A Gathering of Widowmakers (The Widowmaker #4) by Mike Resnick Page B
Authors: Mike Resnick
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shellfish.
"I know, but your body is used to them. If anything's going to put you in the sick bay it's a rich meal like this when you haven't had one in months—especially with that alien lobster or whatever the hell it is."
"It'd be worth it," said Kinoshita, taking another bite.
"Did Jeff sample a lot of foods or stick to the safe stuff?" asked Nighthawk.
"I never paid much attention," said Kinoshita. "I do know that nothing ever made him sick. You had a hell of a constitution when you were a young man. Hell, you still do."
"It didn't stop me from coming down with eplasia ."
"When did you first notice it?"
Nighthawk shrugged. "I don't know. When I was about in my mid-fifties, I suppose, though there might have been earlier signs of it. At first I thought it was just a rash of some kind, something I'd picked up on some alien world I'd visited. When it didn't go away I went to a doctor. He'd never seen eplasia , so he prescribed some ointment. I applied it religiously, and all that happened was that the rash got worse. After another year, and two more doctors who at least admitted they didn't know what the hell I had, I went into the Democracy to find a clinic that specialized in skin diseases." The muscles in his jaw tightened noticeably. "That was when they laid the death sentence on me."
"How long did they give you to live?"
"They didn't know. A year. Ten years. It didn't make any difference. They assured me that long before the end I'd kill myself—and once they learned who I was, they suggested that the day would come that I'd purposely lose a gunfight rather than keep on living."
"They didn't know Jefferson Nighthawk," said Kinoshita.
"It got pretty bad," continued Nighthawk. "There came a day when I'd look in the mirror, and there was more bone showing than flesh. My knuckles stuck up through the skin on my hands. I didn't have any hair, because there wasn't enough skin on my head to hold it in place. I gave anyone who saw me nightmares—not just kids, but grown men and women too. And there was a smell of rot and decay I couldn't get away from." He winced at the memory. "The smell was me."
"And still you didn't kill yourself."
"I was never afraid to die. You can't work in my business if you are afraid. But something inside me wouldn't let me just give up and kill myself—and purposely losing a fight would have been suicide. Maybe the onlookers and coroner wouldn't recognize it as such, but I would." He was silent for a long minute, and Kinoshita could tell he was reliving those final days with the disease, days when he had to force himself to look into the mirror or step outside where people could gape at him—or turn away from him in horror and disgust. "Then I heard about a very private, very expensive facility on Deluros VIII, at the center of the Oligarchy, where they were cryogenically freezing any man or woman with a terminal disease who could afford to stay frozen until a cure was discovered. The cost was better than a million credits a year, but I'd stockpiled twenty million credits, and I locked them in at eight percent interest."
"Seemed reasonable," said Kinoshita.
"It was," replied Nighthawk. "How the hell could I know that it would take them more than a century to effect a cure, or that the economy would go through an inflationary spiral for more than a decade? I was still locked it at eight percent, but suddenly it was costing five million credits a year to stay frozen. It didn't take me long to run through most of my principal."
"That's when they created the first clone?"
Nighthawk nodded. "They had to wake me up and get my authorization. I still remember it. I was too weak to sit up on my own, and when I saw my hand in front of me I knew I hadn't been cured. I thought they were about to tell me that they'd decided they could never come up with a cure." He smiled bitterly. "What they told me was just as bad. I was almost broke, and they were going to have to wake me and toss me out.
"I know, but your body is used to them. If anything's going to put you in the sick bay it's a rich meal like this when you haven't had one in months—especially with that alien lobster or whatever the hell it is."
"It'd be worth it," said Kinoshita, taking another bite.
"Did Jeff sample a lot of foods or stick to the safe stuff?" asked Nighthawk.
"I never paid much attention," said Kinoshita. "I do know that nothing ever made him sick. You had a hell of a constitution when you were a young man. Hell, you still do."
"It didn't stop me from coming down with eplasia ."
"When did you first notice it?"
Nighthawk shrugged. "I don't know. When I was about in my mid-fifties, I suppose, though there might have been earlier signs of it. At first I thought it was just a rash of some kind, something I'd picked up on some alien world I'd visited. When it didn't go away I went to a doctor. He'd never seen eplasia , so he prescribed some ointment. I applied it religiously, and all that happened was that the rash got worse. After another year, and two more doctors who at least admitted they didn't know what the hell I had, I went into the Democracy to find a clinic that specialized in skin diseases." The muscles in his jaw tightened noticeably. "That was when they laid the death sentence on me."
"How long did they give you to live?"
"They didn't know. A year. Ten years. It didn't make any difference. They assured me that long before the end I'd kill myself—and once they learned who I was, they suggested that the day would come that I'd purposely lose a gunfight rather than keep on living."
"They didn't know Jefferson Nighthawk," said Kinoshita.
"It got pretty bad," continued Nighthawk. "There came a day when I'd look in the mirror, and there was more bone showing than flesh. My knuckles stuck up through the skin on my hands. I didn't have any hair, because there wasn't enough skin on my head to hold it in place. I gave anyone who saw me nightmares—not just kids, but grown men and women too. And there was a smell of rot and decay I couldn't get away from." He winced at the memory. "The smell was me."
"And still you didn't kill yourself."
"I was never afraid to die. You can't work in my business if you are afraid. But something inside me wouldn't let me just give up and kill myself—and purposely losing a fight would have been suicide. Maybe the onlookers and coroner wouldn't recognize it as such, but I would." He was silent for a long minute, and Kinoshita could tell he was reliving those final days with the disease, days when he had to force himself to look into the mirror or step outside where people could gape at him—or turn away from him in horror and disgust. "Then I heard about a very private, very expensive facility on Deluros VIII, at the center of the Oligarchy, where they were cryogenically freezing any man or woman with a terminal disease who could afford to stay frozen until a cure was discovered. The cost was better than a million credits a year, but I'd stockpiled twenty million credits, and I locked them in at eight percent interest."
"Seemed reasonable," said Kinoshita.
"It was," replied Nighthawk. "How the hell could I know that it would take them more than a century to effect a cure, or that the economy would go through an inflationary spiral for more than a decade? I was still locked it at eight percent, but suddenly it was costing five million credits a year to stay frozen. It didn't take me long to run through most of my principal."
"That's when they created the first clone?"
Nighthawk nodded. "They had to wake me up and get my authorization. I still remember it. I was too weak to sit up on my own, and when I saw my hand in front of me I knew I hadn't been cured. I thought they were about to tell me that they'd decided they could never come up with a cure." He smiled bitterly. "What they told me was just as bad. I was almost broke, and they were going to have to wake me and toss me out.
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