"You're sure you want to come with me?" asked Nighthawk, surveying the spaceport as their ship touched down.
"I feel like I've got a vested interest in you," answered Ito Kinoshita.
"I hardly know you."
"Then let me amend my statement," said Kinoshita with a smile. "I feel like I've got a vested interest in the clan of Jefferson Nighthawks." He paused. "I'm your biggest fan, as well as being your instructor in a previous incarnation."
"Then you know why I'm on this world?"
"It doesn't take a genius to guess."
"All right. Let's go."
They left the ship and took a shuttle vehicle to the spaceport's main terminal. When they arrived, Nighthawk approached an empty Customs booth, while Kinoshita sought out another.
"Name?" asked the computer's electronic voice as it scanned Nighthawk's retina, dentation, and skeletal structure.
"Jefferson Nighthawk."
"Passport?"
Nighthawk handed over the titanium disk.
"Purpose of visit?"
"Tourism."
"There was another Jefferson Nighthawk with an identical retinagram and—except for a scar on your thumb—similar fingerprints, who visited the Solio system two years ago, but he was sixteen years younger."
"That's no concern of mine," replied Nighthawk.
"My programming tells me that two men possessing the same names and retinagrams approaches the statistically impossible," responded the machine.
"Is the other Jefferson Nighthawk still here?"
"He died on Solio II."
"Then it couldn't have been me, could it?"
"I never stated that it was," answered the computer. "Still, the similarities are remarkable."
"What now?" asked Nighthawk.
"I am authorized to make value judgments after accessing my sixth-level programming. I am doing so now."
Nighthawk stood patiently as the computer buzzed and beeped while making its decision.
"How long will you be here, Mr. Nighthawk?" asked the machine after a moment's pause.
"Perhaps a day, possibly two."
"That is a very short visit for a tourist," noted the machine.
"Are short visits forbidden?"
"No, they are not," said the computer. It paused. "Your credentials are in order. Please note that we accept only Oligarchy credits. If you have any Far London pounds, Maria Theresa dollars, or New Stalin rubles, you may exchange them at the spaceport bank. All other currencies, including Kenyatta IV shillings from our neighboring system, should be left in your ship, as they are illegal currencies in this system, and our banks post no exchange rates for them."
"Understood."
"The penalty for selling or purchasing illicit drugs in any quantity, however minimal, is death. No legal appeal will be allowed."
"Understood."
"The atmosphere is seventeen percent oxygen, eighty-one percent nitrogen, two percent trace elements, and the gravity is 1.06 times Earth Standard. If you have any medical condition that will be affected by continued exposure to our air or gravity, please state so now and the proper life support system will be supplied."
"None."
"Then you may be admitted. Welcome to Solio II."
The door at the far end of the booth dilated, and Nighthawk stepped through it. Kinoshita was waiting for him.
"What took you?"
"I'm not the first Jefferson Nighthawk with these retinas or fingerprints to land here," replied Nighthawk.
"Do you think you set off any alarms?" asked Kinoshita. "Will Customs send word ahead that you're here?"
"Why?" said Nighthawk. "I must be the last guy in the whole damned universe anyone expects to encounter. After all, Jefferson Nighthawk died here a couple of years ago; I can't imagine that the Customs computer has been programmed to keep an eye out for me."
"So where to now?"
"Now, since I don't feel like walking into the government building that houses Security headquarters and facing hundreds of guns, I find out where Hernandez lives, where he eats, where I can find him alone or nearly so." He paused. "I assume that megalopolis five miles east of here is the capital city, since this is the only spaceport on the planet. We'll go there, I'll spread a little money around, and before too long someone will tell me what I want to know."
"As simple as that?"
"The direct approach is usually the best."
Nighthawk and Kinoshita began walking through the spaceport. When they came to an exit, they caught a shuttle bound for the nearby city, and a moment later they were skimming a few inches above the ground as the shuttle raced across the flat, barren, brown landscape.
