Zombies of the Gene Pool

from North Carolina. He didn't write very often, though. He never discussed the Lanthanides, or claimed to be one of us.'

'What address was used?'

Woodard shrugged. 'A post office box, I think.'

'How do you know he wasn't Pat Malone?' Angela demanded.

Jay pointed to the computer. 'Because I asked.' He told them about the call to Ethel Malone, and about the man in Mississippi who had found the obituary. 'I think Pat Malone died a long time ago, and somebody decided to take his place. True, he had information that only one of the Lanthanides would know. Where would he get it? I thought the fact that he was on Elavil was an indication. And he was from North Carolina.'

'Curtis!' cried George Woodard. 'Curtis was in a mental institution in North Carolina.'

'And Elavil is a drug used in psychiatric cases,' whispered Angela. 'Are you saying that this man was only pretending to be Pat Malone?'

'I don't know,' said Jay sadly. 'I think he may have actually believed it by now. He and Curtis Phillips were both patients in a psychiatric facility outside Raleigh. I know, because I called and asked. I'm pretty sure that he had heard Curtis Phillips talk about the Lanthanides for years and years until it actually became real to him. He remembered it as an experience, the way you visualize a movie you have seen, or a particularly vivid novel.'

'But he didn't even know us!' Erik Giles protested. 'Why would he want to embarrass us?'

'Because that's what Pat Malone would have done,' said Marion.

Woodard laughed bitterly. 'Another damned fan hoax!'

'It was very convincing,' said Jim Conyers. 'But I must agree with our host here that we have an obligation both morally and legally to provide any information that we can.'

No one spoke. Brendan Surn seemed to have forgotten that they were there. The others glanced at each other nervously.

'If no one wants to confide in us, we could make some guesses,' said Jay. 'For example, there are sexual goings-on that one might rather forget three decades after the fact.' He held up a folded slip of paper. 'I have Jasmine Holt's phone number here.'

In fact, he had a blank piece of paper, but he counted on the fact that no one would ask to see it, and the bluff worked.

'That business about my wife being promiscuous was totally exaggerated,' said Woodard. 'We were both believers in free love back then, and I believe she had sexual relations with a good many members of fandom. It was a philosophical statement. I see no reason to be embarrassed by it.' Beads of sweat made his skin glow like damp cheese. He pushed a greasy forelock away from his eyes. 'Of course, she's not at all like that now.'

'Your kids might be less tolerant, though, George,' said Jim Conyers. 'Mine sure were.' He sighed and glanced at his wife. 'I guess I'd better tell you about this before you call Jazzy.'

'Jim!' said Ruben Mistral warningly.

'The statute of limitations passed long ago, Bunzie,' said Jim Conyers. 'I checked.'

'It was at a con, and we had all had too much to drink,' said Mistral. 'And we-I wouldn't call it rape, would you, Jim? We didn't know she was underage.'

'You guys raped Jasmine Holt?' The question was out of Lor-ien's mouth before she could think better of it. 'Sorry,' she muttered, and pretended to read the cable television guide.

The color drained from Barbara Conyers' face. 'Oh, Jim,' she whispered.

He looked away. 'It was before we got engaged,' he muttered.

'Come on, no big deal!' said Bunzie jovially. 'That was a hundred years ago. By the time she married Curtis we were all pals again. And when she married Peter I gave the bride away.'

'I doubt if Pat would have told that story,' said Erik. 'He was just as involved as we were.'

Marion glared at the Lanthanides, looking considerably less sympathetic than she had moments before. 'There are some literary secrets here, I think, that might have been worth revealing.' She noted with satisfaction that the Lanthanides had begun to look uncomfortable. 'Take Dale Dugger's story, for example. It isn't very expertly written, but the atmosphere is wonderful. It's about a Martian soldier coming home from the war to find that he has more in common with the enemy aliens than he does with the people back home. It sounded very familiar.'

