Sharyn McCrumb - Zombies of the Gene Pool

"I don't think you can apply, Jay. I think fandom takes hostages."

"Be careful where you step, George," said Angela Arbroath, grabbing his elbow. "That puddle may be deeper than you think."

George Woodard, who hadn't even seen the mud hole he nearly plunged into, blinked out of his reverie and thanked her. "I was just thinking about the time we stayed up all night listening to the plotting of Starwind Rising," he said. "The moon was shining low beneath that branch of the locust tree, and it filled the whole horizon. As we listened to that story, I could actually see the story happening. I remember picturing one of the heroes looking just like Conyers. You know, he always did have that clean-chiseled ail-American look. It was just like a movie going on in our heads. Once I found myself searching the surface of the moon, looking for traces of the domed cities, and I remember checking to see if my helmet was on. My helmet! I'd forgotten I wasn't in a spaceship orbiting the moon."

Angela smiled. "I didn't know Brendan had talked about his books in such detail to you all."

George flushed. "Actually, it was Dale who told that story. But I'm sure he'd discussed it beforehand with Brendan!"

Angela nodded. "I suppose so." She looked around the valley and then at the chimney rising out of muddy water a few yards away. "I guess I remember Pat better than anyone else from the Fan Farm. Sometimes he'd tell me what all of you were up to when he wrote to me."

"Do you still have the letters?" asked George eagerly. "I'm planning a memorial issue of Alluvial."

"No, George. I wouldn't let anyone see those letters without first obtaining Pat's permission, and I guess that isn't going to happen, is it?" Seeing his disappointment, she went on. "There isn't much in them that would interest fandom, anyhow, George. Like most men, Pat talked mostly about himself. And he tried to carry on a long-distance romance with me, which worked better on paper than it did in real life." She smiled ruefully. "Like a lot of things in fandom."

Their conversation stopped when a reporter approached them, tape recorder in hand. "Can you tell me what your thoughts are at this moment?" she asked breathlessly.

George Woodard squinted at her. "Are you from Locus?"

After twenty minutes of site inspection, interspersed with photos and interviews, Ruben Mistral signaled for everyone's attention. When the crowd stopped milling around and stood in a respectful huddle around him, he stalked over to the black husk of a tree a few hundred yards from the chimney pool. The tree stood at the foot of a gently sloped mound of red clay, scored by a series of upright posts, each about four feet high.

"This is what remains of the fence," Mistral announced. "The first landmark. And that is the tree that we used as the second marker. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the very spot on which, thirty-six years ago, the Lanthanides buried their time capsule. It is time to resurrect the past. It is time to begin the digging. I will go first."

Mistral's contribution to the retrieval effort was to remove exactly two spadefuls of mud-the second was for good measure, in case someone's first photo did not turn out well. After that, each of the Lanthanides was invited to be filmed wielding the shovel, before the actual work of unearthing the jar was turned over to the three boatmen, under the direction of Geoffrey Duke. All four had donned khaki coveralls for the messy job of excavating a mud hole.

Marion clutched Jay's hand. "What if it isn't there?" she whispered.

He groaned. "Don't even think such a thing!"

"Well, what if it isn't? Everybody in fandom knew it was there, didn't they? Suppose crazed science fiction fans from Knox-ville-"

"Hush, Marion!"

"I wonder if anybody will ever make such a big deal over your unpublished stuff."

"I doubt it," said Jay. "They certainly haven't been overly enthusiastic about the published stuff."

Several yards away from them, Brendan Surn was leaning on Lorien Williams' arm and smiling benignly at the diggers. "Aren't you excited about this?" asked Lorien, smiling up at him.

"Why, yes," said Brendan Surn mildly. "Yes, thank you. It's very nice."

Lorien's smile froze in place. That was the answer Brendan always gave when he was fading out of the here and now and hadn't the least idea of what was going on. No more interview questions today, she thought. She wondered how she would field the questions for him.

While the digging was going on, Ruben Mistral took up a position a safe distance away from the mudslinging, which he watched with an expression of dignified expectation. A few of the reporters tried to bait him with fanciful questions, such as "What if you find a skeleton?" or "What if the time capsule isn't there?" but he only smiled at them and refused to be drawn into any negative speculation. Privately he was wondering how the authorities were dealing with the problem of the late Pat Malone back at the Mountaineer Lodge, and he was wondering whether he ought to take any steps to suppress the news of his death. So far so good, he told himself. There would be time to worry about damage control later. First, let them find that damned jar.

Digging in mud wasn't easy. The sides of the hole kept collapsing in on it, and water seeped up from the bottom as they dug. The three diggers were soon transformed into identical mud-caked gingerbread men. When fifteen minutes of digging had elapsed, taking the hole to a depth of three feet, several people who obviously knew the Lanthanides' proclivities remarked that none of them were energetic enough to have buried anything so deep. Geoffrey Duke reminded these doubters that mountain streams had carried silt into the lake bed for more than three decades, depositing layer after layer of extra soil on top of the original cache.

The editors, who had grouped together at the back of the crowd, for fear of being invited to dig, eyed the excavation efforts nervously. "Suppose it isn't there?" asked Lily Warren.

Enzio O'Malley shrugged. "You ask them to write their stories from memory and you get better stuff, because now they've been pros for thirty years."

"What about the dead ones?"

"Even better. You get Mistral or Surn to give you a general description of the plot, and then you farm out the story to somebody famous who can really write. I'd like to see Robert Mc-Cammon write the Curds Phillips story. Maybe Michael Moorcock for Deddingfield's stuff. Now that anthology would be worth publishing!"

Lily Warren gave him a sour smile. "So, Enzio, you will actually be disappointed if they find anything?"

"I wouldn't say that. But if I acquire the rights to it, I'll make sure the contract says I get to request some rewriting."

The Del Rey editor heaved a sigh of exasperation. "If Enzio had been given the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, he would have had them down to six before he left the summit."

A clink of shovel on metal drew gasps from those nearest the hole, and the crowd surged forward. "We got it!" shouted Geoffrey Duke, wiping his forehead with a mud-stained forearm. "I see a lid down there!"

"Easy, fellas!" said Mistral, elbowing his way to the side of the pit. "Don't break the glass now. That water would completely ruin the contents."

Marion went up and hugged Erik Giles. "They found it!" she cried. "I'm so happy for you!"

"I hope it's worth it," said Giles sadly.

One of the diggers jumped into the rapidly collapsing hole and, knee-deep in muddy water, fastened a rope around the neck of the jar. While he pushed and rocked the jar to free it, the others pulled on the rope, and moments later it gave, sending the digger sprawling into the side of the mud hole as the brown encrusted jar slid to the surface amid cheers from the onlookers. With a triumphant flourish Geoff Duke wrapped the unopened jar in a clean plastic sheet, while the other mud-caked diggers helped their comrade out of the hole and headed for the river to rinse off as best they could.