Zombies of the Gene Pool

Mistral reached back into the jar. 'Oops, better be careful with this. A movie poster of War of the Worlds, liberated from the Bonnie Kate Theatre in Elizabethton. I'll bet that's worth something these days.' He looked at the other Lanthanides. 'What are we doing with this stuff?'

Jim Conyers smiled. 'In 1954 we said we'd donate it to the science fiction hall of fame.'

More chuckles from the audience.

Sarah Ashley stood up. 'Since the happy day of such a repository has not yet come, perhaps we could use these things as a traveling exhibit, when it's time to publicize the anthology.' She smiled as polite applause approved her suggestion.

'Okay,' said Mistral. 'Thanks, Sarah. Good idea. Now, what else… picture of a dog.'

'That was to fool the aliens,' said Erik Giles.

'Good plan. Here are the manuscripts. I'm afraid they're not in accordance with your submission guidelines, guys.' Groans from the editors in the audience. 'Geoffrey, if you'll take these away to be photocopied.' He peeked at one page of the stack of papers and grinned. 'Angela, do you still circle your i's?'

'Sometimes, Bunzie. Do you still misspell weird?'

He sighed. 'She knew me when, folks.-What else? There's an envelope in here, addressed to the Lanthanides from John W. Campbell Jr.'

'That's right!' cried Woodard. 'Remember, we wrote to him and asked for a letter to the future that we could include in our time capsule. And we never read it. Open it! Let's see what he said!'

Mistral began to tear the flap on the yellowed envelope. 'John W. Campbell Jr., as many of you may know, was the legendary S-F editor from the Golden Age of Science Fiction. He discovered most of the great ones-'

'Except us.'

Mistral forced a laugh. 'Well, I think everybody got their share of rejection slips from Mr. Campbell. Let's see what he has to say to the future.' He pulled out the letter and scanned a few lines.

As the silence grew longer, Jim Conyers called out, 'Well, Bunzie? What does he say?'

Mistral reddened. 'It's on Street & Smith letterhead, and it's from Campbell's secretary, Kay Tarrant. It says: 'Mr. Campbell regrets that he does not have the time to reply to your request…'' He stopped reading amid the shouts of laughter. 'Let's see what else is in here.'

'A jar of grape jelly in case Claude-that's an old inside joke from fandom, folks. We might as well skip it. And here's some old magazines-'

'-Which are very valuable,' said George Woodard, unable to contain himself. 'If they go on display, I must insist that every care be taken-'

'Make it so,' said Mistral with a smirk. 'Now, let's see. We have an August 1928 issue of Amazing, signed by both E. E. 'Doc' Smith and Philip Francis Nowlan.'

'Worth four thousand dollars. Minimum,' said Woodard.

'Some Ray Bradbury fanzines; old comic books, no doubt valuable; copies of Alluvial; letters from various people… Carl Bran-don, Sgt. Joan Carr.'

'Those people didn't exist,' Jim Conyers reminded him.

Mistral raised his eyebrows. 'That ought to really make them worth something.'

For the benefit of the press Jim Conyers explained about hoaxes in fandom, and how a fan might assume several personas in letter writing, since early fans seldom met.

'Thanks for clearing that up, Jim,' said Mistral, calling the meeting back to order. 'Here we have Curtis Phillips' beloved copy of H. P. Lovecraft's Outsiders, annotated by himself and Love-craft expert Francis Towner Laney.'

Erik Giles spoke up. 'Unfortunately, as I recall, Curtis' comments were based on his interviews with the demons themselves, and contain their comments about Lovecraft and Laney.'

'They liked Laney,' chuckled Brendan Surn.

'The volume is priceless,' declared Woodard.

'Well,' said Mistral. 'That's about all the interesting stuff. Thank you all for coming to this momentous occasion. The Lan-thanides will hang around up here to chat with the press, and the rest of you can go and hang out in the bar until the bus comes. Or come look at the exhibits here.'

