The Outpost (38 page)

He found their ship, melted the ignition and destroyed the life-support system, then approached to within two hundred yards of the aliens. He could barely make out the outlines of the dozen Bubbles that housed them. When he was a young man he might have charged into the camp, spraying bullets and laser beams right and left, looking his foes in the eye. But over the years he had seen how messy death could be, and how unnecessary heroism was. He’d decided that he liked living, and planned to die only with the greatest reluctance. So he’d started playing it safe, and that had led to greater and greater successes until he’d made his fortune and chucked the whole business.

Now he took out his laser rifle, sat down on the ground, supported the barrel on his knees, and fired.

There was no reaction, which showed him that he had missed. He shrugged. Missing from two hundred yards when the enemy didn’t even know they were being fired upon was a lot better than missing at ten yards when they were shooting back at him.

He aimed again and pulled the trigger. This time a Bubble shattered and four aliens staggered a few paces, gasping for air, then collapsed.

It was like shooting fish in a barrel. Before the first of the aliens suited up and fired back, he’d blown apart ten of the twelve Bubbles. Then, since they could only tell where he was based on where the laser bursts were coming from, he got to his feet, walked fifty yards to his left, and fired again. The eleventh Bubble exploded, and he changed positions again.

He was about to fire at the twelfth and final Bubble when his suit’s radio picked up a voice.

“Is that you, Gaines?”

He didn’t want anyone pinpointing his position based on his radio signal, so he remained quiet.

“It’s just you and me,” said the voice. “You can answer, Gaines. I know it’s you.”

He maintained his silence.

“Come on,” said the voice. “If I’m going to die, I want to know who killed me.”
 

Gaines moved about twenty yards to his left.

“It’s just you and me. All the others are dead.”

“What makes you think I’m someone called Gaines?” asked the Gravedigger at last.

“I know you were at the Outpost,” replied the alien. “And I know your methods.”

“How?”

“I’m the one that Men call the Gray Salamander.”

“I put you away back on Barracuda IV,” said Gaines, surprised. “I thought sure they’d given you life.”

“They did.”

“So what are you doing here?”

“I escaped.”

“How many guards did you kill in the process?”

“Enough.”

Gaines moved again, just in case the Salamander had some way of homing in on his signal. “This time I’ll have to kill you,” he said.

“Why? They say you quit the bounty hunting business.”

“We’re at war, remember?”

“I’m not at war with anyone,” said the Salamander.

“Then what are you doing here?”

“I like killing things.”

“You’ve done all the killing you’re going to do,” said Gaines. “Only one of us is leaving this planet, and it’s not going to be you.”

“Bold words for a man who’s lived more than half his life, Gravedigger Gaines. I’m still in my prime, and unlike you, I know the territory.”

Gaines fired at the final Bubble and saw it explode. Then he raced to a point thirty yards away, just before the Salamander’s energy pulse hit the spot where he’d been.

Now he cautiously began making his way back to his ship, weaving his way along the terrain, careful never to move more than ten yards in a straight line. The Salamander kept taunting him, and he kept replying, but he concentrated solely on getting back to his ship in one piece.

And then, finally, after almost half an hour, it came into view. He approached it via a serpentine route, just in case the Salamander had found it first and was waiting for him, but he couldn’t make himself believe that was the case. If the alien had found his ship, he’d surely have bragged about it by now.

He climbed aboard, closed the hatch, and inspected every inch of the ship to make sure he was alone on it.

“I’m getting tired of this hide-and-seek game,” came the Salamander’s voice.

“So am I,” answered Gaines.

“Then you’ll face me?”

“No. I concede the game. I’m leaving the planet.”

“I don’t understand,” said the Salamander. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m saying good-bye to you.”

“You’re a lot of things, Gaines, but you’re no coward. You’d never leave without beating me.”

“I’ve already beaten you,” said Gaines.

“Beat me? You haven’t faced me yet!”

“Facing you is for young men with big egos. My job is winning—and I’ve won.”

“You’re crazy!”

