"...could vaporize Kirk's butt with one hand tied behind his back!"
"Says you, laser breath! If Solo's so friggin' smart, how'd he end up a frozen knickknack in Jabba's throne room? Explain that to me, you god-damn Force freak!"
"Ah, c'mon, man. That was all Princess Bitch's fault, and you know it! You drekkies should understand overactive hormones. Your precious Captain Kirk spent half his career chasing skirts across the galaxy -- and the other half saving himself and his crew from the potentially catastrophic consequences of his delusions of glandeur."
"He did not!"
"He did, too!"
"Did not!"
"Did, too!"
"Didn't!"
"Did!"
"Didn't..."
And so it went.
Cyril Wollheim pushed himself up from his seat and bounded gracefully out of the room. Not bad for an eighty-five year old man. It had taken him two days, but he'd finally mastered the Moon's lower gravity. A painful bruise on his forehead, the consequence of an earlier run-in with the ceiling of one particularly cramped access tunnel, reminded Wollheim that this had not been a simple task. The farce he'd just fled made him wonder if the effort was worth it.
Looking Back: A Retrospective Analysis of the Origins of SF. That's how the LCD on the handheld program guide advertised the disappointing panel. Wollheim suspected it would not live up to his expectations when, upon entering the designated location at the specified time, he spied the two panelists occupying a raised platform at the front of the meeting room. One sported a threadbare reproduction of an ancient Starfleet uniform -- circa, the first generation. The other only vaguely resembled a grossly overweight and over-the-hill Luke Skywalker. The holographic image of Yoda floating several inches above the table in front of him provided a more obvious clue to this second panelist's assumed persona.
The Starfleet reject declared his allegiances during his opening statement by postulating that all legitimate science fiction traced its roots to the mid-1900s. 1963, to be precise. No surprise there. The Jedi Knight wannabe agreed with the century, but not the proposed date. Only an idiot, he proclaimed five minutes into the panel, would consider any work released before 1977 true SF. This pronouncement triggered a heated discussion which quickly degenerated into the infantile exchange that ultimately prompted Wollheim to seek enlightenment elsewhere.
Neither has a clue, he thought angrily, as he made his way to the huckster's dome. Nor does anyone else at this damn convention.
LunarCon. Worldcon 2101. The 159th World Science Fiction Convention. Call it what you will -- and, as always, there seemed an almost infinite number of alternatives from which to choose -- this gathering was the premier SF event of the year. Of course, every Worldcon, every year, had been touted as such, but this year's convention actually promised to live up to its hype.
LunarCon represented history in the making; it would be, after all, fandom's first off-world Worldcon. Forget for a moment the irony inherent in this description. Contemplate, instead, the concept: 25,000-plus science-fiction fans casting off gravity's oppressive yoke and migrating (albeit, temporarily) to the Moon. It was an opportunity previous generations of SF fandom could only dream about, or experience vicariously through the galaxy-spanning adventures of their fictional heroes and heroines. The programming committee capitalized on the already extraordinary excitement surrounding LunarCon by announcing a slate of program participants that put to shame the meager offerings of any prior Worldcon.
The co-Guests-of-Honor were Gene Roddenberry and George Lucas. The artist GoH was John Dykstra, the technical wizard behind some of the more impressive special effects that, more than a century earlier, earned Star Wars a much-coveted Hugo Award. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing -- each of these, as well, was scheduled to appear at LunarCon. No one seemed to mind that the honored guests were, in truth, nothing more than holographic projections. They were also icons of the SF industry. And they would be available for five glorious days -- five, glorious, twenty-four-hour days, Earth reference, that is -- to press the flesh of their adoring public!
LunarCon (presented, as it was, amidst the heavens) should have been, for any science fiction fan, something akin to heaven. So why in the hell was Cyril Wollheim (a fan's fan, if ever one existed) so damn despondent?