'Make sure your hands are clean,' Woodard warned.

Sarah Ashley heaved a sigh of relief. Her blond hair was still immaculately coiffed and her gray suit was perfect, but there were lines of strain around her eyes, and her face was drawn. The interviews were over now, the exhibits had been removed, and only she and Ruben Mistral were left in the conference room with the empty pickle jar, which now looked very ordinary and unimpressive.

She set down the assortment of papers on the desk in front of Ruben Mistral and began to wipe her soiled fingers with a moist tissue. 'Well, you old rogue,' she said, smiling at her most audacious client. 'You've done it!'

Mistral's eyes widened in mock innocence. 'I don't know why you doubt me, Sarah. Isn't it everything I said it was?' He patted the humble pickle jar as if it had just won the Derby.

'Miraculously, yes,' she said dryly. 'I suppose the handwriting will have to be analyzed, and perhaps the paper tested to certify age. Depending on how picky the purchaser is about authentication. But I shouldn't think there will be any problems whatsoever in going ahead with the auction tomorrow. You really did produce the lost works of the genre. Thank God. I had visions of looking foolish in front of thirty million people.'

'The time capsule is absolutely genuine, Sarah. The sleight of hand was in the hype,' said Mistral with a feral smile. 'I took what is perhaps a mediocre collection of juvenilia and parlayed it into the Dead Sea Scrolls of Science Fiction.'

'Yes, I heard that. Nice catch phrase.'

'It should be. I paid an ad agency five grand to come up with it.' His manner grew conspiratorial. 'Incidentally, while we're being candid, there is one little matter I need to discuss with you, Sarah. We had an unexpected visitor turn up last night, and now he's dead.'

She listened expressionlessly while Mistral explained the reappearance of Pat Malone and his sudden death some twelve hours later. When he had finished his recital, Sarah Ashley's eyes narrowed. 'I do dislike coincidences. It was natural causes, of course?'

Mistral shrugged. 'What else? I didn't talk to the police, of course, but nobody has said anything, so I thought it best not to mention the incident to the press.'

'Very prudent. Perhaps tomorrow you might tell the story to the winning bidder, in case he wants to use it in publicizing the anthology. By then the news stories we need will have been filed with their respective publications, don't you think?'

Mistral nodded happily. 'That's all right, then. I guess it's all over but the photocopying.'

'And the bidding. But you must let me worry about that.'

Locked in the attic of Ruben Mistral's consciousness, Bunzie pounded and pleaded to be let out, but his chances of having any say-so in the proceedings was nil. He might mourn his old friend in private, and even wonder about the circumstances of his death, but this was business, in which he was never permitted to interfere.

Marion knew that her appearance in the manager's office wasn't going to brighten his day any. The long- suffering hotel official had already endured a peculiar, media-infested science fiction get-together, the murder of one of the guests, and the arrival of police on the scene to disrupt the normal routine and intimidate the other patrons of the lodge. All he needed now was a self-appointed amateur sleuth wasting his time with ingenuous questions. Marion hoped she didn't look too much like a scatterbrained crank.

She phrased her request to the desk clerk with what she hoped was polite authority, and after a few stammered objections and a five-minute wait, the clerk led her back to the office of Coy A. Trivett, manager of the Mountaineer Lodge. It was a small, sparsely furnished room, decorated with framed photographs of mountain scenes and a hardware-store calendar from Elizabeth-ton. The carpeting matched that in the lobby, and the worn chintz loveseat had been salvaged from the lobby seating area during last spring's renovations. Trivett himself, a blond man in his thirties, looked like a high school athlete who was thinking of running to fat. At the moment he wore the tentative smile of one who has resolved to be civil despite all temptations to the contrary.

'Is everything all right?' he asked in the anxious tones of one who knows better.

Marion introduced herself, placing a slight stress on the honorific 'doctor' with which she prefaced her name.