end of the restaurant and seated himself.

  Nighthawk and the rest of his party found an unoccupied table near the door, punched out their orders from the menu, and ate in relative silence.

  Melisande kept shifting uncomfortably during the meal.

  “Either you ate something that's making you sick, or you're getting a lot of bad vibrations,” noted Nighthawk.

  “It's very uncomfortable when so many people are so frightened,” she admitted.

  “Can't you turn it off?” he asked. “Like closing your eyes or plugging your ears?”

  “How do you turn off your mind?” she shot back.

  “There must be some way, or you'd have gone crazy years ago,” he continued. “You can't be aware of every vicious, perverted emotion on the planet.”

  “Distance helps,” she replied.

  “How about walls?”

  “Not really. Just distance.”

  “You must really have suffered on the ship.”

  “You find ways to cope,” she said. “Friday hates all Men, but most of that hatred is beneath the surface. It comes out from time to time, but not often. And Kinoshita's emotions only flare up when he confronts Friday.”

  “What about me?” asked Blue Eyes.

  “I can't read you at all,” answered Melisande. “We're too different.”

  “And the boss?” asked Blue Eyes, gesturing toward Nighthawk.

  She stared at Nighthawk for a long moment. “I've never met anyone quite like him. There's almost no emotional radiation at all. No apprehension, no fear, no hatred. This is all just a job to him. Nothing upsets him, and nothing seems to excite him.”

  “I suppose that's what makes him the Widowmaker,” said Blue Eyes. “Probably the most you'll ever get from him is a sense of satisfaction at a job well done after he wipes out fifty or sixty bad guys.”

  “That's a terrible way to be,” was her answer.

  “It's the only way to survive when you put your life on the line so often,” said Nighthawk.

  “Life is more than surviving,” she said.

  “Not for everyone,” he answered.

  “What would you do if you weren't the Widowmaker?” asked Blue Eyes. “If you could do or be anything you want?”

  “It's a silly question. I am what I am.”

  “But if,” persisted the alien.

  Nighthawk shrugged. “Grow things, I guess.”

  “Things?”

  “Flowers, plants, animals,” he answered vaguely. “I've killed enough things in my life. It might be interesting to try growing them for a change.”

  “What's stopping you?” asked Blue Eyes. “Your creators are half a galaxy away. You could vanish on the Frontier and they'd never find you.”

  “I have an obligation.”

  “To them?” said Blue Eyes contemptuously.

  “To me.”

  “To yourself?”

  “To a version of me that's lying in a frozen chamber on Deluros VIII,” answered Nighthawk. “Once his future is secure, I'll worry about my own.”

  “I know how Men feel about their parents and siblings,” continued Blue Eyes. “But how does a clone feel about his—what would you call it?—his original self?”

  “He's not a separate person. He's a part of me, just as I'm a part of him.”

  “I don't understand.”

  “I don't either,” admitted Nighthawk. “But I know what I feel.”

  “I wonder why cloning humans carries such heavy penalties?” mused Blue Eyes.

  “All the legal problems,” answered Kinoshita. “Is a man responsible for his clone's criminal actions? If DNA is found at the scene of a violent crime, whose is it? For the purposes of inheritance, who is more closely related—a man's son or his clone?”

  “You would think they could solve them.”

  “They probably can—but they'd rather not,” said Melisande. “Each of us likes to think he's unique. Clones would change all that.”

  “I don't know,” said Kinoshita. “I never met the original Widowmaker, but I spent some time with the first clone, and he was nothing like this one.”

  “How was he different?” she asked.

  “He was very immature, very impetuous—and he fell passionately in love with the first woman he saw.”

  “He was also two months old,” said Nighthawk. “Not physically, but in every other way.” He paused. “The poor bastard never had a chance.”

  “You speak as if you knew him,” said Blue Eyes.

  “I did more than know him,” answered Nighthawk. “I was him.”

  “There!” said Melisande. “That's the first really powerful emotional reaction I've read since I met you.”

