The Outpost (51 page)

“Sometimes you got to sweep the facts aside to get at the truth,” said the Bard.

“I thought they were one and the same,” said Baker.

The Bard shook his head. “If I’ve learned anything listening to all the stories at the Outpost, it’s that more often than not facts are the enemy of Truth. (You can’t see it, of course, but I just spelled Truth with a capital T.)”

“You mean I keep telling all these true stories,” said Baker, “and you keep rewriting ’em so that they fit
your
notion of truth?”

“I told you before: I don’t rewrite, I embellish.”

“What’s the difference?”

“I keep the basic structure of your stories—the who, what, when, why, and where of them. But I try to make them more meaningful, so that future generations will understand that great things were taking place here.”

“And what if they weren’t?” asked Max.

“They’ll still feel some pride in your accomplishments, however trivial they really were,” said the Bard. “Is that so sinful?”

“I never said it was sinful at all,” said Max. “Just dishonest.”

“Why can’t I make you understand that there’s a difference between lying and embellishing?” said the Bard in a frustrated voice.

“Maybe because there ain’t any in
his
life,” suggested Baker.

“Look,” said Max. “He’s an historian. He’s supposed to tell the truth. He lies. That’s wrong. It’s as simple as that.”

“You never shot a man with a gun you had hidden in your third hand?” asked Baker.

“Sure I did,” said Max. “But that’s different.”

“It wasn’t dishonest?”

“It was a matter of life and death.”

“So is what Willie’s writing,” said Baker.

“How do you figure that?”

“It ain’t
his
life or death,” explained Baker. “It’s
ours
. Somebody picks his book up two hundred years from now, I’ll be alive for as long as they’re reading about me. Once they close it I’m dead again. That’s the life part. The death part takes place if he never sells it or no one ever reads it.”

“Sonuvabitch!” said Max. “I never looked at it that way.” He turned to the Bard. “You have my permission to lie whenever you want.”

“Embellish,” insisted the Bard.

“Whatever,” said Max.

“There’s one story I haven’t had a chance to improve upon, because I haven’t heard it yet. How about it, Catastrophe?”

“Me?” said Baker.

“You fought in the war, didn’t you?”

“Not enough to work up a sweat.”

“I’d like to hear about it anyway,” said the Bard, notebook at the ready.

“What the hell,” said Baker with a shrug.

Catastrophe Baker and the Ship Who Purred

I figured it was up to me to end the war (began Baker), and I decided that the direct way was probably the best way. I knew there was a major encampment on Henry III, so I flew there as soon as I left the Outpost.

I didn’t try to sneak up on them or nothing like that. I just walked into the middle of their camp, told ’em who I was, and offered to fight their champion,
mano a mano
.

My notion was that whoever won the fight won the war, but that didn’t sit right with their chief, who didn’t have the authority to surrender his garrison, let alone the whole Plantagenet system, to a force of one. While I was talking to him, I was introduced to a good-looking lady gun-runner, so I came up with a counter-offer: if their champion won, I’d fight on their side for the rest of the war, while if I won, they’d give me Queen Eleanor of Provence, which is what I’d named the gun-runner.

They decided I was so formidable that they ought to be able to throw a pair of champions at me at the same time, and they were such earnest little fellers that I agreed. I figure the whole fight took about two minutes, and I’m sure the thin one will walk again someday, though I got my doubts about the short muscular one.

Anyway, they were men of honor—well, aliens of honor—and they turned Queen Eleanor over to me. She wasn’t none too happy about it, but I escorted her to my ship and, just to make sure she didn’t run away, I stayed on the ground while she opened the hatch and entered the airlock. And then, before I could stop her, Eleanor locked the hatch and took off, leaving me standing on the ground looking foolish as all get-out.

The aliens laughed their heads off, and for a minute there I was thinking of challenging the whole batch of ’em to a freehand fight to the death, but then I decided that it wasn’t really their fault that I’d found a lemon in the garden of love, so I had ’em show me her ship, which I figured was mine now.

It was the strangest-looking damned spaceship I’d ever laid eyes on, but I couldn’t see no reason not to appropriate it just the same, so I bade all the giggling aliens good-bye after signing twenty or thirty autographs, and climbed into the ship.

The control panel was like nothing I’d ever seen before. All the readouts were in some alien language, and the chairs and bulkheads felt kind of soft and almost lifelike. I didn’t pay much attention to them, though. My main concern was trying to figure out how to activate the ship and take off.

Hurricane Smith got up and walked to the door.