The Klingon warrior did not mean to run into Wollheim. He'd been chasing a Wookie, the natural rivalry that existed between the gaming contingencies of the two opposing media camps having escalated during the first day of the convention into an impromptu competition now informally dubbed "The War of the Star Worlds."
"I'm sorry," the somewhat embarrassed young man mumbled as he reached out a leather-gloved hand to help Wollheim to his feet.
"Get away from me!" Wollheim shouted, glaring up from the floor at his assailant.
The Klingon moved back a step. "I said I was sorry," he repeated.
"You're an inconsiderate punk, is what you are," Wollheim said, still glaring, still sprawled on the concrete floor.
"Trouble?" The short, heavyset man, stuffed into a brown security outfit designed for someone considerably taller and less overweight than he, was a gopher. He worked for the con committee, not the Lunar complex, and prayed each morning as he struggled to button up his stylized military jacket that any conflicts that arose during the day could be resolved peacefully. He was woefully unqualified for any other contingency. Just covering the ten meters or so that separated his assigned surveillance post from the site of the collision between Wollheim and the young Klingon had left him noticeably out of breath.
"No, sir, Peacekeeper," said the Klingon with a flourish and feigned deference. It was the appropriate protocol for the situation, as spelled out in the LunarCon attendee's handbook.
"Like hell," Wollheim responded angrily, picking himself up off the floor. "This young hooligan should be locked up. He has no regard for anyone else's safety."
"Don't you think you're overreacting, sir?" replied the gopher in guard's garb. "Our Klingon friend here didn't mean any harm. It was an accident, I'm sure."
"Accidents like this wouldn't happen," Wollheim muttered as he dusted off his pants, "if he and his kind weren't allowed to run around like madmen, playing their silly games on the convention floor."
"Now wait a minute, old man," the Klingon responded, belligerence creeping into his voice. "I paid my membership dues, just like you did. I have every right..."
"My glasses!" Wollheim interrupted, the collision all but forgotten. "Has anyone seen my glasses?"
"Why don't you split?" the gopher/guard whispered to the other man while Wollheim was distracted. "I'll handle things from here. Have a good time, but do try to be a little more careful from now on, okay?"
The young Klingon nodded. "I'm cool," he said and moved off down the corridor, renewing the pursuit of his Wookie quarry.
The gopher turned his attentions back to Wollheim -- now back on his hands and knees, frantically searching the area around where he fell. "Can I help you, sir?" he asked, bending down to the old man.
"My glasses!" Wollheim yelled, panic in his voice. "They must have been knocked loose when that fool bumped into me! Do you really want to help? Then find some way to stop these idiots from clomping around here. I have to find them before they're stepped on."
The gopher sighed and stood up. He spread his arms over his head.
"Listen up, folks!" he shouted above the din of people mingling in the hallway. "We seem to have a situation here. Would everyone hold still for a moment?" The crowd complied, curious but cooperative. "This gentleman has lost his glasses. Could you please look down and check the floor near you? Don't walk around, though. We wouldn't want someone accidentally stepping on them."
"Don't worry, sir," he said to Wollheim. "We'll find them."
"Wait a minute!" yelled a young woman made up to resemble an exotic (and quite erotic) alien. She bent down and retrieved something from the floor. "Are these what you're looking for?"
"Oh, yes, Miss," Wollheim said, struggling to his feet. "That's them." He reached out and retrieved his glasses from an outstretched blue hand. "Thank you. Thank you very much."
"No problem," replied the young woman.
The crowd resumed their mingling.
"That's a relief," Wollheim sighed, turning around to face the gopher. He cleaned his glasses by breathing on them and, after pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket, rubbing the lenses between his thumb and middle finger. "And thank you, Mr..." Wollheim placed the glasses on his nose and studied his savior's name tag. "Mr...um... Starslayer, is it?"
The young man chuckled. "No, sir," he replied. "That's just a nickname I use at cons. My real name is Gerrold. Peter Gerrold."
