ALIEN PREGNANT BY ELVIS: The Source of It All; The Pride of Bigfoot; Elivs at the White House; Hitler Clone in Argentina Plots Falklands Reprise; Racehorse Predicts the Future; Psychic Bats 1000 for A
Author: Martin H. Greenberg
Date: 1994-06-02 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction; Short Stories; Fantasy; Anthologies; Humor
Description: A fiction anthology featuring 36 amazing tabloid tales from a rock band with Satan as its manager to 2,437 UFOs in New Hampshire. Written by some of the zaniest minds in science fiction and fantasy--such as Dennis McKiernan and Kristine Kathryn Rusch--these better-than-true originals are sure to grab readers' imagination. Introduction: Alien Pregnant by Elvis • essay by Esther M. Friesner The Source of It All • short story by Dennis L. McKiernan [as by Dennis McKiernan] The Bride of Bigfoot • short fiction by Lawrence Watt-Evans Close-Up Photos Reveal JFK Skull on Moon! • short story by Barry
Publisher: New York: Daw Books, Inc.

Here, in one unbelievable volume, are thirty-six, all-original, imagination-grabbing tales that could have come straight out of the supermarket tabloid headlines. From the bride of Bigfoot to the discovery of JFK’s skull on the moon to the frozen body of Hitler found in an Atlantean love nest to an expose that will tell you whether your coworker is a space alien, here’s all the “hews” that’s not fit to print.

And these better-than-true stories have been conjured up for your secret reading pleasure by such top tale-spinners as Dennis McKiernan, Lawrence Watt-Evans, Josepha Sherman, Kate Daniel, Alan Dean Foster, Esther Friesner, Harry Turtledove, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, David Drake, David Brin, and Mike Resnick.

TABLOID TERRORS EXPOSED!

If you read the article and saw the photo, it must be true. At least that’s what all those sensationalist supermarket tabloids would have us believe. But is “truth” really stranger than fiction? You bet it’s not! At least not in this all-original volume of tabloid tales created by some of the wildest imaginations writing fiction today. Here’s just a sneak peek at what awaits you:

“The Source of It All”—Welcome to the town that is home to all the denizens of the tabloid headlines—and wait till you find out what some of the neighbors are up to!

“A Beak for Trends”—He was the shrewdest bird on the stock market—until someone started lining his cage with tabloids . . .

“Group Phenomena”—An ace reporter will do anything to get a story, even if it means taking a space alien to lunch . . .

“Unextinctions”—When long extinct species suddenly beginning turning up, alive and well, all around the globe, does it signal the start of a wondrous new age, or something far more terrifying . . .

ALIEN PREGNANT BY ELVIS

Copyright © 1994 by Esther M. Friesner and

Martin H. Greenberg

All Rights Reserved.

Cover art by Jim Warren.

DAW Book Collectors No. 955.

If you purchase this book without a cover you should be aware that this book may have been stolen property and reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher. In such case neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

First Printing, June 1994

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED

U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

MARCA REGISTRADA

HECHO EN U.S.A.

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

Alien Pregnant by Elvis
About the Book
Teaser
Acknowledgments
Special Thanks
Dedication
Introduction
Esther M. Friesner
The Source of it All
Dennis McKiernan
The Bride of Bigfoot
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Close-up Photos Reveal JFK Skull on the Moon
Barry Malzberg
Marilyn, Elvis, and the Reality Blues
James Brunet
Those Rowdy Royals
Laura Resnick

My Husband Became a Zombie and it Saved Our Marriage

Karen Haber
Rock Band Conjures Satan as Manager
Deborah Wunder
2,437 UFOs Over New Hampshire
Allen Steele
Pulitzer Kills Publishing Maggot
Mark Tiedemann
Elvis at the White House
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
The Number of the Beast
Jeff Hecht
De Gustibus
Anthony Lewis
Is Your Coworker a Space Alien?
eluki “Bob” bes shahar
A Beak for Trends
Laura Frankos

Hitler Clone in Argentina Plots Faklands Reprise

John DeChancie
Group Phenomena
Thomas F. Monteleone
Unextinctions
Bruce Boston
Roger Dutcher
How Alien He Really Was
Bruce Boston
NASA Sending Addicts to Mars!
Alan Dean Foster
Vole
John Gregory Betancourt
In Search of the Perfect Orgasm
Dean Wesley Smith
Saving Sam’s Used UFOs
Kate Daniel
Danny’s Excellent Adventure!
Greg Cox
Royal Tiff Yields Face of Jesus!
Esther M. Friesner

Magnetic Personality Triggers Nail-Bitter’s Near-Death Ordeal!

t. Winter-Damon
They’d Never—
Harry Turtledove

Loch Ness Monster Found—In the Bermuda Triangle

David Vierling
Racehorse Predicts the Future!
Josepha Sherman
Printer’s Devils
Gregory Feeley
Cannibal Plants From Heck
David Drake
Psychic Bats 1000 for Accuracy!
Jody Lynn Nye
Caveat Atlantis
Richard Gilliam
Frozen Hitler Found in Atlantean Love Nest
G—rG—n
Those Eyes
David Brin
Stop Press
Mike Resnick
Martian Memorial to Elvis Sighted
George Alec Effinger

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Introduction: Alien Pregnant by Elvis © 1994 by Esther M. Friesner.

The Source of It All © 1994 by Dennis McKiernan.

The Bride of Bigfoot © 1994 by Lawrence Watt-Evans.

Close-up Photos Reveal JFK Skull on Moon! © 1994 by Barry Malzberg. Marilyn, Elvis, and the Reality Blues © 1994 by James Brunet.

Those Rowdy Royals! © 1994 by Laura Resnick.

My Husband Became a Zombie and It Saved Our Marriage © 1994 by Karen Haber.

Rock Band Conjures Satan as Manager © 1994 by Deborah Wunder. 2,437 UFOs Over New Hampshire © 1994 by Allen Steele.

Pulitzer Kills Publishing Maggot © 1994 by Mark Tiedemann.

Elvis at the White House © 1994 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

The Number of the Beast © 1994 by Jeff Hecht.

De Gustibus © 1994 by Anthony Lewis.

Is Your Coworker a Space Alien? © 1994 by Eluki bes Shahar.

A Beak for Trends © 1994 by Laura Frankos.

Hitler Clone in Argentina Plots Falklands Reprise © 1994 by John DeChancie.

Group Phenomena © 1994 by Thomas F. Monteleone.

Unextinctions © 1994 by Bruce Boston and Roger Dutcher.

How Alien He Really Was © 1994 by Bruce Boston.

NASA Sending Addicts to Mars! © 1994 by Alan Dean Foster.

Vole © 1994 by John Gregory Betancourt.

In Search of the Perfect Orgasm © 1994 by Dean Wesley Smith.

Saving Sam’s Used UFOs © 1994 by Kate Daniel.

Danny’s Excellent Adventure © 1994 by Greg Cox.

Royal Tiff Yields Face of Jesus! © 1994 by Esther M. Friesner.

Magnetic Personality Triggers Nail-Biter’s Near-Death Ordeal! © 1994 by t. Winter-Damon.

They’d Never . . . © 1994 by Harry Turtledove.

Loch Ness Monster Found in the Bermuda triangle © 1994 by David Vierling.

Racehorse Predicts the Future! © 1994 by Josepha Sherman.

Printer’s Devils © 1994 by Gregory Feeley.

Cannibal Plants from Heck © 1994 by David Drake.

Psychic Bats 1000 for Accuracy © 1994 by Jody Lynn Nye.

Caveat Atlantis © 1994 by Richard Gilliam.

Frozen Hitler Found in Atlantean Love Nest © 1994 by Rosemary Edghill. Those Eyes © 1994 by David Brin.

Stop Press © 1994 by Mike Resnick.

Martian Memorial to Elvis Sighted © 1994 by George Alec Effinger.

Special thanks to

Greer Gilman
for the title.

This book is dedicated
to the Gentlefolk of the Press
and also to

Bigfoot

Nessie

Elvis

Marilyn
and all the Little People (from Mars, or wherever)

without whom the best tabloid journalism
would not be what it is today.

ALIEN PREGNANT BY ELVIS

ELVIS APPEARS IN VISION,

PREDICTS THIS BOOK!

Well, actually, it wasn’t Elvis, it was a picture of a hamster. A three-foot-tall hamster that was the subject of a tabloid newspaper article describing how some guy in Godknowswhere, West Dakota, was raising these giant rodents for use as vicious guard dogs. It might have been the same issue that revealed Hitler was a 103-year-old woman when he/she/it died.

SCIENCE FICTION LOSES

CUTTING EDGE TO NESSIE!

So I said to myself, “I have given the best years of my fair young life to writing science fiction because I always heard that SF was the literature of ideas, a peephole into the dressing room of the future, the only writing that takes chances. Sure, people said to me, ‘Oh, you write that weird stuff,’ but I didn’t mind. Maybe SF is weird, wild, totally gonzo, but at least it shows how far the human imagination can go!”

Now this. Three-foot-tall attack hamsters. Who’d ’a thunk it? In the race for the gonzo edge of the universe, SF has been left in the dust by the tabloids.

Dang.

EDITOR GETS IDEA:

THOUSANDS FLEE SCREAMING!

As I was saying to the aliens who came to take me to Planet Xax as soon as I got the chocolate chip cookies out of the oven (even Xaxians will wait for chocolate chip cookies), “I love a challenge!” And I was willing to bet that there were plenty of other writers out there who felt the same.

Yes, it was time to take up the gauntlet the tabloid press had flung at the feet of SF and go for the gonzo gold! Could science fiction writers dig deep and come up with stories even wilder than what’s on the supermarket checkout newsstands?

Would some of the top names in the field deliver a new spin on the bizarre, the arcane, the extremely profitable News of the Weird?

How do you litter train a three-foot-tall attack hamster?

Even before the ink was dry on the letters of invitation, the stories came pouring in.

SECRET BENEFITS OF READING ALIEN

PREGNANT BY ELVIS REVEALED!

SEX SECRETS OF THE STARS!

AMAZING NEW DIET BREAKTHROUGH!

THINNER THIGHS, FIRMER FANNY,

FACELIFT WITHOUT SURGERY!

Yes, astounding but true, reading this book may actually help you:

Lose unwanted pounds! (If you don’t eat anything while you’re reading it.)

Firm up that flab! (If you put the book between your knees at least twice a day and squeeze twenty times, rest, repeat.)

Improve your sex life! (If you give it as a birthday gift, nicely wrapped, with maybe the keys to a new Porsche casually tied to the ribbon.)

Remove unwanted sags and wrinkles! (If you don’t mind replacing them with laugh lines.)

Raise your I.Q.! (Or at least give you lots of food for thought, and that’s never fattening.)

Thrill as Martian Memorial to Elvis Sighted!

Meet The Bride of Bigfoot!

Learn The Number of the Beast!

Confront Cannibal Plants from Heck!

Gasp at 2,437 UFOs Over New Hampshire!

Discover what it is that They’d Never . . .

Get the scoop on Those Rowdy Royals!

Shudder as Pulitzer Kills Publishing Maggot!

See Elvis at the White House!

. . . and many more!

We’ve got tabloid tales from the past, present, and future, stories taken from the front pages and behind the scenes, sagas serious and silly. Hey, as long as you’re stuck waiting in the supermarket checkout line anyway, you might as well check this out, too.

UFO ALIENS SAY:

YOU’LL BE GLAD YOU DID!

The Source of it All
by Dennis McKiernan

I can think of no better way to lead off this anthology than with a story that reveals the truth about tabloids. This week’s truth, anyway.

The world knows Dennis McKiernan as the best-selling author of such fantasy novels as Voyage of the Fox Rider, The Eye of the Hunter, and the soon-to-appear story collection Tales of Mithgar as well as the graphic novel The Vulgmaster.

However, when asked to tell us a bit about himself for this book, Dennis wrote that “he was subdued and thrown in a padded cell when in a meeting of his encounter group he leaped up and confessed that every tabloid tale is in fact true, and to have found the place where all of them originate . . .”

Ooooooookay.

It was right after the horse was born with the face of a boy that we found the great pyramid buried in my backyard.

“What the hell?” shouted Rikki when his shovel struck stone.

“Looks like marble,” said Tikki, shoveling a bit more dirt out of the hole.

“Not just ordinary marble,” muttered Tavi, squatting, taking Rikki and Tikki down with him. “Ha! I was right. This has been quarried and shaped.”

“Here, let me see,” I said, shoving my way in past my best friends—y’see, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi is the three-headed boy who lives next door (the man who was in labor for thirty-two hours before finally giving birth to them had been an avid reader of Kipling).

Using two shovels, all four of us dug out three more feet.

“It’s sloped like the top of a pyramid,” said Tavi (he was always the brightest of the three).

“Hmm,” I hmmed. “Maybe we ought to get some expert advice on this before we go much deeper. I’ll ask Gramps. You guys keep digging, but if you run into anything particularly special, stop.”

I clambered up out of the hole and went to find Gramps. As I expected, he was in his dark room. Gramps is rather allergic to the sun. Oh, not that he’s a vampire—like old Bram down the street—or anything of that sort. Instead, Gramps was out of the sunlight for so long he developed a sensitivity to it. You see, he’s the survivor who spent forty-six years trapped inside the hull of the Titanic.

Anyway, I found Gramps in his dark room—actually, it’s sort of a murky bluish color in there and not completely black.

“Gramps, we’ve found a pyramid buried in the backyard.”

“Oh, izzat so?” he said, laying down his book and turning toward me, sloshing a bit as he Sways does. (In spite of his allergy, he’s extremely well read—I mean, what else was there to do down there?) “Well, let me tell you, my boy, pyramids are nothing compared to what I’ve seen. Why, for forty-six years the Titanic and I drifted on currents under the ocean. Around the world we went, twice! and don’t you forget it. Of course, I didn’t see the usual sights—Paris and London and all of that Oh, no, my boy, through that porthole I saw Atlantis and Mu and the statue of Rhodes and other such. And not where every so-called expert says they are, either. Instead, they’re down near Bermuda. Lotsa stuff down there, let me tell you. Flight nineteen. The Mary Deare. More, much more. Did I ever tell you how I survived in that weed-filled air pocket? Why, who would believe that a man eats nothing but seamoss for forty-six years and lives to tell of it? Let me remind you, whippersnapper, this stuff is good for you.” Sloshing as he turned, he reached one of his prune-wrinkled white hands into the ever-present bowl at his side, dredging up a fistful of slimy green weed. “Here, have some.”

“Uh, no thanks, Gramps,” I blurted and turned on my heel and ran. I had to get out of there before he launched into his giant-squid-saves-trapped-man story.

Well, smart as he was, Gramps had been no help.

Dejectedly, I went back to the dig. Rikki, Tikki, and Tavi had by this time recruited the giant robot to help with the excavation. In spite of his buzzing and chanking and whirring, he was a nice guy. Why the giant robot had run amok in Leningrad and killed thousands, we will probably never know. Regardless, he was doing all the digging now, while Rikki-Tikki-Tavi supervised (they always said that three heads are better than none . . . I mean, look at Arlo, the kid over on Mulberry Street, blundering around blindly as he does.).

I sat on the edge of the crater and watched as Igor (the giant robot) zzzzzrrrppped and ckkachkkachkkaed and fffwwssshhhed, heaving great masses of dirt through the air to wwhhhmp! down in piles at the edge of the swamp. This wasn’t going to make Beautiful Alice very happy. I mean, it looked to be blocking one of her lure paths—the one leading to the sacrificial quicksand pool. Now I ask you, would you be happy with this if you were a ghostly wraith enticing victims into a swampy quagmire?

Oh, well, we’d get that fixed later . . . once the pyramid was uncovered. And Igor was really throwing dirt now. Why, he was down about a hundred feet or so. It looked to be a massive pyramid. And speaking of pyramids, who could I turn to to help us interpret whatever we found inside? Who in the neighborhood knew about pyramids and sarcophagi and soul boats and mummies and hieroglyphs and curses and other such? Amid all the bzzzrrpmg and chhnnkkmg and chggachggachggamg, Rikki and Tikki and Tavi and I talked it over. We discussed possible candidates. And no matter who was suggested, one or the other of us poo-pooed the idea. . .

“Mister Set? Nah! What would a guy with a dog’s head know about pyramids anyway?”

“No, no! Not Mister Ghoul! He’s likely to eat whatever is in there.”

“That nice Mister Ripper, reincarnated and all? Not on your life . . .”

We went through everyone we could think of. We even considered going down to the lake and asking shy Nessie, but none of us knew how to speak plesiosaur.

Sighing in dejection, we sat and watched Igor some more. And as kids all over the world do, we began talking about what we wanted to be when we grew up. Rikki wanted to be a leading man in religious movies, playing the part of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Tikki on the other hand wanted to be a psychiatrist and work with mentally disturbed people, in particular those who hallucinate. Tavi wished to be a professional football player, a triple threat, so to speak. Then they asked me what I wanted to be.

“Oh, a writer, I think . . . that, or a newspaper reporter.”

“What’ll you write about?” asked Rikki.

“They say that you should write what you know,” I answered.

“Hell,” sneered Tikki, “you don’t know much about anything other than the neighborhood.”

Somewhat stung, I shot back, “Well, I’ll write about that, then.”

Tavi’s eyes widened. “You’d write about the neighborhood? Bah, who would be interested in a bunch of ordinary homespun tales?”

“Why, lots of people, that’s who,” I spat.

“No-brain idiots, you mean!” shouted Rikki.

I jumped to my feet. “You leave the kid on Mulberry Street out of this!”

Rikki leaped to his feet, too, of necessity bringing Tikki and Tavi up with him. “Oh, yeah!” he shouted.

I balled my fists. “I’m gonna beat the tar out of you, Rikki,” I growled, stepping forward to take a swing.

“Oooo noooo!” wailed Tikki and Tavi simultaneously, struggling with Rikki as to whether they would cower or fight.

BLANG! came a loud clang from the hole. In our heat we had completely forgotten about Igor. We spun around and peered down into the pit. Hell, he’d dug down past the foundation of the great pyramid and had struck something metallic.

“Igor, wait!” all four of us shouted.

Obediently, Igor straightened up and waited as we slid down into the crater, now one hundred fifty feet deep, all of us wondering what he had found. Even so, I was still burning over Rikki’s remarks about me being a writer. Especially those concerning me writing about neighborhood events. One of these days I’d show him. And as to my reading public, well, we’d just see whether or not they were no-brainers.

We scrambled around to where Igor stood, and we looked down at what he’d uncovered.

Hmmm, maybe I could write about this. Yeah! This could be my first factual newspaper article—“Giant Robot Finds Alien Spaceship Beneath Great Pyramid.”

Then I’d go on from there, writing about Gramps and Bram and Beautiful Alice and the kid on Mulberry Street, and all the rest of the folks and doings in the neighborhood. I don’t care what Rikki says, I’m certain that there is an intelligent public out there just waiting for true-to-life, homespun, backyard tales like this.

No-brainers, ha!

The Bride of Bigfoot
by Lawrence Watt-Evans

Hugo Award-winner Lawrence Watt-Evans answers the Fiction Writer’s Eternal Question (“Where do you get your ideas?”) by acknowledging inspiration from a genuine tabloid headline: “Bigfoot Stole My Wife!”

The author of numerous SF and Fantasy short stories and novels, a few of his more recent titles include The Spell of the Black Dagger, Out of This World, and Split Heirs (written in collaboration with me).

Lawrence adds, “My feet are 11D, which is not particularly large. I’ve never written for tabloids, and I’ve never been to Oregon.”

July, 1990:

Rodney MacWhirter had drunk a very pleasant little lunch back at the rest stop, and was feeling the aftereffects. He was of the opinion that the six-pack of Bud had not impaired his driving skills whatsoever, and would gladly argue the matter with any state cop who thought otherwise, but there was no denying the pressure in his bladder.

And the next rest stop, according to the sign, wasn’t for fifteen miles.

Rodney blinked thoughtfully, then announced to no one, “Guess it’s time to water the trees.” He found the brake pedal on the second try, and managed to bring his battered Plymouth to a stop on the outer edge of the paved shoulder.

He was zipping his fly when someone tapped him on the shoulder.

He turned around, and the world seemed to vanish into a brown blur. Startled, Rodney stepped back, tried to focus, and found himself staring at a broad expanse of shaggy brown hair. He blinked, decided it was a coat of some kind, then raised his eyes, looking for a face.

He had to go much farther than he expected, and when he arrived he wished he hadn’t.

There was a face there, as he had expected, but the face was brown and furry, with deep-set brown eyes, a broad black-tipped nose, and a wide, lipless mouth with stubby fangs protruding from the upper jaw. The heavy browridges were a good eight feet from the ground.

“Whoa!” Rodney said. “Hi, there, fella! You’re a big one, ain’cha?”

The creature smiled, revealing several dozen yellow teeth, and nodded. Then it held up a stack of mismatched sheets of rather used paper in one hand, and pointed to it with the other, which clutched a handful of battered crayons.

Rodney squinted at the top sheet of paper and read, in large, shaky, red letters, I NEED RIDE TO OREGON WOODS.

“Whoa!” Rodney said again. “That’s a mighty long way, friend; I can’t take you that far.” From the comer of his eye he saw the thing’s smile vanish, and he hastily added, “But I can get you partway, I guess.”

The smile returned, and together, Rodney and the creature walked to the car.

“So, you got a name?” Rodney asked.

The creature shook its head, and hair scraped audibly against the car’s roof lining. A Plymouth Duster might have more headroom than the typical modern car, but it was never intended for anything the size of Rodney’s passenger.

“No?” Rodney said, mildly surprised; he turned to stare, then snapped his attention back to the road at the sound of a horn blaring. A car coming the other way roared past, the driver’s fist waving in Rodney’s direction.

For a moment Rodney concentrated on his driving, then he suggested, “How ’bout I call you Bubba? You remind me of a fellow I useta know went by Bubba.”

The creature shrugged as best it could while squeezed into the Plymouth.

“Bubba it is, then,” Rodney said. For a minute or so he hummed quietly to himself.

“So where you going in Oregon, anyway?” he asked, still watching the highway unroll before him. He waited a few seconds, to give the creature time to write, then glanced over.

The beast didn’t hold up a paper; instead it shrugged again.

“Just tired of Wisconsin, huh?” Rodney said, with a sympathetic smile. “I can understand that. You really need to go all the way to Oregon, though? You couldn’t just check out Minneapolis?” He watched the highway, then added, “But I guess you’re not the city type. Still, there’s plenty of nice country in Minnesota. Or up in Maine; might be more traffic that way. Why’s it got to be Oregon? Got family out there?”

The creature hesitated, then pulled a wrinkled piece of newsprint from its pile of scrap paper and held it up. Rodney glanced at it, and saw a battered fragment of tabloid—specifically, the Midnight News for October 1, 1987, featuring the headline, “THE BRIDE OF BIGFOOT! Scientists Report Sighting Female Creature in Oregon Woods!”

There was no photo, but a drawing captioned, “Artist’s Rendition of Creature, from Scientists’ Description,” accompanied the article, and depicted a stooped, furry, apelike figure with ragged, waist-length head hair and immense breasts.

Rodney slowed the car slightly and looked the clipping over again.

“Bride of Bigfoot,” Rodney read aloud. “That your wife, then? Mrs. Bubba?”

The creature shook his head.

“But you’d like her to be, maybe? You looking for a date out there?”

Bubba hesitated, then nodded.

“You don’t like the local girls?” Rodney asked.

Bubba found one of his crayons and scrawled quickly, then held up a paper saying, CAN’T FIND ANY.

“What, none?”

Bubba shrugged again.

“What about guys? You got friends around here, might want help?” Rodney thought he might have a money-making idea here—a dating service for bigfoots!

Or was it bigfeet?

While Rodney was trying to puzzle out the correct plural, Bubba wrote, ALL ALONE. NO OTHERS.

Well, Rodney thought, so much for that idea. “Wow, tough,” he said. “No family? Nothing?”

Bubba held up the same paper after underlining ALL ALONE.

“Jeez, no wonder you want to get out there,” Rodney said. He thought for a moment.

There ought to be some way to make money off this, he told himself. He couldn’t make a career out of matchmaking if Bubba and the lady in the picture were the only ones out there, but there had to be some way to cash in on picking up a mythical creature as a hitchhiker.

He intended to just drop Bubba off, but as he sobered up other possibilities began to occur to him. As they crossed the Minnesota state line he said, “Look, I was only going as far as St. Paul, but maybe I can . . . I mean, I might be able to take you clear to Oregon, if you’re not in a hurry.” He glanced over.

Bubba nodded, smiling.

Smuggling something Bubba’s size in and out of motel rooms was an art Rodney had never acquired; fortunately, despite his bulk, Bubba could be amazingly stealthy. He moved in utter silence, and could hold so still that a bored motel maid might pass within a yard of him without noticing his presence.

That at least explained something of why the scientists still didn’t believe in Bigfoot, or sasquatches, or whatever Bubba was.

Feeding him turned out to be simple enough—fast-food salad bars provided everything Bubba needed. Cherry tomatoes seemed to delight him no end, and Rodney made a point of getting as many of those as he could, despite the dirty looks from restaurant staffs.

Bubba had no idea what a bed was for; he was perfectly happy curling up on the motel-room carpet. He didn’t understand indoor plumbing, either, but finding a few out-of-the-way bushes was usually easy enough. Rodney gathered, from a conversation that was largely grunts or nods on Bubba’s side, that the creature had learned English from spying on campers, and taught himself to read and write from studying the newspapers, labels, and other scraps they left behind—a project that had occupied most of the past ten years, inspired by a discovery of a “bigfoot” photo in an old tabloid. Bubba, however, had never been inside a building before, and was not much interested in human civilization—except for picking goodies from its trash, and using it to find himself a mate.

That first night Rodney, now thoroughly sobered up, was a trifle uneasy about sleeping in the same room as this immense beast. Even though Bubba had made it clear that he preferred salads to burgers, Rodney still worried about all those teeth and claws.

When he awoke the next morning, completely intact, at first he thought he’d dreamed or imagined the whole thing; he came within inches of stepping on the still-sleeping Bubba, who had rolled over close to the bed.

By the second night they were both old hands at it.

And on the third night they made it as far as Walla Walla, Washington, just across the Oregon state line—Rodney had decided the fastest route was to leave the Interstate and take U.S. 12.

He didn’t tell Bubba how close they were, for fear he’d want to go on that same night—Rodney was tired of driving.

When morning rolled around, though, the two of them got rolling as well, and had gone just a few miles when Rodney pointed out the WELCOME TO OREGON sign.

“We’re in the right state,” he said with a smile. “So where’s this lady friend you’re looking for?”

Bubba handed him the clipping.

Rodney glanced at it, then pulled over to the shoulder atop the next ridge and read through the clipping carefully. As he read, his smile slowly faded, to be replaced with a worried frown. “Bubba, ol’ buddy,” he said, “It doesn’t say where she was anywhere in here. There’s no dateline or anything, it just says ‘somewhere in the Oregon woods,’ and that doesn’t tell us enough.”

Bubba growled, and tapped a claw-tipped finger insistently on the word OREGON.

“Bubba,” Rodnev said, “hop out of the car for a minute, okay?”       ‘

The pair climbed out and stood by the road; Rodney waved an arm to take in the entire surrounding countryside, a broad vista of hills and forests extending seemingly forever.

“Bubba.” he said, “That’s the Oregon woods. Everything you see, and a lot more besides.”

Bubba stared for a moment, then made a noise that Rodney could only liken to a strangled kitten. The huge creature turned and stared helplessly at Rodney.

Rodney thought for a moment the sasquatch was going to cry.

“Hey, don’t worry, Bubba,” he said, “We’ll find her somehow. You just come with me.”

“I tell you, Bubba, I felt really stupid buying this thing,” Rodney said, as he thumbed through the latest issue of Midnight News. The two of them were seated in the Plymouth, parked in front of a drugstore in Milton-Freewater, Oregon. “Oh, here we go, page 6—Midnight News, editor, managing director, yadda yadda yadda . . . telephone! Editorial, area code 407 . . .” He lowered the paper. “Where the heck is area code 407?”

Bubba just stared silently at him.

Area code 407 turned out to be central Florida; the address was farther down the block of tiny print on page 6.

