A Gathering of Widowmakers (The Widowmaker #4) (27 page)

"Not a damned thing," he said softly.

Kinoshita tried his various goggles again. "I agree— nothing."

"It's quiet, too," said Jeff. "Nothing but the rustling of leaves and some avians whistling to each other." He paused. "I wonder: could the Younger Brothers have killed them both and left the planet already?"

"Oh, I doubt it," said Nighthawk with an amused smile.

"What is it?" asked Jeff, puzzled.

"Look behind you," said Nighthawk.

Jeff spun around and found himself facing Jason Newman. Newman's tunic was streaked with crusted blood, and he'd lost a considerable amount of weight, but it was clearly the same man Jeff had faced on Giancola II.

"Well, well," said Newman. "Who'd ever have guessed it— especially on a nondescript little world like this: a gathering of Widowmakers."

31.

"Where's Pallas Athene?" asked Kinoshita, who was the only one besides Newman who had actually known her.

"She's dead," answered Newman. "I think they killed her once they knew I'd arrived. The body was pretty fresh."

"You left your vehicle a couple of miles away?" said Nighthawk.

"Of course. It was obviously a trap."

"Yet you came anyway," said Jeff.

"It may have been a trap, but her danger was real," replied Newman. "When I asked for help back on Sylene, she was the first to volunteer. How could I turn her down?"

"Before we go any further," continued Jeff, "I want to apologize for what I did back on Giancola."

"There's no need," said Newman. "You're young. You'll outgrow it.
We
both did."

"So what's the set-up here?" asked Nighthawk. "Where are they, and just as important,
what
are they?"

"I don't know," answered Newman. "When I got here and walked to the cave she was in, there was only one Younger Brother, or one alien, or one whatever the hell he is. He looked mildly human— two arms, legs, eyes, and ears, but the proportions were wrong. So were the joints; no human arms or legs ever bent like his. But still, there was just the one."

"So are you saying our information was wrong, and that there's no gang, there's only one?" asked Jeff.

Newman shook his head. "No. I'm saying there was just one when I showed up. He ducked out of sight when I approached Pallas Athene's cave. She had it stocked for a long siege: weeks worth of food and ammunition laid in, and she'd rigged some lights to a couple of screecher batteries. The cave was pretty deep, and there were a number of others connected to it."

"How did the alien get into the cave if it was that well fortified?" asked Nighthawk.

"He didn't," said Newman. "As near as I can reconstruct it, she stuck her head out the front of the cave—maybe to see if they'd gone away, maybe to see if I was coming, maybe for some other reason—and got the top of her head blown off for her trouble."

"Standard weapon?" asked Nighthawk.

"Pulse gun," confirmed Newman.

"What happened then?" asked Kinoshita.

"It was the damnedest thing," said Newman, frowning. "I walked out of the cave, prepared to hunt down and kill the alien —but he was standing out there, maybe fifty yards away, waiting for me."

"So you killed him?" asked Kinoshita.

Newman grimaced. "Yes and no."

"Explain," said Nighthawk.

"When I faced him his whole body seemed to tense—and suddenly I was facing half a dozen identical Younger Brothers. It was like . . . I don't know . . . an amoeba, perhaps. All I know is that one second I was facing a single alien, and a second later there were six of them, all armed. I half thought they were illusions just meant to distract me. I mean, hell, there was no way he
could
make them solid, with real weapons—but I didn't feel like taking any chances, so I killed three of them before the others had even drawn their weapons. They weren't the most accurate gunmen I've ever seen, but the way their bullets kicked up the dirt around me and their burners melted a rock I'd ducked behind, I had to conclude that they were as real as I was. I killed two more, but suddenly new ones, identical in every way, sprang from the corpses, two and three at a time, and I found myself facing close to a dozen of them." He turned to Nighthawk. "Did you ever hear of anything like that?"

Nighthawk shook his head. "Never."