"Gerrold, eh? I once met a writer named Gerrold, back when I was a young boy. David Gerrold. But then, his real name was Friedman, so I don't suppose you're any relation."
"Not that I'm aware of."
"Too bad. He was a nice man. Hell of a science fiction writer, too. Even his television work was pretty good -- for television, that is."
"He wrote television scripts?" the gopher asked, admiration in his voice.
"Sure. TV and other stuff." Wollheim replied.
"Other stuff?" Awe shoved aside admiration. "What other stuff? Movies? Games? VRvids?"
"Hell, I don't know. Probably. I can't remember. Even if I did, I wouldn't care. Don't have any use for those things. But David Gerrold wrote some damn nice novels and short stories, I can tell you that. Damn nice novels...stories..." Wollheim's words faded to silence. His eyes glazed over, as if focusing on some distant star inhabiting the outer edge of the universe. A gray sadness descended upon the old man's face, like fine dust settling on the fragile surface of an antique vase.
"I guess you're not interested in them, though," he continued after a few seconds, his voice tinged with melancholy. "Nobody is. Not anymore. Anyway, thank you, again, young man, for your assistance. I won't bother you any more."
There was a time when Wollheim loved cruising the huckster's room. Back then, he would spend hours exploring this cavernous area within which fans traditionally gathered to mine gems of SF history.
He remembered fondly Worldcon 2029, HongCon. That was the convention at which Wollheim had stumbled across a first printing of Mike Resnick's Alternate Worldcons: Second Cousin, by Marriage, Twice Removed. The dealer amongst whose offerings Wollheim discovered this rare find, a franchised subsidiary of Disney/Eisner Trans-Global, Inc., didn't realize the treasure he had. Or didn't care. The dusty tome's title page had been signed by the editor, as well as several of the contributing authors -- Yvonne Delaplace-Haldeman, Sean Dennis Gerrold (Yes, the son of that Gerrold.), Stevie Chalker, Jason Nimersheim, Nicky DiChario, Jr., among others. Resnick's tragic and ironic death a few years earlier only added to the book's already considerable value. (Who could have predicted a massive tusk suspended over the entrance to The Greater Orlando Alexander Lake Museum would pick that precise moment during the gala opening ceremonies to snap one of its supporting guy wires and, arcing through the air like a giant ivory scythe, impale the wheelchair-ridden but still prolific Resnick as his wife, Carol, pushed him up an access ramp to deliver his dedication speech for the ornate facility, the financing and construction of which the so-called Grand Master of African SF had championed so passionately, for so long?) Because of the dealer's incredible ignorance -- or ennui, take your pick -- Wollheim pocketed this priceless collector's item for a proverbial song.
That was the last Worldcon at which Wollheim had purchased anything. What today's fandom regarded as gems, he considered junk. Corporate pyrite. Media dross.
The huckster's dome at LunarCon only reinforced his opinion. Oh, it was big, and crowded, and chaotic, just like the beloved huckster rooms Wollheim haunted in his youth. Here, however, any resemblance to those cherished memories ended.
You entered the LunarCon huckster's dome by walking through the parted legs of a giant statue of Lieutenant Uhura, decked out in her original, mini-skirted uniform. This peculiar method of admittance managed to combine the vulgar with the utilitarian. Each large and shapely leg contained an array of computerized sensors that would sound a loud alarm, should anyone attempt to leave the area carrying merchandise that had not had its sales tag properly removed. It was a lowbrow approach to high-tech security.
Wollheim's head hit the statue at mid-thigh. He resisted the temptation to look up, as he entered the dome. Many others, especially young boys and only slightly older young men, did not exercise this same restraint. One extremely tall youth walking just in front of Wollheim took particular pleasure in demonstrating to his companions, in a particularly explicit manner, how little "head room" -- to use the terminology this young man employed -- he had, while passing through the lascivious portal. Wollheim found the entire incident extremely distasteful, but managed to hold his tongue. (At one point during his crude performance, the abrasive young man held his tongue, also -- literally, not figuratively; that, however, is another story.)