“Figures,” Rodney said in disgust, as he dialed the motel-room phone. “The damn opposite comer of the whole damn country, is all. This call is probably gonna cost more than the damn room.”

Bubba didn’t answer; he sat and stared.

The phone on the other end only rang once before a female voice said, “Midnight News. ”

“Hi,” Rodney said. “Look, I need to know more about something you ran in your paper—it’s very important to a friend of mine.”

“What is it, exactly?” the voice asked warily.

“It’s about this piece you ran in October ’87, about seeing a female bigfoot in Oregon . . .”

Before he could finish, the voice cut him off. “ ‘87!” the woman exclaimed. “Mister, are you crazy? That was three years ago!”

“Yes, I know,” Rodney said patiently.

“I’m sorry, but we don’t keep . . .” She stopped, thought better of whatever she had been about to say, and instead asked cautiously, “What did you want to know?”

“I want to know where in Oregon this bigfoot sighting was,” Rodney explained. “It just says ‘Oregon woods.’ Oregon’s a big state.”

“I suppose it is,” she agreed.

“So where was this sighting?”

“Mister, is there a byline on the article you’ve got there?”

Rodney blinked, and squinted at the yellowed clipping. “Uh . . . yeah,” he said. “Special correspondent Maurice Betterman, it says.”

“Moe Betterman?” The voice sighed. “Well, at least I know who that is; he’s a free-lancer, still writes for us sometimes. Lives in Eugene.”

“Eugene, Oregon?”

“That’s right.”

“So, can I reach him . . .”

“Listen, Mister, that’s all I can tell you. It’s probably more than I should tell you.”

“But . . .” Rodney began.

Then he realized he was talking to a dead phone; she had hung up.

“Eugene,” he said. “That’s the other end of the state.” He hesitated, then dialed again.

“Directory assistance,” said the voice. “What city, please?”

There was a listing for an M.C. Betterman; a few minutes and a dozen rings later Rodney finally heard someone pick up the phone—then drop it; Rodney winced at the clatter.

After assorted bumps and rattles, a bleary voice said, “’Lo?”

“Is this Maurice Betterman?” Rodney asked.

“Who wan’sa know?”

Rodney sighed. “I’m looking for the Maurice Betterman who writes for the Midnight News” he said.

“Why?”

“Are you him?”

“He,” the voice corrected. “Are you he.”

Rodney took that as a good sign; in his experience only teachers and writers corrected people like that. “Are you?” he asked.               -

“Migh’ be; why?”

“We need a little more information about an article you wrote back in 1987,” Rodney explained.

For a long moment there was no answer, and Rodney was beginning to wonder if he had been cut off, or if Betterman had fallen asleep, when the voice finally asked, “Who’s ‘we’?”

“Me’n Bubba,” Rodney explained.

“Bubba.”

“Well, that’s what I call him.”

Click. Betterman had hung up.

Rodney dialed again, and let the phone ring twenty-two times, hoping the motel operator wouldn’t notice and cut him off before Betterman answered.

The motel operator didn’t.

“Yeah?” Betterman’s voice asked.

“It’s me again,” Rodney said. “Look, please don’t hang up . . .”

“You’n Bubba?”

“That’s right.”

“Why should’n I hang up? You got three seconds to convince me.”

“Money,” Rodney said quickly. “Lots of money.”

For another long moment the line was silent—but no one hung up. Then Betterman sighed.

“Okay,” he said, ‘Tell me about it.”

Rodney told him.

“You got a sasquatch there?” Betterman asked when Rodney had finished. “A real one?”

“That’s what I said,” Rodney replied. “And he wants to know where you saw that other one in ’87.”

“And suppose I tell you—then what?”

‘Then we hang up and stop bothering you.”

“Suppose I don’t tell you?”

“Then we’ll keep bothering you.”

“You said there was money involved . . .”

“Well, sure—aren’t pictures of a sasquatch worth money?”

“Depends how good they are.”

“You can take all the pictures you want of this one.” Betterman was silent for a moment before asking, “So where are you? Where can I see this thing?”

Betterman stared at Bubba. “I didn’t believe you,” he said to Rodney. “I figured you’d just tell me it had got away or something.”

The three of them had rendezvoused at a rest area on 1-84, a few miles west of Hood River; Bubba had waited in the woods while Rodney met Betterman and escorted him over for a good long look.

“Then why’d you come?” Rodney asked.

“Oh, I figured I could get a story out of it anyway—and besides, it seemed like the quickest way to get rid of you,” Betterman explained, never taking his eyes from Bubba.

The attention seemed to make the creature uneasy, but he didn’t flee.

“I call him Bubba,” Rodney explained. “He doesn’t have a name, really—I guess his kind don’t bother with them.”

“Does it . . . does it talk?” Betterman asked hesitantly.

Bubba grunted.

“No,” Rodney said. “But he writes notes. You brought your camera?”

“It’s in the car,” Betterman answered.

“Okay. Look, here’s the deal—Bubba, here, is lonely, and he saw in that article that you saw a female bigfoot, so he wants to meet her. Now, you tell us where she is, and we let you take pictures and ask questions. Fair enough?”

Betterman looked at him, startled. “I never saw one before!” he said.

“Okay, okay,” Rodney said, “You wrote that article, but I guess it was somebody else that actually saw the critter?”

Betterman shrugged, then hesitated, then looked warily at Bubba. The creature looked nervous, and despite the size, fairly harmless.

“I made it up,” he said.

Rodney and Bubba were thunderstruck. For a moment they just stared.

Then Bubba growled. Betterman, suddenly aware that he might have done something stupid, began desperately explaining, “Look, I’m being honest with you, I could’ve jerked you around until I got the pictures, I could’ve told you anything, but I figured I should be honest, I just made it all up, honest!”

“You did?” Rodney asked ominously.

“Sure!” Betterman babbled, “I make it all up! I mean, everything, the Elvis sightings, Hitler’s clones, the UFO aliens, the three-headed babies, it’s all made up! Just entertainment, just stories!”

“Nobody saw a female bigfoot?”

“Not . . . I don’t . . . I don’t know!” Betterman wailed, as Bubba’s huge paw closed on the front of his shirt.

“You don’t know?” Rodney demanded.

“No! I mean, I do research my stuff, I collect clippings and everything, and maybe somebody saw one and maybe that’s what gave me the idea for my article, but I don’t remember! It’s been three years!”

Rodney looked at Bubba, and Bubba looked at Rodney. Bubba let go of Betterman’s shirt and turned, reaching for his writing supplies.

“You want to go check this out?” Rodney asked. “See what he’s got in his files?”

Bubba nodded. Then he scribbled quickly with a stub of purple crayon.

Betterman stared, amazed, at the sight of the huge hairy beast writing; when he saw what it had written, however, he let out a low moan of terror.

OR I RIP HIS HED OFF, Bubba said.

The drawer marked MYTH. BEASTS was two feet deep and full to overflowing; yellowed clippings were spilling out the sides. Betterman carefully hauled out the two fattest folders, labeled BIGFOOT and BIGFOOT (CONT.).

Bubba stared as the clippings spilled out across the rickety table. His own collection was mostly tabloids, and these were not; instead, Betterman had restricted himself to relatively respectable sources. Where Bubba’s stories were mostly front-page features with screaming headlines, Betterman’s were mostly tiny items clipped from the back pages of obscure local weeklies, from columns with titles like “Unexplained” and “Briefly Noted.”

Rodney was impressed—until he began looking over the material at hand.

“There’s nothing on here to tell where it is!” he pointed out. “Or on this one, or this. . .” He picked up a larger scrap, stared, and said, “And this one’s from 1964!”

“I’ve been at this a long time,” Betterman muttered.

Rodney could believe that; Betterman had to be in his fifties, at least. “Why don’t you note where they’re from?” he asked.

“Who cares?” Betterman shrugged. “This is just for ideas, I’m not writing a book or anything.”

Rodney frowned.

“Well, there might be some we can use,” he said. “I guess we better start sorting.” He sat down, and began reading.

August, 1992:

“Look, Moe,” the voice on the phone said, “They’re great pictures, I don’t know how you do it, they’re better than the stuff our lab here does, but we’re tired of bigfoot stories! Two years now you’ve been sending us bigfoot stories! People are sick of bigfoot, Moe; give us something on Elvis, or something.”

“But they’re real” Betterman insisted desperately. “I keep telling you that!”

“If they’re real,” his editor answered, “Why are you sending them to us, and not Scientific American?”

“Because Scientific American doesn’t believe me!” Betterman shouted, “and Bubba draws the line at letting anyone else see him!”

“Bubba?”

“Never mind,” Betterman mumbled. “Look, I’ll do an Elvis sighting, okay? I’ll have it in the mail tomorrow. How about he’s in a drug rehab program?”

“Well, maybe,” the editor said. “But remember, people want him to look like a good guy.”

“Maybe he’s been held hostage?”

“Yeah, I think we could go for that. And if you could get photos . . .”

“No photos,” Betterman said. “You’ll have to do that part.”

“Okay, no photos. And no more bigfoot.” He hung up before Betterman could answer.

Betterman sighed and turned to his ancient typewriter; by the time Rodney MacWhirter came in for dinner he had a complete draft of “Elvis Escapes Terrorists!” done.

When Rodney and Bubba had first shown up, two years before, he had never expected it to turn out this way—two years spent trying to convince somebody that Bubba was real, when Bubba had apparently hit his limit of how many people he would allow to see him—two, Moe and Rodney.

And Rodney had gone home to Milwaukee and packed up his belongings and moved out to Eugene, trying to find some way to cash in on his friendship with Bubba, even as he continued to track down bigfoot sightings in an attempt to find Bubba a mate.

And neither of them had anything to show for it except a bunch of bylines in cheap tabloids—Moe writing the articles, Rodney providing the pictures.

And they hadn’t found another sasquatch. Poor Bubba was getting depressed, frustrated, and angry.

“So how goes it?” Moe asked, when Rodney had thrown himself into the sagging armchair by the window.

“Lousy,” Rodney said. “I checked out the last one of your clippings today.”

“Nothing?” Moe asked sympathetically.

“Nothing,” Rodney agreed.

“So now what?”

“So now we go tell Bubba the bad news. And maybe I see about finding an honest job again—my savings are just about gone.”

“Ha!” Moe said. “I never had any savings! Or an honest job!”

They met at the back comer of a rest stop on 1-84 again, but nowhere near Hood River this time; Bubba had been working his way eastward, searching the forests, and had gotten out past the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, to somewhere in Baker County.

Rodney explained.

“We’ve tried ’em all, Bubba—everything we know to do. And we haven’t found a thing.” He shrugged, and turned up empty palms. “There’s nothing more we can do.”

Bubba frowned, and wrote.

ASK LEADING PYSCHICS, he said. He held up one of his own clippings; he had been collecting them from campsides and trash cans all across Oregon. This one’s banner headline read, “Psychic Locates Child Lost In Woods For Five Years!” The subhead explained, “Boy Lived on Roots and Berries!”

“Psychics are all fakes,” Moe said. “We’ve told you that.” Bubba wrote, ASK ELVIS, and held up a clipping headlined, “Elvis’ Ghost Leads Woman to Lost Jewelry!”

“Elvis is dead,” Rodney said. “Fifteen years, now.” Bubba shook his head angrily and held up “Stunning New Proof the King Still Lives!”

“But even if he does,” Moe said, “How do we find him? He’s in hiding!”

Rodney turned to argue, then thought better of it; Bubba wrote again.

ASK UFO ALIENS, he said. His exhibit this time read, “Space Aliens Reveal Pyramid Secrets!”

“There aren’t any UFO aliens!” Moe insisted. “I keep telling you, Bubba, it’s all made up! All that stuff in the tabloids! It’s all lies!”

ALL? Bubba asked, holding a clipping of “Bigfoot Prowling Central Park!” against his chest.

“All of it,” Moe insisted. “You’re real, but the rest of it is all fiction. They just made it all up. Elvis is dead. There aren’t any aliens.”

NO BIGFOOT? Bubba asked.

“None except you,” Moe said.

WHERE’D I COME FROM?

“I don’t know,” Moe said helplessly, “But you’re the only one.”

Bubba stared at him for a moment, then turned, and before Moe or Rodney could protest, he had vanished into the woods.

“You sure about this?” Moe asked, as Rodney forced down the trunk lid on his ancient Plymouth.

“I’m sure, all right,” Rodney said. “Back in Milwaukee I’ve got friends and contacts; around here, I’ve got you, and about a thousand people who think I’m a nut who believes in bigfoot.”

“You are a nut who believes in bigfoot,” Moe pointed out.

“Yeah, but it doesn’t help my job prospects,” Rodney said, as he headed for the driver’s seat.

“Drive safely, then,” Moe said.

“I will,” Rodney said, hoping Moe couldn’t see the cooler of Budweiser in the shotgun seat. Driving across all that empty country was bad enough under any circumstances; he didn’t want to face it sober.

One of these days, he thought, he was probably going to get himself killed by misjudging how much he drank—but right now he didn’t care.

“Say hello to poor Bubba if you see him.”

“I will.”

And then he was gone.

The gas station was utterly nondescript except for the guy behind the counter. Rodney blinked at him in surprise.

The fellow had thick, slicked-back black hair, a heavy and oddly familiar face; he wore studded white denim and very dark sunglasses, though the light in the little mini-grocery was hardly bright. He was also grossly overweight and obviously on the wrong side of fifty, which made the hair and studs and sunglasses look very odd. Rodney had the feeling that if he could see better, and hadn’t had those last few beers, he might recognize the man.

But that was silly; who would he know at a gas station outside Missoula, Montana?

“Somethin’ I can help you with?” the cashier asked.

“Wish you could,” Rodney said, staring at the issue of the Midnight News on display beside the cash register. One of his last photos of Bubba was featured on the front page.

“How’s that, friend?”

Rodney pointed. “Friend of mine,” he said. “Can’t get a date.”

The man behind the counter made a wordless noise of surprise. “The hairy fella?” he asked.

Rodney nodded, then waited for the room to steady again. “Yup, ol’ Bigfoot himself, out there in Baker County, Oregon. He’s been looking for a female for years, can’t find a one.”

“That so?”

Rodney decided against nodding again. “Yup.”

“Seems to me someone could maybe do somethin’ about that,” the cashier said. His voice was familiar, too, Rodney thought.

“I tried,” he said. “I spent the last two years asking people all over the Northwest.” It occurred to him that he must sound like a lunatic, and that he would never have been talking about it if he were sober, but the cashier didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong.

“Mebbe you asked the wrong folks,” the man said. His accent, Rodney realized, was from somewhere a lot farther south than Montana. “I been doin’ some travelin’ these past fifteen years,” the cashier continued, “and I met some interestin’ folks, some that was what you might call right out of this world. I’d guess that they might help us out here.” He picked a copy of the Midnight News from the rack and studied the photo. “Seems like him and me, we got some things in common, you might say,” he said, tapping the headlines.

Rodney struggled to focus on the newspaper. The photo was down at the foot of the page, captioned, “New Sightings of Mystery Beast!” Beside it, a box proclaimed, “Elvis in Iraq for Secret Negotiations!” The main headline, under the clerk’s hand, read, “Space Aliens Save Sinking Ship! Bermuda Triangle Victims Rescued By UFO!”

“Poor Bubba,” Rodney muttered.

“Don’t you fret, son,” the clerk said. “Things’ll turn out jest fine. Now, you had the nachos and the bean dip; anythin’ else?”

Twenty minutes later Rodney decided, as he sat in his car munching the last of the chips, that he was too tired—and, he admitted to himself, too drunk—to drive any more just then. He settled back for a quick nap.

He awoke to a loud buzzing and a bright light; blinking, trying to shield his eyes against the glare, he stared out at the gas station.

The light was coming from somewhere overhead; Rodney couldn’t see its source. He could see the overweight clerk standing in the doorway, head tilted back, dark sunglasses protecting his eyes as he gazed upward.

He seemed to be signaling, making signs with his hands.

That was crazy, Rodney decided. He must be dreaming. He closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

When he awoke again he shook his head to clear it, blinked, and put the car into drive.

Weird dream, he thought. Some guy who looks like Elvis signaling the flying saucers. Obviously, Rodney thought, I’ve been reading too many tabloids.

The following night UFO sightings were reported all over Baker County, Oregon. The most peculiar feature was the story, repeated by a dozen witnesses, that a big hairy man had been standing on a hill near a campground, waving sheets of paper at the UFOs. The deputy who investigated the next day found letters burned into the grass.

They were obviously the work of pranksters; after all, why would space aliens write WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER, BUBBA on a hillside, in plain English?

As Moe Betterman read the report his eyes widened, and then a slow smile spread across his face.

Bigfoot sightings were common enough; he had been collecting them for thirty years. People reported lone creatures most of the time, but sometimes pairs, trios, whole families, entire herds; it didn’t mean much.

But when half a dozen sightings in succession, all in eastern Oregon, all reported two sasquatches, one smaller and more delicate than the other. . .

“Congratulations, Bubba,” he said quietly. “And my best to the little lady.”

Close-up Photos Reveal

JFK Skull on Moon!

by Barry N. Malzberg

Lovers of fine writing will be happy to see more work by Barry Malzberg appearing of late, including many short stories, his novelette “Literary Lives,” novella “Behold the Lamb of God,” and novel God of the Mountains which he is writing with Kathleen Koja. I totally concur with his high opinion of her writing.

Until I saw this strange and compelling story “I thought that “gonzo” SF could only be funny. I owe Barry a special vote of thanks for thus opening the editorial eyes.

He feels the implosion as a small and deadly shock at the base of his skull, then radiating up and down through the vertebrae and then, at last, the slow collapse, the scattering of organs, the sensation of a disaster in the blood so absolute that it is not only beyond recovery, it is what he must have sought all of his life. Dumped in the ocean, squirreling frantically with that rope between his teeth, lying on the boards in the barracks strapped against the hard, silent surfaces of his agony he had had small pieces of this disaster but nothing, nothing so complete. He embraces it willingly. Surely he had known in the tunnels and torrents of the night that this is what awaited him. He has been ready; he has always been ready. Coming out of that long and disastrous passage, then, stretched against the hard and constant surfaces of the Moon, he finds that he is lying at the bottom of a shallow crater, his eyes fixed with stunned and perceptive accuracy upon the distant swirl of Earth. He is breathing quite easily without aid of respirator or space suit, without shielding of any kind, which is an unusual experience but nonetheless one which seems unremarkable under the circumstances.

Nothing is unremarkable, JFK thinks, and comes to a seated position, finding that his organs seem to have been restored and that he is in a state of placid and flexible attention more pliant than any he has known since he was fifteen years old. The crater, scooped and brilliantly shadowed in the fading light cast by the planet, is only two feet high and he is able to scramble easily to his feet, raise himself, and emerge from the crater to place a shaky foot upon the dusty, uneven surfaces of the Moon. The Apollo project must have worked, he thinks, somehow they must have gotten there. I have gotten here. He cannot calculate how long it has been since the implosion, how long he lay in dreaming spaces before he was transported to the Moon, but he suspects it could not have been too long; there would have been decomposition and yet his body, neatly attired in a smock and tunic of some kind, seems to be intact. It is an extraordinary and enlightening experience, but there appear to be no others on this surface. It is desolate as far as his shadowed sight can cast, and it occurs to JFK for the first time that even though he seems to have been resurrected, his troubles may not be over. His troubles, in fact, may just be beginning. When will they come for him or do they even know he is there? In that strange and stricken light he feels the thunder of impact again, shifts his shoulders, clears his throat, reflexively grabs at the back of his head. He could not bear to go past the Depository again and yet who is to say what will happen to him? All of the known circumferences have broken.

ELVIS AFTER PLASTIC SURGERY

ROCKS TILL DAWN IN PARIS

Elvis, after the concert, meets the 103-year-old mother of newborn twins at the back of the bistro. She is one of his biggest fans, has followed him across the Continent, sent him messages of love and pleading, sent him photographs of the twins who, she says, are the products of a mad coupling with a descendant of Seurat on the left bank. Who could imagine that such consequence would come from the tumble of a 101-year-old woman? The realization of her pregnancy had been maddening. Nonetheless she had elected to carry the twins to term and, filled with francs and ancient mother’s milk has followed Elvis in his disguise from Berlin to Munich, Lyons to this back bar of Paris. She loves him devotedly and wishes nothing more than to meet him at last and obtain his signature upon her palm. Her name is Lily and her next oldest child, Georges the grocer, is 82 and will soon be dead of heart disease, she has written him. Crazy things like this seem to happen to Elvis ever more frequently as he tries to get his career going incognito in the bistros and back saloons of a Paris he had seen only once on a 48-hour pass when he was quartered in Germany as a Private E-2.

Guitar still clasped in his hand, he meets Lily in the small backstage area they have given him. He is Renard, the American rocker, or at least that is his billing and no one except Lily herself seems to have marked him for his true identity. Standing there in a deep hunch, surely the oldest woman Elvis has ever seen, Lily seems suffused with joy and then tenderness as she reaches out to him, beckons him to give her a kiss. He does so with the utmost revulsion and delicacy, hearing her little bird’s breath in his left ear. “I leave the babies with Georges,” she says to him in labored English. “They are too young, les bebes, to be in such a place. Oh, you are so handsome. You are even more handsome here than you were way apart in the room. It is a thrill. A thrill to touch you.”

“Well, yes,” Elvis says. What else is there to say? The original idea had been simply to go away, go underground, get away from the drugs and the guards and the press (to say nothing of the family troubles), and it had made much sense at the time. But after a dozen years the restlessness had set in; the plastic surgery had been too effective. No one recognized him at all and he missed the music, if only a little. So he had taken a stab at restarting his career, not for the money really or for the attention but just to see if it could be done. And now, after five years of singing Blue Skies and Prisoner of Love in some of the dumbest, shittiest places he had ever seen outside of an army barracks, he seemed to have found only one sincere fan, the 103-year-old mother of infants and even she did not know who he really was, merely thought he was an Americaine with nice features. The encounter, some dim paradigm for what Elvis had always felt was his truest fate, to be clutched in a back room by a circumstance so horrible that it could barely be defined, let alone understood, fills him with a despair which goes beyond even the revulsion he had expected. “You must pardon me,” he says, “I must prepare for the next show. I must go on the stage soon for yet another calling.” He disengages from Lily, trying not to be too abrupt because if he brings her sprawling to the ground, what will happen? What can happen to him? “RENARD THE FOX KILLS CENTENARIAN IN CAFE.” He would be booked, fingerprinted, seen under ultraviolet. The whole story would come out. Oh, it is sickening, sickening! Elvis, disengaged at last, turns from Lily, moves with desperate and clumsy haste toward that open spot in the wall marking the demarcation of the stage. He will go out there even now, unprepared and to empty seats, he will sing anything, say anything to be out of this. Behind he may leave her cries of love, he does not know, this is nothing with which he dares contend at this time.

MARILYN AND ELVIS WERE

SECRET LOVERS IN HOLLYWOOD LOVE NEST

“Oh, Norma Jean,” she imagines him saying. “Norma Jean, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, oh what might have been, with me and Norma Jean,” his heavy crooner’s voice thickened with rhyme and love in the late afternoon. She had played with the thought of meeting him for years, ever since he had come to make GI Blues in 1960 and had rented in the Canyon only a few miles from where she lived, but she had not done it. She was still stunned from the divorce at that time, and there had been men, other men, men without music or poetry in their voices, clamoring over her, making small and insistent demands which, in her way, she did her best to meet. But there had always been the thought of Elvis, just Elvis and Norma Jean locked together in long, shuddering afternoons of love after The Prince And The Showgirl or Viva Las Vegas and she had dreamed of his voice curling into her ear; at last she had asked Margaret to get the number and place the call, tell him that she wanted to speak with him. Margaret had tried and tried; she was loyal in that way. Marilyn had used other studio contacts as well, but somehow the connection had never been made, there was always one reason or another why he could not be reached and then at last the real troubles had come over her, and so much for her dream of languid afternoons. He might have saved her. He might have made all the difference. But there was no way now that she could ever tell him so.

“Oh, Elvis,” she dreams of saying as the Saturday night opera begins again, the blood coursing truly, frantically through her, carrying its own little messages of betrayal and transcendence. “Oh Elvis, Elvis, love me tender, love me true, tell me now the way you always do,” and it is so palpable at this moment that she can almost feel his touch. Or indeed that is his splendid and desperate body covering hers now and carrying her down, carrying her down and away to the ultimate Saturday night fuck on this dawn of her aborning.

“IT WAS THE DUKE OF WINDSOR!” SAYS

103-YEAR-OLD MOTHER OF INFANT TWINS

Lily knows that she would have said, would have done anything for him. Would have lied for him, would have died for him, would have placed her heart in the grasp of Elvis forever if it had been necessary. If there were a true way of proving her love and sacrifice, she would have said that the father of the twins was the Duke of Windsor, now doddering, probably homosexual, but still a believable if seedy crowned head who might have found a 101-year-old bedmate more of a sport than he could ever admit. Oh, those decadent English. But of course she could not die for him, could not lie for him; Elvis was gone. He had at last received her in his dressing room, cast his eyes over her, found her not pleasing to his sight, and had deserted. She had known in that moment of their embrace that she had horrified him, that her very touch was noxious and yet how could she have done otherwise? How could she have disengaged? He was her Prince of Song, the Renard of all of her necessity and she would have held him until the end until at last his hands had become desperate and she had been pushed from him. Now, standing in the dark, hunched in the dank alley outside the bistro, Lily hears his voice carry true into the night and hears the slow and abominable skittering of her ruined old heart. Les bebes. She must return to her helpless infants and yet, really, how can she leave? How can she leave this tender and terrible juxtaposition of her and her beloved Elvis, plastic-surgerized and masquerading as Renard? Her blood and brain function only thickly, only slowly, but they hammer out desperate and fixed truths. She cannot leave him.

And so Lily stands in the alley, listening to his voice cast on the night, dreaming in her old brain of Elvis and of the postures she might have assumed, feeling herself sway pendulously over the Parisian stones, knowing that she is at last now in the final months of her life and yet transfixed. She should return to les bebes but she cannot. She should shout for help but she cannot. She should stagger through the dust of the air and lurch onto the stage and grasp him, beg for his succor, but she cannot. Everything that she should have done lies behind her and there are only those last, intolerable moments in the dark to pace. The Duke of Windsor could not have done less for her nor treated her more rudely than her beloved Elvis.

But she does not love the Duke of Windsor nor he her.

JFK SENDS WARNING FROM MOON

“I WILL RETURN AND I WILL AVENGE!”

Grasping the edge of the crater, shuddering against the thin wall, the President feels that he can see for the first time the dimensions of the sin lodged against him, a sin more grievous and cunning than any of his liturgy can contain and breathing in the dust and silt which the windless Moon has laid in small deposits around him, he thinks that this, too, is ephemera, it is an aspect of the Trinity, of the Holy Ghost; against these walls of the Empyrian the spirit shall not contest in vain. He understands then or thinks he understands that reconstruction of another kind awaits him; that no less than the actress or the singer, a kind of transmogrification awaits him. Within his heart he feels a yearning so great that it cannot be codified and the President knows then with the fuming and resilient thunder of that heart that he will come back, that he will return in ways which cannot be judged. It is joy that he feels then in those leveling bursts and on the solitary landscape of the Moon, staring at the affixed and demanding Earth he knows that his time will come, his time will come again. Asking, asking, asking yet.

ELVIS AND JFK:

“WE’RE COMING BACK AND WE’RE GOING TO ROCK!”

In the hard cradle, awaiting the return of the Mom who, departed, will not return again, les bebes wail stiffly against the dense Continental night. The teenage nursemaid hired for a pittance for the evening while the crazy old woman living with them had hobbled into the night sullenly takes two bottles from the warmer and sticks them in les bebes’ mouths. Greedily they suck and with a hint of knowledge. The nursemaid stares at them idly and yawns.

Marilyn, Elvis, and
the Reality Blues
by James Brunet

In his own words: “Prior to perpetrating this story, Jim Brunet has been guilty of work appearing in Analog, Pulphouse, and Dragon, among other places. He claims to have never sighted Elvis (even when Elvis was alive the first time) and was born in a town named Salinas, which some pronounce ‘Silliness’.”