"Anyway, I killed a few more. They simply multiplied and came back to life, and I figured that before I either ran out of battery power or created a whole army, I'd better take cover and consider my options. I ducked back into the cave. She'd booby-trapped the entrance, and I set off the charge to explode and seal it off. I spent the next day exploring the various tunnels and caves. It's a goddamned maze, but Pallas Athene had carved coded notations on the walls in Terran, so I always knew where I was."

"Smart woman," remarked Nighthawk. "Thanks to t-packs everyone
speaks
Terran, but precious few aliens can actually
read
it."

"I don't think they even tried," said Newman. "I think they were content to let me wander around under the ground until you two showed up. They couldn't get in through Pallas Athene's cave, of course, but most of the caves are interconnected; they could have entered through another one if they'd wanted to—but I never saw a sign of them."

"I
knew
they wanted us all!" said Jeff.

"Anyway," continued Newman, "the longest tunnel let me out about two hundred yards from here. I had just emerged from it and was trying to get my bearings when I heard you three. I had no idea who you were, but I could tell by the voices you were human. I actually came over to warn you to get the hell away from here."

"So you think the rest of them are still waiting near Pallas Athene's cave?"

"I've been exploring the caves and tunnels for almost a full day, so I don't know where they are," said Newman. "But you can bet they'll have some lookouts posted within a two or three mile radius of Pallas Athene's cave."

"We didn't see any," said Jeff.

"You weren't supposed to," said Newman. "They're not there to stop you from approaching; they're there to prevent you from leaving." He smiled grimly. "All the Widowmakers in one fell swoop. I'll bet they can't believe their luck."

"Finding us is a little different than killing us," said Jeff. "Let's see if they still think they're lucky tomorrow morning."

"It's not that easy," said Newman.

"If you killed a few, at least we know they're not invulnerable," said Jeff. "That's a start."

"I must not have made myself clear. You can kill three of them, but if you do, suddenly you're facing six new ones. If you're successful enough, eventually you'll create a whole army of them."

"They've got a weakness," said Jeff.

"Oh?" said Newman. "What is it?"

"I don't know—but if they didn't have one, why would they care whether we live or die? If they want us dead, it's because they can be defeated and they want to eliminate us before we figure out how to do it."

Newman and Nighthawk exchanged looks. "You know," said Newman, "the kid's got a point."

"He's learning," said Nighthawk. "The trick is finding out what that weakness is."

"I don't suppose you know that, too?" Newman asked Jeff.

"Not yet," answered Jeff. "I guess we ought to go have a look at them."

"I suppose so," said Nighthawk. "If they know we're here, they're probably looking for us. Let's at least choose where we meet them." He turned to Newman. "I have a question for you first."

"What is it?"

"The goggles and the radiation detector that you bought at The Sharpshooter—what did you plan to use them for?"

Newman shrugged. "I had no idea. Pallas Athene gave me so many different counts—one day there were ten, one day three, one day seventy-five—I thought some part of them might be beyond the spectrum that the human eye can see, at least under certain conditions. But now that I've seen them myself, I left all that equipment in her cave. They're the strangest aliens I've ever seen, but seeing them isn't the problem."

"Good," said Nighthawk, dumping his gear. "I was getting tired of wearing this stuff anyway." Jeff and Kinoshita followed suit.

"The cave that let me out here in about two hundred yards to the west," said Newman. "There's a tunnel that we can follow back toward Pallas Athene's cave. There's no sense giving them an easy target, so we can spread out, each take a cave, maybe catch them in a crossfire. Except . . ."

"Except what?"

"Except the last thing we want to do is start killing them until we discover how to make they
stay
dead."

"We'll never discover it by standing here," said Jeff. "Where's the cave?"

"Follow me," said Newman.

"You're in no condition to go back and face them again," said Jeff. "Your shirt is covered with blood, and we know how recently you had your surgery."

"I know you're thinking of me," said Newman, "but they murdered my friend, and the only way you're going to keep me from this is to shoot me again. Are you prepared to do that?"

"Of course I'm not," said Jeff.

"Then stop arguing and follow me."

Newman set off to the west, and in a few minutes they came to the mouth of a cave that was almost hidden by the dense underbrush.

