The Outpost by Mike Resnick Page B

the female persuasion as I’d ever seen up to that time. Her hair hung down almost to her waist, and it was striped with rows of iridescent colors: red, blue, yellow, green, and the pattern repeated a couple of times. Real striking and artistic, you know?
    She held up an almost-transparent little sheet or towel or some such thing in front of her and began her dance, and I noticed when she spun around that she wasn’t wearing nothing but her dancing shoes, and that the rest of her hair also came in the very same rows of colors. I think that might have been the instant I decided I was hopelessly and eternally in love with her.
    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