  “Emotions get in the way of things,” said Nighthawk, his expression halfway between annoyed and embarrassed.

  “I disagree,” said Kinoshita. “Without lust and greed, the race would still be Earthbound.”

  “Lust and greed and curiosity,” Melisande corrected him.

  “Well, let's start satisfying our curiosity,” said Nighthawk. He left his thumbprint on the bill, got to his feet, waited for the others to rise, and walked to the door.

  Friday joined them, and a moment later Nighthawk's team had gone out into the cool Cellestra night in search of information about his quarry.

  13.

  “So where do we begin?” asked Melisande nervously as she and Nighthawk rode down the almost-empty slidewalk.

  “Your choice,” said Nighthawk. “Pick a tavern or a drug den or a coffee shop where the emotions aren't too painful. I want you to be able to read new emotions, passions I hope to raise; I assume it's easier if you're not already overwhelmed.”

  “True,” she said. “But why didn't you offer me the same choice back on Sylene IV?”

  “Because my ... ah ... sponsors had tipped me that Ibn ben Khalid had been seen a couple of times in Blue Eyes’ establishment. It wouldn't have made much sense to choose a barroom three blocks away, would it?”

  “No,” she admitted. Then: “How will you do it this time, without Kinoshita around to start an argument?”

  Nighthawk shrugged. “I'm sure something will come to me.” He paused. “I want you sitting in the light this time, where I can see your face without any difficulty. If anyone reacts to anything I say or do, just stare at him for a minute.”

  “I'll attract his attention,” she said uneasily. “What if he tries to do something?”

  “Then he'll find out what happens to people who bother the Widowmaker's friends.”

  “I'm comforted to hear that—but are you aware of how arrogant that sounds?”

  “I've earned my arrogance,” responded Nighthawk. “Would you rather I simpered and sucked my thumb and said ‘Aw, shucks!’ every time the subject of my abilities arose?”

  “No,” she said with a sigh. “I suppose not.”

  “How's this place?” asked Nighthawk, indicating an exotic-looking tavern.

  She concentrated for a moment. “As good as any. They've got a very beautiful dancer.”

  “How can you tell?”

  She smiled. “There's a lot of lust in the air. What would you credit it to?”

  “Sounds logical. I think maybe we'd better go in as a couple.”

  “Why?”

  “You're an attractive woman, and if you walk in alone, I imagine some of that lust is going to be directed toward you.”

  “That's thoughtful of you.”

  He shrugged. “Why make my job harder?”

  She stared at him for a moment, then took his arm and entered the tavern with him.

  It was a curious room, sixteen-sided, dark, with alien tapestries hanging on the walls. An almost-nude girl stood atop a huge transparent globe that rolled around a small stage in the middle of the room, and the girl's attempts to keep her balance bore such grace that Nighthawk decided she could just as easily tapped or pirouetted on it had she so desired. The music seemed live, but
he couldn't spot the band.

  There were about thirty small tables circling the stage, about half of them occupied by Men, the rest empty. As far as Nighthawk could tell, the dancer and Melisande were the only two females in the place.

  Nighthawk walked to a table very near the stage, pulled out a chair for Melisande, then sat down himself. He didn't see any sign of a waiter, either robotic or human, so he examined the table and found an almost invisible button which, when pressed, produced two drink menus. The selection was suitably exotic: Dust Whores, Blue Zebras, Green-and-Whites, Chiller Killers, even a wildly expensive bottle of 75-year-old Alphard brandy. They each selected a drink, Nighthawk placed his thumb next to each on the menu, and a moment later two slots opened on the table and the drinks magically appeared.

  “Anyone look likely?” asked Nighthawk, scanning the room.

  “They all look dangerous,” she replied.

  “Looks can be deceiving.”

  “Don't you feel any fear or even apprehension?” she asked, staring at him.

  He grinned. “If you don't know, we've got a serious problem.”

