Resnick, Mike - The Widowmaker Trilogy 01 - The Widowmaker

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The Widowmaker: Volume 1 in the Widowmaker Trilogy
by Mike Resnick
2
Fictionwise
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Copyright ©1996 by Mike Resnick
NOTICE: This ebook is licensed to the original purchaser
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The Widowmaker: Volume 1 in the Widowmaker Trilogy
by Mike Resnick
3
To Carol, as always,
And to Ann Groell and Jennifer Hershey,
for encouragement and patience
The Widowmaker: Volume 1 in the Widowmaker Trilogy
by Mike Resnick
4
Prologue
A mile beneath the glittering surface of Deluros VIII, the
capital of mankind's sprawling Oligarchy, two men rode a
slidewalk down a long, dimly-lit corridor, their voices echoing
in the vast emptiness. One wore gray, one white. They
passed a door, then four more.
“I wonder what he'll be like?” mused the man in gray.
The man in white shrugged. “Old and sick.”
“I know,” agreed the man in gray. “But I've seen so many
holos of him when he was ... well, you know.”
“When he was the most famous killer in the galaxy?” asked
his companion sardonically.
“He did most of his killing on the side of the law.”
“So the legend goes.”
“You sound like you think otherwise,” said the man in gray.
“No. But I know how legends get made.”
The slidewalk brought them to a security checkpoint, then
stopped until their ID badges and retinas had been scanned.
It began moving again, only to stop once more at a second
checkpoint fifty yards farther on.
“Is this really necessary?” asked the man in gray.
“The richest men and women in the Oligarchy lie helpless
down here,” came the answer. “They are totally defenseless—
and believe me, nobody gets that rich without making
enemies.”
“I know,” said the man in gray. He gestured ahead to two
more checkpoints. “I was just wondering if we're going to
The Widowmaker: Volume 1 in the Widowmaker Trilogy
by Mike Resnick
5
have to pass through one of these stations every forty or fifty
yards.”
“Absolutely.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“Add it to your bill,” said the man in white.
After another two hundred yards the corridor branched off,
and they chose the slidewalk that veered to the right. The
doors came more frequently now, as did the checkpoints, but
finally they came to a halt in front of a door that appeared no
different from any of the others.
“We're here,” said the man in white, allowing the scanner
above the door to verify his retina and his palm print.
“I feel nervous,” said the man in gray, as the door slid into
the wall long enough for them to pass through.
“It's a simple enough procedure.”
“But he doesn't know who we are.”
“So?”
“What if he's happy the way he is? What if we annoy him?
What if he kills people for bothering him?”
“If he was in any condition to kill people, he wouldn't be
here,” said the man in white. “Lights!”
The room was instantly bathed in a dim blue light.
“Can't you make it any brighter than this?” asked the man
in gray.
“He hasn't opened his eyes in more than a century,”
replied his companion. “The room will wait until it knows his
pupils are adjusting before it gets any brighter.” He walked
past a number of drawers built into the wall, checking their
numbers, then came to a stop. “Drawer 10547.”
The Widowmaker: Volume 1 in the Widowmaker Trilogy
by Mike Resnick
6
A drawer slowly emerged from the wall, stretching to its
full eight-foot length. The two men could barely make out the
shape of a human body beneath the transluscent covering.
“Jefferson Nighthawk,” mused the man in gray. “The
Jefferson Nighthawk.” He paused. “It's not what I expected.”
“Oh?”
“I thought there's be all kinds of wires and tubes attached
to him.”
“Barbaric,” snorted the man in white. “There are three
monitoring devices implanted in his body. That's all he
needs.”
“How does he breathe?”
“He's breathing right now.”
The man in gray stared, trying to detect the tiniest sign of
movement.
“I don't see anything.”
“He's doing it so slowly that only the computer can tell.
DeepSleep slows the metabolism down to a crawl; it doesn't
stop it, or we'd be down here with thirty thousand corpses.”
“So what do you do now?”
“I'm doing it,” said the man in white. He walked over to
the drawer where the body lay, laid his hand over a scanner
until it identified his fingerprints, then tapped in a code on a
keyboard that suddenly extended from the scanner.
“How long will this take?”
“For you or me, probably a minute. For the people we've
got down here, maybe four or five minutes.”
“Why so long?”
The Widowmaker: Volume 1 in the Widowmaker Trilogy
by Mike Resnick
7
“If they weren't dying, they wouldn't be here in the first
place. In their weakened conditions, they take longer to
respond to external stimuli.” The man in white looked up from
the body. “More than one has died from the shock of being
awakened.”
“Will he...?”
“Not likely. His heart reads pretty close to normal,
considering.”
“Good.”
“But if I were you, I'd brace myself for when he finally
wakes up.”
“You've already told me he won't die, and that he's too
sick to pose a threat even if he wanted to, so what's the
problem?”