One hopes that wherever he lives now, he has neighbors as interesting as these.

Henry Kizmik turned off the coffeepot and then sat down at the breakfast table of the one-room apartment he rented just off Melrose Avenue.

The Los Angeles Times carried the headline: “SURVIVORS FROM ATLANTIS CONTROL STOCK MARKET”

Henry sighed, which was not unusual, for he sighed a lot. Idiotic. No evidence that an advanced Atlantean civilization had ever existed on the much-charted depths of the ocean floor, yet it was perfectly reasonable, at least to the mainstream press, that they were causing havoc in modem times after having remained secret for thousands of years. The only thing stupider was that having remained secret, they’d be playing the stock market and would get caught. He read the first few paragraphs; as usual, bunches of unsupported assertions, nothing that could be disproved easily on the face of it, but nothing that made any rational sense either.

Henry sighed again as he scanned the article, then turned to the comics, where the babies were still outwitting their parents, wives still outwitting their husbands, and then read the advice columns which today covered visiting mothers-in-law, teens outwitting their parents, and parents outwitting each other. Then he turned to the sports page. Chicago Cubs 14, Los Angeles Dodgers 2, he read. At least something was right with the world.

Showered and dressed, with the breakfast dishes cleared away and the beds made, Henry sat down at his word processor to continue his article entitled “The Case for Logic.” Just where it would be published hadn’t been determined yet. In fact, the editorial responses to his queries had been pretty lukewarm, one suggesting that “. . . it was a rather fringy kind of piece.” No matter, thought Henry, as he started to write. Finish it first, then worry about, where to sell it. The only way to make a living as a writer was to finish what you started.

He had been working for about an hour when a door squeaked as it opened across the hall. There was a knock at his door. Henry muttered to himself, looked at his computer screen, and called out, “Just a minute!”

When he opened the door, his neighbor stood waiting for him. A shock of platinum blonde hair swept across her forehead and she wore nothing but a red towel wrapped tightly around her body from chest to thigh, her face adorned by a smile that had once opened bank vaults and doors to high places. Actually, thought Henry, it probably still could, if people only knew that it was still around.

“Hi, Sugar,” she drawled.

“Hi, Marilyn,” said Henry, putting on his best face over irritation at being interrupted. “What’s up?”

“Well,” she said, “I was trying to whip up a little birthday cake for a dear, dear friend and I found myself a little short of ingredients. Could I borrow a cup of sugar, Sugar?” Her smile descended upon Henry like a wrestling move.

“Uh, sure, Marilyn. Just a second.”

When he pressed the cup into her hands, she blew him a kiss. “Thanks, honey. Maybe I’ll come by sometime and sing ‘Happy Birthday’ for you.”

“Uh-huh.” Henry’s eyes followed her as she turned away, the red towel stretching with every movement, until the door to her apartment closed with a click.

Henry exhaled softly. Even in her sixties, she looked better to him than a lot of women in their twenties. But the central mystery overrode everything else. Why no one else recognized his neighbor, he couldn’t imagine. It was remarkable—unbelievable, really—that the secret had lasted all these years.

He had known who she was as soon as she moved in, notwithstanding her wearing a dark wig that disguised nothing. Every week he’d expected hordes of reporters in the hallway. Now he guessed it was less likely, especially since the Secret Service detail had stopped cluttering up the building when her lover the ex-President dropped by, the one who’d supposedly been assassinated himself. Henry sighed again and shut his door to the accompaniment of clarinet notes sliding up and down the hallway. Mr. Konigsberg in 3-H again, thought Henry as he turned back to his desk.

Henry typed at the keyboard: As Galileo wrote, “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. ” Whether these qualities are bestowed by God or not is for the moment irrelevant; if they exist—and however infrequently used to good effect, we must concede they do exist—how, then, are we to apply them in processing our observations of the everyday world?

Henry’s train of thought was abruptly derailed by an eruption of guitar chords and loud, exuberant singing from overhead.

Henry looked up at the ceiling. “Yo! Elvis! How about a little less noise? There’s people what’s trying to work down here!”

The chords of the guitar faded away. “Yo! Hank, buddy. There’s people what gots to try to work up here, too!”

But the guitar stayed silent and, near as Henry could tell, his upstairs neighbor contented himself with singing as he washed his dishes. It was somewhat quieter than with the guitar. For a man in his sixties, Elvis was remarkable. Henry sighed and turned back to his computer.

At half past noon Henry stopped to regard his progress. Not bad—three more or less smooth pages—he thought as the lines scrolled by on the screen.

The contemporary reluctance to accept an ordered reality, with cause and effect contributing to a coherent vision—

A key slid into the lock and turned and the door to the hallway opened. “Hi, Henry, honey. Brought some lunch.”

“Hi, Tiff. Be with you in just a sec.” He leaned over his keyboard to type another line.

Keys, purse, a carton of takeout and a small bottle of wine in one hand, two cartons of takeout in the other, Tiffany leaned back against the door and kicked it shut with her foot.

“I got Chinese,” she said as her heels clicked across the hardwood floor and she set the food down on the kitchen counter.

“Smells good,” he said, and leaned up for a kiss, brushing aside her frosted blonde bangs. “Mmmm. You, too. How goes the day of the wandering reporter?” he asked, glancing back at the computer screen as Tiffany kicked off her shoes.

“Oh, I interviewed one of those professors at USC who’s studying that lost Roman colony they found living in the depths of the Brazilian rain forest,” said Tiffany as she unbuttoned her blouse.

‘They’ve gone crazy with joy as they find out how Latin was actually spoken. Of course,” she said as she unbuckled her belt, unsnapped, unzipped, and stepped out of her shorts, “the Romans are a little bit shaken to find the sounds they thought were from Apollo’s chariot are really jet airplanes.”

“It sounds damned improbable. All the way around,” said Henry with a frown. “It doesn’t make sense that they could live in the Amazon for more than two millennia and have never run into an explorer or that some natives hadn’t encountered them and carried tales to the outside world.”

Henry turned to Tiffany, who had draped her panty hose over a chair and was sliding the straps of her bra down each shoulder. “I mean, does it make sense to you?” he said.

“Oh, my poor little dear,” she murmured as she unhooked the bra and let her breasts wiggle free. “I haven’t seen you this upset since they thawed that Arctic explorer—what was his name, Hammerschmidt?—out from the ice a couple of months ago.”

“Oh, sure,” he said, “it’s completely believable that he not only survived, but that the sound of his last words as he froze got trapped in the air pocket so people heard them when they chiseled him out.”

Tiffany reached over and ran her fingers through Henry’s hair. “My little logical dingbat,” she said. She turned and walked toward the bed; her panties sparkled with the words “Brooklyn” and “Manhattan” high on either cheek and a scene of each, done in multicolored glitter, pictured underneath.

“Uh, Tiff . . .”

She sat down on the edge of the bed and then lay back, still looking over at Henry. “Can’t you enjoy anything that doesn’t meet your standards of logic?”

Henry looked at her and decided he could.

Henry and Tiffany sat at the dining table, spooning cold Chinese food directly out of the cartons into their mouths while they scanned the newspaper. “What about ‘Sweet Sioux’? I haven’t seen that one yet,” said Tiffany.

“The one about the love affair between Custer and Sitting Bull’s wife? Naah. I’d rather see a comedy, something I don’t have to pretend is real, even by Hollywood standards.”

Tiffany folded her section of the paper and set it down on the table; she drew the collar of Henry’s faded gray terrycloth robe more closely together. “What’s with you anyway?” she said.

“What do you mean, what’s with me?”

“You’re getting awfully hung up on this concept of everything having to be what you call rational.”

“What is this, some kind of after-sex fight?”

“What do you mean, after-sex fight? You’ve been this way for weeks. Reading all those rags of the so-called alternative press and getting zoned in on way-out conspiracy theories like how Hitler must have really died in his bunker in Berlin.”

“Yeah, well . . . yeah . . . Henry pressed his fists to his forehead. “Doesn’t that make more sense than his surfacing as a ninety-year-old dee-jay for a pirate rock station in Buenos Aires?” Of course, it makes no less sense than for Marilyn, Elvis, and God knows who to be living in my apartment building.

Seizing the thought, Henry continued. “For instance, do you have any idea how many people in this apartment building are living here incognito? It’s ridiculous. Sometimes I think I’m the only normal person living in the whole building!”

“Now, honey,” said Tiffany in her most soothing voice, “there’s nothing abnormal about your neighbors—at least they’re no weirder than neighbors in any apartment building.”

“Tiffany, doesn’t the sheer implausibility, the impossibility, of all these public figures dropping out of sight to live incognito bother you? I mean Marilyn and Elvis and quiet, broody Mr. Zimmerman and neurotic, fussy Mr. Konigsberg and Lord knows who else—why, I wouldn’t be surprised if old, babbling Mr. Kopperman on the fourth floor is really the Lindbergh baby!”

Henry paused, whether for dramatic effect or to catch his breath, he wasn’t sure, only to discover Tiffany looking at him sympathetically. “There, there. It’s your Virgo rising that does it.”

Henry opened his mouth to speak, closed it, opened it again, closed it, got up, and opened the refrigerator door. “Aw, the hell with it. You want some leftover cheesecake?”

Tiffany’s face softened and she shook her head and stood up. “I’ve got to go,” she said, walking over to stroke his hair. She dressed quickly as Henry watched her, brooding and lusting at the same time. “Don’t worry about it,” she said as she gathered up her purse and keys. “I’ll call you later on and we can figure out something to do tonight.”

She leaned over to kiss him again and he kissed her back.

“Bye, Tiff,” he said, and the door closed.

A light, breathy giggling floated down through the ceiling from upstairs. Henry turned on the radio to cover up the noise. After a few minutes, the blend of music and commercials was interrupted by a news bulletin about a human body being born from the womb of a sheep in Albania. Henry turned the radio off.

We are inclined to accept the most fantastic of explanations, whether born of astrology or conspiracy or extraterrestrial design, more readily than we accept a parking ticket. We prefer reasons that sound good over sound reasoning that is good. Henry frowned at the word processor. It was all very tight reasoning, he thought, but how to reconcile that with his own reality that included Marilyn and Elvis?

Speaking of Elvis, the giggling upstairs had given way to a creaky creak, creak, creak of bedsprings. Henry shook his head. He’d stopped counting the number of times a week that Elvis entertained; if only he had Elvis’ stamina. He looked back at the screen of his computer.

There are limits, of course, to the powers of sense and reason and intellect. Limits of the unknown and the unknowable limitations which only fools or saints attempt to breach.

The rhythm upstairs had progressed into a faster, jazzier creak-a-crik, creak-a-crik, creak-a-crik, acquiring in the process a lyric of “oh, baby,” “oh, BAY-bee,” “oh, BAY-uh-BEE!” delivered by a deep, mellow voice, harmonized by a “hunh,” “hunh,” “hunh” in a light, breathy voice.

Henry’s arms dropped to his side; he looked up at the ceiling. Here I am trying to be earnestly philosophical and I’ve got Elvis having sex ten feet over my head. Elvis, for God’s sake. Elvis!

Henry shook his head. A man whose death under a variety of lurid circumstances was widely reported, whose home had been turned into a shrine, musical career deified, and who’d been reported “discovered” any number of places except here, where he really was. How to explain it? The coroner or medical examiner, members of his family, and the friends who allegedly discovered the body would all have to be in on the conspiracy. And what possible motive could they share? And what about Elvis’ motive? Why would anyone want to continue living a quiet life after staging his own death? Well, unless he was a former vice president or something, thought Henry.

The giggle above renewed itself as the bed gave a final solid creak and heavy footsteps padded first toward the bathroom, then the kitchen. “Oh, darling, you are such a hound dog,” said the lighter voice dreamily as it carried through Henry’s ceiling.

The absurdity of the world weighed upon Henry as he turned off his word processor. The first draft was finished. Tomorrow he would revise and edit, then send it off. Yet the absurd, even though it was absurd, left him with a hollow feeling, a vague discomfort, as if there was some joke that he did not understand, some secret to the world that was obvious to everyone but him. In that case, it wouldn’t be a secret, would it. Now who’s falling for conspiracy theories? Real and not real, logical or not, to believe or not believe. All his thoughts converged and tangled like a massive traffic jam on the freeway.

There was a click as the lock to his door opened and Tiffany walked in. “Hi, honey,” she said as she closed the door behind her and put down her purse. “Are you doing okay?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Henry and Tiffany walked hand in hand past the shops and theaters of Westwood. “Now was that so bad?” she asked.

They had seen Eternal Triangle, the story of the love affair between a Prime Minister, a Pope, and a Hollywood starlet. He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I love you,” he said, “even if you are so grounded in improbability.”

She took his hand and put it around her waist, snuggling against his shoulder as they walked past the theaters. “And I love you, even if you do live in a fantasy world.”

Henry sighed and snuggled back as they walked along. So much did he bask in the glow of Tiffany’s affections that he completely failed to notice the flashing lights of the flying saucer that drifted by only a couple of hundred feet overhead.

Those Rowdy Royals
by Laura Resnick

Laura Resnick has lived in England, France, Sicily, Israel, and America. As a romance novelist, she was named Best New Series Writer in 1989, and was the Campbell winner for Best New Science Fiction Writer in 1993. As this book is being assembled, she is either in Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Togo, or Benin, depending.

Who agrees that it would be a Good Thing to send a copy of this story to the current Royal Family with the attached note reading: “So you think you’ve got problems?”

THE MEDIEVAL TIMES, ca. 1152

“An Annulment Is Announced”

After long and detailed negotiations, the Queen Consort and His Royal Majesty Louis VII of France have resolved to annul their marriage. The Queen Consort is expected to wed Henry, Duke of Normandy, before the end of the year—a less-than-stunning match, according to royal analysts.

For an incisive study of the effect these events are expected to have on the stability of the florin against the dinar, please turn to the financial section.

THE NORMAN RAG

“Queen Claims: Those Children I Bore Weren’t Mine!”

Having been caught in flagrante delicto with that rogue the Duke of Normandy, Eleanor of Aquitaine (rumored to be thirty years old, despite her claims to the contrary) has filed for an annulment. Can we expect His Holiness the Pope to overlook the veritable herd of children Eleanor has borne to her hapless husband, the King of France? Can the royal couple reasonably claim nonconsummation with so many of their heirs playing Crusaders ’n’ Saracens in the back yard? Is the heir-apparent to the throne of France really the son of the castle chimney sweep? And will the Duke of Normandy, barely nineteen years old, really fess up and marry the Queen Consort?

THE ANGLO-SAXON STAR

“Caught In The Act!”

Eleanor of Aquitaine and Henry of Normandy were caught being more than a little careless while vacationing at an exclusive seaside resort near Calais last week. Recently separated from King Louis, Eleanor was supposedly resting in seclusion while awaiting her annulment papers.

Instead, one of the Star’s most reliable artists found the soon-to-be-former Queen of France lounging fountainside with none other than the handsome Duke of Normandy himself. As you can plainly see from the exclusive drawings below, this relationship is most clearly a consummated one!

THE EVENING JESTER

“Palace Promises Purge!”

Sources at the French court report that King Louis suffered an uncharacteristic fit of rage upon seeing yesterday morning’s edition of The Anglo-Saxon Star, in which exclusive drawings (whose veracity has not yet been confirmed) depict the Lady Eleanor (surely, no lady) and the young Duke of Normandy performing exactly the same act that Eleanor claims not to have performed with hubby Louis, despite the many children she bore him during their marriage.

King Louis has publicly threatened to cut off Eleanor’s allowance. Will the Duke of Normandy still buzz around this aging blossom when her pollen dries up? And will the taxpayers still meekly sweat and toil in the fields of France when they realize that they’re the ones financing these shenanigans?

THE MEDIEVAL TIMES, ca. 1153

“A New Heir Is Announced”

Henry, Duke of Normandy, has been acknowledged by Stephen as heir to the throne of England.

For an analysis of how this will effect the ducat, please turn to the financial section.

THE COURTLY CHRONICLE

“We Have A New Heir!”

Having finally made an honest woman of Eleanor of Aquitaine last year, Henry of Normandy finds himself in the headlines once again. The brash young duke has recently landed on the shores of England and forced Stephen (remember him?) to acknowledge Henry as his heir.

THE NORMAN RAG

“Alchemist Predicted It All!”

In a late-breaking story, one of the Rags top journalists has learned that Alphonse the Magnificent, formerly of “Merlin’s Traveling Circus and Sideshow,” predicted the succession of Henry to the throne of England, as well as his marriage to the former Queen of France.

What does this wizard see in his crystal ball regarding the royal couple’s future? For an exclusive prediction of the volatile pair’s destiny, clip out the attached coupon and send it with one ha’penny to the Rag’s London offices.

Offer void where void.

THE MEDIEVAL TIMES, ca. 1154

“Duke of Normandy Crowned King of England: Henry II Promises Prosperity”

The stock exchange will be closed today in honor of the Royal Coronation.

For an analysis of King Henry’s economic plans, please turn to the financial section.

THE ANGLO-SAXON STAR

“Bishop Seduces Goat At Coronation Feast!”

In pursuing the tradition of first-rate journalism which our readers have learned to expect, a Star reporter disguised himself as the Duke of Bilberry and managed to sneak into the Royal Coronation Feast.

Our fearless Star journalist left no stone unturned, no nook unsearched, no cranny uninvestigated. For an exclusive story about the bishop caught in a compromising position with a goat, please turn to Page 3.

THE EVENING JESTER

“King Attacks Bishop, Goat Gets Away!”

In a follow-up story to this morning’s Star headlines, a Pope who prefers not to be identified has told the Jester that a frightful row erupted when the King found a certain bishop with his favorite goat at the Royal Coronation festivities.

The palace has since instigated a search for the goat, which disappeared while His Grace King Henry II was throttling the bishop. Jester sources suggest that members of the British Union for the Rights of Beasts (B.U.R.B.) may have spirited the animal away during all the confusion.

THE COURTLY CHRONICLE

“Coronation Climaxes in Chaos!”

Despite an auspicious beginning, the Royal Coronation was marred by a brawl between certain Church factions and a raid staged by a left-wing animal rights group.

The palace has issued a statement denying any knowledge of goat abuse.

THE MEDIEVAL TIMES ca. 1170

“Vatican Dollar Drops Drastically”

Thomas A Becket met his.death in Canterbury Cathedral yesterday. Assailants unknown. The palace denies rumors that King Henry may have used ill-considered means to end, once and for all, his on-going quarrel with the Archbishop.

All members of the financial community have gamely issued public statements in support of His Majesty, mindful of the dangers of internal political chaos so near the end of the financial quarter.

“Remember,” said Lord Savile, who asked not to be quoted, “those Scots are a lot closer than you might think.”

For a detailed analysis of the effect the assassination has had on the economic salubrity of the Papal States, please turn to the financial section.

THE COURTLY CHRONICLE

“Murder In the Cathedral”

King Henry can rest easy at last, since his arch nemesis, the Archbishop of Canterbury, lies cold in his grave. Yes, poor Thomas is dead, killed as he knelt at prayer, slain by infidels who slipped into the country disguised as Italian sausages.

THE ANGLO-SAXON STAR

“Courtly Chronicle Crushes Credibility”

The Courtly, known to be a mere tool of the Plantagenets ever since Henry first started bullying Stephen (remember him?), was caught printing unverified information about the identities of Thomas A Becket’s assassins.

It is now known—checked and double-checked by the reliable staff of the Star—that Becket was slain by aliens. The same ones who built those pyramids and invented haggis.

THE EVENING JESTER

“Henry Has Hemorrhoids!”

King Henry has continued to deny all rumors linking him to the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury, claiming a chronic scatological disorder as his alibi.

Employing the responsible methods our readers have learned to expect, a Jester reporter disguised himself as a chamber pot to verify the King’s story. We are pleased to be the first news service in Britain to report that Henry II, by the grace of God, King of England, does indeed have hemorrhoids and thus cannot be guilty of the Archbishop’s murder!

For an exclusive account of the three days our star Jester journalist posed as the King’s chamber pot, please turn to Page 3.

THE NORMAN RAG

“Public Pressure Mobilizes Monarch!”

Despite the famous Chamber Pot Defense, the King has been unable to mitigate rumors that he ordered the assassination of Thomas Becket. Consequently, His Grace will do public penance and make a pilgrimage to Canterbury.

Now! For the first time! You, too, can live this historic event! Stay with us each day as, reporting live, we take you inside the true story! Get wet and muddy with Henry as he rides to Canterbury. Feel the sweat of the King as he approaches Becket’s final resting place. Experience the ice cold stones of Canterbury Cathedral under your knees as the Rag takes you there! Thrill to each lash of the whip as it licks Henry’s skin!

This is a once-in-a-lifetime offer, folks! The chance won’t come again, so be there!

THE MEDIEVAL TIMES, ca. 1173

“Civil War Threatens Britain”

At the instigation of their mother, Her Grace Queen Eleanor, King Henry’s three eldest sons, Henry, Richard, and Geoffrey, have launched a full-scale rebellion against our sovereign king.

For an analysis of the effect these events have had on the ha’penny, please turn to the financial section.

THE NORMAN RAG

“Those Rowdy Royals Are At It Again!”

As if it weren’t enough that the Queen moved her own court to Poitiers on account of the King’s many infidelities (including fruit of a particularly forbidden nature if the Star and Jester are to be believed!), now Her Grace has incited those three rowdy princes, Harry, Dickie, and Geoff, to launch a civil war against their father the King! What will future generations think of these royal peccadilloes?

THE COURTLY CHRONICLE

“Peace Breaks Out!”

After unfortunate family disputes which, incidentally, cost thousands of lives and brought whole sections of the country to a standstill, the Royal family has resolved its differences.

The palace announced yesterday that the Queen has gone into seclusion to rest after the harrowing events of the past year.

THE ANGLO-SAXON STAR

“King Throws Queen In Jail!”

Though the rebellion was a family affair, the King has responded harshly. Yesterday he locked up the Queen and threw away the key.

Posing as a chamber maid, a Star reporter managed to sneak into the Queen’s quarters for an exclusive interview. Please turn to Page 3.

THE EVENING JESTER

“Queen Claims: I Was Only Trying To Help!”

According to an exclusive interview printed in this morning’s Star, Queen Eleanor claims that King Henry completely misunderstood her intentions when she and her three eldest sons raised an army and launched an attack against him.

Richard “Dickie” the Lion Heart was not available for comment, having gone off to some other country to slaughter people who never did him any harm. However, Prince Harry had this to say: “Well, um, my mom told me to do it.”

Geoff was also not available for comment, as he was babysitting brother John at the time of this reporter’s interviews at the palace. Too young to have participated in the war, Johnny stayed at home and pulled the wings off flies.

THE MEDIEVAL TIMES, ca. 1189

“King Dies: Long Live the King?”

King Henry II died yesterday afternoon, and the succession remains uncertain.

Might as well turn to the financial section.

THE COURTLY CHRONICLE

“Henry Heads Heavenward!”

His Grace King Henry II is survived by: his wife Queen Eleanor, eleven years his senior; his son Geoffrey, who is quoted as saying, “Finally! I thought the old bugger would never die!”; his mistress, the young Princess Alais who has been affianced to nearly all the king’s sons at one point or another; and his sons Richard and John who could not be reached for comment at the time of the King’s death, as they were busy rebelling against him again.

My Husband Became a Zombie
and it Saved Our Marriage
by Karen Haber

Karen Haber sent me her biographical information with an Elvis stamp on the envelope. Apart from being a woman of taste and discernment, she has had her short fiction appear in such publications as Asimov’s, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Full Spectrum, After the King, The Further Adventures of Batman, among others. Her novels include The Mutant Season (co-authored with Robert Silverberg), The Mutant Prime, Mutant Star, and Mutant Legacy. With husband Robert Silverberg she edits the original SF hardcover anthology Universe, and is currently working on the first of an SF trilogy, The Woman Without a Shadow, for DAW Books.

She assures me that this story is not autobiographical.

The sun broke through the morning fog and spilled down the pine-scented hills, through the spotted plate-glass window of the weekly Hillsidean’s offices, across the cigarette-burned city desk, and right into the pale blue eyes of Theola Simmons, Managing Editor.

She blinked grumpily at the searing light and looked back down at the blue editing marks she had just made on the day’s galleys. Theola preferred cloudy weather: she got more work done.

The swivel chair creaked beneath her as she turned away from the creeping sunlight. She had one more column to correct: Scotty Wilkins’ weekly neighborhood news roundup. Theola didn’t care for Wilkins’ cheery airhead style but knew that if she fired him she would have to find another willing victim to do the job for less than minimum-wage or do it herself. And Wilkins was certainly at the top—or bottom—of his form today:

—Somebody’s been feeding miniature poodles to our Nessy again. While that’s okay, remember that Nessy’s a big fish and needs a lot of protein or else she complains. Don’t bother with the small stuff. She prefers large dogs, deer, or teenage boys between fifteen and eighteen years of age.

—Speaking of Nessy, Ron and Glinda Chambers are the winners of the town lottery this quarter. They get the cheery job of cleaning Nessy’s pond. Congratulations, folks, and watch out for those front teeth.

—Hitler has been arrested—again—for shoplifting at McLendow’s Hosiery: she’s been a sucker for Hanes sales ever since her South American sex-change operation. A hundred dollar fine for Hillside’s very own fuehrerette. McLendow’s is threatening to prosecute next time. Hey, Adolfa, a word of advice: try support hose. They last longer.

—More on that UFO that crash-landed in Brawley’s market parking lot yesterday: as we feared, the craft is a total wreck. But the passengers escaped with minor injuries and Charley Brawley hired them to collect tickets at the parking lot. So smile when you see them, folks, and remember, they’re new in town.

—Calling all our maniac gardeners: Pastor Grigsby still has that pile of monster earthworms. They’re big and juicy and nasty and they’re free. Just bring several large pails with good lids, an electric cattle prod, and heavy gloves.

—The Neason Siamese Twins were the hit of the flaming volleyball tournament in Hillside Park: one spikes, the other doesn’t, and both carry fire extinguishers. Nice going, kids. Keep that spirit smokin’ in the semifinals.

—The Widow Karsh saw John Lennon’s ghost again: this time he was standing in her sink lecturing her about her garbage disposal. Widow Karsh has called several repairmen and an exterminator. She would ask all you Lennon fans out there to stop putting old record albums and candles on her lawn: it scares her dog.

—Selma Roundtree reports that her husband, David, escaped from the house last night and was last seen lumbering down Main Street toward the freeway. David, as you may remember, is a zombie, and his day vision isn’t too good. Selma is beside herself with worry. Anybody who happens to see David should call Selma or Dr. Nkebolo, ASAP.

Standard stuff, Theola thought as she put down the galleys. Another Lennon sighting! And the damned zombie loose for the hundredth time: Selma should buy a leash for him. Hillside was a nice town but it was so-o-o predictable sometimes.

With the relief and gratitude that only comes from finishing an odious task, she signed off on the galleys and left the pile by Senior Editor Ed Deerfield’s computer terminal.

Dan Hockstader, typesetter and photo stripper, came in, swinging his take-out bag of tripe.

“Seen the aliens?” he asked.

“Not yet. They weren’t on duty when I got in at six.”

He blinked at her from behind faceted, triple-thickness eye glasses. “If you do, ask them what they think of the way the market’s been acting. They’re pretty good about that stuff.”

“Thanks, but I usually get my stock tips from Pops Shorter’s Siamese, Bathsheba. She hasn’t led me wrong yet.” Theola waved farewell but Dan was oblivious, already chowing down on his pig intestines and snorting with laughter over the sports galleys.

She tossed her thick black hair behind her neck and sashayed out the door, taking small, careful steps in her high-heeled Japanese wooden sandals.

The blast of sunshine nearly blinded her.

“Damn!” Groping for her sunglasses, she felt like a bat caught outside of its cave. It was an unseasonably bright, warm June day in the San Francisco Bay area—at least seventy-five degrees—with nary a hint of lovely, cool gray fog to make things comfortable. Theola reminded herself to reapply her sunscreen and look for her sunhat. Her glasses were at the bottom of her black velvet bag. One of the lenses came loose and she ducked, squinting, in a doorway, trying to fit it back into the frame.