They got off in the middle of the city, a forest of angular steel-and-glass buildings with the streets crisscrossing in regular patterns. As he had predicted, it took Nighthawk less than an hour to get the information he sought. He soon stood before a small, elegant restaurant that was located just off one of the main thoroughfares.
"Are you really going in there?" asked Kinoshita.
"Why not?" responded Nighthawk. "It's lunchtime. Either he's here now, or he soon will be." He paused. "Do you know what he looks like?"
Kinoshita shook his head. "I never dealt with him. I've never even seen a holograph."
"It doesn't matter," said Nighthawk. "This place caters to businessmen and bureaucrats. If he's in uniform, I'll spot him."
"And if he doesn't eat here every day?"
"Then I'll pay him a visit at his home tonight," said Nighthawk. "But I'd much rather meet him here."
"There are more witnesses here," said Kinoshita.
"True. But the security's poorer."
"Are you sure?"
Nighthawk walked to the door. "Pretty sure," he said. "Still, there's only one way to find out."
"There are close to fifty men and women in here," whispered Kinoshita as Nighthawk paused in the doorway. "Some of them have got to be armed."
Nighthawk shrugged. "There's nothing I can do about it," he said, scanning the restaurant. Finally he stared intently at a uniformed man who was sitting with two other officers at a table in the farthest corner. "That has to be him."
"You've never seen him before," said Kinoshita. "How can you know?"
"He's the highest-ranking officer in the place," said Nighthawk. "Get a table halfway between him and the door and keep an eye on my back."
"I don't understand."
"This is the most powerful man on Solio II," explained Nighthawk. "Believe me, he'll have more than two bodyguards. Kill anyone who reaches for a gun."
"But—" said Kinoshita, but Nighthawk was already walking calmly through the room. Finally he stopped at the officer's table. "Do you mind if I join you?" he asked, sitting down before receiving a reply.
"Do I know you?" asked the officer, staring intently at him.
"That all depends," replied Nighthawk. "Are you James Hernandez?"
The man nodded. "You have the advantage of me, sir."
"Still a colonel, I see. You haven't advanced very far in the last two years."
Hernandez continued to stare at Nighthawk. "We met two years ago?"
"In a manner of speaking." Nighthawk leaned forward. "Look at me closely, Colonel Hernandez."
"Nighthawk!" exclaimed Hernandez after another moment had passed. Suddenly he turned to his two companions. "Leave us alone for a few minutes."
"But sir—" protested one.
"It's all right," Hernandez assured him.
The two officers got up reluctantly and moved to a nearby table.
Hernandez turned to Nighthawk and lit a Cygnian cigar. "You're much older," he noted. "I approve." He paused. "I suppose your friends on Deluros sent you here about the money?"
Nighthawk shook his head. "I'm on my own."
"Really?" said Hernandez. "Good. I can use a man like you, Jefferson Nighthawk."
"The way you used the last one?"
"He was a child masquerading as the Widowmaker," said Hernandez contemptuously. "You're the real thing—or at least you appear to be." He smiled. "We can do business together."
"Slaughter whole planetary populations?" asked Nighthawk, returning the smile.
"We'll start with three or four people who have been causing me problems lately and work our way up from there."
"Only three or four?"
"Do I look that beleaguered?
"I'd rather expected you to be a general by now. There have to be more than three or four men standing between you and what you want."
"I found a properly malleable puppet to be Governor," replied Hernandez. "Let him get the headlines and attract the assassins. I am content to rule the planet in obscurity." He grinned. "That's why I'm not a governor or a general."
"Very intelligent."
"So," said Hernandez, "can we do business?"
"Actually, I'm here on business," said Nighthawk.
Hernandez frowned. "I told you: if your people have sent you here about the final payment . . ."
"They haven't."
"Then why are you here?"
"Think hard, Colonel Hernandez. What is the very last thing you did to my predecessor?"
"I killed him," responded Hernandez. "But surely you know he was trying to kill me at the time." He paused, then added incredulously: "You're not going to tell me that you feel any loyalty to a clone you never met, a clone that was killed two years before you were created?"