To someone possessing Wollheim's traditionalist sensibilities, the scene on the other side of the colossal Nubian gams was only slightly less offensive.
Giant media conglomerates battled for the attendees' attention like competing space armadas fighting to dominate some distant star system. In this room, in microcosm, existed every item that defined the modern fan's understanding of contemporary science fiction.
Over here stood robotic reproductions of all the main characters from Aliens XXIV, including a slavering insectivoid capable of spewing simulated saliva over anyone willing to risk the experience. Over there, reflecting off the curved ceiling of the huckster's dome, shown mammoth projections of animated sequences from Wizards of the Coast, 2100. For a nominal fee, fans could insert a holographic image of themselves within their favorite scenario. The line of people anxiously awaiting this interactive encounter wound around the room like some Midhgardhr serpent preparing for Ragnarok, a coiled portent to the mythical twilight of the gods. An entire aisle held nothing but weapons vendors, hawking their wares like peddlers at some intergalactic yard sale. Swords. Daggers. Phasers. Lasers. Even whips and chains. All could be procured -- for the right number of credits. Game manufacturers were everywhere, promoting their products to VR junkies with a passion and panache that seemed, at once, both extemporaneous and meticulously planned.
It was a daunting, dizzying experience -- a frenetic assault on the senses, all of the senses, that threatened to overwhelm Wollheim. He reached out a withered hand and steadied himself on the corner of one vendor's table.
"Pretty amazing, isn't it?" a familiar voice said over Wollheim's shoulder. It was the gopher from the corridor, still decked out in his ersatz military uniform, but now, judging from his unbuttoned tunic, apparently off-duty.
"Hurrumph," grunted Wollheim. "That's not the word I'd choose."
"No," responded the gopher, smiling. "Somehow, I didn't think you would."
The two men studied one another in silence for almost a full minute, each one clearly sizing up the other.
"I don't put much faith in coincidence, young man," Wollheim said, finally. "So I would guess that your bumping into me is no accident. You mind telling me what you're doing here?"
The gopher assumed, correctly, that lying to this old man was futile. And so, he didn't. "To be perfectly honest," he replied, "I don't know."
Several more seconds of awkward silence ensued -- the isolated silence between these two near-strangers, that is. Around them, the cacophony of the huckster's dome continued unabated, as steady as Planck's constant.
This time, it was the gopher who spoke first. "You're not enjoying the convention, are you?" he asked.
"Gee, does it show?" Wollheim replied sardonically.
The gopher smiled a second time. He had a nice smile. Bright. Sincere. Relaxed. "Only when you walk, or talk," he said, returning in kind the older man's acerbic attitude.
This elicited from Wollheim his own smile. It, also, was affable, if a bit more tarnished than that of his younger companion. "Touche, Mr...Gerrold, was it?"
"Yes, sir. But call me Peter, please."
"Very well, Peter. And you can call me Mr. Wollheim. Age, after all, does have its privileges."
"Ha!" young man laughed. "So, you can do something other than grumble."
"Don't press your luck, sonny boy," Wollheim said, the irritation in his voice clearly and consciously exaggerated. "You still haven't explained to me why you're here. Surely you have better ways to spend your time than shadowing an old man through the huckster's room."
"I was serious, sir. I don't know. Not really. You just looked like you could use a friend, back there in the hallway. So, when I finished my shift, I hunted you up."
"Pity?" Wollheim inquired, arching a bushy eyebrow. He spat out the word like someone might spit out a bite of an unripe persimmon.
"No. Not at all," Peter assured him.
"Good," said Wollheim. "`cause I don't need that."
"No, sir," the young man replied sincerely. "I'm sure you don't." Several soundless beats...then, "Actually, Mr. Wollheim, I suspect I tracked you down for selfish reasons."
"Eh?" Wollheim said, genuine surprise in the expression.
"Something you said earlier intrigued me, when you were talking about that man you knew. Damon Gerrold."