No matter what Theola did, she couldn’t get the lens to fit. Finally, in disgust, she flung the lens back into her purse, shoved the glasses onto her nose, and closed her exposed eye.

“Hey, Theola,” called a familiar voice on her blind side. “Nice glasses. Where can I get a pair?”

She turned and saw Jamie the six-foot spider sitting at one of the picnic tables outside of Cooney’s Ice House. He had a mug of root beer clutched in one feeler and waved two of his hairy multijointed legs at her. She peered at Jamie’s faceted optic receptors and wondered why she had never noticed before how much he resembled Dan Hockstader. “Root beer again, Jamie?”

“I’m an arachnoid of habit. Join me?”

“Only for a minute.” Theola took a seat in the shade and helped herself to one of the fried ants on the spider’s plate. “Not bad,” she said. “Pretty crunchy. I like that touch of hot pepper.”

“I asked them to use chili oil.”

Boom!

At the sound of the nearby explosion, Theola jumped in her seat.

“Must have been Fred Matthias,” Jamie said. “Poor guy. Sound like he finally ran out of antacids.”

“It was bound to happen, sooner or later.” said Theola. A whisper of wind raised goosebumps along her arms. The murmur grew to a shriek and an icy gust buffeted Hillside’s Main Street, nearly upending the table and throwing Theola into Jamie’s lap.

The light around them flickered, turned red, then green, and finally back to regular yellow. The wind died down and the summer heat returned. Two figures stood in the middle of the street. They wore medieval-style clothing and carried huge bundles wrapped in animal hide.

“Ginny, Roger, welcome back!” Jamie called.

“Hey, you guys,” Theola said. “How was the thirteenth century?”

“The food was better in the 1660s, Roger said, doffing his crumpled hat. “But the bugs were worse.”

Ginny shed her heavy coat. “It’s great to be back. The more I travel, the more I enjoy coming home. See you all after we’ve bathed—it’ll be the first time in weeks.”

Theola waved as they receded down the street, glanced at her watch, took one more bite of fried ant, and stood up. “Jamie, let’s get together for coffee sometime.”

“I’ll call you.”

“Okay. Watch out for that root beer, now.” Theola hurried across the street and into the Brawley Market parking lot. A yellow poster on a telephone pole caught her attention.

“Wanted: single white male or female subjects for controlled experimentation ..

Something sharp was poking her, hard, in the back. “Stick ’em up,” said a high, piping voice.

Theola spun around and stared through her one-lens sunglasses in amazement. A group of Girl Scouts stared back at her. They were all blond, all freckled, two wore pigtails, and one of them had lost her two front teeth. The shortest Girl Scout held a huge yellow and chartreuse water cannon with its sights trained on Theola.

“Pardon me?” she said.

“Just act normal and no one will get wet.”

Theola looked with horror at the cruel orange muzzle of the water cannon. “What do you want?”

“A ride to Franklin Park.”

“But that’s on the other side of the tunnel!”

The girls nodded. Their smiles were ugly, especially the one with missing teeth.

“I haven’t eaten lunch yet,” Theola said, hoping to enlist their sympathy and thereby gain time to think.

“We’ll give you a hot dog once we get there,” said the tallest one, who also had the most freckles.

Theola shuddered. “No, thanks.” She stared in revulsion at the water cannon. These kids would soak her to the skin, ruin her dress. The only thing she disliked more than glaring sunlight was water. Everybody in her family was phobic about getting wet. “What the hell,” she said. “Come on.” They marched right past the green naked alien parking lot attendant.

“Good morning,” it wheezed through its membrane. “Buy low, sell high.”

Help, Theola thought loudly. I’m being kidnapped by a bunch of Girl Scouts.

The alien fixed its huge moist purple eye upon Theola in what might have been a look of comprehension and encouragement, punched a ticket in the time clock, and handed it to her.

Hey, she thought, aren’t you guys all telepathic? You should be reading my thoughts and calling the police.

The alien nodded. “Dow closed up 40 yesterday. Have a nice day.”

“You’re a big help,” Theola muttered. She unlocked the door of her blue Edsel. Her stomach rumbled. “Hop in, girls.”

The ride through the tunnel was dark and peaceful. But all too soon Theola had once again emerged into the merciless sunshine.

“Turn right here,” the littlest Girl Scout snarled.

Obediently, Theola pulled into a driveway next to a sawtoothed wooden sign which read: “Franklin Park. Open 6 to 6. No dogs.”

“We’re looking for the William Howard Taft campsite.”

“Can’t you girls just walk from here?”

The water cannon jabbed Theola in the ribs. She winced.

“No, I suppose not.” She drove perhaps a half mile farther and stopped the car. There was no need to go on. The park was awash with girl scouts: a veritable sea of green uniforms, sashes, and berets. It was a frightful sight. Theola clamped her jaw and vowed to stay calm.

With nary a murmur of thanks nor even a curtsey, her captors sprang out of the car to join their friends. In a moment they were lost in the crowd, indistinguishable from the other milling girls pulling each other’s hair, complaining, and eating.

Didn’t your mothers teach any of you manners? Theola thought. No, of course not. Besides, there’s probably a Girl Scout badge for kidnapping newspaper editors. But at least she was free again. If only she could find her way out of here and back to the familiar sights of Hillside.

The air was filled with the scent of grilling meat and the sound of prepubescent shrieks. Theola began to feel dizzy and mildly nauseated. The car was surrounded, swamped by tall, short, fat, and thin scouts. She couldn’t move forward or back.

Panic clouded her thinking and she leaped from her car, gasping, trying to put as much distance as possible between her and the lunging crowd. But she was hampered by her purple sheared-velvet hobble skirt and wooden sandals, forced to take quick, mincing tiny steps. She stumbled over sticks, tripped over tree roots. An ominous crack gave her a two-second warning before the heel of her left sandal came away from the sole in two pieces. Disgusted, Theola kicked off her shoes. The carpet of pine needles and twigs pricked and bruised her feet but she had no choice. She was in the midst of a ghastly nightmare: trapped in a girl scout jamboree.

There were hot dogs, potato salad, great brimming tubs of cole slaw: it was horrible, just horrible. Plates of pink and glistening cold cuts lay, edges curling in the sun as yellow jackets nuzzled them lovingly. The rustic setting, coyly folksy, all rough-hewn picnic tables and tree stumps, nearly turned Theola’s stomach. It was all so weird and repellent.

Bravely, she forged on, past the scenes of raucous merriment, the smells of a hundred outdoor grills, and into a towering grove of Monterey pines. The maddening sounds of the jamboree receded. For a moment she was blessedly alone in the park with only the whine of the mosquitoes and whisper of the tree limbs in the wind for company.

Suddenly a new and even more dreadful sound assailed her ears. Voices, male and mellifluous, rose up in lush and lifting four-part harmony.

“Sweet A—del-ine. My A—del-ine.”

Theola peered out fearfully from between two pines.

Before her, the grove was filled with portly middle-aged men in red and white striped blazers and white straw boaters.

All around the grove, barbershop quartets were tuning up. Men in red and white striped jackets and straw boaters leaned, shoulder to shoulder, humming. Theola wheeled in her tracks, whimpering like a cornered animal. Girl Scouts to the left of her, singing barbers on her right. Wherever she turned, alien weirdness pressed in on her. What was next, a pancake lunch with the PTA?

She hurried past the raffish singing men and found a path which seemed to lead toward the park entrance. Hurry, Theola thought. Get away before you’re ill in public.

She turned left down the path, followed it for perhaps half a mile, emerged from a thicket of rhododendrons and stood, wondering which way to turn.

Behind her, something enormous roared.

Theola looked over her shoulder.

A huge black-and-yellow bus was bearing down, horns blaring. She jumped out of the way just in time but was nearly hit by a lime green Volkswagen beetle which beeped menacingly as it sped past. Theola staggered, disoriented and frightened in the hot sunlight. She blinked in disbelief.

It couldn’t be true. This absolutely couldn’t be happening to her.

She was standing in the middle of a busy street in a thriving suburban town. Everywhere she looked she saw car washes and supermarkets. Clean-cut cheerful young people. Dogs and cats. Little children in aerodynamically-sound, state-of-the-art strollers padded in drool-proof nonsexist colors and natural fabrics. Coffee shops where young mothers congregated over steaming cups of capuccino, oblivious to their preschool troops in rubber-bottomed toilet-training regalia gumming discarded biscotti, falling off the slatted green French bistro chairs, or chasing one another in complicated slaloms between and around the marble-topped tables.

Boys and girls in long T-shirts were wound round one another, walking down the street or sitting on benches kissing—mwah—loudly, wetly, and long.

Planters dotted the sidewalk, filled with colorful mixtures of pansies and impatiens: pink and white and orange and yellow. The sun shone brightly. Neighbors called out greetings to one another. A white truck selling ice cream drove slowly down the street ringing its bell. The scent of fresh-mown grass filled the air. It was all so horribly cheerful. Theola grew dizzy under the ruthless onslaught of unremitting cheerfulness.

No, she thought. Please. No. No. No. Let me find a taxi. I just want to go home. I’ll never complain about good old Hillside again. I promise.

Music blared out of a speaker above the brightly-lit music store: “Good, good, good, good vibrations . . .”

Gasping, Theola plunged into the nearest doorway, desperate to get away from the upbeat euphony. She had always feared and hated the Beach Boys’ music.

“And here is customer number twenty-nine,” a hyper-friendly male voice boomed in her ear. “Congratulations, ma’am, you win our free makeover!”

Theola glanced right, glanced left: the speaker, a tanned, handsome, apple-cheeked blonde was grinning at her and pumping her hand. All around her were shining, happy faces and the sound of applause. She tried to back up, but somebody was standing behind her. She was trapped.

Her arms were grabbed and before she could protest she had been hustled into a back room, pushed into a hot pink chair, covered with a plastic sheet, and spun around several times until she was quite dizzy.

Attendants loomed over her.

“Let’s start with her hair,” said the large pink-coated one whose hair matched her smock.

“No, her face,” said a skinny black girl with beaded hair.

“Her nails,” said a third, a stringy white-haired woman in hot pants.

“Excuse me—” Theola said.

The hefty strawberry blonde glanced down at her as though surprised she could speak. “Don’t worry, hon. You’ll look gorgeous. Trust me.” Then, as though Theola had suddenly turned invisible, the woman turned to her companions and said, “Good thing she was the one who won. She can really use the makeover.”

All three of them began laughing.

Theola tried to think of the polite thing to do. She didn’t want to offend anyone, regardless of how pink, lacquered, and well-meaning they were. She had always prided herself on her manners, hadn’t she? But this was an emergency.

As she opened her mouth to explain, to say that there had been some dreadful mistake made, a booming, thumping cacophany erupted from what sounded like the very next room. A herd of elephants seemed to be marching in step to a very loud rock band.

“One and two, push it, push it!” a strident female voice commanded.

“What’s that noise?” cried Theola.

“The aerobics class,” the redhead said, and winked. “You’ll get a free pass to that, too. Did you wash your hair today, hon?”

Distracted by the threat of exercise, Theola nodded vaguely.

“Good.” The redhead held up a pink pump bottle and began to vigorously apply its contents to Theola’s head. In moments she was wet and freezing.

“But—”

Her hair was being pulled, a few strands at a time, wrapped around orange plastic cylinders, and pinned in place with pointed clips.

“Ow!”

“Sorry, hon.”

“I don’t think—”

A hot damp cloth smelling of violets descended upon her face. Theola gagged.

“Just relax, dearie. This is our lavender refresher: it’ll get you ready for your facial.”

Theola managed to whip the offensive rag off her face before she choked: the scent of violets was everywhere, sweet and cloying. She just had time to draw a breath before a thick green viscous goo, redolent of pineapple, was being slapped upon her cheeks with what felt like a trowel.

Theola began to fear that she would hyperventilate and pass out right there in the chair. Grimly, she fought for consciousness. It was her only hope. If she fainted, who knew what horror the fiends would apply to her next?

“We’re ready for her manicure,” shouted her redheaded tormentor.

Do your worst, Theola thought defiantly.

She managed to maintain her composure through the manicure. But when they grabbed her feet and stuck them in a bucket of warm soapy water, Theola had had enough.

She stood up. The bucket went sloshing across the black-and-white linoleum.

“Where are you going?” the manicurist bleated. “Wait, we’re not finished.”

‘That’s what I was afraid of,” Theola said. Before anyone could stop her, she hurried out of the room, down the hallway, and out of the shop.

Outside, the Beach Boys had moved on to “Be True To Your School.”

I won’t listen, Theola told herself. I don’t hear anything. I am on my way to my car and I am getting out of this crazy place, right now.

An old woman pulling a two-wheeled metal shopping cart behind her stared at Theola, eyes growing wider as she got closer.

“Please, don’t hurt me,” cried the woman.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Theola said.

“I’ll do anything you say. Here, take my purse.”

“Get out of my way,” Theola said, her supply of good manners depleted. As she breezed past, the old woman fainted. For a moment, Theola hesitated, pondering whether she should go to her aid. If she stopped to help, she might be recaptured. She couldn’t allow her compassionate nature to be used against her. With a sigh of regret, Theola redoubled her pace.

Somehow she found her way back to her car. The park was deserted, as though the Girl Scouts and all the rest had all been some terrible apparition.

Nobody would believe me, Theola thought. No one.

She gunned the Edsel’s motor and raced for home.

As soon as she had reached the tunnel Theola began to feel better. It was dark and quiet in there. Her heartbeat slowed. She pulled into the Brawley’s lot, turned off the car, and sat there a moment, hugging herself in utter relief.

Up the street, the Elvis triplets were walking arm-in-arm-in-arm, wearing matching white suits encrusted with rhinestones and blue suede shoes. Across the lot, a woman with two heads was being kidnapped by three of the alien parking attendants. They shoved her into a car, turned, and waved at Theola before they all disappeared in a sparkling mist. Even though they couldn’t see her, Theola waved back gaily and breathed a sigh of relief. There’s no place like home, she thought. She was even happy to see Scotty Wilkins walking past and gave him a dazzling smile.

“Hey, Theola,” he said. “New look? I like it.”

‘Thanks.”

Theola waited until he had ambled out of sight. Casually, she glanced into her side-view mirror. She had bright green slime dripping down her face. Orange rollers stuck in her dark hair every which way like strange Christmas lights.

She stared, transfixed. Tentatively she reached up her right index finger and spread the green ooze a bit more evenly over her cheeks. Theola smiled. She had to admit it: the green really did go awfully well with those orange rollers.

Rock Band Conjures

Satan As Manager—

Group Claims “Good Business Move”

by Deborah J. Wunder

New writer Deborah J. Wunder has had her work appear in anthologies such as Aladdin: Master of the Lamp and Christmas Ghosts , both edited by Mike Resnick and Marty Greenberg. She tells me that one of her main concerns is “not being mistaken for a loaf of bread or a comics character.” These are things that make life interesting.

So is “Rock Band Conjures Satan,” which confirms something we’ve all probably suspected at one time or another.

In an unusually candid move, world-famous rock band, KILL THE SMURFS, has informed New Morning Magazine that their manager, Nick Nichols, is actually Satan! While we do not advocate trafficking with Satan, we were curious about the band’s motivation, both in acquiring him and in making this information public. We also realized this could shed new light on the hearings of several years ago regarding the content of, and Satanic influence on, rock albums. We therefore interviewed both the band (Dave Johnson, Murray Levine, Steven Alben, Deirdre Lane) and their manager during their recent stop in New York to promote their new record, READ IT AND WEEP.

NMM: “You actually conjured up Satan to manage a rock and roll band?”

DJ: “Well, it wasn’t that hard to do, y’know.”

SA: “Really, what with Deirdre being a witch, Murray being a warlock, and all, it was quite easy.”

NMM: “Can you tell us what method you used?”

DL: “We used a very simple ceremony, done on Beltane. Obviously, we’re not going into specifics here.”

NMM: “Why did you do it? I mean, wasn’t it dangerous?”

DL: “Not at all! I set up the standard protections before invoking the spirits, so we were really quite safe.”

SA: “As for why, well, we needed a good manager. The managers we had before were either rip-off artists or lazy sods.”

DJ: “We were about to break nationally, and were afraid that if we didn’t have powerful protection, we’d be prey to the same problems we’ve seen other megagroups get hit with over time.”

ML: “Yeah. I mean Old Nick, or one of his assistants, can count the house in the blink of an eye. Makes promoters and club owners think twice about ripping us off.”

NMM: “Mr. Nichols, why would you want to manage a rock and roll band anyway?”

NN: “Please, my dear, call me ‘Old Nick’; everybody else does. It seemed like an amusing idea at the time. Of course, since I started managing KILL THE SMURFS, I’ve learned an incredible amount about evil, even by my standards, which certainly makes it worth my while.”

NMM: “What have you learned, if that’s not too personal?”

NN: “One thing is that, while many bands still believe in music as a way of aspiring to some lofty ideal, there are a number of bands extant that pander to every vile human desire. Another is that, when you wish to spread a message to the younger generation, music is the best way to do it.”

NMM: “So Tipper Gore and the PMRC were right about Satanic influences in some records?”

SA: “Not necessarily. Nick has no hand in our music. We do our own writing. I mean, Nick’s a great manager, but he’s not exactly Bruce Springsteen.”

DJ: “Besides, we don’t advocate rape or racial violence.”

NMM: “What does your band advocate, then?”

DL: “Mostly, we’d like a return to the world’s older religions, because they really knew how to party.”

NMM: “So you’re frying to convert youth to a ‘kinder, gentler religion’?”

ML: “Not really. After all, the old religions could get quite barbaric. Not everyone has the stomach for that sort of thing.”

NMM: “What do you mean?”

DL: “Well, one advantage of having Old Nick manage us is that we get the best of everything: Accommodations, equipment, liquor, drugs, groupies, parties; all the things that make being a rock and roller worth it.”

SA: “Not to mention the best deals, and major bucks for our gigs.”

ML: “Really. There aren’t an awful lot of people who could handle all that and keep their heads on straight.”

NMM: “I suppose not.”

NN: “These four have their heads on pretty straight, under the circumstances. I’d always thought that kids were pretty unreliable. Working with KILL THE SMURFS has truly been a revelation—no pun intended.”

DJ: “Thanks Nick. The truth is that we want to succeed, and we’re willing to pay the price.”

NMM: “And just what is the price so far?”

DL: “That’s between Old Nick and us but, so far, it’s not unreasonable.”

NMM: “We have all heard the stories about Satan requiring that clients relinquish ownership of their souls. Is that true?”

ML: “The terms of our contract with Old Nick are confidential. I mean, we don’t want just any band thinking they can horn in on our deal.”

NMM: “And what if Mr. Nichols wishes to add a few more select groups to his roster?”

NN: “I don’t particularly seek any new clients. I prefer a minimum of human contact, if you must know the truth. One reason this situation is ideal is that I can reach many by only interacting with a few.”

NMM: “When you contacted us with this information,

Deirdre, we wondered why you chose to go public with it now.”

DL: “Well, some rumors were starting to surface, so we had a meeting and decided that if we were up front about it, and willing to talk about it, nobody could use it against us. After all, we grew up during the Reagan administration, and can remember all the harm Tipper Gore and her friends tried to cause. Since one of the things we are fighting is that type of censorship, we decided that Nick would be a really powerful ally.”

NMM: “I see that our time is almost up, so I’d like to ask what your future plans are?”

NN: “Mine are managing this band, and working on several ongoing projects, some of which are worldwide in scope.”

DL: “Ours are to tour nationally to support our new album ‘READ IT AND WEEP’ for three months. Then we’ll take a three-week break, after which we tour Europe and Japan.”

ML: “Not to mention conquering the world.”

SA: “Yeah, there is that.”

DJ: “Then, it’s back into the studio for our next album.”

NMM: “Good luck with your tour and album. We hope READ IT AND WEEP bums up the charts.”

2,437 UFOs Over New Hampshire
by Allen Steele

I’m not the only one who will say that Allen Steele is one of the hottest new SF writers around. He once lived in a small New Hampshire town which served as the model for the one in this story. A UFO was rumored to have crashed in a nearby lake and Allen received numerous phone calls from locals who were sure an SF writer would be interested in this. He also collected tales of UFO-related phenomena in New Hampshire, all of which resulted in the following story.

He now lives in St. Louis, MO, but remains mum on UFO action there.

Giddings is a small town in the southern lakes region of New Hampshire. Located off Route 202 about halfway between Concord and Keene, it’s the sort of place which typifies the adage “don’t blink or you’ll miss it.” Indeed, most people find the town only by accident; a tourist from Massachusetts or Connecticut might briefly stop there for gas and a Coke on the way to a crafts festival in Bradford or a weekend ski trip in the White Mountains, but certainly for no other reason.

To such a visitor, Giddings appears to be just another one of the countless former milltowns scattered throughout rural New England. Near the highway is Tuck’s, the Exxon convenience store that sells microwave sandwiches, lottery tickets, and vaguely obscene bumper stickers. That’s as much of Giddings as most people see, but if you get off Route 202 and drive down the five miles of the two-lane Main Road toward the town center, you’ll pass dense woods and ponds and dairy pastures. Dirt roads branch off Main, leading to nowhere; the woodland surrounds houses both large and small, some dating back to the last century, where beat-up old mailboxes are stuffed with free newspapers and almost every other backyard seems to have a satellite dish.

At the end of Main Road, just past the closed-down paper mill and the small stone bridge which crosses over the Contoocook River, is Giddings Center. There isn’t much in the town square. Giddings Market, a grocery and general store. Zack’s Pizzeria, a pizza and grinder restaurant. MovieMania, a video rental shop. The tiny U.S. post office. The town hall which is also home to the three-man police force and the volunteer fire department. At one end of the square is the stolid, windowless Congregational Church; behind it is the town graveyard whose slate tombstones date back to the Revolutionary War. Bookending the opposite end of the square is the town library, the basement of which serves as a movie theater on Friday and Saturday nights; Batman Returns made its Giddings premiere there last weekend, six months after its appearance on HBO. In the middle of the square is a weather-beaten bronze monument to the twelve boys from Giddings who were killed in the Civil War during the Battle of Bull Run; a flag is draped over the monument each Memorial Day, although no one remembers the names of the fallen heroes.

Nothing about Giddings suggests anything odd or unusual, at least to the incurious eye. Yet, if you look a little closer and in just the right places, you may notice a few strange details.

The magazine rack in Giddings Market has all the recent tabloid papers—the Star, the Globe, the Sun, Weekly World News, The National Enquirer, and so forth—as well as the current issues of Fate, UFO Report, UFO Examiner, and similar magazines. More copies of Omni are sold in Giddings than Life, Newsweek, and TV Guide combined. New periodicals are delivered each Tuesday by the regional distributor, and most of the weird-science rags are sold out by Thursday.

There’s usually someone browsing in front of the shelf. Don’t stare, but look a little more closely; this person is probably wearing a small plastic bracelet around his or her left wrist, its tiny blue LED pulsing once every minute.

The same newspapers and magazines are in the reading room of the town library. Two entire bookcases are devoted to (alleged) nonfiction about UFOS: Flying Saucers Are Real, Incident At Exeter, Project Blue Book, Chariots of the

Gods?, The Bermuda Triangle, In Search of Extraterrestrials, Someone Else Is On The Moon, Communion, Missing Time, Out There, the entire Time/Life “Mysteries of the Unknown” series, and much more. There’s a perpetual waiting list for Intruders by Budd Hopkins; on the other hand, the paperback copy of UFOs Explained by Philip J. Klass has been defaced with a single word scrawled across its cover: “Lies!”

Over at MovieMania, there’s an enormous wall of science fiction flicks, most of them about UFOs. The cinematic version of Communion is always rented out.

Giddings Mill appears, at first glance, to be abandoned. If you peer closer, though, you can see that the parking lot has been freshly paved. There are always cars parked near the front door; most of them are cream-colored four-wheel-drive Ford Explorers, but one of the vehicles is an ambulance. Look closer at the flat roof between the unused smokestacks and you’ll spot a small grove of parabolic dishes and cellular antennae.

If you could peer through the building’s smoked glass window into the high-ceilinged room where the rusted mill equipment used to stand, you would see four men and women sitting behind state-of-the-art electronic consoles, sipping coffee and murmuring into headset mikes as they watch a vast array of television monitors, LCDs, and radar screens. If you’re driving down any back road in town and feel the need to pull over on the shoulder to relieve yourself by the roadside, be careful where and how you unzip your fly; the trees contain almost as many TV cameras as bird nests.

The last public place in Giddings remaining open after dark is Zack’s Pizzeria, and Zack locks the doors at nine o’clock sharp. When the sun sets behind the hills and the last light of day fades upon the Civil War memorial, photosensitive timers bring to life hundreds of sodium-vapor streetlights which bathe the square and all the town roads in a bright yellowish glare. All night long, Ford Explorers from the mill prowl the streets and back roads, stopping occasionally at lonely houses in the woods where the lights stay on until dawn. When this town goes to sleep, it does so with both eyes open.

According to the 1990 federal census, Giddings has a permanent population of 157. At least two-thirds of these people claim to have been abducted by aliens from outer space.

“The last time anyone tallied how many people in this country said they were UFO abductees, it was in the mid-80s, about the time Whitley Strieber’s book was on the New York Times bestseller list. Back then, it was around fifty or so . . . maybe a couple of hundred, if you count the obvious fruitcakes.”

Paul Rucker coughs in his fist as he hands me a thick black pagebinder. Within it are 97 pages of single-spaced computer printout, row after row of names, addresses, and phone numbers. “That’s the list of possible abductees we’ve compiled in the last three years,” he says in his soft, Virginia-accented voice. “There’re two thousand, four hundred and thirty-seven names in that book . . . and I haven’t gotten around to adding the two hundred or so others who have contacted us in the last couple of months.”

Paul Rucker doesn’t look like a stereotypical UFO nut. Mid-40s, round-figured, balding, wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a navy-blue sweater over khaki trousers, he appears to be an insurance agent or a CPA rather than a former Air Force intelligence analyst. Yet as he squats on the seat of a backless isometric chair in his red-brick office in the Giddings mill, he calmly talks of things you and I would consider impossible, absurd, and unbelievable.

“Look at the first name on the list,” he says. I flip back to the first page; the top name has been carefully blacked out with Magic Marker, along with the address and phone number. “That’s Number One,” he says. “I can’t tell you his name or where he lives, but he’s the one who bought Giddings and made it possible for many of these people to live here.”

He smiles in answer to the unspoken yet obvious next question. “If I told you his name, you’d recognize it immediately.” He nods toward the list. “Besides, too many people have found out already. Why do you think the list is so long?”

Number One doesn’t live in Giddings, but it’s because of his wealth and influence that the town has become a sanctuary for UFO abductees. What little is known of him is that he is a millionaire who, during his salad days as a traveling salesman, was kidnapped by aliens while driving alone through Texas. After several years of experiencing the same recurrent nightmares which are symptomatic of other abductees, Number One sought psychiatric help, only to discover that there was an eight-hour gap in his memory, dating back to that roadtrip through Texas when he thought he had simply fallen asleep behind the wheel.

His quest for an explanation brought him into the small circle of people who had also experienced the “missing time” phenomena. Like Number One, most of them had repressed memories of being taken aboard flying saucers and subjected to humiliating physical examinations by extraterrestrials, horrifying memories which were later unlocked by hypnosis. They lived in constant fear of being kidnapped again, but unlike the former salesman—who, by this time, had amassed a considerable fortune and thus could afford to protect himself—they were virtually powerless against future intrusions.

Altruistic by nature, Number One decided to take matters into his own hands. Cloaking his identity behind a complex network of banks, holding companies, and real estate agencies, he searched for a town that he could transform into a fortress for his fellow abductees. When he found Giddings, it had been bankrupt for several years, rendered penniless by the demise of the local paper mill during the 70s and the wipeout of the state’s economy during the recession of the 90s. Most of the houses had been foreclosed and were up for sale, and the town was inhabited by only a few farmers and die-hard oldtimers.

Number One purchased all the available private property in Giddings, including the paper mill, and turned it over to The Astra Trust, the nonprofit foundation of which Paul Rucker is the chief executive. There are precious few clues to Number One’s identity; all of the Astra Trusts’s property in Giddings is owned by a bank in Dallas, Texas, and the annual stipend checks are issued from the same bank. Although the leading suspect is H. Ross Perot, Perot’s spokesmen have denied that he is the man behind the Astra Trust.

