Zombies of the Gene Pool

that time capsule together. You even sent us back a story, didn't you?'

'That I did,' grinned Angela. 'And if Bunzie is the magician he thinks he is, it'll keep me in my old age.'

'Do you remember what you wrote?' asked Barbara Conyers.

'Not really. Something with a woman protagonist, I think, to annoy the guys. In most of their early works the women were like cheeseburgers-they were either trophies or dessert.'

Erik Giles laughed. 'Remind me to introduce you to Marion Farley,' he said. 'I believe you two are soul mates.'

It was nearly ten o'clock. The supply of hors d'oeuvres had dwindled to a few selections that nobody wanted, and the champagne had been abandoned in favor of decaffeinated coffee, but the talking was louder and more animated than before, and frequently punctuated with laughter. As the reunion rekindled their memories of each other, the Lanthanides had pulled the couches close together, and they all sat around in a circle, arguing about subjects they hadn't cared about in decades.

None of these subjects concerned science fiction, science, or literature in general. In the years since the dissolution of the Fan Farm, they had resolved all their uncertainties about those subjects to their own satisfaction, and they were past the need to discuss such matters. What still rankled was the personal issues.

'I didn't know that was moonshine you kept in that mason jar in the bathroom. And anyway, it took the paint off my brush, didn't it?' After all these years, Woodard was still stung by Bunzie's old grievance. 'Besides,' he added petulantly, 'I probably saved your life by using it up. Drinking that stuff can make you go blind. It gives you lead poisoning, I believe.'

Giles laughed. 'Speaking of that sort of lead poisoning, remember that issue of Alluvial that Curtis and Pat Malone put out when they were stinking drunk? 'An Interview with Cthulu.' And they filched a couple of love poems that Deddingfield wrote to Earlene Riley and put those in. I thought the post office was going to send the feds in after us when that issue went through the mails. Remember the verse about 'Your succulent nipples spark fusion in my teeming loins…' Ugh! And Deddingfield wasn't even embarrassed. He swore he wrote it from memory!' Hearing a silence instead of indulgent laughter, Giles looked up to see shamefaced smiles on the faces of the others. George Woodard had turned scarlet, and seemed intent upon a petit-four.

Finally Conyers said quietly, 'Well, Peter always was an old lying hound, wasn't he?'

Erik remembered that George Woodard referred to his wife as Earlene. A glance at Woodard's red face told him that it was the same girl. Girl! She must be sixty now. They had met her at an East Coast S-F convention. He wondered if she still attended them.

To break the silence, Angela said, 'Do you remember how much Dale hated Erik's jazz records! Pat told me that Dale wrote a story once contending that jazz was the sound of alien invaders fine-tuning their spaceships' engines.'

Erik Giles looked puzzled. 'I can't remember having any special fondness for jazz. Well, perhaps I did. I fancied myself a bohemian in those days.'

'I remember you used to argue incessantly about whose turn it was to do the dishes,' said Brendan Surn.

'We were always arguing incessantly about something,' said Bunzie. 'That's what adolescent intellectuals do. Bicker. Protest. Whine. Censure. But we laughed a lot, too.'

'Dissent is the sign of an active and inquisitive mind,' said George Woodard, for whom bickering had remained a way of life. 'In Alluvial I welcome disagreement from freethinking individuals, exercising their First Amendment rights. Speaking of Alluvial, I'm planning to write this up in a forthcoming issue, and I'd welcome some guest columns. How about you, Angela?'

Angela looked away. 'I'm not sure I have the time, George. I'll see. Okay?'

'I guess we ought to talk about the reason we're all here,' said Bunzie, drawing a well-scribbled index card out of his hip pocket. 'The business part of this reunion starts tomorrow. I thought we'd begin with an introductory meeting here at our hotel. Jim, I think you agreed to give the media people some background on Wall Hollow and the construction of the lake?'

