Free The Outpost by Mike Resnick Page B

know,” I said. “The war’s getting closer.”
    “What war?” he asked.
    “Damned if I know,” I answered. “Let’s start again.”
    “Sure,” said Crazy Bull agreeably. “Hey, Tomahawk, a couple of Blue Angels for me and my partner.”
    Reggie mixed them up and placed them on the bar.
    “That looks pretty interesting,” remarked Baker. “I think I’ll have one, too.”
    “You don’t want it,” said Sitting Horse, picking up his glass. “It’s poison to humans.”
    “Really?”
    “Really.”
    “Cancel my order, Reggie,” he said. “By the way, what are a pair of orange, three-legged furballs doing dressed up like Injuns?”
    “We come from Velitas IV,” said Sitting Horse.
    “Never heard of it.”
    “That’s because it’s not Velitas IV anymore,” said Sitting Horse.
    “We were colonized by descendants of the Great Sioux Nation,” said Crazy Bull. “But instead of exploiting us, they shared their knowledge and their culture with us, and finally we all became blood brothers and took Indian names. We even renamed the planet. Now it’s Little Big Horn IV.” He paused. “Sitting Horse and me, we make the Outpost our headquarters because we like anyone who calls himself Tomahawk.”
    “Just out of curiosity, have you guys ever seen a horse or a bull?” asked Baker.
    “No, but we’ve seen a lot of Men who were crazy, and even more who spent all their time sitting when they should have been doing .”
    “Hey, it’s no skin off my nose,” said Baker. “But if was me, I’d have took Geronimo for a name.”
    “Not me,” interjected Big Red. “I’d have been Jim Thorpe.”
    “Pocahontas for me,” said Sinderella.
    “So come to Little Big Horn and you can choose any name you want,” said Sitting Horse.
    “And as an added bonus, you get to put on war paint every Saturday night,” said Crazy Bull.
    “How many wives do Injuns get?” asked Baker.
    “How many women can you live with?” asked Sitting Horse.
    “It’s been my long and considered experience that the total comes to something less than one,” answered Baker.
    “See?” said Sitting Horse. “You’re not so alien after all.”
    “I thought you guys were the aliens,” said Baker.
    “Not to us, we aren’t.”
    They took their Blue Angels off to a table and began playing a game that seemed to involve cards, pebbles and feathers in equal quantities.
    “I wonder if we should be worrying about this war,” said the Reverend Billy Karma.
    “They know better than to attack the Outpost,” said Max. “This is where all the living legends hang out. They don’t want no part of us.”
    “If they’re godless chlorine breathers, maybe they don’t know about us,” said Karma. “Or maybe they subscribe to different legends.”
    “If they’re godless chlorine breathers, they have no more interest in Henry II than we have in their home world,” said Nicodemus Mayflower. He grinned at his wit, and between his widow’s peak and his thin face and aquiline nose, he looked exactly like my notion of the devil—which may well have been why he chose Nicodemus for one of his names.
    “I want it on the record that I, for one, resent the notion that all non-humans are godless,” said Argyle, sparkling like a Christmas tree.
    “You believe in God?” demanded Billy Karma.
    “I believe in 37 separate and distinct gods,” answered Argyle proudly. “That puts me 36 ahead of you.”
    “It makes you a pagan.”
    “It makes you a man of limited vision,” said Argyle.
    “Still, it don’t matter what you believe,” continued Karma. “Jesus died for your sins anyway.”
    “I never could figure out why you worship someone who couldn’t even save himself,” said Argyle. “And you walk around wearing a representation of the cross that killed him. That’s awfully close to psychic necrophilia.”
    “Them’s fighting words!” cried Billy Karma, putting up his fists and starting to bob and weave.
    Argyle sprang forward,