  “I can't detect any.”

  “This is my work. It doesn't pay to be nervous.”

  “There's a difference between controlling or ignoring your fear, and not feeling any at all.”

  “Maybe that's my edge, then.”

  “You're a very strange man, Jefferson Nighthawk.”

  “That's how you become a legend,” he replied. The semi-nude girl finished her routine, and Nighthawk leaned over toward her. “We'd be happy to buy you a drink once you get your clothes back on,” he said.

  “I don't drink with the customers.”

  “Ah, but this is a drink in honor of Ibn ben Khalid,” he said in a voice that was just loud enough to be overheard.

  “You must not have heard me,” replied the girl. “I don't drink with the customers.”

  “Next you'll be telling me you're a patriot,” he said as she left the stage. Then he turned back to Melisande. “Well?”

  “Nothing from her,” she replied, “but when you mentioned Ibn ben Khalid I got a couple of rushes of emotion from somewhere in the room, and your comment about patriotism got one of them near the boiling point.”

  “For us or against us?”

  “I don't know,” she said. “I read emotions, not thoughts—but given that we're two thousand light years from the nearest Oligarchy world, I'd have to think it's for us.”

  “Let's find out,” said Nighthawk.

  He stood up, glass in hand.

  “A toast to Ibn ben Khalid!” he said in a loud voice.

  No one joined him.

  “Bunch of goddamned cowards,” he muttered, downing his drink and sitting down again. He looked at Melisande and asked softly, “Anything?”

  “Everything,” she answered. “Loyalty, outrage, love, hatred, even fear.”

  “Directed at me or at Ibn ben Khalid?”

  “I don't know.”

  “It could mean they know him, or simply that they know of him. And that they love him and fear me, or the other way around.” He grinned ruefully. “Empathy isn't an exact science, is it?”

  “You knew what it was when you hired me.”

  “Don't get angry,” he said, and suddenly looked around the room. “Or maybe that's the best thing for you to do?”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “If I slap you and pull my punch, can you fall and make it look real?”

  “I don't know. I'm not an actress.”

  “Don't worry about it then,” he said.

  “What's this about?”

  “I can't wait all night for someone to approach. Maybe we can precipitate some action.”

  “By hitting me?” she said. “I'll never be able to convince them I was really hurt.”

  “Yes you will,” assured her.

  “But I—”

  His hand shot out and slapped her, hard. She fell off her chair and rolled onto the floor.

  “Get up!” he bellowed. “Get up and say that again!”

  She sat erect, her eyes refusing to focus. He yanked her to get feet, dragged her to the door, and pushed her out into the street. “Wait for me at the hotel,” he whispered, then re-entered the tavern.

  “Promises me a night's entertainment and then starts lecturing me about Cassius Hill's virtues,” he announced, sitting down again at his table. “That bastard wouldn't know a virtue if it jumped up and spit in his face.”

  There was still no reaction, so he stood up.

  “I've had my fill of this place,” he said, walking back to the door and out into the street.

  He had walked, swaying as if drunk, about forty feet when a voice called out from behind him.

  “Hold on, friend!”

  Nighthawk repressed a secret smile, then turned to see who was approaching him. It was one of the men from the tavern, a broad-shouldered beer-bellied man with a huge black beard and bold, glaring gray eyes.

  “I couldn't help hearing what you had to say,” said the man.

  “And?”

  “I happen to have fought under Cassius Hill's command in the war against the Borolites. He's a great man, and I take issue with what you said.”

  Wonderful. There are probably fifty Ibn ben Khalid supporters in the tavern, and I get the one who hates his guts.

  “That's your privilege, brother,” said Nighthawk at last. “I didn't mean any harm.”

  “Then you'd better apologize right here and now,” said the man.

  “Okay, I apologize.”

  The man seemed angrier than ever. “That's not good enough!”

  Nighthawk noticed that a crowd had begun gathering.