“I don’t mean any disrespect, Catastrophe,” he said, “but I’ve been keeping an eye on the time, and I really think I’d better go pick up Sheba on Adelaide of Louvain before she runs out of air.”

“No problem,” said Baker. “It wouldn’t do to have your lady love suffocate while you stay here drinking and enjoying yourself.”

“I’m glad you understand,” said Smith. “I’ll see you in a day or two.”

One button on the control panel caught my eye (said Baker). It was a little brighter and a little shinier than the others, and since I couldn’t just stare at the panel all day and do nothing, I reached out and pushed it.

And heard a very high-pitched human squeal.

“Who’s there?” I said, drawing my burner and spinning around.

“Me,” said a feminine voice.

“Where are you hiding?” I demanded.

“I’m not hiding at all,” said the voice. “I’m the ship.”

“Are you a cyborg or an artificial intelligence?” I asked.

“Neither.”

“I’m running out of guesses,” I said.

“I’m a living, genetically engineered being.”

“You sound female,” I said.

“I am.”

Baker looked up and saw Hurricane Smith standing in the doorway.

“I thought you’d left,” he said.

“I did,” said Smith. “But I heard what you were saying as I walked out, and I came back for the rest of the story.”

“It’s just about an alien spaceship,” said Baker. “Or an alien that happened to
be
a spaceship.”

“A female alien.”

“I thought you had your own female alien to worry about,” said Baker.

“You mean Sheba?”

“Right. Ain’t she busy running out of air on Adelaide of Louvain?”

“She’s got big lungs,” said Smith with a nonchalant shrug. He walked back to his table, sat down, and leaned forward intently. “Go on with your story.”

Baker stared at him for a long moment and finally shrugged. “Whatever makes you happy.”

“Do any of these make us take off?” I asked, hitting another couple of buttons on the panel (continued Baker).

“Oh, my God!” she breathed.

“Did I hurt you, ma’am?”

“Do it again.”

So I pressed the buttons again, and the ship started purring just like a cat.

“You got a name, ma’am?” I said.

“Leonora,” she sighed.

“Well, Leonora, ma’am,” I said, “can you maybe tell me how to get the hell off Henry III before these here aliens decide to bust the truce I kind of threw on ’em when they weren’t looking?”

“Just sit down,” she said. “I’ll take care of it.”

So I sat down, and before I could strap myself into the chair its arms grabbed me and kind of wrapped themselves around me, and then I looked at the viewscreen and saw we were already above the stratosphere.

The arms released me and kind of stroked me here and there before they went back into place, and then I got to my feet again and continued looking around.

“What’s your name?” asked Leonora.

“Baker,” I said. “Catastrophe Baker.”

“What a romantic name!” she crooned.

“You really think so?” I said. “I always thought Hurricane Smith and Gravedigger Gaines grabbed up the really good names.” I walked to the back of the cabin. “Where’s the galley? I ain’t eaten since before I landed on Henry III.”

A wall slid away. “Just enter this corridor,” she said, “and it’s the first room on the left.”

So I took a step into the corridor, and the ship shuddered a little like it was going through a minor ion storm, and I stuck my arms out against the walls to make sure I didn’t fall down.

“Oh!” said Leonora. And then: “Oh! Oh! Oh!”

“I’m sorry if I’ve discommoded you, ma’am,” I said. “I don’t mean to do you no harm.”

“You’re not doing me any harm!” she said, and I could have sworn she was panting.

Well, I kept walking down the corridor and she kept saying “Oh!” with each stop I took, and then I came to a room on the left, and I entered it, and sure enough it was the galley, though it wasn’t like any galley I’d ever seen before. There was a table and a chair right in the middle, and all kinds of incomprehensible controls and gauges along one wall.

“What would you like, Catastrophe Baker?” asked Leonora.

“Maybe a sandwich and a beer, if it’s no trouble, ma’am,” I said.

“No trouble at all. Do you see the glowing pink button on the wall, just to the left of the holographic readout?”

“Yeah.”

“Just press it.”

“Don’t I have to tell it what I want?”

“Just press it!” said Leonora urgently.

So I walked over and pressed it.

“Wow!”
purred Leonora.

“What do I do now, ma’am?” I asked.

“Now you eat.”

“What I mean is, where’s my food?”

“On the table,” said Leonora—and sure enough, it was.

I sat down and started chewing on the sandwich.

“You’re so much more considerate than my last owner,” said Leonora.

“I ain’t your owner, ma’am,” I said. “I’m more like your borrower.”

“We would make such a wonderful team!”!” she said. “Won’t you consider it?”