The Outpost (10 page)

I couldn’t figure out why such a lovely young piece of femininity was working in a carnival, and then it occurred to me that this Nebuchadnezzar feller had probably kidnapped her when she was just a little girl, before she’d blossomed into the fullness of womanhood, so to speak, and that she was just waiting for some handsome hero-type to rescue her from this life of enforced slavery and take her home so she could dance every night just for him as a way of showing her gratitude.

I waited until her dance was over, and then it took another five minutes for the audience to stop cheering and stomping and whistling, and finally the bubble emptied out, and I hopped onto the stage and found the little exit at the back and walked through it, and a few seconds later I found myself in the Siren’s dressing room.

She was sitting, stark naked, on a little stool that floated in front of a vanity and a tri-dimensional mirror, brushing her multi-colored hair. There were dozens of holos of her in various states of dress and undress on the walls, and a couple of missives which were either love letters or glowing testimonials. There were a bunch of little fussy dolls on a shelf, and a row of ugly-looking porcelain dogs that yipped a nonstop musical tune, and some paintings of big-eyed alien children who all looked pretty much alike, even though a couple were four-armed and one was insectoid and another was a chlorine-breather.

When the Siren finally saw my reflection in her mirror, she turned to face me.

“Who are you?” she demanded, either totally forgetting that she wasn’t wearing nothing or else not much caring about it.

“I’m Catastrophe Baker, here to declare my everlasting love for you and to rescue you from a life of indentured servitude,” I told her.

“I’m flattered,” she said, looking me up and down, “but I don’t
want
to be rescued.”

“That’s because Old Doc Nebuchadnezzar has brainwashed you,” I explained. “Spend a few months traveling the galaxy with me and you’ll be as good as new. What do you say, Siren?”

“I say no, and my name’s not Siren.”

“What is it then?” I asked. “If we’re going to spend a lifetime of sexual rapture together, I suppose it’s one of the things I ought to know.”

“It’s Melora, and we’re not going to spend any time together at all.”

“Melora,”I repeated. “It must be fate.”

“What must be?”

“I’ve always had a soft spot for naked sirens named Melora,”I said. “Purtiest name in the universe, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t ask you,” she said. “Now go away.”

“I can’t leave you to this life of misery.”

“I’m deliriously happy here,” said Melora. “I’ve only been miserable for the past three minutes.”

“You’re looking at this all wrong,” I explained. “I’m in the hero business—at least when I ain’t running from various gendarmes—and that means one of the things I do is rescue damsels in distress.”

“I’m not
in
distress,” she insisted. “Now leave me alone.”

“How can I leave you alone?” I said. “I’m in love with you.”

“Well,
I’m
not in love with
you
!” she shot back.

“That’s because you don’t hardly know me,” I said. “After ten or twelve years of fun and hijinks together you’ll fall like a ton of bricks.”

“What does it take to make you leave?” she demanded.

I realized then that my approach had been all wrong, that she viewed me as just another unwashed and uncouth member of her audience, so I figured it was probably time to display my class and erudition by saying something poetic that would sweep her off her feet. I racked my mind trying to remember some of the more touching love stories I’d read as an adolescent, and finally I hit upon a phrase that I just knew would win her over.

“Melora,” I said, placing a hand over my heart to indicate my sincerity, “my throbbing love engine cries out for you.”

“You can take your throbbing love engine and shove it!” she snarled.

“That’s exactly what I had in mind,” I replied, pleased that my little ploy was working. “I’m glad to see we’re thinking along the same lines.”

She stood up, walked to a wall, took a robe off a hook, wrapped it around her, and faced me with her hands on her hips. “I’m asking you for the last time: are you going to leave peacefully?”

“Peacefully, yes,” I said. “Alone, no.”

“All right,” she said. “But don’t say you weren’t warned.”

She opened her mouth and gave forth a scream that just got higher and higher and louder and louder. Pretty soon the mirror cracked, and a bunch of little glass doodads on the vanity shattered, and by the time she reached M over High Q all the fillings had fallen out of my teeth, and still she kept it up. I could hear people howling in pain outside the tent, and then I couldn’t hear nothing any more, and the next thing I knew she was slapping my face and telling me to wake up.

“What happened?” I mumbled. All the porcelain dogs had shattered, so at least the experience wasn’t a total loss.

“They don’t call me the Siren of Silverstrike for nothing,” said Melora with a satisfied look on her face.

“Okay, so you’re a siren,” I said, running my tongue gingerly over all the holes in my teeth. “What did you have to do that for?”

“Because I’m not going anywhere, and you needed convincing.”

“But why not?” I persisted.

She stared at me. “Because
I’m
Old Doc Nebuchadnezzar. I
own
this show, and nothing pulls in more money than the Siren of Silverstrike. Now do you understand?”

“Why didn’t you just say so in the first place?” I said. “If you can’t go, I’ll just move in with you.”

This time she hit H over high Z.

“I like living alone,” she said when she’d slapped me awake again.

“You’re one of the hardest ladies to romance that I’ve ever encountered,” I said. “But Catastrophe Baker don’t give up easy.”

Well, she screamed three or four more times, and I kept passing out, and finally some of the townsfolk came by and asked her to stop because she’d busted every window within three miles.

“
Now
will you leave?” she asked, staring at me when I woke up again.

“All right, all right, I get the picture,” I said. “But the day will come when you’ll regret throwing away such a perfect and unselfish love as I’m offering you in exchange for just fifty percent of the carnival’s take.”

But nothing could budge her, and I soon saw that I’d been blinded by her physical beauty, or maybe even just by her dye job, and after seeing a dentist and getting my fillings replaced I went back out amongst the stars, a couple of days older and a little lonelier and a lot wiser.