"David Gerrold," Wollheim corrected him. "And I didn't really know him. I met David once, at a Worldcon -- much like you and I just met. Anyway, what about him?"
"Well, you mentioned that he wrote something called novels and short stories."
"Yep. Damn good ones. So did a lot of other people, once upon a time."
"Really?"
"Sure. Science fiction writers used to write novels and stories all the time. Real novels and stories, the kind that were published in books and magazines. Back then, we would..."
Peter Gerrold stood there, staring at him, a confused look on his face.
"You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?" Wollheim said.
The other man shook his head.
"Hell. I'm not surprised." Wollheim looked around and angrily waved his arm in a large arc that encompassed the entire huckster's dome. "Not after seeing the crap that's in here."
Wollheim's gaze returned to his young companion. His eyes burned with a fire that, at once, both frightened and fascinated Peter.
"Let me ask you something," the old man continued. His voice also smoldered with an emotion Peter could not identify. "Just how `intrigued' are you by what I was talking about?"
The younger man hesitated, unsure how to respond.
"C'mon, sonny boy," Wollheim prodded him. "You're here at a Worldcon. Hell, you even volunteered to be a gofer. I assume, therefore, that you consider yourself a fan. Well, here's your chance to find out what fandom is really all about. You interested?"
Curiosity won out over concern. "Sure. Why not?" replied Peter.
Wollheim pulled an electronic notepad from his pocket. He entered some data into its tiny keypad and requested hard copy. "Here's where I'm staying," he said, handing the resulting printout to Peter. "You come by in an hour or so, and I'll show you a side of science fiction that you never knew existed."
An hour later Peter Gerrold was walking through one of the many labyrinthine tunnels humanity had carved out of the lunar rock over the past several decades, making his way to the Marriott Moonbase. He'd stopped by his own room in the Hilton, the main party hotel, long enough to take a dry shower and change into more comfortable clothes. "Remember the ancient proverb: Hygiene is our friend," a holocard in the convention packet had stated. Peter didn't understand the reference, but he endorsed the sentiment. The Marriott maintained strict policies, regarding its guests' behavior. It prohibited official parties. Indeed, it discouraged even informal ones. Consequently, it failed to attract many hard-core fans. Peter did not see a single alien of any kind as he entered the lobby. No Romulans lounged on its plush couches. No Imperial Guards sat in the overstuffed chairs. It was not difficult to imagine someone like Wollheim preferring these surroundings to the more surreal ambiance of the other hotels.
"Destination, please?" a disembodied female voice intoned, as he entered an elevator at the far end of the lobby.
"Fourth floor," Peter replied. According to Wollheim's note, he was staying in room 451.
"Thank you."
The door hissed shut. A gentle nudge, barely perceptible, provided the only indication of the elevator's movement. It required little effort to lift objects within the moon's reduced gravity.
A second gentle nudge, a second hiss, and a few steps later, Peter stood before the door to Wollheim's room. He lifted his hand to knock, then hesitated. He still wasn't sure why he'd agreed to this meeting. Something about the old man, he could not say what, fascinated him. But was this reason enough to accept a near-stranger's invitation to visit his room, alone, for a purpose that remained mysterious, unspecified?
Stop it, Peter thought. You're being paranoid. He rapped his knuckles, three times, sharply on the door.
"Peter? Is that you?" It was Wollheim's voice, but it wasn't. Gone were the resignation and implied hostility that previously permeated every word the old man spoke. Instead, the voice sounded expectant, excited, almost jubilant.
"Yes, sir," Peter replied.
"Just a moment. I'll be right with you."
He could hear movement within the room -- someone walking about (Wollheim, he presumed), drawers opening and closing, furniture being rearranged. At one point, he heard a muffled slap, like something falling, or possibly being dropped. Peter could not tell which. Finally, he heard the telltale beep, beep of a lockpad being activated. The door slid open.