“I may be crazy,” agreed Gaines pleasantly, “but I’ve blown away all twelve of your life-support Bubbles, and before I did that I disabled your ship. I’ve got a year’s supply of oxygen on my ship. How much have you got in your suit?”

The Gray Salamander was still cursing at him when he broke out of orbit and lost radio contact.

Three-Gun Max and the Aliens

Three-Gun Max was in a foul mood.

He had followed the Cyborg de Milo to Henry V at Reggie’s request. She had radioed him not to land, but he paid no attention to her warnings and set his ship down next to hers.

She was waiting for him as he climbed downed from his ship’s hatch.

“Stop following me!” she demanded.

“I’m just making sure you don’t get into any trouble,” he replied.

“There’s only one person here who’s in trouble,” she said, “and it’s not me.”

“Look, lady, I’m just keeping a promise to that robot bartender.”

“The one they call Reggie?”

“He’s got a crush on you,” said Max with a grin. “He wants me to make sure no harm comes to you.”

She stared at him. “I don’t believe a word of this.”

Max raised a hand to the sky. “I wouldn’t kid you.”

“It makes no difference. I work alone.”

“I notice you didn’t feel obligated to work alone when you thought Catastrophe Baker might come along.”

“He’s a hero, known throughout the galaxy. You’re just a three-handed barfly.”

Max glared at her. “Don’t hassle me, lady. I get ugly when I’m riled.”

“You’re not all that good-looking
un
riled,” said the Cyborg dryly. “Now leave me alone or suffer the consequences.”

“What consequences?”

She pointed a finger at him, and a burst of laser fire shot out, just missing his head.

“Oh,” said Max. “
Those
consequences.”

He turned around and climbed back into his ship.
 

The Cyborg de Milo stood on the ground, hands on hips, as if she half-expected him to emerge again. He waited until he was certain she wasn’t leaving until he left first, then activated the ship and shot into the atmosphere.

He had tried his best to keep his word to the damned robot, so his conscience was clear. Now he was free to go anywhere he wanted.

Still, he was already at Henry V; it didn’t make any sense to fly to one of the other Henrys at long as there were aliens to be confronted right here. He tightened his orbit, had his sensors scan the surface, and found an alien encampment about six hundred miles to the west of the city that the Cyborg de Milo had staked out as her own territory.

He set the ship down some twenty miles from the encampment and considered his next move. He didn’t have the firepower to approach the aliens and take them all on. Besides, that was the kind of thing men like Catastrophe Baker bragged about, but no one ever really did.

If he was carrying any bombs he could have flown low over the encampment and dumped his payload, but his ship was a lightweight flyer that wasn’t even equipped with defensive weapons. If he knew where they stockpiled their weaponry, he could sneak in under cover of night and blow up an entire munitions building—but he didn’t know if there
was
a munitions building (and he had to admit that even if he
did
know, he had no idea how to blow it up. Explosives were not among his fields of expertise.)

So, distasteful as he found the idea, it looked like the only way to do any damage to the aliens was to march off and confront them. He checked his screecher, his burner, and his blaster, made sure all were fully powered, and began walking toward the encampment.

He had covered about seven miles when he saw a two-legged figure approaching him. At first he thought it was another Man, but as it neared him he realized that it was an alien.

He pulled his burner and aimed it at the alien’s chest.

“Hold it right there!” he yelled.

The alien stopped, startled. “I didn’t see you,” he said in heavily-accented Terran.

“Drop your weapons,” ordered Max.

“I don’t have any,” said the alien.

“I’m not kidding!” snapped Max.

“Neither am I. I’m a deserter.”

Max approached the alien cautiously and made sure that he was unarmed.

“Well, I’ll be damned!” he said. “Where the hell did you think you were going?”

“Away.”

“Just away?”

“I’m a poet,” said the alien. “I have no business here in the middle of a war.”

“Truth to tell, I can think of a lot of places
I’d
rather be,” said Max, pulling out a flask and taking a long swig. “Here. Can your metabolism handle this stuff?”

“I’ll never know if I don’t try,” answered the alien, taking the proffered flask and lifting it to his lips.

“You know, you’re not so bad for a godless planet-raping alien,” allowed Max.