The Astra Trust is the McArthur Foundation for the UFO set: ninety UFO abductees and their immediate families can live in Giddings, rent-free and with a modest annual stipend, for as long as they feel the need to hide from the aliens. No strings attached; some people stay only for a year or two, others intend to remain in Giddings for the rest of their lives.

“We interview applicants, study their case histories, put them through polygraph tests and have them undergo medical examinations, including a session with our staff psychologist,” Rucker says. “Obviously, with something like this, you’re going to get a lot of people who are shamming, not to mention a few outright crackpots, but we’ve gotten pretty good at weeding out the con artists and fruitcakes. If they’re let in, they’re part of the community. They’ll be protected for as long they want to be here.”

Why doesn’t Number One himself live in Giddings? Rucker shrugs. “He doesn’t really need to,” he says calmly. “I’m not at liberty to discuss his arrangements, but. . . well, let’s just say, where he lives now, the aliens are never going to get him.”

“Smile,” says Dorothy Taylor. “You’re on candid camera.”

Dorothy—like others in this story, this is not her real name—lives with her six-year-old daughter Nancy and her two attack-trained German shepherds, Rex and Arnie, in a small cottage about a half-mile from the center of town. She is a quiet woman in her early thirties who works as a freelance artist; before she moved to Giddings, she lived in Bowling Green, Kentucky, where she had been an art instructor in the city’s public school system.

We’re sitting in the living room, drinking coffee as I conduct the interview. She raises her eyes toward the ceiling; I look up, and for the first time notice the fisheye camera lens positioned in the center of the ceiling, a red LED lamp glowing next to the lens. “It’s on all the time,” she says, “and there’s one in each room except the bath. Plus the two cameras outside . . . one out front by the driveway, one in the backyard near Nancy’s swingset.”

Dorothy has been divorced for the past three years; like many of Giddings’ abductees, her spouse wrote her off as hopelessly deranged when she began talking about aliens from space kidnapping her. She now has a boyfriend, an art student from Boston who visits her on the weekends. “When we want a little privacy,” she says, smiling and blushing a little. “I tape over the lens in the bedroom. No sense in giving the guys at the mill a free show, after all.”

The smile fades. “But the tape comes off after nightfall, and I don’t care how Alec feels about it.” She raises the front of her cotton-print smock; just below her sternum is a small vertical scar. “This is what they left behind after they took me,” she says quietly. “I don’t want that to happen again.”

The near-total lack of privacy in her own home doesn’t bother her, no more than the plastic bracelets she and her daughter wear around their wrists. The bracelets contain microtransmitters which relay, via the town’s cellular radio network, their whereabouts in Giddings. When Dorothy goes shopping at the grocery, the watchers at the mill know she’s there. If Nancy takes the dogs for a walk in the woods, the mill is constantly tracking her. The signals extend only as far as the town limits, but this doesn’t bother Dorothy; she seldom leaves Giddings, and even then only for a few hours . . . and never overnight.

“I spent at least six hours in an alien spaceship in orbit above Earth,” she says, quite seriously and without the slightest trace of dementia. “Those were the most terrifying hours of my life. They stripped me naked, took my blood, put. . . things into me.” She looks away, falling silent for a few moments. “They raped me,” she continues, more quietly now. “I never want to go through that again, and I want to keep my daughter safe from them. That’s why we’re here. Compared to what could happen . . . well, who cares about a few TV cameras?”

In a spare bedroom is her studio. Most of the incomplete paintings on easels or stacked against the walls are of New England landscapes; she sells them through an agent to hotel chains, for display in lobbies and guest rooms. Several of her oil paintings, though, depict her memories of her ordeal from her point of view. A flying saucer landing in a Kentucky farmfield. An indistinct group of bulbous-headed, wasp-waisted ETs marching down a gangway. A similar alien looming over her examination couch, a sharp surgical probe in its six-fingered hand. A view of Earth as seen through the windows of a spacecraft in high orbit above the planet.

Are these her private paintings? “No,” she says. “At first they were, but when my agent saw them, she insisted that I publish them.”

UFO publications? The covers of books about alien abductions? “Oh, no,” Dorothy says. “Most of them are sent overseas. We’ve got a steady market in England for the covers of science fiction magazines.” She smiles proudly. “And they love my stuff in France. I’ve had two gallery showings in Paris. I’m almost as big as Mickey Rourke over there.”

Hidden behind the mill, encircled by a ten foot chain-mesh fence topped with rolls of razorwire, is a large geodesic dome. The dome contains Giddings’ SHF 15-GHz anti-aircraft radar system which constantly scans the airspace above the town; the system was procured from the U.S. Navy by the Astra Trust through Number One’s defense contacts.

Not far from the edge of town is a small helicopter pad, where a French Aerospatiale SA 642 Gazelle is kept for use by the mill’s security force. Two pilots and an observer live in a small house near the helipad. The mill’s watchers are always watching the skies over Giddings; they’ve got the schedules for the commercial airliners that regularly fly over the town, so they’ve learned to ignore certain high-altitude blips on their screens. When they spot something on radar—particularly any erratic motion from an object that is larger than a duck or doesn’t have the V-shaped profile of a flight of migrating Canadian geese—the pilots are called and whoever is on duty quickly takes the Gazelle up for a look.

“I never see anything,” says Juan Torres, the former Brazilian Air Force captain who is one of the pilots for “Air Astra.” He stands next to his aircraft, looking suave with his aviator shades and bandito mustache. “Small planes most times. Lots of stray goose . . . ah, geese. One time an ultralight. Scared the sheet out of him, never come back. But never any flying saucer. Not once. Si?”

What would he do if he ever spotted one? Juan crooks his finger toward me, then leads me to the open side door of the Gazelle. He pulls aside a canvas tarp, revealing a pintle-mounted 7.62 mm machine gun. Two outriggers on either side of the fuselage carry four SA-7 air-to-air missiles.

“Hey, you meet any leetle green hombres, you tell ’em to come this way,” he says, patting the top of the gun fondly. “Me and Pedro here, we’ll really fok ’em up.”

Ray Bonette greets me at the door of his log cabin with a loaded Smith & Wesson .357 revolver in his hand. He stares at me with undisguised suspicion as I identify myself, then he demands that I present my credentials. Even after I do so, Ray is still wary and hostile. Before he allows me into his house, he demands that I remove my coat, shirt, and tie.

I reluctantly strip on his front porch. It’s straight-up noon; songbirds warble in the dense pines surrounding his cabin, a passenger jet moans across the blue sky. When my shirt is off, Ray tells me to raise my arms above my head and slowly turn around. As I do so, he carefully studies my back and chest; he glares at the appendectomy scar near my stomach but says nothing.

“Okay, you’re clean,” he mutters. “Get dressed.”

Ray Bonette is a heavyset man in his mid-fifties. His hair is crew-cut and is as white as his beard; he wears baggy trousers that haven’t been washed in weeks and a mottled white T-shirt. He refused to tell me much about his past. He used to live in California. He was once a master electrician. He has a wife—present tense—but she’s “gone now.” Ditto for two kids. That’s it; the only thing he wants to publically disclose is the size of his arsenal.

The cabin has four rooms, and in each room are loaded weapons. There’s an Ingram MAC-10 on the coffee table in the den, a Beretta 87BB on one of the end tables next to the couch, a Colt King Cobra on the kitchen table and a Heckler and Koch HK-93 assault rifle on the counter next to the stove. Colt revolvers are on the bedside tables in both master bedroom and the guest room, each with spare rounds at ready. There’s a night-sighted crossbow next to the back door, a Glock 20 beneath the pillow of his bed, and an AR-15 rifle resting in the comer next to the toilet in the bathroom.

If that’s not enough, he also hints that the property line has been booby-trapped with explosives. “I got Claymores out in the bushes,” he says, “so don’t let me catch you out here in the middle of the night.” He doesn’t go into detail.

Having quickly shown me around the house, he shows me the door, still refusing to be interviewed. After he shoves me out onto the porch, though, he gives me one last pearl of wisdom.

“Tell that bitch Marilyn I’m ready for her and her little friends,” he snarls at me. “Tell her that I still love God and America and Joe DiMaggio.”

Then he slams the door in my face.

Charlie DuPont has been a New Hampshire resident for the past twenty-four years and has lived in Giddings for the past three. A native of South Carolina, he first came to New England as a student at Dartmouth in the 60s, but dropped out after his sophomore year to bum around the state before finally settling in Giddings, where he opened MovieMania, the latest of a long string of self-employed enterprises.

Charlie wears his hair long and lives the vegetarian, easy-vibes lifestyle of an unreformed hippie entrepreneur, yet he is one of the minority in Giddings who haven’t yet been kidnapped by a UFO. “Lemme put it to you this way,” he says, sipping a bottle of Evian water as he files away the videotapes which were returned to his store’s overnight drop box. “I believe in Jesus. I believe in karma. I believe that Jack and Bobby Kennedy were killed by the CIA and that James Earl Ray didn’t act alone. I believe that marijuana should be legalized. I believe that women are superior to men and are better in bed besides.”

He sighs and shakes his head. “But I don’t believe in flying saucers, and I think all these people are up to their eyeballs in donkey flop.”

Charlie had opened his video shop in Giddings less than a month before he gradually became aware that most of his regular customers were heavily into UFOs He first discovered this when he began to get requests for obscure documentaries about the UFO phenomena, often for purchase despite the hefty prices such tapes commanded. It wasn’t long before Charlie realized, through small talk with of the customers, that they believed that they had once gone cruising for burgers in UFOs.

“I guess, because the way I look and act, these people think I’m into all that shit,” Charlie says. “What they don’t know is that I’ve heard it all before. Yeah, when I used to drop acid, I sorta thought all that stuff was real, too, but I’ve been straight for a long time now, and since I got off drugs, none of that Eric von Daneken shit makes sense to me.”

He cocks his thumb over his shoulder, toward the town square beyond the windows of his store. ‘This place, man . . . it’s Weird Central Station. These people look straight, act straight. Most of ’em wouldn’t know an acid tab if you put it in their hand. Y’know, half of them are Republicans. They helped keep Reagan in the White House for eight years and voted for Bush twice. Twice, for Chrissakes!”

His eyes roll up. “And they think they went for rides in flying saucers. They come in here, show me their funny-looking scars and tell me long stories about big-headed guys lurking outside the bedroom windows. Hey, I voted for Jerry Brown in the last primary and I don’t believe that shit.”

He pauses to open a cardboard carton of videotapes he has just received via UPS from his distributor. Not surprisingly, it contains five more copies of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, all special orders from his customers. Now that the video has been marked down, everyone in Giddings wants their own copy. Meanwhile, he has copies of Europa, Europa and The Player he can’t rent or sell for love or money.

“I like these people, y’know,” he grumbles as he unpacks the tapes. “They’re nice and polite, they always rewind their tapes and pony up the late fees . . . but, shit, if I ever meet Steven Spielberg, I’m gonna rip out his lungs for making this goddamn movie.”

“Tonight’s quiet, least so far,” Libby Reynolds says as she slowly cruises along the deserted back roads behind the wheel of one of the security trucks. “But we’ve got a full moon, the fog is up . . . you never know.”

Libby is wearing the light blue uniform of the Astra Trust’s six-person private security squad. A former New York City cop, she left the city in search of a more quiet job in the country, never dreaming that she would be handling graveyard shift on what her team calls the “Spock Patrol”: handling nocturnal sightings—or perhaps more accurately, “hearings”—from Giddings residents.

A thin haze has drifted off the river and into the lowlands, enveloping the road and the surrounding woods in a smoky mask. The police-band radio beneath the dashboard of the Ford Explorer chatters with crosstalk from nearby towns like Dublin and Peterborough, but Libby has it turned down low. Her job is to listen for the occasional calls sent from the mill on the cellular transceiver. This autumn night, she hasn’t gotten any calls, but there’s always the possibility that something might happen.

Libby slows down and stops in front of a gravel driveway. The name “G.W. Norton” is spelled in reflective tape across the mailbox; the ranchhouse at the end of the drive is clearly visible from the spotlights that surround it on all sides. Even at two o’clock in the morning, light glows from all the windows. Libby taps her car horn twice, then shifts the Explorer back into first gear and moves on.

“Once, twice, sometimes three times a week, that guy calls and tells us that aliens are in his yard.” She shakes her head. “If raccoons are going through his garbage cans, they’re aliens. If our own chopper flies over the house, it’s a UFO. Last winter we had a nor’easter and the town lost electricity . . . happens out here now and then. He thought it was a flying saucer, and when someone from the squad came out here to calm him down, he nearly blew his butt off with a shotgun.”

Libby glances at me, smiling in the wan light of her dashboard. “Why did I toot the horn? Because he stays up all night with that Remington in his lap, and I want him to know it’s me and not E.T.”

Nonetheless, Libby Reynolds believes in UFOs, although she has never seen one while living in Giddings. “It’s crazy,” she says, “but I know what fear is like. When I worked out of precinct house in the boros, I used to deal with all sorts of stuff. Crack gangs, drive-by shootings, wackos with knives in their teeth . . . hey, I once opened a garbage can and found a dismembered body stuffed inside. The people who lived on my old beat in Harlem were too scared to run out even when their building was on fire . . .”

She stops to listen to the mill radio for a moment, then she picks up the handmike. “Ten-four, that’s a twelve-fifty-six. Just went by there. Don’t worry about it. Twelve Ben Gay out.” She double-clicks the mike before she shoves it back into the holster. “Norton just called again. Thought we were the men in black or whatever.”

Libby pauses to recollect her train of thought. “I see the same thing here,” she says after a moment. “People here are scared of something, and it’s not always just bears or the wind or whatever. I try to take it with a grain of salt, but . . .”

Her voice trails off and she is quiet for a few moments. “I dunno,” she finally says. “You tell me. Can all these folks be nuts or what?”

Jim and Betsy Donahue live in one of the larger houses in town, a two-hundred-year-old farmhouse on thirty acres of land near a bend in the Contoocook River. Even before he left his position as a municipal stock analyst for a Chicago brokerage at age 65, they had considered retirement in New England; in fact, they had previously looked at places elsewhere in the Hillsborough and Chesire counties not far from Giddings. Their relocation to rural New England, therefore, was not wholly unanticipated; only the circumstances are different.

The Donahues’ retirement home is a big, sprawling house with oak beams across the downstairs ceilings and Indian shutters on the windows. The rooms are furnished with antiques, the four-poster bed is covered with a handmade quilt, the kitchen walls are decorated with old iron skillets and cat’s tails. The mantel over the fieldstone fireplace holds framed photos of their children and grandchildren, and the shelves in the basement are stocked with Ball jars containing Betsy’s homemade preserves. And there’s a spaceship out in the backyard.

Jim Donnahue’s flying saucer is a full-scale replica of the UFO which he and Betsy visited in 1981, while they were driving back to Chicago from a vacation in Minnesota. Unlike most abductees, however, neither he nor Betsy experienced the “missing time” syndrome, nor did the aliens who unforcibly took them aboard their spacecraft subject them to painful physical examinations. As a result, both have vivid recollections of the encounter which later enabled Jim to rebuild the shapeship in precise detail.

The UFO is about thirty feet tall and nearly sixty feet in diameter. It’s shaped like an upside-down bowl with a round pillbox on top, and it stands on six wide flanges which fold down from the flat bottom of the hull. There are no windows in the hull. Five red-tinted glass hemispheres arranged along the bottom of the ship between the landing gear hint at the mysterious antigravity drive which enabled the vessel to silently land on the lonely highway in front of their car almost thirteen years ago.

The pseudo-UFO looks as if it is made of burnished aluminum, but that’s an illusion produced by Jim and Betsy’s skillful use of silver enamel paint. Their reproduction is constructed almost entirely out of particle board, with various pieces of scrap metal salvaged from junkyards and electronics purchased from the Radio Shack in Peterborough. Electrical lines snake across the yard to a small port beneath the hull. Jim belonged to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers during World War II and built his first house after the war; his carpentry talents have lent themselves to making a do-it-yourself UFO.

“I did this to convince people what Betsy and I saw was real,” Jim says as he leads me up a recessed ladder in one of the flanges to a trapdoor beneath the saucer. “We were fortunate in that we were invited aboard, not kidnapped like most of the others here in town. Because of this, we figure that the aliens wanted us to spread the word of their presence.”

The trapdoor leads to a small anteroom in the center of the ship. After Jim clicks a couple of toggle switches next to the trapdoor which turn on the ceiling fluorescents—“They weren’t there, I just put ’em in so you could see everything”—he points out the hatches on each of the four walls. Although in the real saucer they slid open automatically, he has been unable to reproduce the same effect. He has to push open the hatch which leads into the main control room: the cockpit, as he calls it.

The room is wedge-shaped, with a single wingbacked chair positioned in front of a wraparound console. “Notice the chair,” he says. “It’s short, isn’t it? That’s because the tallest of them was only four feet in height . . . but they were still humanoid in shape.”

Jim gently settles down in it; the chair creaks under his weight. “See? The armrests are right where they’re supposed to be.”

The chair isn’t what immediately attracts my attention. The console controls are evenly laid out and consist mainly of large round buttons, spaced apart from each other in unlabeled rows; I count no more than sixty in all. There are three nonfunctional TV monitors on the wall above the console, a panel of lights near the ceiling, and enough empty floor space behind the command chair to contain a pool table.

Contrast this with the flight deck of a NASA space shuttle—four seats, myriad control panels with dozens of tiny toggle switches jammed into every available space, two computer keyboards, and a half-dozen CRT displays, and in a craft capable of only flying to low-Earth orbit—and one comes to the realization that the aliens must have very advanced technology indeed.

Jim stands up and leads me through another hatch into the adjacent compartment. “This is the monitor room,” he says. “It’s where Betsy and I were shown Earth. By now, of course, we were in orbit above the Moon.”

This compartment has a wall-sized TV screen, a couple of big-buttoned control panels on the walls, and little more. I press one of the buttons experimentally; nothing happens, but Jim is quick to give me an all-encompassing explanation. “They only had four fingers on each hand,” he says. He holds up his right hand, his little finger crooked into his palm. “Like this. So they couldn’t handle things the same as we do.”

The next hatch leads to what he calls the “hibernation chamber.” There are few more panels in this compartment, but the floor is dominated by three daises, each surrounded by Plexiglass tubes. Jim launches into a long-winded treatise on how the tubes each contained the bodies of aliens who were being held in suspended animation, but by now a small memory which has been tugging at the back of my mind comes to focus.

“Excuse me, Mr. Donahue,” I say softly, and he instantly falls silent, awaiting my next question. I pause reluctantly, shuffling my notebook in my hands. “But . . . did you ever see an old TV show called The Invaders?”

Jim stares as me, not saying anything. “A show back in the 60s? With Roy Thinnes?” I add, and his face darkens. He slowly shakes his head. “About alien invaders from space?” His hands are clenched into small, tight fists as his body begins to tremble. “I don’t mean to imply anything,” I continue, “but everything you’ve shown me . . . this entire ship . . . looks like the flying saucers they used in . . .”

“Get out,” he rasps, glaring at me.

“Umm . . . excuse me?”

“You heard me.” He speaks in a low, barely controlled voice as he wrestles with his suppressed rage. “You son of a bitch, get out of here. Right now.”

There’s little more to be said between us. I leave him alone in his UFO, finding my way through another hatch into the central anteroom. As I climb down the ladder and start to walk away from the UFO, Betsy is walking into the backyard, carrying a pewter tray laden with a pitcher of iced tea and three tall glasses. She looks confused as I make a lame excuse for my hasty exit, then her face falls into a disapproving look.

“Oh, no,” she says. “You didn’t mention Quinn Martin Productions, did you?”

“Ummm . . . no, ma’am. All I did was mention an old TV show called . . .”

“The Invaders. Oh, dear. You didn’t know.” She tsks. “They swiped the whole idea from us. We didn’t earn a dime from them. Didn’t Jim tell you about that?”

I gently remind her that The Invaders was a show on ABC in the mid-sixties; by their own account, the Donahues didn’t encounter a UFO until almost fifteen years later. Betsy Donahue brushes this aside with a motherly look of condescension. “Young man,” she says sternly, “time means nothing where we’re concerned.”

She gazes up at the perfect blue sky over Giddings, her face becoming placid as she contemplates eternity itself. “Black holes,” she murmurs. “Don’t you know about them already? They bend everything, even time itself. The aliens told us this.”

For a few moments Betsy Donahue is caught in transcendental rapture, remembering alien voices which spoke to her long ago and far away. Through the open hatch of the UFO, I can hear her husband shouting curses, hurling things about. Something crashes as if it has been thrown against a bulkhead, but this doesn’t seem to register upon her beatitude.

She looks back down from the sky, gradually focusing on me again, her smile as sweet as the sugar cubes on her pewter platter.

“Now,” she says. “Are you sure you won’t stay for tea?”

Pulitzer Kills Publishing Maggot
by Mark Tiedemann

A 1988 Clarion Workshop graduate, Mark Tiedemann has sold stories to Jane Yolen, Asimov’s, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Universe 2 and Tomorrow SF.

He writes: “. . . I have never seen a UFO, been abducted by one, encountered Sasquatch, Nessie, or Elvis . . . and I feel pretty damn cheated!”

He does not say whether the following story in any way reflects his personal opinion of your humble editor.

“Rizzel!”

Rizzel looked up from his work station, across the bull pen, to the editor. Orber hulked in his doorway, his eyes yellowish slits. Pale blue smoke drifted around the old worm’s rings. Rizzel had rarely seen him so angry. A few others looked up and gave Rizzel sympathetic looks.

He scooped up the piece he had prepared two weeks earlier, giving the unsavory mess in his tray a dirty look. Orber had been pushing him hard for that one, but it simply would not gel. He dropped the other button into his pouch and headed for the editor’s cage.

Trella scooted across the floor from the other side of bull pen and met Rizzel at Orber’s door.

“Come in!” Orber boomed.

Trella gave Rizzel a brief unreadable look, then entered the glass cage and hustled up to Orber. Rizzel slid in and moved to the window.

He looked out on the hive. Beneath the thick shelf of the ancient volcano, thousands of burrow holes led into the heart of the city. His city, Rizzel considered, the city he intended—had intended—to claim someday as one of the hottest reporters in tablet news. Unfortunately, he was stuck under Orber, the oldest, most venerable purveyor in the medium, stout, astute, and showing no signs of becoming fodder for his own consumers.

“Finished the bit on the giant moss eaters, Chief,” Trella said and dropped three pieces on the desk. “And Burif says he’ll have the material on Council Leader Shtrulles’ affair with the barbarian arachnids from Fus-Fus Island first thing in the morning.”

“About time,” Orber grumbled. “I wanted that for the headliner. How about that delectable morsel on the threetailed hatchling in Zez Province? You know, that same brood that gave us the hatchling that looked just like Mount Ghisz last year?”

“Oh, Prons is on that. Looks like all the ingredients by the end of the week. Headliner for the weekend.”

A deep, satisfied vibration filled the office. Trella smiled at Rizzel.

“That’s all for now, Trella,” Orber said.

She quickly slid from the office, leaving the door open a crack. Rizzel felt a bubble of resentment float up and he closed the door all the way.

“Now she’s a reporter, Rizzel.”

Orber fondled the three morsels Trella had left. Each was a different shade of green. Suddenly he opened his wide mouth and popped them all in.

His eyes slammed shut, his mouth compressed until his entire pasty face was sucked into a huge pucker. One by one Rizzel heard each piece slide down Orber’s gullet and impact his stomach.

Orber’s color changed to a mild minty green. Slowly the smoke around him also altered, becoming wispier, bluer. His immense, many-ringed bulk shook gently, like a mound of jelly lightly tapped. Rizzel felt rather than heard the deep sound. He glanced out at Trella in her cubicle and felt a twinge of envy. Trella was good. Always a master epicurean of tablet news, she was all but Orber’s pet. At least, Rizzel thought, she isn’t twining with the old worm. He hoped not anyway.

A definitive belch brought Rizzel’s attention back. Orber’s eyes were pleasant slits.

“Now that’s news,” he said.

Orber closed his eyes once more and strained. A bubbling noise came from behind his desk. A tray on the floor beside it received a smooth dollop of brighter green. Orber sighed and pressed his intercom button.

“Copy!”

A few moments later old Kaso entered the office and, stooped and patient, scooped up the fresh material.

“Second tier,” Orber said, “right after the headliner.” Kaso nodded and left.

“Now, then, Rizzel. What’s happening with the vanity vendors’ strike?”

“Well, I haven’t finished that piece yet.”

“What? How long does it take?” Orber slithered up to the window and tapped it. “This is a difficult business, Rizzel. Business hell, it’s a mudpit! Journalism. Bad stuff. Our job is to take the unpalatable and chum out something the public can accept, something unique, new, but not so different they can’t chew it. What do we get to work with? Vanity vendor’s on strike. Tasteless. Citizens going around with their rings unadorned because there’s nowhere to go to cover it all up.” He grunted. “Might even be good for them to go around facing each other honestly for a change, showing their fellow creatures their true natures. I might even believe that myself,” He turned on Rizzel. “But it doesn’t matter what I believe! It’s my job to deliver regular helpings, to see to it they get what they want! How am I supposed to do that if my reporters don’t cough up the material on schedule?”

Rizzel backed away, wincing. “I just want to make sure my work is done right.”

“That’s my job! The day I let a reporter prepare his own work for public consumption is the day I roll over and die!” He eased back behind his desk. “I suppose you have an explanation?”

“I don’t have a good handle on it yet. There are parts of this that just don’t ring true.”

“Truth! I don’t care about truth, Rizzel! I want flavor, I want texture, I want calories! We’re looking for consumable, Rizzel, not verity!”

Rizzel pulled the piece from his pouch and dropped it on the desk.

“What’s this?” Orber asked.

“Something else I’ve been working on.”

“Spec work?”

“Sort of, sure—”

“It is or it isn’t.”

“Spec work.”

“Hm.” He picked up the piece. It was blue with lavender swirls. “What kind of spec is this?”

“I talked to Honorable Fanal at the Three P Institute.” Orber’s mouth wrinkled.

“Not more of that crap. The third planet is not newsworthy, Rizzel, how many times do I have to tell you that?”

“But—”

“They can’t do anything right there and our public is impatient with them! Hell, they finally got around to sending an envoy and when the damn thing arrived there wasn’t anybody on it! How dumb can you get? They forgot to put the ambassador on board what must have been a damned expensive ship!”

“But, sir, you heard what Three P said about that. It was never intended as an envoy, it was just—”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard but I didn’t swallow. That’s the difference between you and me, you’ll take in anything, indiscriminately.”

“I admit I have a lot to learn, but ..

“Of course you do. That’s why you’re here. You know, Rizzel, you could be good. Damn good. You’ve got the potential.” Orber flexed his mouth into a brief, caustic grin. “In a lot of ways you remind me of me. You know how I got my start, Rizzel? I uncovered the Joyride Plot.”

Rizzel started, surprised. “You’re kidding. You did that?” Orber settled back, self-satisfied and proud. “That was me. All those privileged spindleshafts enjoying the pleasures of terrorizing all those creatures on the third planet. Going down, scaring them with sudden appearances, sometimes abducting memories—not completely blocked, just enough to make them crazy after a while.”

He heaved forward, an angry slant to his eyes. “And they were hoarding it! Keeping it to themselves!” He chuckled. “Not after I finished my piece. Their monopoly crumbled. For a while there was a hell of an increase in joyriding, but it’s slacked off now. Thing is, the third planet’s just too damn boring. Those people have never caught on. And they call themselves intelligent.”

“They may be, only they’re preaware . . .”

“Pah! Preaware. That’s one of those trendy poplogisms you get from hanging around the Three P Institute. Meaningless.” He rolled Rizzel’s piece around on the desk. “So what exactly is this one about?”

Rizzel almost smiled. “Well . . . Honorable Fanal has been monitoring some of their media and discovered something interesting about them.” Rizzel waited till Orber grunted. “They give awards for it.”

Orber’s eyes slitted skeptically. “They do what?”

