Zombies of the Gene Pool

to the days when he could relax. It was the only picture he had of Wall Hollow, Tennessee. It had been taken years after the guys left the Fan Farm, but he knew that somewhere under that expanse of green water lay his youth.

Bunzie forced himself to keep pedaling the damned exercise bike. That was the story of his life, wasn't it? Keep pedaling. Maybe everybody else was willing to give up, willing to take no for an answer, and willing to settle for less, but not Ruben Mistral. Mistral would have the best for himself, and he would demand the best from himself and from everyone he worked with.

After all these years, Bunzie still felt schizophrenic about his two identities. In the Wall Hollow days, he had dreamed of becoming Ruben Mistral-rich and famous-and several decades later, that person certainly did exist in all the imagined glory of Bunzie's daydreams. But inside that tanned and calorie-controlled body, the old Bunzie still existed, too. Science fiction legend Ruben Mistral bought two-thousand-dollar suits; Bunzie the fan from Brooklyn saved paperclips from the business letters he received. Mistral had discreet affairs with starlets whose year of birth coincided with his age; Bunzie secretly preferred Alma Louise, his wife of thirty years. Mistral was a tiger shark who could smell blood in a business deal a mile away; Bunzie missed his old pals from Dugger's farm.

Most of the time, Bunzie felt that he was a flunky who worked for Ruben Mistral; the great man never did the actual scutwork of writing, or editing scripts. That was Bunzie. Mistral was the glad-hander in Beverly Hills; the maven of the talk shows; the one with a thousand associates, contacts, and employees, but no friends. Bunzie had once had friends. Mistral had his business cronies and, now that the movie versions of his books had made him a celebrity, he had 'people,' those who were paid to like him, and paid to keep anyone else from ever getting close to him. Mistral was cold company for a nice guy like Bunzie. He was necessary though; Bunzie had to admit that. The cold and brilliant Ruben Mistral made merciless deals, paid all the bills, and he enabled Bunzie and Alma to live in a beautiful house in Topanga Canyon. He even tossed a few scraps to worthy charities from time to time. Not a bad guy by the local lights. He made so much money that he could afford to endow a hospital ward. What could good-hearted Bunzie have done without the ruthless Mistral ambition: give quarters to panhandlers? Bunzie knew that if there ever came a time when irreconcilable differences forced one of them to depart from the body for good, it would be Bunzie, not Mistral, who would have to go.

Still, in the brief periods of solitude when Mistral's presence was not required, Bunzie thought back on the old days with nostalgia and regret. If you were a true pal, he told himself, you'd have taken your buddies with you to the Promised Land.

'But I tried,' said Bunzie to himself-or rather, to Ruben Mistral, who was sneering as usual. 'Didn't I try to get Woodard to go to that Worldcon in the sixties and meet some people? Editors buy stuff from people they know, I told him. But he couldn't take the time off work, he said. And didn't I tell Stormy everything he needed to know about promotion, so that he could make a name for himself with his book? But, oh no, he wanted to be a college professor, and college professors are above that sort of merchandising.' On the exercise bike, Bunzie kept pedaling. He had tried to help the old gang; not that some of them needed it. Surn was. a legend, and Deddingfield had been the richest required-reading author he knew. As for the others, he figured that there were some people who could not even have greatness thrust upon them. But he had tried. And sometimes, when Mistral was too busy to sneer at what a bunch of woolly-headed losers they were, Bunzie missed them.

He remembered the pizza. Years ago, when he had just moved out to California to pursue his dream of a screenwriting career, he was living on beans and buying old scripts at the Goodwill, trying to teach himself how to write one, but his letters to the gang scattered up and down the East Coast were always cheerful, full of hope. Bunzie agreed with Churchill that one should be an optimist; there wasn't much point in being anything else. Still, some glimpse of his dire straits must have shown through in the letters, because in the mail one day Bunzie found a check for fifteen dollars and a note saying: 'You sound really down. Go buy yourself a pizza.' And it was from Dale Dugger! Fifteen dollars must have been hard to spare for Dale back then, but he'd sent it anyhow, not even making it a loan. Just a gift from a pal. Bunzie never forgot that, and even these days, when Alma paid fifteen dollars for a cake of soap, Bunzie was still touched by the memory of that gesture. They had been his friends, not like this new bunch with their little axes to grind, their deals to make.