"I'm glad you came. I worried that you might change your mind." Wollheim stood just inside the doorway. He was breathing heavily and sweating. Behind him, the room was dark. Darker than dark. Pitch black. The ambient light from the hallway barely penetrated the blackness. An acrid odor, the musty scent of age, wafted out of the room, commingling with the crisp, antiseptic air that recirculated continuously throughout the entire lunar complex, including the hotels.
Peter's earlier unease returned.
"Come in. Come in," Wollheim said, stepping back into the darkness.
The younger man ignored the invitation. He did not move.
"What's wrong?" The question came from nowhere, and everywhere, as disembodied as the voice in the elevator. "You're not nervous, are you? C'mon, Peter. Humor an old man. Step inside."
Peter did not move immediately, but he did move. Slowly, cautiously, he moved, through the doorway.
"Close," Wollheim said. The door hissed shut behind Peter, plunging the room into darkness even more total than before. The musty odor, no longer diluted by air from the hallway, became more concentrated, even more oppressive.
"This isn't funny, old man!" Peter shouted into what suddenly felt like an ebon void that threatened to absorb him.
"Lights on." Wollheim was standing at the foot of the bed. At least, Peter assumed it was a bed. He couldn't be certain, for it was covered with pile upon pile of small, rectangular objects. So were two chairs, one on each side of Wollheim. These must have been the pieces of furniture Peter heard being moved about, as he waited for the old man to open the door. The floor, also, could barely be seen, buried as it was beneath even more of these mysterious items.
"I'm sorry, Peter," Wollheim apologized, his voice sincere. "I didn't mean to frighten you. I just wanted all of this to be a surprise."
"All of this!" replied Peter, struggling to assimilate the significance of the clutter surrounding the old man. "And exactly what is all of this?"
"These are...books." Wollheim spoke the word like someone else might reveal the identify of a secret lover, or whisper the name of a long-lost love. "Books and magazines. My books and magazines. Well, they are some of my books and magazines, a small portion of a collection I've been accumulating for decades. I left many times this number back home, on Earth. I couldn't bring them all, you know. The transport fees would have been exorbitant. Shipping these few to the con cost me more than I should have spent, more than I can afford."
Peter studied the strange objects. They resembled the LunarCon attendee's handbook, utilizing an ancient technique of permanently imprinting words on paper, but were thicker, and of varying dimensions. Each one had a brightly colored (some might maintain, garish) cover. There must have been hundreds of them, a kaleidoscope of reds, greens, yellows, pinks, oranges, blues, purples -- a thousand radiant hues you would expect to find only in a florescent rainbow of unimaginable brilliance.
The few covers he could see clearly, those attached to the books and magazines lying atop the piles on the bed and chairs, or strewn haphazardly around the floor, sported illustrations representing a cornucopia of bizarre images. Aliens. Monsters. Gnomes. Faeries. Stars. Planets. Moons. Exotic cities and landscapes. And spaceships! Dozens of spaceships, of varying designs and descriptions -- primitive spaceships that resembled little more than pinched tubes with fins pasted on their exteriors and flames roaring out of their backsides, futuristic spaceships that would challenge the imagination of even the most visionary architect or engineer.
"Wow!" It was an inadequate response, but the only word that sprang into Peter's head.
"Yes. Wow," Wollheim said, softly. "That was my reaction, also, the first time I encountered a collection similar to this one. That was on a dealer's table, at ConStantinople, more than seventy-five years ago."
"May I?" Peter asked, stooping down to pick up one of the books in front of him.
"Of course. It's what they're for."
Peter selected a book, at random. It had been lying face-down on the floor. Slowly, carefully, he turned it over. "Foundation," he read aloud, running his fingers over the words printed on the cover, "by Isaac Asimov."
"A classic," Wollheim said, his voice filled with pride, as if a child of his had been singled out for some great honor, "by one of SF's Grand Masters. I have over two hundred books written by Asimov in my collection."
"Two hundred?" Peter gasped.