“They give awards. For the best in a given year. All kinds of awards. And they name them. Oscars, Emmys, Tonys—”

“Sound like people. Sort of.”

“Well, some of them are named after people. Dead people.”

“Oh? They have an award called an Elvis?”

“No, they still aren’t sure he’s dead.”

Orber chuckled. The glass rumbled sympathetically. Then he sobered. “Sounds absurd. If it’s good product, why award it? The award is in the reception by the public.”

“True, but the awards themselves become part of the media, a new form, and are consumed the same way the media being awarded is consumed.”

“Conspicuous.”

“I thought so.”

“So they recycle?”

“Seems so.”

Orber toyed with the little button on the desk before him. “Hard to swallow, Rizzel.”

Rizzel waited. Suddenly Orber popped the button into his mouth. Rizzel straightened anxiously. He couldn’t believe it. Now he just had to ride it out.

“Hmm,” Orber intoned. He frowned. “Interesting.” He closed his eyes for a few seconds, then they snapped open. Wide. Rizzel’s pulse raced. “My—oh, now wait—Rizzel!” Orber’s tail swung up to arc over his head. It twitched for a moment, then slammed back into the floor. Rizzel almost fell over from the shaking. Orber’s eyes were squeezed shut. He opened his mouth. Dark, blue-black smoke began to envelop his head.

“Ah! Ah! Ah!” He slammed his tail again. Rizzel made for the door.

“Sucksilt! How could you—”

Rizzel stopped and looked around. Orber’s eyes were wide and full of wonder. They were a vivid pink now and his skin was violet. Smoke filled the office.

The door opened. Trella peered in cautiously.

“What is it?”

Before Rizzel could answer, Orber leaned against his desk.

“It’s true,” he said quietly. “It’s true. It must be true.” He looked around at Rizzel. “Pulitzers . . .? To the reporters . . .?” He scowled, baffled. “No. . .”

Then his entire, huge body quivered. The tail began slamming in earnest, repeatedly, and Orber grunted painfully. The story was lodged in him, unwilling to come out either way, and it was poisoning his whole system. Rizzel watched the death throes with a twinge of regret.

A thick, wet sound followed the last beat of Orber’s tail. Rizzel glanced down at the tray behind the desk and saw an ooze of brilliant cobalt blue.

Then Orber keeled over and lay still.

“What did you feed him?” Trella asked, awed.

“Something he just couldn’t handle.” He moved around to the pallet. “But it looks like his last act was productive. What an editor.”

“Your story?” Trella asked. Others were crowding the door behind her, staring at Orber’s corpse.

Rizzel nodded.

“I guess that means you’re the new editor,” she said. “By tradition—”

“I know. I wish there was another way. But . . .” He looked up and frowned. “Okay, back to work. We’ve got a hungry public to feed!”

“Congratulations,” Trella said. “And if there’s anything I can do for you . . .”

Rizzel smiled. “We’ll talk about it later. Thank you.”

Trella closed the door behind her. Rizzel pushed Orber’s body aside and pulled the desk back into place. He made a note to contact Honorable Fanal at Three P later. The material he had gotten from him was just right. It might, with the proper preparation, really make his career. All it required was—what did they call it on the third planet?—the proper spin.

He picked up the pallet containing the last effort of a once great editor. Orber deserved some memorialization. This would have to do. Rizzel stabbed the button on the intercom.

“Copy!”

Elvis at the White House
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

When I asked Kristine Kathryn Rusch the loaded question, “Tell me a little about yourself,” she went and gone and did: “Kristine Kathryn Rusch was assigned three names as a penance for smarting off one too many times in class. She also had to write on the blackboard lots which translated into a writing career, with ten novels sold to date (the most recent, Facade, features dead birds, actors, and cocaine). She has never seen Elvis, although she did have a ticket for his final concert in 1977.”

See where smarting off in class can get you, kiddies?

The gray Atlanta skyline had traces of red, left over from the unrest started by those short-sighted jurors in Simi Valley, California. I leaned against my office window, feet aching in my new low pumps, cup of coffee in my left hand. The digital clock on the bank across the street read 10:30 A.M., and eighty degrees. The first truly hot day of the season was upon us.

I never did understand how my momma could drink coffee in the heat, with the humidity dripping out of the air like a live thing. But I started with the coffee habit during those last few months in Louisiana, and it wasn’t one I was going to break.

A mound of paperwork waited on my mahogany desk, and three messages blinked red on my answering machine. I wasn’t up to clients that morning, especially the wackos a psychic investigations office could attract. I had come to Atlanta a few weeks before, figuring I would be safe here. The riots reassured me, unlike the rest of the country, that I was in a big modem city with big modem concerns. My business would drop off to the kind of business it should have been: a few difficult police cases, and a few true believers. I had no stomach for the nutcases, which was why I left Louisiana in the first place.

Atlanta, now. Atlanta’s ghosts were buried under steel and concrete, laid to rest by CNN, Coca Cola, and the most conference-friendly hotels in the entire country. Business heaven, where no one had the time to reflect on those niggly nightmares, those awful feelings.

No one but me.

A knock on the door almost made me spill the coffee on the blouse of my new tailored blue business suit. I slid behind my desk. I pushed some papers aside, and said, “Come on in,” with the most demure voice I could manage.

The door opened, revealing the sexiest six-foot hunk of male I’d seen since I’d left the bayous. “Chelsea LaFronde?” he said with an accent as soft and lilting as my own.

Right then I knew I was in trouble. The problem with these Southern boys was that they believed. Even if they never saw a spirit on their own, even if they never dreamed, even if no one in the family ever had a feeling that came true, these boys knew such things were possible. And they wanted results.

Problem was, the last time I encountered one of these boys, he claimed he was the reincarnation of John E Kennedy, and he had a secret to impart. That so? I said. Yep, he replied and leaned forward with the secret.

I was murdered, he said with all seriousness.

Tell me something I don’t know, I replied, and lost the commission right there.

“You Chelsea LaFronde?” the hunk repeated. I had no idea how long he had waited while I was lost in the memory of the murdered JFK clone.

“Yessir,” I said, resisting the urge to stand up to my full height. Not that it would have done any good. Five-two in low slung pumps is no match for six foot any day. “You were expecting someone different?”

He grinned and shook his head, a lock of black hair falling along his forehead. My heart started pounding—and not with fear. He reminded me of someone. “My Granny had a bit of the touch, too,” he said. “So I was trying not to expect anything at all.”

The touch. That put him right in the Alabama, Tennessee, Louisiana circle. I suppressed a sigh. I had a bit of the touch, too. Not enough to read someone on sight, like my Momma did, and too much to ignore it all together. We got a service to perform, Momma always said. It’s our duty so we can keep the gift.

I always wanted to give it back, but then, that was me. “What can I do for you, Mr—?”

“Neville,” he said, as if the name didn’t come out of his mouth that often. “Vernon Neville.”

“What name do you usually use?”

He looked down. A blush stained those high cheekbones. “Presley,” he mumbled. “I’m an impersonator.”

That was when it all fell into place. The cocky walk, the come-hither smile, those luscious eyes, and that unruly shock of black hair. Elvis. Not the old fat one who couldn’t remember lyrics on stage, but the gorgeous one—the one that caused me to subsidize the United States Post Office to the tune of $285, so that my fifteen hundred votes would guarantee his picture on the all-important Elvis stamp. I owed him. That sexy voice oozing out of my family’s black-and-white TV screen during a rerun of Love Me Tender made me cream my jeans for the very first time.

“Looks like you do pretty well, Mr. Neville,” I said, trying to remain professional. That young Elvis was my secret vice. I had all his movies on tape. Whenever the world got too much, I watched them in a darkened living room while I shoved chocolates in my face. I always thought I could forgo the chocolates. “What can I do for you?”

The flush still tinged his cheeks red. “My granny’s been dead going on ten years,” he said. “Last night, she came to me in a dream and said I’d better get some help with this.” I sighed. When someone with the touch spoke through a dream, it was usually worth listening to. “Help with what, Mr. Neville?”

“A murder.” He was examining his hands as if he had never seen them before. “You see, Elvis’s been telling me—

I stood up. I had heard enough. I thought I would get away from these kinds of crazies in Atlanta. “Elvis Presley was not murdered. I investigated it for the Elvis Presley Fan Club from St. Louis, Missouri, and all the reports are in order. He was fat, he was a drug addict, and he died facedown in his own puke in one of the ritziest bathrooms I’ve ever seen. Now, get out of my office.”

He put his hands up and slid his chair back as if he thought I was going to launch myself across the desk at him. “I know how he died—”

I slipped off my shoes to prepare myself before I used some of those fako karate moves I had learned in my women’s self-defense class.

“—and I know it was his own fault—”

I placed my hands on my desk to steady myself. The adrenaline was reaching an all-time high.

“—but that’s not why I’m here.”

“Glory Hallelujah, Mr. Neville, because if it was, you wouldn’t last another five minutes in this office.” I sat down, trying to retain some of my dignity. I had written three books on psychic investigation, and ever since my successful solution to the Bayou Bomber case two years before, I could be choosy about my clients.

“I thought you believed in this stuff,” he said.

“Elvis has been appearing to too many people lately.”

“Elvis has been with me since I was seven years old, Ms. LaFronde.” He got up and turned his back on me, as if the conversation was becoming too much to bear. “I’ll never forget that day in August, 1977. The rest of the country wore black, and I was happy because this guy said he would stay with me for the rest of my life if I wanted, and make me rich and famous. My Granny said he just walked right in, and took over, but he didn’t really. He always advises, never acts. I just listen to him a lot. He says he made too many mistakes to be entrusted with another life.”

The problem with having a bit of the touch was that I could tell when people believed what they were saying. And Vernon Neville, handsome hunk of human male that he was, believed every word.

“So what is Elvis telling you these days?”

He threw me a dark, hurt look over his shoulder. “No need to be snide, Ms. LaFronde.”

“Sorry,” I said. Too many wackos came to me about Elvis. I couldn’t take him seriously any more. I took a deep breath and kept my shoes off. If he mentioned Marilyn Monroe, John F. Kennedy, or Adolf Hitler, I would show him to the door. “Why are you here?”

“There’s a little boy in Dallas, Texas. Elvis says he’s going to be murdered.”

He found the best way to yank my heartstrings: talk about kids and death. Maybe it had to do with that day almost a decade before when I was living in Southern Louisiana and doing fortunes out of my home because Jesse was too little to carry on cases. The day my precious baby boy turned blue and stopped breathing just like the visions warned me he would do. And nothing the doctors did ever got that breathing started again. Of course, my husband blamed me, and so did the family, and so did I, more than a little. I vowed to pay attention to that touch and use it in all seriousness right then and there. Which was why the crazies bothered me more than most. They didn’t understand just how important all of this could be.

“Where in Dallas?” I asked.

“Don’t know,” he said.

“How?”

“Don’t know that either.”

“When?”

“Ma’am, if I knew the answers to all those questions, I wouldn’t need you, now would I?”

He had a point, one I wasn’t sure I wanted to investigate. “How does Elvis know about this?”

He shrugged. “I guess the kid’s grandma was a big fan. He gets special knowledge about fans sometimes.” He gripped the back of the chair, and gave me the sultry I-could-seduce-you-in-a-minute look. “Usually Elvis tells me where to perform, what to wear, and how much pelvis to shake. He stays away from my business affairs, and he never talks about family. This is the first time anything like this has happened.”

To him, maybe, but not to me. A little old lady in Manhattan came to me one afternoon, all embarrassed because her upscale religion didn’t prepare her for visions of her dead husband in his underwear, warning her that some teenage hooker in Chicago was going to die, and it was in her best interest to stop the murder. We did, and she paid me a king’s ransom for keeping her name out of the papers when the hooker spilled all she knew about the local mob boss who had been trying to kill her. The hooker went away rich, I made a nice commission, the papers took a heavy bribe, and no one connected that mob boss to the husband’s business fronts all up and down Second Avenue.

“All right,” I said, finally getting serious. “You need to tell me everything you know.”

Dallas was a lot like Atlanta, only worse. The concrete stretched for miles over land that looked like it didn’t have a history, even though it did. I didn’t like it. The psychic vibrations were powerful and bad. I wagered the number of crazies who came here on a pilgrimage to JFK’s death site made the number of crazies in New York look like a meeting of Shakers.

I brought Vernon with me. He had the room next to mine in a big corporate hotel that had rooms twice the size of those in Atlanta. Dallas amazed me the more I drove in it. Somehow, I never expected Ross Perot country to be Strip Mall Ville U.S.A.

Vernon thought he was along to see if Elvis would give us any more guidance. I figured he was along to protect me from embarrassment. If the press got wind of this, and it turned out to be wrong, I had no qualms about throwing Vernon to the wolves.

What are Elvis impersonators for, anyway, except to take up all that loathing that humanity had lying around, and bear it like a cross on the road to Calgary?

Once we got there, though, I found I spent more of my time trying not to think about the lock on the door separating our rooms. Vernon imparted flashes of wisdom about the boy, wisdom Elvis would suddenly “remember.”

The boy lived out near the airport, in a part of Dallas I never could keep straight. Was it Dallas, Fort Worth, or one of those odd little towns that blended into other little towns that made up the concrete megalopolis that stretched as far as the eye could see? It didn’t really matter since we weren’t going to mail the kid anything. We hadn’t even decided on a plan. Vernon’s information was that vague.

And Elvis wouldn’t give, unless he thought I really needed to know.

Vernon said that was because Elvis didn’t like me. What a blow to my teenage soul! He said Elvis thought I was too loud and too rude to be a lady. I wondered if he’d seen Priscilla in Naked Gun, but decided silence was the better part of valor.

Besides, he probably would have blamed her transformation on that tennis pro or yoga instructor or whoever it was she ran off with.

All we knew was that by the first of June, that kid would be toast. The kind I make. Burnt and smoking.

Vernon just wanted to knock on the door, and inform the kid, I could imagine it. Excuse us, but we ’re from LaFronde Psychic Investigations, and Elvis told us you ’re going to die by June unless you listen to everything we have to say. That would go over big. I’m sure he’d march right out of that house, into our car, and off to protective custody.

Elvis would dish out information like pennies on allowance day. He finally told us that the kid’s name was E.P. White, and he lived with his grandmother in a two-bedroom house that had stood on that spot since the mid-1950s. I did the rest of the legwork. E.P. was a good student who played six instruments and sang too loudly for his choir teacher’s satisfaction. (“And he has a jukebox slide,” the teacher told me later as if it were original sin. “Just kinda falls into the notes. No discipline at all.”)

No discipline, and no enemies. Most of the kids he went to class with had no idea he was there. Only a few of the girls noticed him—and they didn’t look at his face. Seems that twelve-year-old E.P. White was unusually well endowed. Puberty came early to boys living beneath the fumes of 747s.

Vernon was doing a number on Granny. They met in a bar, and he said he could have brought her home the first night. I didn’t like her irresponsibility—imagine leaving a kid who was about to be murdered home alone—but Vernon said she couldn’t be expected to know everything.

I hated the way he was defending her, and I hadn’t even met her yet.

At that point, we hit a dead end. I was beginning to wonder why I took the case—I hated Dallas and the lock on the door between our rooms remained bolted tight. Vernon spent most of his evenings with Granny, and I spent too many alone in my car, watching E.P. make peanut butter mash for dinner, study six dull sitcoms, and crawl into bed.

At least Vernon would drop Granny off at a reasonable hour. I would have hated to watch a dark house past midnight, especially when I might miss the sound of squeaking bedsprings from the room next to mine.

Vernon had said there were perks to being an Elvis impersonator. I just didn’t expect humping grandmas to be one of them.

It all changed the night of the concert. It was like the Lord stepped down from Heaven and gave me a vision, a sign—or maybe Elvis was speaking to me, and I just didn’t know it.

E.P. was performing in the all-school year-end concert. Granny had asked Vernon to go with her, and I trailed along like a dutiful bodyguard, three paces behind and five rows up.

The concert was in a big gymnasium that smelled like dirty sweatsocks and was filled with oversized people hunching on bleachers built for children. A good handful of the men looked like overage Elvises. I shook my head. This case was getting to me.

Sam Hill Elementary had quite a music program. Each kid had the chance to perform in at least one choir, one orchestra, and one band. Most students, deserving or not, were given solos. The concert started at six-thirty, and about an hour-and-a-half into it, I realized my eardrums would never be the same. I was beginning to like the discordant sound of youthful voices warbling one-quarter step off-key.

Then the school’s pride and joy came out. The big kids. The sixth graders, all muscle and toughness, filled with knowledge that they were the best.

Which, in this group, was not saying much.

They climbed on the risers and the teacher ducked behind the piano, playing a rousing medley of late fifties-early sixties hits, and directing with her head. A few kids bounced off the bleachers to attempt solos: One boy did a lousy “Rock Around the Clock”—he couldn’t decide if he was supposed to be Bill Haley or Richie Cunningham. A little blonde girl, wearing too much makeup, pouted her way through “It’s My Party,” and then the piece de resistance:

E.P., singing “You Ain’t Nothing But A Hound Dog.”

And I knew why Elvis, the old dog, had been interested all along.

He hadn’t lied when he told Vernon he shouldn’t be entrusted with another life. He had a bunch of other lives, and he was manipulating them all to become the King again.

Either that, or E.P. White was one hell of a natural at pelvis grinding.

The kid finished, and the whole crowd was on its feet, shouting “El-vis! El-vis!” Even Vernon was standing, but he wasn’t clapping. He knew, same as I did, that E.P. didn’t stand for Ernest Paul, and that that kid was more of an Elvis clone at twelve than most impersonators were at twenty-nine.

I ran down the bleachers and grabbed Vernon’s hand. “We got to go,” I said.

Granny looked over at me, spots of pleasure on both cheeks slowly fading. Jane Fonda had taught too many women that fifty didn’t mean the end of beauty, and this woman had taken it all to heart.

I wanted to rip the red bow from the back of her long, silver-blonde hair.

“Where?” Vernon said.

“Backstage!” I shouted over the din. “Come on.”

He let me yank him up the bleachers, past the rows of shouting parents, and through the back door into the hallway. The air was cool here and smelled of dust. It was refreshing after smelling dirty sweat socks for the better part of the evening.

I scanned. The hallway was empty. To my left, stairs ran down to the first floor. “We’ve got to get backstage,” I said.

I started down the stairs. Vernon followed, his feet clumping on the tile. “Why?”

“Because tonight’s the night E.P.’s going to bite it.”

We had reached the main floor. Some parents in the hallway were smoking cigarettes. I ran around them to the huge double doors which had to lead to the back of the gymnasium.

“How do you know?” Vernon asked as I pulled open the door.

“See them?” I pointed to the men working their way down the bleachers to the wooden floor. None of them were wearing white lame jumpsuits, but none of them had to. The resemblance to Elvis hadn’t been coincidental. “The kid’s too talented. They’re going to kill him.”

“I was thinking of that myself,” Vernon mumbled.

I shot him a dirty look.

He held up his hands. “Just kidding.”

“You better be.” We crossed the wooden floor behind the performance shell. Granny saw us, got to her feet, and started waving. “Yoo-hoo!” she shouted. “Vernon!”

I grabbed his arm and yanked him through the wooden doors on the other end of the gymnasium. Kids milled in the back. E.P. stood near the outer doors, a cigarette dangling from his long thin fingers. I took the cigarette and stomped on it, then put my arm around his shoulders and pulled him outside.

“Hasn’t Elvis been warning you?” Vernon said as he followed us onto the concrete steps. In the flickering fluorescent light, I saw E.P.’s face go red. So Elvis was talking to him, the creep.

“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mister.”

“You’re just about the greatest Elvis impersonator who ever lived, you got the King inside you, and he’s been telling you you’re gonna die. Don’t you get it, boy? You’re not going to live if you don’t listen to him.”

“Jesus,” E.P. said to me. “You go out with this nutcase?”

“Actually,” I said, “Your grandmother does.”

Then the inside doors burst open and a horde of Elvis impersonators flooded the halls. Vernon picked up E.P. and we ran across the dew-covered grass. This was the point in all my other cases that I turned things over to the cops. I had no plan. I didn’t even know what a plan was.

“The car,” Vernon hissed.

Something zinged by us, then I heard a pop. “Jesus,” E.P. said. “They’ve got guns.”

“You threaten someone’s livelihood, they get a little pissed,” I said. Well, I actually didn’t say. I huffed each word as my breath got shorter and shorter.

We could have parked in a nearby parking lot, but no. We had to choose one clear across the street. Bullets pinged off the concrete beside us.

“Wish I had me a gun,” Vernon said in a deep, sexy voice that didn’t belong to him.

“Shut up, Elvis,” I snapped. “This isn’t a movie.”

We finally reached the car. A bullet smacked into the windshield, shattering the glass. Vernon threw E.P. in the back and I sat up front, a sitting duck, as I fumbled for my keys.

“Start the damn car,” Vernon said.

“You got the keys?”

“This isn’t the time to lose your keys.”

“Well, I didn’t plan on it.”

“How old is the car?” E.P. piped.

“It’s a rental. It’s new.”

“Damn. New ones are almost impossible to hot-wire.”

More bullets pinged against the sides. Good thing Elvis impersonators only killed people with song. If they had had any practice with those guns, we’d have been dead a long time ago.

I turned my pockets inside out and finally found the keys. I jammed them in the lock, put my foot on the accelerator, and started the car. It hopped over the parking bump like a little bird.

“Jesus, Chelsea, drive it. Don’t smash it up.” Vernon had peeked his head over the back seat.

“It’s a car chase, isn’t it? Aren’t cars supposed to get smashed up?” My hands were shaking. The impersonators were crossing the street. They were leaving me no choice but to mow them down.

Then the cavalry arrived. We heard them before we saw them, sirens echoing off in the distance, blue and red lights changing the pictures of the landscapes. The Elvises didn’t stop. They were too intent on us. They fired again, just as the first cop cars zoomed around the comer.

Sometimes the luck is with you.

Of course we didn’t tell the cops everything. They didn’t need to know about my touch or Vernon’s Elvis voice. We told them that Vernon had heard about this kid in Dallas who was really good from another impersonator who made it clear that the kid would die. Vernon called me and we came down together, to see how good the kid really was. And found ourselves in a nest of impersonator vipers.

Granny thought Vernon was the biggest hero she had ever seen. I thought I was going to puke.

The case ended when we went back to the White house. Granny went back to her bedroom to look for some Elvis memorabilia. Vernon started to join her when E.P. grabbed his arm.

“Elvis really talk to you?” E.P. said.

“He sure does, kid.”

“And he told you I was going to die.”

“Yep.”

“Doesn’t it seem kinda strange to you that he would have all that foreknowledge? Do you think he’s working with some of those impersonators that were there tonight?”

Vernon looked at me. I shrugged. “He never said a kind word to me,” I said. “How would I know?” Vernon sat at the table, a frown creasing his beautiful forehead. “I wonder how many people he’s suckering into this kind of life.”

E.P. nodded. “He’s been telling me it’s great, but I keep having visions of myself singing in smoky nightclubs for women who make my grandmother look old.”

“Your grandmother isn’t old, kid,” Vernon said.

I hit his shoulder. He wasn’t supposed to say that.

He glanced at me as if he hadn’t understood. “Well,” he said. “Sometimes it’s better than that. Sometimes you get to go to Vegas.”

“Great,” I said. “Where you can lose all the money you earn.”

“Sometimes,” Vernon said.

E.P. leaned back in the chair, tapping his finger against his lips. “You mean it’s not teenage girls screaming and fainting? Lots of sex and all the food you want?”

“Vernon!” Granny’s voice floated from the bedroom. She was doing girlish and cute. “I got something here you might like.”

“There’s sex,” I said.

Vernon blushed. He pushed away from the table and hurried down the hall.

“With Grandma?!?” E.P.’s mouth fell open. “Gross.”

“My take on it, E.P., is that if you want girls swooning over you, you’ve got to do it your way. Pretending to be someone else isn’t going to cut it for you.”

He got up and peered down the hall. A series of girlish giggles had ended in a moan. “No shit,” he said. “Come on, let’s get out of here—”

We left a note saying we’d be gone for a while. Good thing, too, since, over double fudge chocolate sundaes, E.P. convinced me to find an exorcist for him. The only one I knew was my Great-aunt Louisa in Louisiana, so we drove there, and she worked on him for two days. She finally got the chunk of Elvis out, bottled it, and sold it to the Elvis Presley Museum in Nashville for a hefty chunk of change. Seems some people will pay a fortune for even a whiff of Elvis.

I took E.P. back home to find that Granny and Vernon hadn’t even missed him. They had gone to Vegas to get married. E.P. assured me he’d be fine—seems Granny had done this before—and I caught the earliest flight back to Atlanta.

Where I sit now, behind my big mahogany desk, shoes off, feet sliding on the polish. Five lights blink on my machine, and I’m cradling a cup of coffee against my chest.

I really didn’t want Vernon. Permanently anyway. But it would have been kinda nice if he had snuck into my room at least once. I could have pretended he was Elvis and well, you know.

Except Elvis hated me. Elvis was probably the one who talked him out of it. When I got back to Atlanta, I immediately went to my apartment and threw out all those old Elvis movies. Chocolate would have to do. I was getting too old for that teenybopper stuff anyway. I had seen the future and it was Granny.

There’s a knock on my door. I take my feet off the desk, sit up, and invite the caller in. A slender, well made man in his early twenties shuffles through the door. “Ms. LaFronde?” he asks. If he had a hat, he would be twisting it between his fingers.

‘That’s me,” I say.

“I got a problem,” he says. “And I want you to tell me if I’m crazy.”

I suppress a sigh. Half the nuts in the world think I can diagnose better than their psychiatrist. “I’ll do what I can.” I lean forward sympathetically and indicate the chair.

He folds into it, still twisting that imaginary hat. “It’s Elvis,” he says. “I—I know you won’t believe this, but he ain’t dead. I know him personally.”

“So do I,” I say as I lean back. A psychic investigator never escapes her fate. “And isn’t he a disappointment? Those big stars are just never quite what they’re cracked up to be.”

The Number of the Beast
by Jeff Hecht

This one came in over the transom (which is a neat trick in a transomless suburban Colonial house) and I’m glad it did.

Jeff Hecht is the author often nonfiction books, numerous nonfiction articles, and has had about a dozen stories appear in places including Twilight Zone, Analog, and Robert Silverberg’s New Dimensions. He was also once misquoted in the Sunday Sport, a real British tabloid. He says he in fact does get calls from people with strange theories about bar codes. He’d better be ready to get more.

Run a laser magazine, and you get all kinds of crazy calls. The one that started it was from some guy in God-Knows-Where, Vermont. He’d seen something in my Raw Rumors & Random Data column about bar-coding jail inmates. Not with old-fashioned striped prison uniforms, but with little plastic bracelets with striped symbols like you see in the supermarket. They wanted to keep track of the inmates, just like a supermarket keeps track of its inventory. Makes sense.

This guy wanted to talk about another idea. Some hotshot security outfit was going to put the bar codes right on people, and use them for identification. None of this futuristic automatic reading of retinal patterns or fingerprints. If you wanted to get into a controlled area, you’d stick your right hand into the scanner, and it would read the bar code. If you were on the list, it would open the door and let you in. If you weren’t . . . well, he didn’t say what happened then.

Sounded interesting, so I took some notes. He said the technology came from Entrance Control Systems, a start-up out in Silicon Valley. I asked him if he knew how it worked.

“It’s all in your Bible, you know,” he assured me.

“What?” We publish an annual industry guide, but I’d never heard anybody take it that seriously before.

“The Book of Revelation. Where it says that people shall wear the number of the beast.”

“What?” This time a bit louder. He must have thought I was pretty dense.

“The bar codes. They’d all be wearing bar codes. And you know what’s hidden in the bar codes, don’t you?” He didn’t wait for me to reply. “Remember the blocking digits? The ones that aren’t printed as numbers, but define the start, the middle, and the end?”

“Yeah?” Clearly this guy knew something about bar codes. If you look very carefully at your typical can of soup, you’ll see that most bar codes have two groups of five numbers printed under them. On each end and between the two groups of digits are bars that are longer than the rest. Those are the blocking codes, which help the scanner orient itself, but don’t contain any data. Or so the techies tell me, anyway.

