Back | Next
Contents

3.

Nighthawk sat at the control panel, sipping a mutated fruit drink and staring at the viewscreen. Finally he looked across at Kinoshita.

"What planet do you want me to put you off on?" he asked.

"Do you think you're able to run the ship yourself?" responded Kinoshita.

Nighthawk smiled. "The panel looks different, and the galley cooks better meals, but if they've made a meaningful improvement in the past century, I sure as hell haven't been able to find it. You still say 'Take me to Binder X,' and then you relax for two days while the ship does what you ordered."

"Oh, they've made a few changes. Nowadays if it spots an ion storm or a meteor swarm coming up on its flight path, it won't bother you for instructions. It'll avoid them on its own and then recalibrate its course."

"Big deal," said Nighthawk. "As far as I'm concerned, an ion storm is one of the few things that keeps you from being bored in deep space."

"They also fly a little faster."

"You could cross the whole damned galaxy in less than a month back in my time, and if you didn't want to look out the portholes or play games with the computer, you could go into Deepsleep, so what the hell difference does it make that it can do it in twenty-seven days instead of twenty-nine?"

"Not much," admitted Kinoshita. "But when an object approaches maximum performance, any improvements will seem small."

"Fine," said Nighthawk. "You still haven't answered my question: where do you want me to put you down?"

"Nowhere."

Nighthawk stared at him.

"I'd like to come along," continued Kinoshita.

"As a watchdog for Marcus Dinnisen?"

Kinoshita shook his head. "I've been in the Oligarchy too long. It's time I got back out to the Frontier."

"You're crazy," said Nighthawk. "If the odds weren't hundreds to one against pulling this job off, you don't think they'd have cloned me, do you?"

"I have confidence in you."

"Bully for you." Nighthawk paused. "I don't take partners. Anything I earn is already earmarked for me or for my dying double."

"I have enough money," said Kinoshita.

"No one has enough money."

"Look, I'll explain it as simply as I can. I used to be a lawman and a bounty hunter. A damned good one, if I say so myself. I took enormous pride in my accomplishments." He paused, awkwardly trying to stake out a position halfway between admiration and hero-worship. "You're the best I've ever seen, maybe the best there ever was. I want to watch you work."

"I'll have enough trouble protecting me. I won't be able to worry about you."

"I can take care of myself," said Kinoshita. "And I can be useful to you."

"Like you were at the restaurant?" asked Nighthawk with a sardonic smile.

"I'd never seen you in action before. I wanted to see just how good you really are, so I decided not to help unless you needed me." He paused. "It takes a hell of a lot to impress me, but I'm impressed. You're even better than the history books make you out to be." He looked into Nighthawk's eyes. "Next time I'll back you up. It won't happen again, I promise."

Nighthawk stared at Kinoshita until he shifted nervously in his seat. At last he said, "It damned well better not."

"Then am I coming along?" asked Kinoshita.

"For the time being."

"Thanks. I owe you."

"Fine," said Nighthawk. "Start paying."

"I beg your pardon?"

Nighthawk tapped his head with a forefinger. "I've got a lifetime of memories in here, but they're a century out of date." He paused. "For example, I think the biggest whorehouse on the Inner Frontier is Madame Zygia's on Tecumseh IV, but for all I know it's been out of business for ninety years."

"I see what you mean," said Kinoshita.

"So does Madame Zygia's still exist?"

"Madame Zygia's?"

"That's what we're talking about."

"I don't know," said Kinoshita. "I never heard of it."

"Find out," said Nighthawk. "And if it's not there anymore, find out where the biggest whorehouse is."

"I've heard that there's a huge one on Barrios II."

"Multi-species?"

Kinoshita shrugged. "I really couldn't say."

"Find out," repeated Nighthawk.

"All right," said Kinoshita. Then: "Why this sudden interest in whorehouses?"

"It's not sudden, and we're going to one."

"Now?"

"Now."

"Why don't we just stop at the next oxygen world? I don't suppose there's a world anywhere on the Inner Frontier that doesn't have a whorehouse."

Nighthawk shook his head. "I'm not looking for your everyday whorehouse."

"I'll find a luxurious one," Kinoshita assured him.

"That's not what I asked for. I need the biggest, not the best."

"Just what are you looking for?"

"I already told you," said Nighthawk, leaning back comfortably in his chair, putting one foot up on the panel, and closing his eyes. "Now let's see if you can find it."

"Is this some kind of test?"

"Just do it."

Kinoshita sighed and had the ship's computer start pouring through its more esoteric data banks until he found out that Madame Zygia's was nothing more than a memory, and that the biggest brothel on the Inner Frontier was indeed the Gomorrah Palace on Barrios II. He directed the ship to set a course for the Barrios system, then went off to the galley to get some lunch, all the while wondering why, if the Widowmaker was addicted to inter-species sex, his multitude of biographies never made mention of the fact.

 

 

 

Back | Next
Framed