Zombies of the Gene Pool

'Sure,' said the desk clerk to the closed elevator doors. 'Everybody except you is a crank, right?'

Marion tapped gently on the door to the Conyers' room, hoping that they weren't the sort of people who went to bed ridiculously early and were smug about it.

Barbara answered the door, and Marion could see that the room's television was on, tuned to Star Trek: The Next Generation. 'Hi!' said Marion brightly. 'Can I come in? By the way, you want to be careful about opening the door without asking who it is. There's a contingent of fans in the building.'

Barbara looked at her husband and smiled. 'I'm not used to the idea of Jim having fans.'

Marion sighed. 'You never get used to it.'

Jim Conyers motioned for her to sit down in the armchair by the worktable. 'We brought snacks from home,' he grinned. 'Because Barbara's a skinflint. Want a beer? Diet Coke? Autograph your forehead?'

'Diet Coke,' said Marion. 'Unless you really need to practice the autograph. Seriously, though, I'm here to talk to you about Pat Malone.'

Jim and Barbara looked at each other. 'It was a sad business,' he said quietly.

'I know,' she said. 'We also thought it was a very convenient coincidence. Pat Malone shows up, threatening, from what I hear, to do a new Fandango, and suddenly he dies.'

'I thought of that,' said Conyers, scooping ice into a glass and pouring Marion her drink. 'But our secrets are pretty small potatoes.'

Marion shook her head. 'Not with all those reporters hanging around. And the hotel restaurant is full of fans. Any little indiscretion on anybody's part could-just this one week of your lives- easily make the AP, the Enquirer, and Time magazine. But, of course, that's just idle speculation, until we know how Pat Malone died.'

'Presumably we'll find out sooner or later.'

'It had better be sooner,' said Marion. 'Unless you want this to leak to the press. We thought that since you are a local attorney, you might be able to tap some inside sources and find out. We really need to know.'

Jim Conyers thought it over carefully. 'All right,' he said. 'I can't see any harm in it. I'll do what I can. I'll call your room when I've found out anything.'

Marion gave him a helpless smile. 'Could you please call now? Our phone line is kind of tied up.'

She sipped her Diet Coke and chatted quietly with Barbara while Jim Conyers consulted the telephone directory and began to make his calls.

'I think it went rather well today, don't you?' asked Barbara. 'I was awfully afraid they wouldn't find anything. They weren't terribly organized, you know.'

'They'd never misplace their manuscripts,' Marion assured her.

'Well, I hope the New York editors like what they read.' She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. 'I want to remodel the kitchen.'

Jim Conyers was oblivious of his wife's conversation. 'Well, that was fast work, Dennis,' he was saying into the phone. 'Guess we're lucky it's the slow season, huh? Say that again, will you? I need to write it down. How do you spell that? Oh, just like it sounds. M.A.O. And what are you calling it?-Think so, huh?- Okay, Dennis. Keep me posted. Yeah, if I can help you out, I will. Thanks again.'

The two women looked up at him expectantly. Conyers set down the phone. His face was grave. He picked up the note pad and held it at arm's length. 'According to the medical examiner, he died of having something called an MAO inhibitor mixed with his medication. And they think it was murder, so they'll be back in the morning to talk to all of us.' He looked sternly at Marion. 'Another thing. According to them, the deceased was one Richard Spivey. Now who the hell was Richard Spivey?'

Marion shook her head. 'I wish I knew.'

Chapter 13

The chief reason I am writing these memoirs is to try to get you, and you, and you to face your own personal problems like men instead of like fans, get you out of the drugging microcosm, and triumph over whatever is keeping you in fandom.

– FRANCIS TOWNER LANEY 'Ah, Sweet Idiocy'

Brendan Surn was quiet now. For nearly an hour Angela Ar-broath had sat with him, held his hand, and talked soothingly of times gone by. At last her soft Southern voice had seemed to penetrate his anger, and tears drifted down his cheeks. Now he was sitting on his bed, clutching his silver NASA jacket, and staring off into nothingness.

Angela patted his hand and eased away from him. 'I think he'll be all right for now,' she told Lorien Williams.

The girl summoned a grateful smile. 'Thank you. I've never been able to calm him down as quickly as that. Mostly when he gets into rages at home, I just leave him alone until he tires himself out.' She sat huddled on her twin bed, in a black T-shirt and slacks, looking very small and lost. Dark circles shadowed her eyes.

'I suppose this is more than you bargained for when you took this job,' said Angela.

Lorien hesitated. 'I was such a fan of Mr. Surn,' she said at last. 'I had read everything he ever wrote, and all the biographical material I could find on him. He seemed so grandfatherly, somehow. You know, like Yoda. And I wasn't very happy with my parents. They were always hassling me to give up fandom and get some mundane job, like being a stockbroker.' She made a moue of distaste. 'I thought I'd go and see Brendan Surn. He'd understand me.'

Angela sighed. She had heard it all before. Science fiction writers build castles in the air, and the fans move into them. (And the publishers collect the rent.) It was easy to find solace in someone else's storytelling, or in their apparent acceptance of what you are, and to build a soul for them. Surely, the fan thinks, he will like me as much as I like him; let me go and see him. It usually leads to disappointment: neither faces nor souls are as pretty in real life as they are on paper.

Angela remembered her own fascination in the fifties with Miranda Cairncross, a woman writer who wrote a wonderful tale about a Danish girl called Gefion who becomes caught up in the Ragnarok, the Norse version of Armageddon. She had found so much wisdom and lyrical beauty in Ragnarok that she read it over and over until she had nearly memorized it. She couldn't wait to meet the author, and at a book signing in New Orleans one Christmas she got her chance. Clutching her tattered copy of Ragnarok, she stood in line, half expecting to be picked out of the crowd as a soul mate and whisked off to tea with the author. She had even made a green velvet cloak like the one Gefion wore in the novel, so that the author would know of her devotion.

But the magic friendship did not happen. Miranda Cairncross turned out to be a gawky, colorless woman who seemed dismayed at the prospect of talking to the crowd of fans hovering around her table. She signed the books with fierce concentration, as though she were shutting out her surroundings, and when she finished each one, she would look up at the purchaser with a taut, forced smile. Angela could not imagine anyone less like the bold and reckless Gefion of Ragnarok. When she reached the head of the line, Angela handed over her book and said, 'I really love your writing.'

Miranda Cairncross peered at her over the pile of books, took in the sight of the plain young girl in a green velvet cloak, and reddened slightly. 'I do what I can,' she said. Moments later she returned Angela's copy, inscribed 'There is no frigate like a book, M. A. Cairncross.' Angela recognized the Emily Dickinson quote (another interest she might have shared with the author), but at the time she was disappointed that Miranda Cairncross' dedication had not been more personal.