“Each one of those digits is a six!” he concluded, pouncing verbally. “So everyone with the code would be wearing Satan’s mark!”

The number of the beast, 666. I groaned to myself. Was this crackpot being visited upon me for my one venture into horror fiction? “Radio 666” had netted me a check for $23.36, which bounced, and two copies of what turned out to be a poorly printed amateur magazine. I wound the call down. I am always polite; the publisher regularly reminds us that anyone might someday become a potential advertiser.

At least the crackpot’s news tip panned out. Information found me the phone number for Entrance Control Systems in San Jose. Not only was the company real, but they were working on bar-code identification systems. Four bright young engineers had started the company about a year ago, after they were laid off from the nuclear weapons program when the Cold War fizzled out.

“We weren’t about to sell our souls to some third-world dictator who wanted to build bombs,” said one engineer, when the conference call was set up.

“It’s a good thing we didn’t. We had to sell them to the venture capitalists to get the company going,” added a second voice.

‘That’s why they called them vulture capitalists,” I kidded them.

As I listened, I could see those guys had some good ideas. Nobody wanted to use permanent visible tattoos; it looked too much like Nazi concentration camps. So they had developed special permanent infrared inks. They left the skin looking perfectly normal in visible light, but in infrared light the inks looked bright and shiny, while ordinary skin is dark. “At four microns, you couldn’t tell the grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan from Bill Cosby,” one engineer said. Our eyes don’t work at four microns, he added, so nobody would care if they stamped infrared bar codes right on people’s foreheads.

They gave me a pretty damn impressive sales pitch. I took notes furiously. They had a solvent which carried the ink so deep into the skin that the bar code would never wash or wear off. It could be painted on the right hand or the forehead in a minute, and no one would ever notice it. Once people were coded, all they had to do was wave their hand by a scanner, or show it their forehead, and the computer automatically identified them. No need to worry about leaving a badge in the wrong suit, forgetting a password, or losing a key.

They had lined up contracts with the feds and some big security companies. They had a prototype working at the government weapons lab which had laid them off. Everybody going into the lab was being coded. A computer kept track of who was authorized to be inside, and what areas they could enter. Monitors checked people going in and out. “Total security, based on infallible hard-coded symbols,” they boasted.

And they had more plans, all outlined in a five-year business strategy. They would sell bar-code readers for household security systems. Stick your hand into the reader, and it would identify you instantly. It would tell the homeowner if the guy in the gas company uniform really was the meter reader. The venture capitalists had a scheme to use bar-code readers for verification of checks and credit cards. They wanted to go big time; in five years, they told me, you would have to be bar-coded if you wanted to buy anything with a check or credit card.

They also mentioned that they would be looking for a manager of marketing communications in a couple of months. It was clear they were talking big bucks that you don’t get in the trade magazine business. Believe me, it was mighty tempting.

I was mighty proud of that story. We don’t do much reporting; we usually crib our new stories from press releases or the daily papers. But we had this before anybody else. I wrote a full-page story, to open the news section, with a full-color photo. And, just for laughs, I closed my Rumors column with the crackpot’s tale about the number of the beast. I turned the issue over to the production department and got on with the next one.

When you’re in the monthly magazine business, anything that’s in print on your desk is ancient history. So my mind was a million miles from bar codes when “John mumble, from a British newspaper” called early one morning, a couple of weeks after the issue came out. If I had been about two cups of coffee further into the morning, I would have asked him what newspaper, but I was too busy trying to cope with the morning and the mountain of mail in my IN basket.

He had seen my articles on bar codes. Turns out they clip just about every magazine that’s printed, looking for interesting stories. Mine were sitting in front of him. Could I tell him a bit more?

Sure, I talk faster than I think. Don’t we all? I went over the whole thing with him. Bar codes on the hands and forehead, and lasers reading the symbols for the security computers. Great for paranoid suburbanites with a few thousand to drop on home security systems, I told him. And great for the government security establishment, too.

Then he asked me about the rumor column and the number of the beast.

“Just some crackpot,” I laughed. “We get them all the time. Not many of them quote the Bible, though.”

He tried again, asking what I knew about the numbers coded in the extra bars.

“The bars are real; you can see them yourself. But I don’t know what the hell they mean.” I offered to look up a phone number for an outfit that would know what the codes were, but he told me not to bother.

By this time, the coffee was kicking in, and I realized I didn’t know where he was from.

“The Sunday Sport,” he said. “It’s an entertainment weekly.”

“Oh!” Our British sales rep once told me that the tabloids of his native land make ours look like The New York Times. As I put the phone down, I had visions of my head grafted onto an alien body on page 1. I couldn’t remember if I had spelled my name for the reporter; I hoped he got it wrong in print. I told myself that no one I knew would ever see it.

Ten days later, I arrived at the office to find a fax taped to my door. ‘LASERS READ SATAN’S SIGN’ heralded the front-page headline. “YANK CALLS BIBLE ‘CRACKPOT’ ” it said below. “VICAR WARNS OF EVIL CODE.” My bleary eyes opened wider as I read. I couldn’t remember exactly what I’d said, but I could tell it wasn’t what John Mumble had written. He had me reciting Chapter 13, Verses 16-18 from the King James Bible, which I’d never even read. I know I hadn’t told him that the United States government was going to make every citizen wear a bar code that included 666. John Mumble had made up more quotes from me in his first three paragraphs than I’d made up in the last issue of Laser News.

“It’s an utter fabrication,” I told the publisher, waving the fax in my hands. “I didn’t say any of this!”

She read it and looked at me, and read it again, and looked again, and finally she laughed. “I can’t imagine anyone believing this,” she sighed, and handed it back to me. “But next time be careful who you talk with.”

Relieved, if not totally reassured, I walked back to my office, tossed the fax onto the pile of papers to be filed, and sat down to dig into the mail. The phone buzzed urgently. A panicked-sounding receptionist announced, “it’s Senator Hokum, and he says he has to talk with you immediately.”

I remembered the name, but I couldn’t quite place it. I asked her to bring me a cup of strong black coffee, and punched the button. “What do you know about this Satanic scheme?” bellowed the senator, prompting my memory. He was the one who thought God had created digital technology to help the senator play rock music backward to hunt for Satanic messages.

“It’s all a fabrication . . .”

“It’s nothing of the sort, and you know it. You’d better come clean, or I’ll have you hauled before my committee.” I tried to explain. I told him I didn’t know what digits were in the blocking codes. I told him I’d call and check, but he told me not to bother. I told him about the identification system, and he said that was right straight out of the Bible, which said specifically that no man might buy or sell unless he wore the mark of the beast on his right hand or forehead. “We can never allow that to happen to law-abiding, Godfearing citizens,” he thundered, and pledged to stop it in its tracks.

Sure enough, he did. That night he was on every television news program, warning of hellfire, brimstone, and bar codes. He stood shaking hands with someone from the American Civil Liberties Union, who denounced the identification scheme as un-American, and said he was pleased to find something on which he and Senator Hokum could agree. The senator stood with various other dignitaries who nodded their heads while he thundered. He stood beside a very pale young woman with very thick glasses who pronounced that the blocking digits on the bar codes were indeed sixes. He boasted to the camera that he had single-handedly uncovered this devilish scheme. I was not about to challenge him. I was just glad he didn’t mention my name.

I still haven’t sorted it all out. The angry call I had expected from Entrance Control Systems never came. When I tried to call them, nobody answered their phone. The people at the Bar Code Institute won’t talk to me, so I still don’t know if those are really sixes, or if the senator’s assistant needs new glasses. But I’ve got other things to worry about now. Somebody is projecting a full-color life-size hologram outside my window. It’s light-years beyond the state of the art, with real-time motion and lifelike color. It shows this guy all dressed in white, hovering in the air with some kind of big fake wings, and he’s raising this golden trumpet to his mouth.

De Gustibus . . .

by Anthony R. Lewis

Anthony Lewis is another of the newer writers represented in this book. His work has appeared in other publications, including Aladdin: Master of the Lamp.

Anyone familiar with the workings of Wall Street may argue that this is not a work of fiction.

Lily Blak bowed her head as Schuyler Hamish Arcot, the oldest senior partner in Arcot, Wade & Morey: Brokers recited the blessing from the book of Tao Jhonj. However serene she appeared to the others at the banquet table, she was gamboling inside her mind. Here she was—a success at 27, on her way to greater successes in the financial world. She was now an Associate in the firm. It had been close; both she and Freddie Mack had been in contention and, had her startling projections of the Azeri truffle harvest not proved out, Freddie would be in her seat and she would be in the kitchen.

The kitchen . . . the kitchen of Uomani’s, the best restaurant in the Manhattan Financial District, possibly the best restaurant in the world. Certainly, it was one of the most exclusive. It never advertised; it did not need to. It was never reviewed; its patrons had sufficient influence to keep it private. Price would keep out most undesirables, but there was new money and such people did not understand. Only one cover was turned each night, but that was enough. And she and her colleagues were in the private dining room, the inner sanctum, the holy of holies, das Urspeisenzimmer. Lily was happy to be in this room; she never wanted to go into the kitchen.

“We welcome our new Associate, Miss (they were very traditional) Lily Blak, into the firm,” Mr. Arcot said. “It was a fair contest, and to the victors, go the victuals, if I may be permitted to utter such a pleasantry.” He looked about; however, no one was going to tell him he couldn’t utter whatever he pleased. Aging, balding men, with six billion (or so) dollars have a rare form of charisma. “They both played the game. No smoking—not for aspiring Associates, no drugs, but,” and here he smiled, “a little drink now and then is not amiss. I have always thought of it as a marinade.” All smiled. “Mr. Mack made no fuss when I told him that Miss Blak would be the new Associate. He understood that there must be penalties for failure, or our firm would be no different from those parvenus whose antics have so disgraced our profession.” Cries of “hear, hear” were heard. “His family will not suffer for this. As we have done for six centuries and more, the recoverables have been converted to solid investments in trust for his children.” He looked at the serving door, “now to the meal,” and he sat down.

The first course was a fine clear consommé; Lily had never tasted anything so delicate. It coyly hinted at rather than declaring it possessed a taste. This was followed by a liver pate with those marvelous rye wafers that only the Finns can make properly.

With the main course, rump steak swimming in gravy, a red wine was served. No wine tasting ceremony was ever held in Uomani’s, since all the restaurant’s wines were of an excellence, and no diner would presume to refuse a wine selected by the proprietor. The meal continued in a companionable silence, only the occasional clinking of silverware against china was to be heard. Even this slowed as the food disappeared.

“Freddie was a man of good taste,” Eliot Rensselaer Morey IV remarked to no one in particular, as he carefully chewed his meat the requisite amount before swallowing (his parents had been very strict in all his training). Only “the Eel,” as he was known to his subordinates, would joke at such a solemn occasion. Like the rest of the Associates, Lily responded with a twisted half smile, letting the others know that while she respected Morey for his position, she did not think such levity was appropriate. There were college stories about Morey—one involved a pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses as the main course at a fraternity house dinner. Adam’s representative had been served with an apple in his mouth; Eve’s stuffing had been of a more ophidian nature. Lily didn’t believe it. That sort of prank would not be tolerated at Harvard, not with the Commonwealth’s strict health codes. Yale? Possibly. Dartmouth? Certainly. But not Harvard (who knew what went on down the Charles at MIT. It upset her digestion to think of such things).

Now, as she had been warned, he would tell his one joke. “You know,” said Morey, “ours is a dog eat dog profession.” The obligatory chuckles rose and fell as the waiters wheeled in the dessert carts. Lily chose a chocolate mousse. Now that she would not be served, she was exempt from the code and need not keep her cholesterol and fat level to a minimum. She ate slowly, savoring the sensation as the rich dark substance embraced her taste buds. It was true that the sex act was only a poor substitute for eating chocolate.

The meal was ending. Replete with the failed competitor, the diners leaned back in their seats. As she sipped her tokay essenzia, Lily knew that as a junior partner, she no longer need fear being eaten; it was as if she had tenure at a university. When she retired or died, her body would be cremated. No one, not even the worms of the earth, got to eat the winners, the partners in the Wall Street brokerage house of Arcot, Wade & Morey. Tomorrow, she would write to her parents back in Highmore, South Dakota, and tell them her mother’s fears had been groundless. “Don’t go to Wall Street, honey,” her mother had sobbed. “They’ll eat you alive.” Nonsense! No one had done that since the 1930s. Life was truly full and good.

Is Your Coworker a Space Alien?

by “Bob” bes Shahar

eluki bes shahar informs me that she “was raised by great apes in the ruins of Fort Zinderneuf The last descendant of the once-numerous Rassendyll family, she bears the purple pimpernel birthmark entitling her to rule the small Graustarkian country of her choice. Her hobbies are ranching dust lepusae and getting her own way.”

That said, who are we to doubt it? But do read her wonderful SF novels Hellflower, Darktraders, and Archangel Blues.

Not that it actually matters, but this is a true story. Some of the best full-roleplaying, live-action SF of our age occurs in the tabloids, y’know. Space-alien baby born to gorilla, three-hundred pound Argentinian grandmother by age 4, Australia found to be lost continent of Atlantis. That sort of thing. Real Philip K. Dick country.

Space aliens. Right. I remember back when they were called just plain aliens. There’s some truth to the theory that the language is being devalued as a medium of communications by excessive modifiers. If the salt shall lose its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? Which is okay, since nobody talks to anybody anymore anyway.

Which is, in its way, the lead-in to my wail of toe (to quote Wallace Tripp).

I’m a writer, (which is what I’m doing here, of course. Where do you think books come from, typesetters?) which you would think would be the reason I had a bizarre, dead-end job about ten years ago in a place called Houston Graphics. Pronounce that “How-ston,” because this is a New York story. It’s also about space aliens, honest.

Anyway, Houston Graphics was a design and mechanicals studio that did book design, layout and pasteup, and mechanicals (which are the things they use to make the dies that stamp the actual covers of the books which no one looks at any more since the invention of the dust jacket). Once you read between the lines (or know something about publishing) you’ll know that Houston Graphics was a dead-end job on the way to dying, since all that stuff is done nowadays by computers. The only way the place survived was by underbidding machines, which gives you an idea what Mikey the owner paid us.

And I was not there as a writer looking for quaint employment to put on my resume. (That came later, when I could truthfully boast that I had once killed vampires for a living) What you called me in those days was recently-divorced-with-no-job-skills—except, of course, for a long-standing fannish publishing habit that made for damn sure I knew layout, pasteup, and design. Also where to go to steal the parts to repair an obsolete-model Gestetner, but that’s another long story.

So with one thing and another—and the help of someone whose real life was as Magus of a White Lodge I can’t mention by name because in addition to being old established and English they’ve got real good lawyers—I was there at Houston, razor-blade in hand, trying to make sense of my life.

If you’ve ever been divorced, Gentle Reader, you’ll know that space aliens could have landed during the next year and I wouldn’t have noticed. I came from New Jersey—yeah, like in the old joke: “Hey, you’re from Jersey? What exit?” In this case Exit 19 off the Garden State Parkway, I mean, I’d heard of New York . . .

So when I got here, New York was a summer festival and Rodger-my-in-the-process-of-becoming-ex was being a pain (the man who thought I was too strange for his projected lifestyle had moved to L.A. and taken up historical crossdressing, but not before trashing my complete collection of X-Men and my nude Darth Vader poster).

Anyway, then it was a year later, I was still working at Houston Graphics, and I’d sort of gotten to know my fellow inmates—at least a little—which is actually where the trouble started.

Houston, as has been previously intimated, was the universal Day Job. Everyone there was something else—actresses, painters, magicians, slumming preppies . . . If I’d been conscious when I took the job I would probably have run screaming into the street, but by a year later familiarity had bred inertia. Everybody there was weird, and I fit right in, which tells you something about me, I guess, but what the hell?

Anyway. Factoids. Working at Houston with me was a guy named Royce whose serious ambition was to achieve a vision of the Holy Grail (and he did, but that, too, is another story), a Neo-Pagan private detective (I never asked what kind of cases she specialized in), a Thai-citizen fine-artist who had regular exhibitions of his abstracts in Germany and who was exactly as Chinese as Leslie Charteris, and a French nurse who supplemented her income working at Houston which made sense until you realized she was making six dollars an hour at Houston and private duty nursing in Manhattan paid a minimum of $27.50 an hour.

I swear I am not making any of this up.

There were others, too, since the turn-over rate for the kind of scutwok and abuse that Houston Graphics provided was high. There was also the strange fact that some people actually didn’t like Mikey Pontifex, which is about on a level with having a personal opinion of the Black Death, but that is a volume in itself. Anyway, at the time of my tale there were about eight of us regulars (people there over a year; I was the newest) plus four more spearcarriers who lasted on the average about six months each, max. One of them never did bring back my hat.

The point. I swear I’m getting to the point, okay? Here it is.

I don’t remember now where the story came from. I can’t imagine it was the cover story, and I don’t know why I would have bought the thing. It was an honest-to-Buddha supermarket press newspaper—I forget which one—which is not the sort of thing I read anyway, simply because there’s nothing better on the inside than the cover headlines on the outside, which you can get for free, and since Carol Burnett won that libel suit most of the news is about television-series-reported-as-real-news.

This particular story was, on the surface, pretty harmless: Is Your Co-worker A Space Alien (it wanted to know)? It then went on to give you a nice little checklist of Ways To Tell.

The main thing I remember is is all stuff that could apply to anyone; a masterpiece of supermarket press writing. There were warning signs like about space aliens among us not knowing how to eat Earth Food—tiding to drink Jell-O, that sort of thing, just like the National Pit to try to give millions of Americans paranoia over their table manners—wearing inappropriate clothes (like what, for God’s sake? Looked at Women’s Wear Daily lately?), having inadequate knowledge of language and local customs (in New York?).

And then there was my favorite, which was “trying to pump coworkers for strategic information on Earth’s defenses”. Yeah, just what we worried about down below 14th Street, all right.

But it was sort of apposite, since all of us at Houston dressed like mudlarks and navigated like zombies, so I cut it out of the paper and blew it up to about 11x17 on the studio stat-camera, and waxed the back and stuck it up on the wall along with the rest of the local color. It got a few giggles, and Mikey didn’t take it down, but that was about it.

And that was where the trouble started, because about a week after that Mikey hired Clifford.

It was 9:30 of a Wednesday morning and I was sitting crouched over my light-table in company of my fellow sufferers when an Apparition walked through the door.

I could tell he was an Apparition because he was wearing a suit—and not any of those wussy colors like charcoal or navy, either. The suit was black, the shirt was white, there was a one-inch-wide knitted tie (black) with a plain gold tie clasp (yellow-metal tie clasp, as our friends the police like to say) making sure it wouldn’t get away. The Apparition was wearing real shoes (black), not sandals or sneakers, and he was carrying a cheap black briefcase that had been shipped Air Express from Nerd Central.

But Apparition sightings weren’t what I was getting paid for, so I went back to work.

Mistake. Now was when I actually should have run screaming into the night, even if it was mid-morning. Well, that’s what they always say, but I guess They (giant ants?) don’t have to make the rent. And besides, everything looked as normal as it usually gets below 14th Street (Chester Anderson joke). There’s a story about the toad in the crockpot that’s germane to this argument, by the way, but if I told it I’d probably be picketed by PETA. Isn’t freedom of speech wonderful?

Well, back to Clifford—a.k.a. The Apparition. It turned out he wasn’t a passing fancy. No, Clifford was our newest employee.

“This is Clifford,” Mikey said, as Clifford set down his briefcase in the carrel next to mine. Mikey P. being the owner and operator of Houston Graphics, condign cash cow, he got to make intellectual policy statements like that And Clifford must have been working here, or he wouldn’t be taking his lunch out of his briefcase in a series of neat brown-wrapped parcels and piling them next to the box of razor blades and technical pen humidifier with which Houston was wont to provide its new employees (those things never work, by the way. Fill your ink reservoir with ammonia instead when your pen’s not in use).

I looked at Clifford. Clifford looked at me. Then Clifford uttered the statement that would forever set the tone of our relationship.

“Gentleman’s Quarterly says that the new narrower silhouette is the menswear look for fall,” quoth Clifford.

I know what you’re thinking, right? After a five-page buildup of great subtlety I will reveal that the Cliff-man is a space alien. Sure I will. And then I’ll jump into my temporal rheosimulator and bop off to sell this to Planet Stories circa 1950, right?

Not. Trust me; I’m a starving writer.

Fact: Clifford swore he wasn’t a space alien. Okay? Satisfied? I even asked him.

It went like this:

Here was me, and here was this Official White Boy From Hell poster child. Clifford looked like an FBI agent gone to seed. He looked like he was from Oklahoma. Clifford just didn’t fit the sub-14th-Street ethnic blend. Blue eyes, light brown hair, skinny, no beard or mustache or earring. Or visible tattoo. Clifford looked, as I have said anon, like a White Boy From Hell. Transparent in a strong light.

And he was weird, make few mistakes about it, because when was the last time you ever saw someone wear a suit to work? Even excecutives don’t wear suits to work any more, or if they do they wear them over stupid little polo shirts—or (yig) over T-shirts—and Miami Vice has been off the air for years.

Clifford wore suits. With cute white shirts with the regulation number of white fake mother of pearl plastic buttons. Always.

But what the hell—Royce wore dresses (very nice ones; antique rayon, but then Royce was into retro as well as Grailology, and besides he didn’t do it all the time). Seiko wore black leather and studs—all the time. Even in the summer, when the temperature in the studio hit one hundred broken air conditioner degrees, and powdered herself down with alum and cornstarch so she wouldn’t sweat (never let them see you sweat). Seiko looked like a constipated vampire or a refugee from a canceled British TV series. And Angela—well, the less said about what Angela wore the better. I hope it was because she was into performance art. I did not ask. Ever. I am not precisely a coward, but blue-eyed women have a lot of problems to deal with in this life, as I shall explain in a few paragraphs. Meanwhile I did my best to remain in ignorance.

So yes, Clifford was weird. For weirdness’ sake he fit right in. We were all weird, in those thrilling days of yesteryear, Even me (I guess), if we’re being fair, and listening to Rodger-my-ex’s opinion but how much credence can you put in the words of a man who’s in the process of leaving you for a Tudor corset?

But this is about space aliens. Remember that checklist? The one that, actually, most of my fellow inmates came up one hundred percent positive on?

Clifford came up negative right down the line. Like he’d studied for it.

Like the first day. Obviously a place like Houston Graphics didn’t have a lunchroom, and eating at your desk was not encouraged, as mayo and repro don’t mix. But sometimes you did anyway, and Mikey didn’t make too much trouble about it as long as you were discreet.

So here’s Clifford, putting his sandwich on an actual china plate and pouring his soda into a real silica glass and doing the knife and fork bit and everything.

It was strange. And he never stopped doing it, every time he ate at his desk. China plate, silica glass. Stainless steel tableware. That was what the briefcase was for.

Don’t you see where this is going—at least, where it was going, back in the days when I was young and foolish and looking for distraction? Back before I sold my first book and went to my first science fiction convention and developed all the distraction a body was ever going to need in life?

Allow me to lay it all out for you. Clifford knew everything there was to know about about how to eat Earth food appropriately. He knew exactly how to wear Earth clothes, and never did anything like come to work wearing a tom lampshade and some Hefty bags (or a tea-dress in cabbage rose rayon. Or—).

And he never asked questions. In fact, if you wanted to know more than you ever wanted to know about anything, get stuck in Clifford’s idea of a conversation. Which I did, having the misfortune to sit right next to him and own a face that has always convinced people I want to start a conversation. Or probably, like I said, it’s the blue eyes. I have thought of getting colored contacts, but with my correction I’d have to wear glasses, too, and I can’t deal with that. Maybe mirrorshades (prescription mirrorshades? How declasse.) but that would only make things worse. It’s the curse of the blue-eyed woman. Trust me.

And what it meant in this context was that at the end of a week I knew how many stories tall the Empire State Building was. I knew how many people rode the subways (on the average) every day. I knew how many professional baseball teams there had been in the five boroughs since 1906, how long they were there, how many games they won, and against who. I even knew who hadn’t patented the automatic typesetter (Mark Twain. It’s in his autobiography, and a salutary lesson on the necessity of financial management for writers. Go look it up.).

In short, not only was Clifford very weird, Clifford was very weird in a focused, disciplined fashion that none of the rest of us could possibly beat even on a good day.

So naturally, less than six months after Clifford was hired, it occurred to me that if there were space aliens, and if they had seen the article in the National Midnight Astronomical Object, they would be very careful to make sure that none of the checklist could possibly apply to them.

In short, what convinced me that Clifford was a space alien was that he had absolutely none of the qualifying requirements to be one. He hadn’t even asked me about Earth’s defenses.

Yeah, I know, I’ve already told you that Clifford wasn’t a space alien—or at least that he said he wasn’t, and I promise

I haven’t got any contrary factoids that I’m going to reveal at the end of this story. This is, nevertheless, a weird, starkly unbelievable pulse-pounding true story. Promise.

Besides, would it actually be exciting if Clifford really-o truly-o was a space alien? I doubt it. Probably it would be depressing and New Wave, because here would be all these strange visitors from another planet living clandestinely among us, and what would it have done to the quality of life on Earth or the free market economy? I personally predict that when we do dance the whole “klaatu burada nikto” riff it will get 72 hours of coverage on CNN and have no other impact on life as we know it. And anyway, I can’t do a ‘No Contact’ story as funny and depressing as Terry Bisson’s “They’re Made Out of Meat.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah—the story. My story. One (Blue-eyed) Woman’s Encounter with the Cutting Edge of Reality.

I really think I could have had a normal life if I’d been born with brown eyes.

Onward. Lecture time on the nature of experiential reality. When weird things happen, your memory tends (in retrospect) to drop the setting of the events from the information it files (which explains why witnesses make such lousy witnesses). Case in point (Rod Serling homage alert): the last conversation I had with Clifford. I remember everything he said. I remember everything I thought. I even remember when—and a couple of isolated window-dressing details (I’ll put them in when I get to the events)—but as far as I can visualize it, it could have been a radio program being broadcast to an empty soundstage.

Which is where being a writer and an amateur of deductive reasoning comes in. I’ll tell you the way it probably was and how everything probably looked and what everyone probably did. But except for what Clifford said, think of it as a Best Guess; which is a sort of frightening take on the nature of reality, if our projections of it depend on our memories and our memories are like that.

Okay, here we go. It’s winter—I think it was November, because I remember the studio was always dead in December and Mikey always laid people off just before Thanksgiving. It’s dark, because it’s after six. Everybody’s gone for the day but me and Clifford. This is okay by Mikey, since I’ve been there a year and I have my own keys to the inside door so I can get into the studio whenever the building is open—which also means I can lock up. I remember I worked late a lot when there was work because freelance artists are paid by the hour and the more hours you worked the more money you had. I was also trying to rack up bucks while there was work because money will get you through times of no work better than work will get you through times of no money. To coin an aphorism.

And Clifford was there, too, but not for the same reason. Clifford was okay at layout and pasteup, but he was also slow, which meant that Mikey was looking to let him go, and I’d told Clifford that one way of delaying this was to work extra time and not bill for it, so it looked like you got through your piecework in less time than you actually did. That was why Clifford was there.

In six months I’d never found out what his last name was.

I finished up for the night—I know this, because I would not start a potentially stupid conversation in the middle of working—and put everything away, and turned off my table so it was just my tensor lamp and Clifford’s and the light over the stat-camera lighting up the big studio space. And I said:

“Clifford, are you a space alien?”

‘There are no confirmed reports of UFO sightings,” said Clifford, who never—now that I came to think of it—asked questions requiring answers.

“Yeah, but Clifford, are you a space alien?” I said, or something similarly witty and persistent.

Clifford looked at me. “Don’t you think that’s a suspicious sort of question?” Which was a rhetorical question, so it didn’t count. Behind him I could see my old stat of the “Is Your Coworker A Space Alien” article stuck up on the wall of Clifford’s carrel, having migrated there from the wall beside the door.

“You are so a space alien,” I said with the immense maturity that characterized my actions in those days.

Clifford sighed. “I am not a space alien.”

Which you would think would end the conversation, but you know how it is when you start asking stupid questions—it’s just like potato chips.