After they had all entered, Kinoshita stopped long enough to pull some branches across the front of the cave. Nighthawk was about to light his atomic torch, but Newman signaled him to put it away.

"She planned well," he said. "There's some element in the walls that exudes a faint glow, quite enough for us to see where we're going, and this way the torch won't announce our presence."

He headed off, and the other three followed him. They saw no sign of life, and after a little more than a mile Newman came to a stop.

"We're within a hundred yards of her cave," he whispered. "It's time to split up." He pointed to a small corridor to his right. "This leads to one of the caves."

"I'll take it," said Jeff, heading off into the tunnel.

Kinoshita took the next cave, about sixty yards further.

Nighthawk and Newman walked another seventy yards, passing Pallas Athene's sealed cave, then stopped at another small corridor.

"You want this or the next one?" asked Newman.

"This'll be fine," replied Nighthawk. "How are you holding up?"

"I'll live," said Newman. An ironic smile. "Or if I don't, it won't be because of the surgery." The smile vanished. "If I die and you're still around, tell the kid it wasn't his fault."

"I will."

"I'm not Abel, and there's no reason for him to go through life thinking he was Cain."

"You're a good man, Jason."

Newman flashed him a quick smile. "I come from good stock." He turned and began walking further down the corridor. "I'll see you when it's over."

Nighthawk bent over slightly to avoid bumping his head, then emerged into a small, musty-smelling cave. The walls were damp, and little rodent-like animals scurried into the corners as he walked through it.

As he came to the front of the cave he remembered Newman's description of how Pallas Athene had died, and resisted the urge to stick his head out and look around. He stood back about ten feet and studied what was within his field of vision. There was an open field that approached the huge semi-circular outcropping that held most of the caves, but he couldn't see anything moving, just the short brown-green ground covering that passed for grass on Bollander III.

Nighthawk waited for five minutes, then five more. Still no aliens. Finally he decided that there was no sense waiting until nightfall, so he stepped out of the cave, burner in hand, ready for anything. The field was still empty. A moment later Jeff, Kinoshita and Newman also emerged from their caves, forming a semi-circle around the field.

"So where are they?" asked Jeff, who had so much faith in his ability to react that unlike his three companions he hadn't bothered to draw his weapons.

Nighthawk looked around, puzzled. "There's something very wrong here," he said at last.

Newman began approaching him. "What is it?" he asked.

Kinoshita was about to approach him as well when Nighthawk held up his hand. "Stay where you are. No sense making it easy for them."

Kinoshita stood still, and Jeff nodded and also held his ground.

"How many of them did you kill?" Nighthawk asked Newman.

"Eleven."

Nighthawk nodded toward the empty field. "Where are they?"

"I don't know," answered Newman. "There were enough aliens left to carry them off."

"Carry them
where
?"

Newman shrugged. Then suddenly he tensed, staring past Nighthawk to the far end of the field. "Here's someone who can tell us."

A humanoid alien, his skin a reddish brown, his head a little too large, his eyes too wide and too round, his arms with an extra joint in them, his legs bending in the wrong places, approached them.

Nighthawk aimed his burner at the alien, as did Newman and Kinoshita. Jeff merely watched him with arms folded across his chest, still disdaining his burner and his pulse gun.

The alien stopped when he was twenty yards away from Nighthawk. He seemed to be totally unconcerned by the weaponry that was being pointed at him.

"Greetings," said the alien. "I am the Younger Brothers."

"All of them?" asked Nighthawk sardonically.

"Yes," answered the alien. "Do you doubt me?" He seemed to tense and flex his body, and suddenly there were four of him, then eight, then twenty, then more. In less that ten seconds the men found themselves facing an armed band of fifty identical Younger Brothers.

"I'm impressed," said Nighthawk.

"There is no reason why you should be," said the initial alien. "After all, you are capable of the same feat, are you not?"

"Why should you think so?"

"You DNA is identical to two of these others," said the alien. "All three of you are known as the Widowmaker. All three have collected bounties across the Inner Frontier. You have been doing so for more than one hundred fifty years, which means you are as long-lived as I myself am."