'Yes. I did some research, and I can answer anything that isn't an engineering question. History, facts and figures, local legends, and so on.'

'Good! Colorful anecdotes will make good copy for feature stories. I leave it to you.' Bunzie consulted his notes. 'After the introduction here, we will make our way down the hill, where several small motorboats will be waiting to take us to Dugger's farm. Expect to pose for pictures during this process. We have boots for all of you.'

Tentatively, Lorien Williams raised her hand. 'Excuse me, but how can boats get around out there if there is nothing left but mud?'

Bunzie's smile was intended to make her feel at ease. 'Good question, Lori!' he beamed. 'You know, the best thing we could have used would have been those hovercraft things they use in the swamps of the Everglades. What do they call them? Whatever. Anyway-' He shrugged. 'Try to find those swamp boats in east Tennessee. Try to find a bagel. But rowboats they got. So we rented a couple, complete with outboard motors and navigators. The boats will stay in the original channel.'

Jim Conyers felt the need to translate. 'When they drain the lake, Miss Williams, the water doesn't go away entirely. The Wa-tauga River simply returns to its original banks and flows through the valley just as it did before the lake was formed. We will travel on the river.'

'But once we get to the farm, we slog it out on foot,' said Bunzie, wagging a playful finger. 'So don't forget your boots!'

Taking the silence that followed for assent, Bunzie resumed his lecture. 'Now, as to the time capsule itself. That's the real reason for our being here, and we don't want to disappoint all those editors who have come in search of treasure, do we? Does anybody remember any landmarks that might still be standing, to help us in locating it?'

Jim Conyers was tired. Ten o'clock was usually his bedtime, since he got up at five. But Barbara seemed to be enjoying herself, so he stayed. All the talk was making him sleepy, though. It seemed to him that all the Lanthanides ever did was talk aimlessly and wait around for something to happen. He had forgotten that feeling of waiting; he'd always had it at Dugger's farm. Everybody seemed to be killing time, waiting for something, and while they waited they talked, but nobody ever seemed to know what they were waiting for, and nobody ever tried to make anything happen. And, as far as he could tell, nothing much ever did happen at the Fan Farm. Except a lot of feuds between one another over trivialities. They could sulk for three days over a magazine cover that one liked and the other didn't. Finally, everybody just got tired of sniping at everybody else, and one by one, they left.

Now, thirty-five years later, here they were again, the dearest of old friends, remembering Wall Hollow as if it had been a paradise of sweet accord. The feuds were forgotten. He wondered if dredging up the past would bring the old enmities to the surface again. Perhaps not. If their lives did not touch at any point, what could there be left to quarrel over?

He studied the aging Lanthanides. Bunzie still seemed amiable and enthusiastic, but the lines about his mouth and an occasional sharp look at his assistant suggested that he could also be a demanding tyrant. And Giles had come to the reunion, but he seemed embarrassed to be reminded of his youthful foray into fandom. Jim didn't know what to make of Surn. He seemed like the patriarch of the reunion, but his detachment could mean anything. Angela Arbroath seemed happy, and Jim figured that was good enough. He expected less from women, and he knew it, but he told himself that his generation couldn't change the way it saw the world, and it saw women as lesser beings. He hadn't expected much of Angela, and he had not been disappointed.

Only Woodard had not changed. He had grown older without growing up, still living for his fanzine and his pen pals as if there were no other goals in life to aspire to. At least the others who had stayed in science fiction had gone on to bigger accomplishments: novels, films, and in Surn's case a Medal of Freedom from the President. But for George it was still 1954. Jim sighed at the waste. By rights, Woodard ought to be allowed to live an extra fifty years, so he'd have time to do something if he ever emerged from his cocoon.

'Have you seen the lake?' Lorien Williams was asking Bunzie.

'Not lately!' said Bunzie, laughing loudest at his own joke.

'It looks like a giant hog wallow right now,' said Angela. 'That mud must be knee deep out there. How are you all going to get around in it?'