"That's counting fiction and non-fiction, of course," Wollheim said. "The good Doctor wrote both."
"But, two hundred? When did he ever find time to finish that many?"
Wollheim's only response was loud and sustained laughter.
"What's so funny?" Peter asked.
"You don't know the half of it," replied Wollheim, when he finally regained his composure. "Literally." He'd laughed so hard he had to stop a second time. The old man's breathing was once again labored, as it had been when he answered the door. "Asimov wrote over five-hundred books during his career," he continued, finally. "I doubt that anyone has a complete collection."
Peter turned the book over in his hands. He held it out at arm's length.
This book, this thing called "Foundation," possessed substance, and weight. It required effort to grasp -- a sensation quite unlike waving your fingers through thin air, the motion most commonly associated with sims, interactives, and VR games.
Drawing the book back toward him, Peter turned to the first page. "Hari Seldon -- ...born in the 11,988th year of the Galactic Era; died 12,069. The dates are more commonly given in terms of the current Foundational Era..."
Questions formed in Peter's mind -- Who was Hari Seldon? What did he look like? Why was he important? How had the universe changed between the present and the 11,988th year of the Galactic Era? Indeed, what was the Galactic Era? How did it differ from the Foundational Era? -- followed almost immediately by a montage of vivid images, conjured up by this same mind: A dignified man, approximately Wollheim's age; grand and futuristic vehicles traversing a vast expanse of stars and galaxies (Why else would it be called the Galactic Era?); a humanity that survived and prospered into this far-flung future.
Peter felt himself becoming immersed within this opening passage, admiring the manner in which the deceptively simple words flowed, sinking beneath the surface of the ideas and images they evoked. Turning the page, he continued reading, all else forgotten -- the convention, the party he was supposed to attend that night, even the odd and ancient man who had introduced him to this marvelous new experience.
"Good," Wollheim whispered, taking care not to break the spell he himself had spun. "It has begun."
Peter Gerrold did not grieve when, two days later, Cyril Wollheim died. His newfound friend forbade him to do so.
"I am an old man," Wollheim said, a few hours after the paramedics answered Peter's frantic summons and transported him to the Lunar medical center. "An old man who has survived more years than most -- more years, certainly, than I deserved." They were in the ICU, cardiac section. "I've had a bum ticker for more than a decade." Peter was halfway through The Martian Chronicles when Wollheim stood up, staggered slightly, then, placing a trembling hand to his chest, tumbled to hotel room floor, surrounded by his beloved books and magazines. "The doctors didn't understand how I lasted this long, what kept me going." Without even realizing it, Peter had carried the book with him to the medical center. "But you do, don't you, Peter?" Wollheim tapped a yellowing page within Bradbury's classic collection of short stories, lying open on the bed beside him. "I had to stick around until I could find someone to carry on the dream, some way to pass on the proud tradition of true science fiction." His voice was weak, a stage whisper heard from the balcony of a large auditorium. "I'm glad I found you, Peter." The already dim light in Wollheim's eyes faded to black.
"So am I," Peter said quietly, even though he knew the old man could no longer hear him. "So am I."
Chaos ruled the Kubrick Terminal. 25,000 people attempting to return to Earth on the same day had this effect on the otherwise well organized spaceport.
Ancient animosities forgotten, Borg and Ewok walked arm-in-arm through the vast concourse. People who, only hours earlier, had been trying to slay simulations of each other in VR combat, now exchanged virt-net addresses and promises to keep in touch with one another during the weeks and months ahead. A holographic kiosk in the ticketing area announced the availability of discounted memberships for Worldcon 2102, YuCon, which was to be held in New Toronto and during which actual location shots would be filmed for the following season's premier of Babylon 19, the Last Oasis of Peace.
One young man walked alone, straining under the weight of his luggage. It held no clothing. Shirts, pants and other garments had been discarded to make room for a more valuable cargo.
They haven't a clue, Peter Gerrold thought somberly, as he made his way to the departure gate.
- End -
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