The alien wiped his mouth and returned the flask to Max. “You’re not so bad yourself,” he said. “For a xenophobic, imperialistic swine whose race is out to enslave the galaxy.”

“You got a name?”

“Of course I have a name. You couldn’t pronounce it, but the closest translation is Wordsmith.”

“You were born with that moniker?”

“Certainly not. I took it for myself after I reached my majority.”

“You’re a major?”

“I’m a private.”

“Then what’s this majority crap?”

“That means I’m an adult.”

“Good,” said Max. “God knows how many interstellar laws I’d be breaking giving booze to an underage alien.”

“Speaking of which, might I have some more?”

“Sure,” said Max, handing him the flask. “That’s what it’s for.”

“Thank you,” said Wordsmith. “It’s really quite stimulating, isn’t it?”

“There’s those who would say yes, and then there’s some who would say absolutely.”

“Have you a name?”

“Max. Or, more formally, Three-Gun Max.”

“You’re not sensitive about having three hands?”

“Hell, no. If we start arm-wrestling, I’ve got a spare. Have you?”

“I’ve never encountered any other Men with three hands,” said Wordsmith.

“We’re a small but select group of super-humans,” admitted Max.

“How many are you?”

“The downstate returns aren’t all in, but so far, at last count, rounded off, it comes to one—me.”

“Are you a mutant?”

“I prefer to think of myself as gifted.”

“Why are you here at all?” asked Wordsmith. “You seem like a reasonable sentient being. Why fight a war when you have the whole galaxy in which to avoid it?”

“You know,” replied Max, “not thirty minutes ago I was asking myself that very question.”

“And what was your answer?”

Max shrugged. “I like to fight.”

“All right,” said Wordsmith. “I can accept that.”

“You can?” asked Max, surprised. “I would have thought you’d disapprove.”

“No. If you’d have come here because you believe in the nobility of war, or because you cherish the glory of military victory, then I would have disapproved. But you descend from a race of predatory apes. It is your nature to kill, and you are simply reacting as untold generations of murderous progenitors would have reacted.”

“You think so?”

Wordsmith nodded his head sagely. “You cannot help what you are.”

“And does your race descend from predators, too?”

“Of course. Almost all sentient life does.” Wordsmith smiled. “That does tend to let us all off the hook, philosophically speaking.”

“So how come
you
don’t like fighting?” asked Max.

“I am a fourth generation poet,” answered Wordsmith with dignity. “We have created a new genetic branch of my race’s ancient tree.”

“So you’d rather rhyme than rape?” suggested Max.

“I don’t believe I said anything remotely like that,” Wordsmith corrected him. “I’d rather rhyme than kill. Raping is another matter altogether.”

“You know,” said Max, “if it weren’t for this fucking war, I think we could become lifelong friends.”

“I feel an affinity for you, too.”

“Let’s go back to my ship and I’ll break out some more drinking stuff,” said Max.

“I was about to ask if you had any more,” said Wordsmith, falling into step beside the human.

“By the way, if you don’t mind discussing it, just how the hell did the war start, anyway?”

Wordsmith shrugged. “I have no idea.”

“But you’re here, fighting in it.”

“I was drafted.”

“So you don’t know who fired the first shot?”

“No. I
do
know that we fired the next thousand—but we’re a very masculine race, rugged and competitive and filled to overflowing with testosterone.”

“Sounds like we have a lot in common.”

“Of course,” said Wordsmith. “Races that don’t have those traits in common surrender immediately.”

“A telling point,” admitted Max.

Suddenly the alien stopped and swayed dizzily.

“Is something wrong?” asked Max.

“I believe my system is having a little difficulty metabolizing your intoxicants,” said Wordsmith. “I’ll be all right in a moment.” The swaying stopped. “There. The dizziness has left me.”

“What do you guys drink?” asked Max.

“Anything that’s wet.”.”

“Heavy drinkers, huh?”

“Especially poets.”

“You’ve got that in common with most of the human poets I’ve known,” said Max.

“Have you got a female, Max?” asked Wordsmith.

“You mean to share with you?”

“No. I mean, do you have a life mate?”