Lorien Williams blinked in confusion. 'But-that scene you described is famous! It's in Brendan's book The Galactic Watchfires. That's the chapter when Tarn-yan returns to Qar.'

Mistral shrugged. 'So what? We lived in each other's pockets in those days. Who's to say that Dale didn't write the scene after hearing Brendan tell the story?'

'And Curtis Phillips wrote about a mad wizard who has sex with a demon. Both those guys were fairly recognizable, too.' Marion looked down at her hands, so as not to look at any of the Lanthanides.

'Curtis was crazy,' said Erik Giles.

'Yes,' spluttered George Woodard. 'But I remember he told me-'

'Shut up, George!' said Mistral.

'And you're going to let them publish this anthology?' Jay marveled.

Mistral shrugged. 'For a pile of money. We'll write prefaces to all the stories that will take the sting out. And we may do a little judicious editing.'

Still blushing, Marion continued. 'Why doesn't Peter Deddingfield have a story in the time capsule?'

The Lanthanides looked at each other, but no one spoke.

'Everybody else is there. Angela, Pat, Dale, Curtis, George, Erik, Reuben Bundshaft, Jim Conyers, and one by C. A. Stormcock. But you always said that you were C. A. Stormcock, Erik!'

He raised his plastic glass to her in a mock toast. 'So I was.'

'But you aren't, Erik, are you?' she said, looking at the other Lanthanides for confirmation. 'Don't bother to lie to me, folks. I read those stories. The Stormcock story is obviously by the guy who wrote The Golden Gain, and the story signed 'Erik Giles' is just as obviously written by the person who wrote the Time Traveler Trilogy.'

Marion looked at the stricken face of her old friend, and then at Jay Omega. 'Maybe we shouldn't discuss this in public,' she murmured. 'Maybe, Erik, you and I could just-'

He finished the contents of his glass and set it down. 'It's all right,' he said. 'These people all know, my dear. They've known for more than thirty years. We just didn't think that it would ever matter much.' He turned to the Lanthanides and smiled. 'I can't think why I invited them to come with me. I suppose it serves me right for being a coward. I didn't want to face all this alone. Or perhaps subconsciously I was tired of the pretense.'

Angela shook her head. 'You couldn't know that Pat Malone would show up. And we would never have given you away, Stormy.'

'So you're Peter Deddingfield?' said Jay.

'I was once. But I wasn't the important one. The fellow who married Jazzy, and who wrote all those wonderful books later on -I always think that that is the real Peter Deddingfield. I gave up the name when we both left the Fan Farm. When I knew that I did not want to become a professional writer.'

'Buy why?' asked Marion. 'If you had published as Stormcock, and he hadn't published anything. Had he?'

'No,' said George Woodard. 'People have always wondered why Pete Deddingfield's first published short story was so bad. It's because the 'old' Pete wrote it. Stormy, I mean.'

'So Peter Deddingfield-the famous one-was really Erik Giles. Why switch names?' Marion persisted.

'Can't you guess, Dr. Farley?' asked the professor in a gently mocking tone. 'Because my old friend had something that I wanted and he no longer valued. Erik Giles had a doctorate in English.'

Marion stared. 'You don't have a Ph.D.?'

'No. He didn't need one to be a writer of science fiction, which he had both the talent and the desire to be. I, on the other hand, had written one book that other people liked far more than I did. I was tired of it all: the puerile jokes, the posturing, the financial uncertainty. What I wanted more than anything was a nice soft job on a college campus, where I could teach my classes and be left alone with my dignity.' He smiled, remembering. 'So Erik Giles said to me, 'Take the damned degree. We'll swap names, and we'll both be happy. Swear the Lanthanides to secrecy, and who'll ever know?' '

'But you taught all those classes!' Marion protested. 'You went to conferences!'

'I didn't write very many journal articles,' he reminded her. 'Tenure 'was easier twenty years ago. As for the