Then the Moon Maidens let fly, and the air was like totally filled with the zeeping of their bowstrings and the whooshing of the arrows. The Ehleenee hodads were coming through it in nice, straight lines, like they wanted to impress us with their neatness, I’m so sure. But the arrows punched gaps in their lines, more gaps every second as the Union lines marched nearer. As more of them went down, the Greeks who were like still alive like, you know, started to amble back to safety. They got punctured while they were retreating, too.

Then it was all over. Little Freddy was singing “We are the champions!” in my pea brain. Maybe half of the Ehleenee were still alive, running for their lives. The Battle of Getzburk was like history, in more ways than one, like for sure. We watched them as they fled. Our boys were celebrating, and the commanders looked on, you know, proudly and all.

At supper, Milo came by to talk to me a little bit. He goes, “You were an inspiration to our men, Mahreenah.”

I go, “It was like nothing, God-Milo.”

“Will you go on with us? This battle is done, but there will be many more before the war is won.”

I like chewed my lip, pretending to think about it. “Milo,” I go at last, “there are many worlds and many oppressed peoples, and it is my sacred duty like to stand up for the little clods wherever they’re being, you know, like forced to eat dirt.”

“I understand. I wish you well in your crusade.”

“Thanks. And good luck to you.” I didn’t know what else to say, but I thought of a question. “Am I like, you know, really immortal?”

“You are in this universe. I can’t say if you are anywhere else. Perhaps you’re not truly traveling from world to world, but from parallel reality to parallel reality.”

That made me think. I figured I better not try any crankin’ heroics until I checked things out. I like didn’t want to find out the hard way, right, that whoa, I’m not immortal on Venus of Ganymede or ancient Babylon if 1 turned up there. I ought to like test every place by socking myself in the nose and watching how long it takes to stop bleeding, I’m sure. I didn’t know what to do, but Milo had planted a grody seed of doubt, you know?

1 gave him this zingy salute, I go, “Seeyabye,” and then I whooshed on out of there.

* * *

And like right into my honeymoon suite. This is where you and I came in. Maureen came to the end of her story and she was totally right: I was amazed. I was also like still stunned from the sock on the jaw she gave me, which I am never, ever going to forget. I just put that on the bill with the heartache and suffering she d caused me in the past. I'd collect on it all someday, for sure.

She was going to climb out the bathroom window, but I stopped her. She goes, “What now?” like I’ve been making demands on her.

I go, "Maureen, you're still cruising the Solar System like some kind of kid on summer vacation. I mean, look at it—Maureen Birnbaum, Tacky Girl Beast. You’re getting muscles, honey. If you start growing a mustache, you should seriously think about passing the heavy responsibility to someone else. A guy, maybe.” She glowered at me like really threatening, but I held up a hand. “Look at me. Happily married Bitsy Spiegelman Fein, settled wife and planning maybe to be a mother, if you ever let me spend some time alone with Josh. Real adult stuff, real adult hopes and dreams. Who are you? Still Muffy Birnbaum, the One-Woman Mercenary Army. It’s not chic, sweetie. It doesn’t fit you at all. And you know what else doesn’t fit? Look at us in the mirror. What do you see?”

She goes, ‘‘I see you, you zod, and me.”

I go, ‘‘I see me, twenty-two years old. I see you, and you look the same as you did when you were a junior at the Greenberg School.

She goes, ‘7 do?”

I go, "Uh huh.”

She goes, ‘ ‘Whoa, get back! Maybe I really am immortal.” I go, ‘‘Maybe you really are a case of arrested development.” I had to duck fast after that one. She grabbed her spear and her bag and everything and like thundered out of the bathroom. Too late I tried to stop her. “Muffy! No!” I yelled.

She was already crossing the suite to the front door. My darling Josh was standing there in his boxer shorts, socks, and garters, holding two glasses of champagne. He had a peculiar look on his face. The front door slammed shut after Maureen. I looked back at Josh. He turned to me, trying to like make sense out of the apparition that escaped his bathroom. I go, “That was Mujfy Birnbaum, sweetheart. You’ve heard me speak of her.

He goes, “Right.”

I took one of the glasses from him and drained the champagne in one long gulp. I didn’t mention Maureen again. What Josh didn't know wouldn't barf him out. Loose Lips Sink Ships, like I’m totally sure.

The Last Time

by Joel Rosenberg

Joel Rosenberg has established himself not only as a science fiction writer but as a fantasy writer as well, thereby driving librarians and book cataloguers to distraction. He lives in Connecticut with his wife, Felicia Herman, and the traditional writer’s cats, two at last count. His first novel, The Sleeping Dragon, the first in his Guardian of the Flame fantasy series, is in its sixth printing; the two following volumes are doing equally well. His most recent novel, Emile and the Dutchman, is part of his long-term plan to reinvent space opera.

There was a last time for everything, the last gunfighter thought, sitting astride his horse.

Not that he meant this time, of course, but someday the last Clan Lehvee sheriff would ride out and perhaps never return, leaving the world to the goddam swordsmen.

“Keep a weather eye on the horizon, Dunkahn,’’ the big man said, dismounting from his horse and kneeling next to the ashes of the fleeing dirtmen’s fire.

“Yes,” Dunkahn Lehvee said sullenly. Then, at the other’s arched eyebrow, he tried again, this time forcing the resentment from his voice: “I will.”

Of course he would keep an eye open, even if that meant squinting painfully in the direction of the setting sun. He didn’t want to be here, but hardly meant that he wanted to leave himself open to ambush by the dirtmen they were chasing.

This wasn’t the sort of thing he had wanted. Not ever. But it was a matter of tradition, perhaps of necessity. His many-times-great-grandfather, before the Blast, had been what the ancients called a “sheriff’; while the original functions of the office had long been lost in travels of the Kindred, the office, the blackened badge, and the pistol had been handed on; it was a family tradition.

It weighed heavily—literally.

The crude leather pistol belt wasn’t a bad example as it hung on his hip, its weight threatening to cut him in two. It wasn’t supposed to have been his yet, but his father, Micah, had died last year in an idiotic accident, his chest crushed when his horse had fallen and rolled over him.

It wasn’t right. The responsibility shouldn’t be his.

Not with only fifteen summers behind him.

His hand fell to the strap holding down the butt of the ancient weapon, his blunt fingers feeling at the runes that Kindred had long lost the ability to decipher.

It felt strange under his hand. And that was more than passing strange in itself. Under Micah’s instruction, he had dry-fired it perhaps ten thousand times, practiced with it for hours and hours, ritualistically cleaning and oiling it after each such use.

Never, of course, had he placed it loaded in its holster. The pistol and seven cartridges had been handed down to him by his father, Mikah, as he lay dying; Dunkahn had intended to hand all down to his son. Never, that is, until this morning, when Chief Milo of Morai had wakened him, saying formally: “Sheriff Lehvee, there has been a shooting.”