“Have you ever seen a man in the advanced stages of
eplasia?”
“No,” admitted the man in gray.
“They're not pretty. And that's an understatement.”
They both fell silent as the body in front of them gradually
began acquiring color. After two more minutes the
transluscent top slid into the wall, revealing an emaciated
man whose flesh was hideously disfigured by the ravages of a
virulent skin disease. Patches of shining white cheekbone
protruded through the flesh of the face, knuckles pierced the
skin of the hands, and even where the skin remained intact it
looked like there was some malignancy crawling across it and
discoloring it.
The Widowmaker: Volume 1 in the Widowmaker Trilogy
by Mike Resnick
8
The man in gray turned away in disgust, then forced
himself to look back. He half expected the air to smell of
rotting flesh, but it remained pure and filtered.
Finally the eyelids flickered, once, twice, and then, slowly,
they opened, revealing light blue, almost colorless eyes. The
diseased man remained motionless for a full minute, then
frowned.
“Where did Acosta go?” he croaked at last.
“Who is Acosta?” asked the man in gray.
“My doctor. He was here just a minute ago.”
“Ah,” said the man in white, smiling. “Dr. Acosta has been
dead for more than eighty years. You yourself have been here
for one hundred and seven years, Mr. Nighthawk.”
Nighthawk looked confused. “One hundred and...?”
“And seven years. I am Dr. Gilbert Egan.”
“What year is it?”
“5101 G. E,” said Egan. “May I help you sit up?”
“Yes.”
Egan lifted the frail, skeletal figure until it was sitting
erect. The moment he stopped supporting it, it collapsed onto
its side.
“We'll try again when you're feeling a little stronger,” said
Egan, adjusting Nighthawk so that no ravaged limbs flopped
over the side. “You've been asleep a long time. How do you
feel?”
“I'm starving,” said Nighthawk.
“Of course you are,” said Egan with a smile. “You've gone
more than a century without a meal. Even with your
metabolism slowed down a hundredfold, your stomach has
The Widowmaker: Volume 1 in the Widowmaker Trilogy
by Mike Resnick
9
probably been empty for a decade or more.” Egan attached a
tube to Nighthawk's left arm. “Unfortunately, you're in no
condition to eat, but this will supply your body with the
nourishment it needs.”
“I might as well get used to eating,” rasped Nighthawk,
“now that I'm cured.” He paused. “A hundred and seven
years. It sure as hell took you long enough.”
Egan looked at the frail, diseased man with some
compassion. “I am afraid that a cure for eplasia has not yet
been developed.”
Nighthawk turned and stared at the doctor. It was the kind
of stare that made Egan happy that his patient was not armed
and healthy.
“I left explicit instructions that I wasn't to be awakened
until I was cured.”
“Conditions have changed, Mr. Nighthawk,” said the man
in gray, stepping forward.
“Who the hell are you?” demanded Nighthawk.
“My name is Marcus Dinnisen. I am your solicitor.”
Nighthawk frowned. “My lawyer?”
Marcus Dinnisen nodded. “I am a senior partner in the firm
of Hubbs, Wilkinson, Raith and Jiminez.”
“Raith,” said Nighthawk, nodding vaguely. “He's my
lawyer.”
“Morris Raith joined the firm of Hubbs and Wilkinson three
years before his death, in the year 5012. His great-grandson
worked for us until his retirement last year.”
“All right,” said Nighthawk. “You're my lawyer. Why did
you feel I had to be awakened?”
The Widowmaker: Volume 1 in the Widowmaker Trilogy
by Mike Resnick
10
“This is somewhat awkward to explain, Mr. Nighthawk,”
began Dinnisen uneasily.
“Spit it out.”
“At the time you elected to undergo DeepSleep, you turned
your entire portfolio over to my firm.”
“It wasn't a portfolio,” said Nighthawk. “It was six and a
half million credits.”
“Exactly so,” said Dinnisen. “We were instructed to invest
it and to keep up the payments for this facility in perpetuity,
or until a cure for your disease was developed.”
“So it took you one hundred and seven years to lose all my
money?”
“Absolutely not!” said Dinnisen heatedly. “Your money
remains intact, and has been earning an average of 9.32%
per annum for more than a century. I can supply you with all
the figures if you wish to review them.”
Nighthawk blinked his eyes, a puzzled expression on his
grotesque face. “Then if I'm not broke and I'm not cured,
what the hell is going on?”
“Your account has been earning slightly more than six
hundred thousand credits a year,” explained Dinnisen.
“Unfortunately, due to an inflationary spiral in the Deluros
economy, this facility now charges a million credits a year.
This makes for a shortfall of almost four hundred thousand
credits per annum. We cannot make the payments with your
dividends, and if we dip into capital, you will be destitute in a
decade, and there is no guarantee that a cure for eplasia will
be found by then.”
摘要：

TheWidowmaker:Volume1intheWidowmakerTrilogybyMikeResnick2Fictionwisewww.fictionwise.comCopyright©1996byMikeResnickNOTICE:Thisebookislicensedtotheoriginalpurchaseronly.Duplicationordistributiontoanypersonviaemail,floppydisk,network,printout,oranyothermeansisaviolationofInternationalcopyrightlawandsub...

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