  Well, maybe it's not so bothersome after all. If I stand up for Ibn ben Khalid, maybe someone here will finally decide I'm on their side.

  “It'll have to do,” said Nighthawk. “It's all you're going to get.”

  “So you've found a little backbone after all,” said the man with a dangerous smile.

  “A little.”

  “Do you have anything to say before I rip you apart?”

  “Yeah,” said Nighthawk. “You and Cassius Hill can both go fuck yourselves.”

  The man bellowed a curse and charged, but Nighthawk was ready for him. He sidestepped, grabbed the man's arm, twisted it and put his weight into it, and the man somersaulted through the air, landing with a bone-jarring thud.

  The man got to his feet slowly, brushed himself off, and stared at Nighthawk. He approached more slowly this time—and walked face-first into a spinning kick that sent him reeling.

  “Who are you?” he demanded, wiping the blood from his face and approaching even more carefully this time.

  “I'm the man you were going to rip apart,” said Nighthawk.

  The man approached him warily, feinting with his left. Nighthawk didn't wait for a second feint, but stepped inside and delivered six blows to the belly, so rapidly that most of the observers never saw the last four. His opponent collapsed, gasping for air.

  Nighthawk looked around, hoping someone would approach to congratulate him or offer him a drink or show some form of solidity with a man who had just risked his life for Ibn ben Khalid. Instead, three men stepped forward, each with a drawn pistol—two sonic, one laser.

  “I didn't know Cassius Hill was so popular,” said Nighthawk wryly.

  “We don't give a shit about politics,” said one of the men. “But that was our friend you damned near killed.”

  “He attacked me.”

  “That doesn't make him any less our friend.”

  “Then take him home and tell him not to argue politics.” And don't make me kill you.

  “First we have to decide what to do about you.”

  “Just walk on,” said Nighthawk. “I've got no argument with you.”

  “We have one with you,” said the second man. “I saw the way you took him apart. You're no amateur. You should have warned him, or found some way to s
tep aside.”

  “I apologized to him,” said Nighthawk. “I'll apologize to you, too, if it'll make you feel any better.” He paused. “But I'll only apologize once. Walk on.”

  “You're talking as if you have the drop on us,” said the first man.

  Nighthawk was about to reply when an ear-shattering explosion rang out. Bricks and debris rained down on him, and the ground shook beneath his feet. He threw himself to the ground, covering his head with his hands and wondering what the hell was happening. He could hear screams of agony nearby, and a moment later he felt a building collapse down the street.

  Then an alien hand was on his shoulder, helping him to his feet.

  “Are you all right?” asked Friday.

  “Yes,” said Nighthawk, looking around at a scene of total devastation. Wounded bodies littered the street, and a couple of men lay motionless, their bodies in such awkward positions that he knew instantly they were dead. “What the hell happened?”

  “I saw three men with their weapons trained on you.”

  “You mean this was your doing?” demanded Nighthawk, wiping some blood from his left ear.

  “It's my specialty.”

  “I didn't even know you had any explosives with you.”

  “I am never without them,” said Friday.

  Kinoshita came running up.

  “What's going on?” he asked.

  “This asshole wiped out half a city block,” answered Nighthawk.

  “I saved your life.”

  “My life was never in danger.”

  “You idiot!” snapped Kinoshita at Friday. “Look what you've done. How are we going to make contact with Ibn ben Khalid's people now?”

  Men and women began regaining consciousness and staggered to their feet.

  “That's the easy part,” said Nighthawk. He turned to Friday. “All right, there's no undoing what happened. Get the hell back to the hotel—no, make that the ship—and stay there until you hear from me. Ito, find Blue Eyes and get him out of here. Take him to the ship and make him stay there. Melisande, too.”

  “Aren't you coming too?”

  Nighthawk shook his head. “Not right away. I still have a job to do.”

  “Then at least let us help protect you.”

  “You too?” replied Nighthawk. “I don't need any protection. You can help me by getting the aliens to the ship and not letting them set foot outside it.”