That was why Bunzie, ignoring the protests of Ruben Mistral, had agreed to organize the Lanthanides' reunion. George Woodard had called him about it, bubbling over with enthusiasm, but short of money as usual, and completely hopeless when it came to organization. If George handled it, it would end up being a three-man get- together in a cheap motel, and nothing would come of the book. Bunzie saw the potential, and he was pleased at George's eager display of gratitude when he volunteered to take over. Sometimes it helped to be famous. 'Leave it to me,' he had told George. Poor old humbug, thought Bunzie with a sigh; this reunion will be the thrill of a lifetime for George. Who could I bring along as a treat for him? Nimoy? Bob Silverberg? But he dismissed the idea of bringing other celebrities. That would mean that Ruben Mistral would have to come, too, and he'd insist on bringing some bimbo starlet to impress his pals. Bunzie didn't want that to happen. He wanted this weekend trip to yesteryear to belong just to him. But he wanted it well organized, and he wanted its potential mined to the fullest.

Wall Hollow, Tennessee?, one of his 'people' had sneered. Is that anywhere near Hooterville?

But for once Bunzie had overruled the snobbery of Ruben Mistral and his minions. This time he wasn't going to take no for an answer. Dale Dugger had been dead for thirty years, but still there was a debt there that Bunzie wanted to pay. And a debt of friendship to poor old hopeless George Woodard, and to Conyers and Erik, and to the memory of that silly ass Pat Malone, who might have made it if he'd lived.

So Ruben Mistral would call in favors from a few influential people in the media, and he'd start the publicity ball rolling about the proposed anthology in the time capsule. He couldn't even remember what he'd written for it anymore. But he did remember doing one, handwritten with a cartridge pen in peacock-blue ink. Maybe he could revise it a little before publication. There are limits to the charm of nostalgia. He'd get a couple of his editor friends and his New York agent, and some movie people to film the event, and he'd fly the whole caboodle of them first class to the Tri-Cities Airport outside Blountville, Tennessee.

Then what? God only knew what accommodations there'd be. He had people working on it, though. They would charter the nearest acceptable motel. Maybe two motels. No point in having the press and the editors underfoot all the time. They were all a bunch of kids, anyway.

The thing was a natural from a publicity standpoint. A sunken city, a buried time capsule full of priceless manuscripts, a reunion of the giants-hell, the thing could be a movie in itself. (The Mistral part of his mind delegated somebody to work on that.) With all the hype he could arrange (Steve King to write the introduction to the anthology, maybe?), the collection of stories in that time capsule could be worth a pot of money. They could easily get a million at a literary auction. Not that Ruben Mistral needed the money-Bunzie hastily told himself that he was doing it for old times' sake-but the prospect of a big literary kill would make things more interesting. Why shouldn't they capitalize on it? And he'd split it with the gang. They certainly needed the cash. Say, ten percent for each of them, the rest to him…

The wall phone by the exercise bike buzzed once, and, still pedaling rhythmically, he picked it up. 'Ruben Mistral here,' said a cold, smooth voice.

And he was.

Chapter 5

Real Soon Now-When the MSFS/DSFL was going to have: a convention, a decent fanzine,

an active membership, a properly run meeting, and many other fine things that didn't quite happen.

– Fancyclopedia II

'I am looking,' said Marion Farley. 'It isn't on the map, I tell you!'

It was a blazing day in late July, and the reunion journey to Tennessee had begun. Jay Omega was driving his other car (the gray Oldsmobile he used for trips and for times that his MG was in the