Silicon Carny chuckled. “Now I’m starting to understand why they call you Catastrophe!” she said.

“There are other reasons just as valid, Ma’am,” said Baker, “and I’m sure the survivors could tell you all about it—if any of ’em have been released from their various hospitals.”

“Humans are always talking and singing about unrequited love,” complained Sahara del Rio.

“Of course they are,” said Achmed of Alphard, who was probably a little less human than most. “It’s the most ennobling emotion of all.”

“The most frustrating, anyway,” chimed in Three-Gun Max.

“But what good does it do?” said Argyle, who was still sitting in a corner with the Reverend Billy Karma. “When it’s time to procreate, the female comes in season, the males fight for the right to perpetuate their genes, and then all is quiet until the next hurricane season.”

“That ain’t exactly the way it works with us,” answered Baker.

“All right,” amended Argyle. “The next planet-freezing blizzard. Big difference.”

“You got part of it right,” said Bet-a-World O’Grady. “The males do fight for the females. Or sometimes, like in the case of people like our friend Baker here, just for the exercise.”

“You think the females don’t fight every bit as hard?” asked Sinderella with a sly, knowing smile. “We’re just more subtle about it.”

“With all this fighting, it’s a wonder anyone has the energy to procreate,” said Argyle.

“It can get nasty,” agreed Max. “To say nothing of awkward.”

Suddenly the old man sitting by himself in the farthest corner spoke up. “What do you know about it?” he demanded. “Hell, what do any of you know? There’s only one word for it, and that’s
tragic
.”

“What’s so tragic about sex?” asked Baker.

“I’m not talking about sex,” said the old man. “I’m talking about love.”

“Who are you, and what do you think you know about it?”

“My name is Faraway Jones, and I’ve sought after it in its purest form for more than forty years.”

“Faraway Jones!” exclaimed Nicodemus Mayflower. “Didn’t I hear about you on Bareimus V?”

“Can’t be the same Faraway Jones I heard about on Sparkling Blue,” said Max.

“There was supposed to be a Faraway Jones on New Burma, out on the Rim,” added Gravedigger Gaines.

“They were all me,” said Jones. “I’ve been to all three of those worlds, and maybe seven hundred more.”

“Are you an explorer?” asked Big Red.

“No, though I’ve been the first to set foot on a bunch of worlds.”

“An adventurer?”

“Not on purpose, though I’ve had my share of them.”

“What then?” persisted Big Red.

“A searcher,” answered Jones.

“For what?”

“Well, now, that’s my sad and tragic story.”

The Tragic Quest of Faraway Jones

I never set out to be the first man to set foot on two or three hundred worlds (began Jones), nor the millionth to touch down on another few hundred. All I ever wanted was to find my Penelope.

I started looking for her, let me see, 43 years, 8 months and 19 days ago. First planet I went to was Castor XII. She wasn’t there, of course.

Then I tried the Nelson system, and all the oxygen planets in the Roosevelt system. Even touched down on Walpurgis III, which was as strange a world as I’ve ever seen in a lifetime of seeing strange worlds, but she wasn’t there either.

So I kept looking. I looked all through the Inner Frontier and the Monarchy and the Spiral Arm and the Outer Frontier and the Rim, and even in the Greater and Lesser Clouds, but there was no sign of her. After it became obvious that this was going to be an epic search, I re-named my ship
The Flying Dutchman
.

Had a lot of interesting adventures along the way. Once I stood atop the highest mountain in the galaxy, and another time I walked along the bottom of the deepest chlorine ocean. I threw away diamonds the size of walnuts, because my pockets were loaded with bigger ones. I killed animals that would make Hellfire Van Winkle’s Landships look like household pets.

I turned down the chance to be King of the Purple Planet, and I said no when I was begged to be the consort of a woman who was even prettier than Sinderella and Silicon Carny, meaning no offense to those lovely ladies. But I knew I had to stay free of all entanglements, both political and romantic, and of course I had to keep myself pure for my Penelope.

At one point I even enlisted the help of the Golden Gang, but although they could find hidden treasures and lost masterpieces of artwork, they couldn’t find Penelope. I went to Domar and rented the services of their Master Telepath, but although he could read every mind within fifty thousand light-years, he couldn’t come up with a single clue as to my Penelope’s whereabouts.

So I kept going from one world to another, hoping for some sign of her, or maybe to meet someone who’d seen her or even heard of her. The years slid by without my noticing, but I’ve never lost faith that someday I’ll find her and that would make all the suffering and hardship and loneliness worthwhile.

You don’t know how heartbreaking it can be, to think you’ve got an inkling of where she might be, only to find out, again and again, that it was a false lead, an empty hope …

“Just a minute,” interrupted Three-Gun Max. “Why not ask
us
?”

“I beg your pardon?” said Faraway Jones.

“The Outpost’s clientele,” explained Max. “Together, we’ve been to even more worlds than you have. Just tell us something about her, and I’ll bet one of us can put you on the right track.”

Jones blinked his eyes several times. “Well, I think her hair’s probably blonde. Not yellow-blonde. More sandy-like. And she’s likely kind of slim. Very pretty, but not the eye-popper that the ladies here are.” He paused. “That’s okay, though. My mother was a frump, and she wasn’t the brightest woman you’d ever want to meet, but when she was 85 and fat and wrinkled, my father would still have gladly laid down his life for her. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and in my eye, Penelope is the most beautiful woman in the galaxy.” Another pause. “She’ll be wearing a blue-checked gingham dress, with a little red silk scarf around her neck, and a big velvet bow in her hair. At least, that’s what I figure she
ought
to be wearing.”