Nighthawk stared coldly into Hernandez' eyes. "You didn't kill my father, or my brother, or my son," he said at last. "You killed someone even closer. You killed me. A younger, more innocent version, but me nonetheless." He stared coldly at the colonel. "You never intended that I would survive my mission. You used me and set me up and when the opportunity presented itself, you killed me."
"Not you!" insisted Hernandez. "I killed a version of you that you never even knew!"
"It was a Jefferson Nighthawk—and I take it personally when Jefferson Nighthawks are killed."
"Fine. I won't kill you or that hideous monstrosity they cloned you from."
"You don't understand," said Nighthawk. "I'm not here to extract promises; I'm here to extract payment. And there is only one way you can pay for killing Jefferson Nighthawk."
Hernandez' glanced quickly around the room. "You'll never make it out of here alive."
"You're not going to live long enough to know whether I do or not."
"Look, we can reach an accommodation," said Hernandez smoothly, his dark eyes seeking out the bodyguards who were spaced around the various tables. "Your principals think I owe them a few million credits. Come back to my office with me and we can work something out."
"I told you: I'm here for myself."
"Then I'll deal with you."
"I don't want your money," said Nighthawk firmly.
"Then why all the talk? Why didn't you just walk in and shoot me?"
"I wanted you to know why. In your last second of life, I wanted you to know that your death was neither a mistake nor an accident. It was because you used and betrayed and finally murdered Jefferson Nighthawk." He paused, then added with a sense of finality, "And now you know it."
Nighthawk got to his feet, pulled out a laser pistol in a single fluid motion, and as the weapon hummed softly with power, he burned a sizzling, bubbling hole between Hernandez' eyes. The officer slumped over, dead, as a woman shrieked. In the same motion he turned and killed the two officers at the next table.
Then, as Kinoshita watched, transfixed, Nighthawk, the one calm island in a sea of confusion, picked three more men from the crowd and burned them away. He surveyed the room, couldn't spot anyone else with the urge to be a hero, and walked through the restaurant, taking the stunned Kinoshita by the arm and heading for the door. As they stepped outside, he turned and melted the lock with his laser pistol, effectively sealing the staff and customers inside.
"You're everything they said you were," said Kinoshita as they crossed the street and rounded a corner. He stopped and stared admiringly at Nighthawk. "I never saw anything like that."
"Keep walking. There'll be a back entrance—and it'll only be a matter of minutes before someone remembers."
"So what do we do now?"
"We go back to the spaceport," answered Nighthawk, spotting a shuttle at rest and increasing his pace to reach it. "By the way," he added sardonically, "thanks for protecting my back."
"I never saw any guns," said Kinoshita defensively.
"You wait until their guns are out and you're dead. A man with that much clout figures to hire only the best."
"So he had some guardian angels spread around the restaurant in civilian clothes. How did you know which ones they were?"
"I didn't."
"But—"
"Anyone who ducked or sat still was a civilian. Anyone who reached inside his tunic or jacket was an enemy."
"And if they were just reaching for their wallets?" asked Kinoshita as they reached the shuttle.
"Then I'd say they timed it very poorly," replied Nighthawk as the shuttle doors opened.
"Are you saying that—?" began Kinoshita.
"Shut up," said Nighthawk harshly. Kinoshita looked at him questioningly. "This isn't the time or the place for this discussion."
Kinoshita fell silent, but his active imagination played out thirty or forty scenarios, each grimmer than the last. To his amazement, they reached the spaceport without incident and were soon racing out of the Solio system at light speeds.
The instructor poured himself a drink, stared at his calm, relaxed companion for a long moment, and began to understand, for perhaps the first time, exactly who and what he was traveling with. It had just been a morning's work for Nighthawk, nothing to get excited about, nothing to celebrate, nothing to turn into song or fable.
Just business.
Suddenly Kinoshita was very glad that he was not one of the Widowmaker's enemies.