Sharyn McCrumb - Zombies of the Gene Pool

"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.

Years later, after she had run into Brendan Surn at a few conventions and seen him besieged by soul-starved young strangers, she saw things from the other side, and she realized that touching people through their books was the best that most authors could do. Anything else was a letdown. By then she had also realized that the Dickinson quote about books being frigates was meant perhaps as a gentle warning from the author, telling her not to stray too far from life. She saw Miranda Cairncross years later, a frail old woman who had been brought to Worldcon to receive a plaque. Angela decided that the best way to thank her would be to leave her in peace.

"Yes," she said to Lorien Williams. "So you went to see Brendan Surn, thinking that he would be your friend."

"I guess so." Lorien was close to tears. She glanced over at the staring figure of Surn and continued, "When I got to his house, the place was a mess, and he didn't seem to know how to cook or anything, so I said to myself, I'll just stick around until his household help comes back. But they never did! I think his maid must have quit, and he never got around to advertising for another one."

"So you stayed?"

She nodded. "I didn't know what else to do! I mean, I couldn't leave him. I guess I could have later, after I learned how to manage everything. I could have hired someone, I guess. But he seemed to need me. And I didn't know what else to do with myself anyway." Her voice broke. "But it isn't like I thought it

would be! Sometimes, when he's wet the bed again or burned up another teakettle trying to boil water, I'll say to myself, This is the man who wrote Starwind Rising. This is a being of greatness. But he isn't! He's just an ordinary, sick old man. And I feel trapped."

"Did you become friends?"

Lorien shook her head. "He's never reacted to me the way he did to you today. I think I'm just a convenience for him, not a person!"

There is no frigate like a book, thought Angela. Aloud she said, "Fans are not friends, dear. It can be dangerous to forget that."

Jay Omega didn't even look up when Marion entered the room. He was staring at the screen of his computer as if it were showing Indiana Jones movies. "Your ferret is reporting in, sir," said Marion, tapping him playfully on the shoulder.

"Shhh!" he said. "I'm talking to somebody."

Marion looked around the otherwise empty room. "Who? Friend of Curtis Phillips?"

He slumped back in his seat and looked up at her. "No. Not a demon. A guy out in California, and one from North Carolina. Whole crowds of people. Look at this." He tapped a block of text on the screen.

Leaning over his shoulder, Marion read aloud: "To J. O. Mega. From Kenny in Cupertino. Called Ethel Malone's number. The woman who answered says Ethel is in a nursing home, and that she's her grandniece. She says her Great-Uncle Pat died in 1958. Thinks they have a death certificate around someplace. Physical description: 6'2" (she thinks); green eyes; black hair; very pale. Says she sometimes gets crank calls from fans. Asks that fans not make pilgrimage to her house, as she barely remembers Great-Uncle Pat. Wants to be left alone. She sounds cute, though. I'm thinking about asking her out. -Kenny."

"Let me type a reply thanking this guy for his trouble," said Jay. "Then you can tell me what you found out, Marion. By the way, have we eaten dinner?"

Marion reached for the room service menu. "I thought you'd never ask."

When she came back from ordering a couple of chicken dinners, Marion turned back to Jay. "So, did he fake his death certificate so that he could get rid of his wife as well as his friends?"

"I don't think so," said Jay. "A guy from Mississippi went down to his local library and found an obituary for Pat Malone in an old newspaper on microfilm." He grinned. "Somebody who called himself Jim Hacker offered to break into the records of the University of Washington medical school, but I declined."

"Good. I'm sure the dean of engineering takes a dim view of professors being wanted by the FBI."

"I also got some interesting reminiscences from some old-timers that didn't quite square with things here. I get the funny feeling that the Lanthanides are still playing 'you and me against the world.' By the way, can you get me a copy of the time-capsule stories?"

Marion looked smug. "I already did," she said. "I asked Geoffrey Duke to make one for me. I thought it might be useful in case I decide to do an article."

"Good. Have you read them yet?"

"Of course not. I've been running errands for a certain engineer with delusions of grandeur."

"Oh. Well, sometime tonight I wish you'd take a look at them."

"Don't you want to see them?"

Jay shook his head. "No. I need you to read them in that sharklike way that English majors read things. Analytically."