“So if you’re not a space alien, Cliffie, what are you?” I riposted.

Clifford sighed again.

“My name is Clifford Mutton-Jones. I’m an ethnographer.”

Now as we have all learned in later years, an ethnographer is someone who studies ethnogs. But at the time I must have looked like somebody who thought “ethnographer” was another word for space alien.

It’s the blue eyes.

“I’m an ethnographer from Aphasia State College,” Clifford expanded patiently. “I study cultures. Earth cultures. I’m not a space alien studying Earth cultures. I’m studying space aliens.”

It wasn’t really Aphasia State College, but I can’t remember the name and I don’t want to get sued if I get it wrong. Some place in Pennsyltucky, anyway. But at the time I gave Clifford’s statement all the serious consideration you would give to E-mail from the Twilight Zone delivered by someone who was between you and the door.

You may wonder why it was okay for Clifford to be a space alien and not okay for him to be a soon-to-be professor from Boombatz University. The answer to this is that academics are weird desperate sophonts capable of bizarre irrational behavior and space aliens aren’t any weirder than New Yorkers.

“And, um, where do you study space aliens, Clifford?” I asked. I reached for my purse and that changed my angle of vision enough that the Austrian crystal snowflake that Royce had hung on his tensor lamp hit the light by the stat-camera and made a gorgeous eight-pointed star prism against my glasses. I mention this specially because that’s the one thing I actually definitely remember seeing.

“Here,” said Clifford morosely.

Here.

The Cliff-man studied space aliens here.

Clifford was studying us.

We were space aliens?

Not since eighth grade, when I caused riots at the June M. Triplett Elementary School by proclaiming that I was an exchange student from Mars had I seriously considered the possibility that I was from another planet. It was an interesting thought. I did a severe brain-cudgel for corroboratory evidence, but actually I have never had any performance anxiety ingesting gelatin desserts of any kind and gave it up as wishful thinking.

Meanwhile, secure in my undivided attention, Clifford was expounding.

“You see,” said Clifford, “when I decided I wanted to do my doctoral dissertation on disenfranchised cultures—aliens living on Earth—I realized right off that the most important thing to do was to gain your trust. Paradoxically, this could best be achieved not by emulating your own culture patterns, but by maintaining an explicit ethnographic distance between interviewer and subject through the use of universal culture markers.”

This was the longest nonstatistical speech I ever heard Clifford make. I wanted to explain that he hadn’t interviewed anybody, much less gained their trust, and that he was in the wrong place besides if what he wanted was space aliens.

On the other hand, who was I to stand in the way of someone becoming a Doctor of Ethnography for the University of Gibberish? I said something mordant and witty like:

“Yeah, Cliffie, I see how that works. Absolutely.”

Which must have satisfied him because I honestly don’t remember any more of the conversation and if I could make anything up I would. I left (which means that someone else with keys showed up or else Clifford left with me), Clifford went back to work (or else left when I did), and if this were fiction I would never have seen him again, but since it isn’t, Clifford Mutton-Jones worked at Houston Graphics another two weeks (or so) and was fired as part of Mikey Pontifex’s Great Thanksgiving Massacre. (I was not. In fact, I worked at Houston for four more years, trivia fans.)

We did not, as far as I remember, discuss ethnography again. I didn’t mention it to anybody else, either, but I looked it up in one of the encyclopedias we had around the studio and there really is such a tiling—it’s where sociologists or anthropologists or some damn kind of academic go out and study weird alien (Earth alien) microcultures, like Trekkies or tattooists.

Or space aliens.

I admit I gave the matter more than a little thought on some of those bleak January lunchtimes after Clifford’s departure when I could scope the studio and see Royce in a mauve faille tea gown with a copy of Avalon of the Heart negotiating a peanut butter and anchovy sandwich, Seiko looking like a later-stage Terminator and eating Jell-O with her fingers (one-handed!) while she worked at her board. Tyrell carefully spreading canned chocolate frosting on lettuce, leaf by leaf, before eating it, Angela wearing—well, never mind, and carefully mixing instant coffee with her Diet Pepsi until it reached the consistancy of Filboid Studge, after which she drank it. (I was on a tunafish and hard boiled egg fast, myself.)

These were my people. Perfectly normal.

Space aliens? Us?

“Hey, Chantal? What do you know about Earth’s defenses?” I asked the moonlighting nurse.

“Earth?” said Chantal vaguely.

Never mind.

So I spent about six months wondering if I was a space alien or if anyone I knew was. I then realized that the Secret Fundamental Truth of the Universe was that it didn’t matter. And by then I’d actually finished my first book and had lots of other problems.

So I freely admit that I have not given Clifford and his ethnography much brain time over the years, but now that I think about it, what you’ve got to wonder is why a nice white boy after eight years in college would believe that there were space aliens living among us and working in a design studio in New York City?

Of course, you could also wonder about why I thought there were space aliens living among us and working in a design studio in New York City.

Or how long it took Clifford to memorize all those statistics to lull his space aliens into a false sense of security. I do hope it worked wherever he went next. There’s nothing crankier than a cheesed-off space alien. This is the voice of experience, probably.

Because the real kicker is that what you don’t get to wonder about (topspin time) was whether Clifford was telling me the truth. The whole reason I remember him after ten years is that he was. Clifford was an ethnographer, and he was studying space aliens. He even wrote his book—I saw it remaindered in the Scholar’s Bookshelf catalog last year. At least he wrote a book (you don’t forget a name like Clifford Mutton-Jones that easily) and from the title it could have been about space aliens living among us. Of course, it could also have been about exiled South American poets. Or Lucius Sheppard.

Does this not fill you with wonder and terror? Do you realize that not only Clifford Mutton-Jones but about a dozen college professors of legal age and sound mind had to agree that this was a reasonable topic for a dissertation? That hundreds of technically-sane standup breathers are all out there believing in space aliens among us with their hearts and minds and souls at this very nanosecond?

Who was it that said reality is not only stranger than we imagine, it’s stranger than we can imagine? I, personally, don’t have all that much time for imagining things. But good old Clifford sort of grips the sensawunder right by the sweetbreads, don’t he? Maybe he commuted from a parallel universe.

Or what if the National Pit is telling the absolute truth about everything, and its just some kind of intellectual snobbery that keeps us all from noticing? In the year fifteen hundred something, Pope Urban II (I think it was) promulgated a famous bull that said, more or less, not that there weren’t elves and fairies and creatures of wonder, but that it was a sin to see them. So everybody should stop at once—no matter what their senses told them—and move into a rationalist age, right? You can’t change reality with things like papal bulls—only the consensus about reality (theme music here please).

Because if you can change consensus reality one way with one piece of paper, it only follows that you can change it the other way again with another piece of paper. Or a book.

Like Clifford’s book.

I bet there are space aliens among us now. I bet they work in design studios in New York City. Probably they wear Hefty bags to work and eat Jell-O with their fingers and don’t know who the President of the United States is.

Yes, your coworker is a space alien. And there are more of them every day. Reality modified while you wait. The only thing that really bugs me any more is that I never got a chance to ask Clifford all about Earth’s defenses. I’m sure he knew what they were.

He might even have told me.

A Beak for Trends
by Laura Frankos

Laura Frankos is a native Californian and graduate of UCLA. Her work has been published in Analog and she is the author of St. Oswald’s Niche, an academic mystery. She is currently at work on her third mystery novel. She has collaborated with husband Harry Turtledove on three lovely children, Alison, Rebecca, and Rachel.

This story is for all of you who believe that the only thing tabloids are good for is lining birdcages.

Benjamin Hatcher was not surprised when his grandmother’s attorney sent him a letter soon after her death. As her favorite grandchild and her stockbroker, he knew Grandma Gladys had a sizable estate to distribute. He opened the envelope, pausing for a moment to look at his grandmother’s handwriting. He would never see her again, he thought sadly.

Dearest Benjamin,

If you are reading this, I am no longer among the living. Don’t mourn for me, dear boy, I’ve had a long and happy life. I must now reveal to you a secret. It concerns my beloved pet, Ptolemy III.

Ptolemy was an enormous scarlet macaw. As a boy, Ben loved helping care for him whenever the family visited Boston. It was always the highlight of his vacation.

You will find this difficult to believe, but it is the complete truth: years ago, I taught Ptolemy how to read using the same flash cards my first-graders used. He especially enjoys the sports and financial sections of the newspapers. The news section, however, confuses him. Although intelligent, he lacks the background needed to make sense of it.

Ben shook his head. He’d never realized Grandma was losing her marbles.

But now I shall let you in on Ptolemy’s other secret. Not only can he read the financial section, he is the one who chose all my stocks. He is, as you may have noticed, very good at it.

Ben sat back in his desk chair, thinking hard. Around ten years ago, after her brother left her some money, his grandmother had called him with a peculiar list of small stocks she wanted to buy. Ben had tried to talk her into a more conservative program of government securities, but she insisted. The bizarre little portfolio took off, but when Ben asked Grandma how she did it, she’d just chuckled and said, “A little birdie told me.”

After that, she’d called several times a year, with similarly unusual but successful instructions. She couldn’t possibly mean the parrot was advising her. Could she?

Considering his skill at picking stocks, I am sure that caring for him will prove profitable. But to ease your way, I have made arrangements to provide for him. My estate shall be divided into four parts: one-quarter each directly to you, your sister, and your cousin, with the remaining fourth placed in a trust fund for Ptolemy’s care. As long as you care for him properly—including regular check-ups—you may draw upon the fund for his care. It will provide a monthly allowance, and after Ptolemy’s death, the remaining money shall be divided among my three grandchildren.

Care for the old bird well, Ben, for my sake. I’ve included a little list describing his diet and schedule. Above all, give him fresh newspapers daily and keep things regular for him. He gets upset when his world is chaotic.

With everlasting love,

Grandma

“A little list!” Ben dug out four pages detailing diets, bathing, cage-cleaning, and other unpleasant things. Then came copies of the will and the trust. Ben scrutinized them. Then he whistled. “A generous allowance indeed! Thirteen hundred a month! But he’ll have to stay in the office; Barbara’s allergic. Oh, Grandma, what have you gotten me into?”

Though he didn’t believe a word of his grandmother’s fantasy, Ben wouldn’t let her down. That weekend, he drove to Boston to pick up his new dependent.

Ptolemy was not happy. He missed Gladys. He liked Dr. Moore, but the vet’s assistant was slow about changing papers. Worse, she’d given him the classifieds, which confused him. What did “87 Prelude Si 70M,auto,snrf,$5995” mean? Oh, well, whenever he ran into a perplexing bit, he always remembered Gladys’ adage: “Don’t believe everything you read in the papers!” She’d taught him that not long after he learned to read the flash cards.

He did not complain when Dr. Moore and a dark-haired man put him in a box. Perhaps, he hoped, there would be fresh papers whenever he was released and put in a new cage. He wondered how the Celtics were doing.

The trip seemed endless. Ptolemy fell asleep in the dark box, lulled by rumbling vibrations. He awoke when the box was lifted and carried someplace. The lid came off suddenly; Ptolemy blinked. There was the dark-haired man, looking disgruntled.

“Okay, Ptolemy,” he said. “Welcome to your new home. I’m Ben, your new owner. We’ve met, not that you’d remember.” He extended his arm to Ptolemy, who hopped on it, looking all around.

Ben had a spacious office on the fifteenth floor, with windows on two sides offering views of other skyscrapers. To Ptolemy’s joy, he spotted his own cage among the office furniture. Nearby, on a low table, was his t-stand. He shrieked with happiness at the sight of the old familiar things.

“Jesus! If you keep that racket up, they’ll never let me keep you here! Why don’t I put you on your stand, and I’ll fix your lunch.” He brought Ptolemy a dish of treats, carefully prepared according to Gladys’ instructions. Ptolemy ate and drank heartily, then looked pointedly at his cage.

“Cage?” he asked. He could see papers spread invitingly on the bottom.

“By God, you do still talk,” said Ben. “Okay, go in.”

Ptolemy climbed in and settled near the bottom, on what Gladys called his reading perch. He was a little disappointed that it wasn’t the sports page, but only for a moment. He’d never seen Investor’s Daily before. He lowered his head, scrutinizing the Dow Jones industrial average, catching up on days he had missed. He riffled the pages with his toes, checking for Gladys’ stocks. Completely absorbed, he didn’t realize that Ben was watching him closely.

Ptolemy noticed a downward trend in two of Gladys’ companies. One of them, his instinct told him, was going to take a big nosedive. What should he do?

He glanced up. Ben was sitting on the edge of his desk, arms folded, face puzzled.

“WedgeTech,” Ptolemy said clearly. “Sell WedgeTech.” Ben started at the parrot’s voice, then checked to make sure the door to his secretary’s anteroom was shut. “What did you say, Ptolemy?” he crooned. “Say that again.” Ptolemy wondered what kind of a dope Ben was. “Sell WedgeTech,” he repeated.

Ben came closer, speaking low. “Can you show me where it says WedgeTech on the paper, Ptolemy?”

He was a dope, Ptolemy decided. Couldn’t he even read? Ptolemy jabbed a toe at the agate type under the W’s. “WedgeTech down.”

“It could be an accident,” Ben muttered. He tried another angle. “Do you know all Gladys’ stocks, Ptolemy? Can you tell me her stocks?”

“WedgeTech. HyperVectors, Unlimited. Aussie Springs Sodas. Kilgore Chemical Industries. Briarton Aeronautic Enterprises. N-N-T Airlines. Electr—”

Ben waved his hands. “Enough, Ptolemy, enough. My God, you can read. And you know her stocks. And you’re right about WedgeTech; I’ve been thinking the same thing about them. Was Grandma telling the truth all along?” Ptolemy clambered up to the top and hung upside down. “Sell WedgeTech!”

“Okay, okay. But don’t tell everybody what you can do. God only knows what would happen to me if they find out. A parrot stockbroker! Now that’s a story for the birds!” He snorted at his own joke.

That reminded Ptolemy he hadn’t seen a sports page for days. He was worried about his favorite player, Larry Bird, who had an injured back. “Celtics!” he squawked.

Ben, who had gone to his desk and was playing with the gray box, was puzzled. “Sell Tix? Ticketron? Ticketmaster?” The man was a complete dope. Ptolemy needed twenty minutes to make Ben understand.

Once Ben figured out Ptolemy was indeed a Wall Street wizard, he did everything he could to make the bird comfortable. He got to the office early, to give Ptolemy his bath and play with him before checking the morning newswire and going over his bond inventory. He bought special treats; Ptolemy loved dog biscuits. Ben even began seeing clients from one until three, not three until five as before, all because that was Ptolemy’s quiet time. Barbara, who didn’t know about Ptolemy’s talent, complained that Ben left earlier and came home later. He also began visiting the office on the weekends. She accused him of having an affair, which he denied. His secretary quit, saying Ben had changed since his grandmother’s death a year ago. “He never used to mind if I came in his office to discuss things. He’s secretive, paranoid.”

But Ben’s boss and clients didn’t mind his behavior because Ben, long known for coming up with a few successful stocks every quarter, now piled up several dozen. “Ptolemy, old boy,” he said one morning, “you definitely have a beak for trends. The second quarter reports are in, and even in this stinking recession we’re sitting pretty. I don’t know how you do it.”

Ptolemy was happy. Ben changed his papers several times a day, giving him not only those fascinating copies of Investors Daily, but the New York Times sports pages (though he still preferred reading about the Boston teams). He sat on his t-stand, playing with a rawhide strip. Ben was cutting up a hard-boiled egg.

“Hey, Ptolemy, what do you think of Hippocrates Pharmaceuticals? They had a big lawsuit against them a few years ago, but I hear they’re working on a promising new AIDS drug. Any good?”

Ptolemy tugged at the rawhide with his beak, then dropped it. “No good.”

Ben’s face fell. “Damn. Thought we could get in on the bottom floor, so to speak. Okay, pal, here’s your snack.” Ben shared the egg with Ptolemy, sprinkling his slices with salt and pepper. Even after a year, Ptolemy found this a strange ritual.

Ben misunderstood the parrot’s glance. “Yeah, I know. I need all this cholesterol and sodium like a hole in the head. Everybody’s always telling me what to do; don’t you start, bird!” Ben stuffed the rest of his egg into his mouth, then went back to his desk to wolf down his lunch. Ptolemy played with his other favorite toy, an old key chain. Ben, who was long accustomed to the racket, didn’t like it today. “Too loud, Ptolemy. Knock it off.”

An hour later, Ben expected the first of his afternoon appointments. He grumbled as he went to greet his client. “Damn job. Damn rotten food. Damn indigestion.” Ptolemy, now back in his cage preening, ignored Ben’s complaints.

He did look up, startled, a short time later when the client shouted, “Ben! Are you all right?” The client slapped at the intercom: “We need some help in here! Ben’s passed out.” Ben sat slumped in his chair, holding his left arm, his chubby face sickly gray. Ptolemy had a bad feeling, the same kind of queasiness that shook his insides before the ’87 crash and when Gladys never got up from her couch, no matter how he called her. More people flooded into the office, crowding around the desk. One man was yelling into the telephone. Two more moved Ben to the floor where Ptolemy couldn’t see him.

Later, other men ran in, carrying a metal bed with wheels. Ptolemy hooked himself up to the very top of his cage, but still couldn’t see anything except Ben’s legs. Then the men put Ben on the bed and wheeled him away.

It was the last time Ptolemy ever saw him.

Ptolemy, as Gladys had noticed, did not like disorder. Unfortunately, Ben’s death turned his life upside down. After a temporary stay at his vet’s, he went on a horribly scary voyage in a box, shut up for what seemed like an eternity. Eventually, the box reached its destination: Cicero, Illinois, the suburban home of Gladys Hatcher’s middle-aged granddaughter, Cindy Ledbetter.

“Jesus, what a stink,” were the first words of his new owner. She was forty-three, overweight, with hair colored a peculiar orange. Ptolemy stared at the hair.

“For thirteen hundred bucks a month, I’ll put up with a skunk,” said another female. Ptolemy’s head swiveled around. The other woman was also pudgy, with blonde hair in loose curls. She laughed. “He’s checking us out, Cindy. Did your grandma’s trust fund say if he could talk? Hey, Polly! Hello, pretty boy! Polly want a cracker?”

Ptolemy was thirsty. “Water?” he croaked.

Cindy jumped backward. “God, he does talk. Grandma sent a letter with him. She said he’s special, but that I’d never believe how special. All I know is that he never said much when we visited Boston.”

“Boston,” Ptolemy said wistfully.

Curly-hair said, “What fun! He repeats everything. Don’t let Ed teach him swear words. Let’s feed him and make him feel at home.” Cindy looked cautiously at Ptolemy. “But Kathy, how am I supposed to get him in his cage? Do I pick him up? What if he bites?”

“Don’t be chicken, Cin. That trust said if you don’t take good care of this bird, he goes to your cousin Linda and you lose that money. Just give him your arm. I don’t think he’ll bite. Go on.” Kathy pushed her friend.

Cindy nervously extended her arm. Ptolemy obediently climbed up. “Easy, bird, easy, Ptolemy, nice and easy, here’s your cage.”

Magic words to homesick Ptolemy. He hopped gracefully from Cindy’s arm to his waiting cage. He climbed over to the water cup and drank, then dug into the plentiful helping of parrot mix.

The women watched him. Kathy slapped Cindy on her hefty shoulder. “There! He’s settled. You’ve done everything right so far, just like those papers said. “He’s got his cage, his food, his exercise stand—”

Cindy frowned. “Yeah, I had to move Ed’s gun rack to fit that in. Ed wasn’t happy, but wait till we get that first check. . .

“You can make the kids give him his baths and play with him,” Kathy continued. “What more can a parrot need?”

Ptolemy, having satisfied his stomach, knew: he needed to find out how the Dream Team was doing, if the proposed takeover of Save-Big Retail had gone through. He nibbled one last pumpkin seed, then slowly made his way to the printed sheets below.

Immediately, Ptolemy knew something was different. The typeface was not that of ID or the Times or the Globe. It was bigger, and had less copy on the sheet than he was used to. Half the page was a garish photo of a baby with four arms. Around the margins ran little squares—advertisements for hair tonics and fortune tellers. Ptolemy lowered his head and began to read: “Pedro Sanchez is like any other toddler. He lives in a rural section of Mexico, adores his mother’s homemade tortillas, and plays with his big sister. But little Pedro has four arms!”

Ptolemy shook his head. He’d seen lots of people in his life, but none of them had four arms. An image of Gladys came to his mind, smiling sweetly, spreading fresh papers for him. “Now, Ptolemy, don’t believe everything you read in the papers!”

Ptolemy certainly didn’t believe this silliness. He turned another page with his long toes. “Unusual markings in a Nebraska wheatfield were discovered following a terrifying night of bizarre lights in the sky. Residents of Martinsville huddled in their homes during the onslaught, believed to be the result of alien invaders. Hildy Fitzwarren says: ‘It began at midnight. You could see the lights blinking off and on over the wheatfields.’ ”

Ptolemy uncurled his toe, letting the paper drop. What was this drivel? Maybe the other side was better. He expertly flipped the section over, revealing the front page of The Nation’s Eye. ELVIS, JIM MORRISON, JIMI HENDRIX ALL ALIVE AND JAMMING ON REMOTE SOUTH PACIFIC ISLAND screamed the headline. SHOCKING MIX-UP: MAN MARRIES HIS DAUGHTER AFTER DIVORCING HIS SISTER! BABY BORN WITH FOUR ARMS—see page sixteen! Too late; he’d already seen page sixteen.

Ptolemy didn’t know what to make of The Nation’s Eye. He’d certainly never seen anything like it before. Reading it gave him that uneasy feeling, the one he got when he’d read about a failing corporation. Something in this newspaper was not quite right. But he was starved for reading material, so he doggedly went through the whole issue, though he kept worrying about how much of it was true.

Matters did not improve for Ptolemy. For one thing, he was used to going to sleep at eight-thirty, but the Ledbetter family sat in front of the television long past then. Ptolemy couldn’t sleep because of the lights and noise. Cindy began by dutifully cleaning his cage every day, but that slipped to every week before long. The two kids were supposed to bathe him regularly, but they kept putting it off, too, especially after ten-year-old Mitch pulled Ptolemy’s tail and the parrot bit the brat.

The food was adequate, though Cindy did not lavish treats as Ben and Gladys had. But worst of all, in Ptolemy’s view, was the weekly supply of The Nation’s Eye. The more he read, the worse he felt. Nearly every paragraph gave his stomach flip-flops.

The alien stories made him feel worst. Ptolemy was continually amazed at the variety of “aliens”: green faces, strange appendages, glowing bodies, weird helmets; all the details, but no substance at all. His inner sense quivered at each UFO sighting. He much preferred stories about talking codfish in Newfoundland or ghostly pirate ships.

Three months of The Nation’s Eye convinced him it was shit, and he felt a certain satisfaction in defecating on it. But even though Ptolemy didn’t believe a word of it, that didn’t stop him from reading it front page to back. He was, after all, a confirmed print junkie.

“Thanks for taking him, Kathy,” said Cindy. She handed Ptolemy to her neighbor. Ptolemy perched on Kathy’s shoulder, nibbling at the frame of her glasses. He was glad they weren’t nervous around him any more, but he wondered why the Ledbetter brat was taking his cage outside.

“We’ll be back next Friday,” Cindy continued. “Mitch will bring over all Ptolemy’s food and toys. I hope he won’t be a bother.”

“No, it’s no trouble,” Kathy said. “We’re old friends now, huh, bird?”

She took Ptolemy into the house next door where Mitch was setting up the cage. “Here, Ptolemy, you’ll be staying with me for a while.”

Ptolemy looked around. The living room was similar to the Ledbetters’, but he noticed one difference right away: two bookshelves! Gladys and Ben had had lots of those. He perked up, feeling better than he had before. He tried reading the names on the spines: Stephen King, Sidney Sheldon, Danielle Steel. They didn’t jog Ptolemy’s memory, but they didn’t upset his tummy, either.

He felt happier still when Kathy’s daughter, a kind-hearted seventeen-year-old, came home and offered to play with him and bathe him. She did it very well, to Ptolemy’s surprise. Kathy looked on with pride. “You’ll be a great vet, kid. Why don’t you change his papers, too?”

“Okay, Mom.” She put Ptolemy on his t-stand. He watched her disappear, then return with several sheets of newspapers. His eyes widened. Real newspapers!

When the girl put him back, he hopped down faster than he had in months, indulging himself in the Chicago Tribune.

Even learning the Red Sox were in fifth didn’t dampen his joy at reading true stories, not lies that made him ill.

“Hey, Mom, that parrot’s reading the paper!”

“No, he’s not. Cindy says he likes to look at the pictures. Does it all the time. It just looks like he’s reading it. Can you feed him tomorrow morning?”

“Uh-uh. I’m sleeping over at Michelle’s; won’t be back till lunch.”

Kathy sighed. “Okay, I’ll do it. The things we do for our friends . . .”

Kathy Plotkin was trying a new facial mask—avocado oatmeal—when the parrot squawked early Saturday morning.

Her husband, still in bed, grumbled, “Shut that damn bird up, or we’re having Thanksgiving dinner early!”

“I’m going, I’m going.” She pulled on her slippers and hurried out into the living room.

Ptolemy had to squawk with happiness. The Tribune was still there. He’d feared it might have been a pleasant dream. He looked up when he heard a scuffling sound. What he saw in the doorway paralyzed him with fright.

Toward him came a humanlike being with a green face, strange pink devices on its scalp, and huge, fuzzy, blue feet.

Ptolemy stared, then fluttered his wings in horror and panic. The stories in The Nation’s Eye were true! There were aliens! One was coming right up to his cage—and if there were aliens, then all those other stories Ptolemy never believed must also be true.

His universe crumbled around him.

The alien reached out a hand with long red claws. It touched the door of the cage. Ptolemy shrieked and fell from his perch. He landed on the box scores, thrashed once, lay still.

Kathy stared at the dead bird in dismay. “Oh, Christ. What am I going to tell Cindy?”

Hitler Clone in Argentina Plots Falklands Reprise or

Hitler Clone in Argentina

Plots Falklands Reprise
or

Death and Transfiguration
by John DeChancie

John DeChancie writes some very funny fantasy books, such as Castle Perilous and others in the Castle series. However, that’s not all there is to the man, who has also written such critically acclaimed SF novels as Starrigger and Paradox Alley, as well as this haunting, poignant tale.

In a funny vein again, he claims he wrote it because “I was ordered to . . . by Friesner, who, in concert with hamsteroid aliens, has established mind control over key cultural figures in the Earth’s population. . .” Sorry, John, but you’re not going to blame Madonna’s Truth or Dare on me.

A sunny calm lay over the South Atlantic that afternoon. The water sparkled and shimmered, a lacework of silvery light playing across it. The sea had taken on a strange color, the artificial blue-green of a swimming pool. The sky, almost the same hue, though of a deeper shade and having less green, was mostly clear, a few lonely clouds drifting close to the horizon like cotton sailboats.

A frost-haired, rime-bearded old man in a wheel chair sat on a veranda high above the sea, meditating, his wrinkled skin waxlike, almost translucent in the bright sunlight. The face was set sternly, defiantly, its lines forming a perpetual pout. The eyes were pale brown. His jaw muscles worked, as though he were chewing over what was on his mind. He seemed on the verge of making an important decision.

The villa stood on a steep hill overlooking the sea. From the edge of the veranda, stone steps zigzagged through the rocks to the beach, where a few bathers waded in the surf or lounged under umbrellas.

From close above came the cry of a gull, like a question. The old man did not look up. The same cry, the same question sounded again. Then again; and once more. At length, tired of hovering and entreating, the gull stooped toward the beach and crossed the old man’s field of vision. The old man took no notice.

At long last he said to himself, “Ja.” He nodded his hoary head; the hair atop it was as thick as the beard. He still groomed it, as was his long habit, slicked down with oil. “Ja, ich muss.”

Slowly, painfully, he turned the chair around and wheeled himself through tall French doors and into the library.

It was a spacious room, lined with glassed shelves holding thousands of books, many bound in leather. Some looked of antiquarian interest. In one comer stood an ancient Victrola playing a scratchy old recording of Tod und Verklarung, by Strauss. He wheeled himself to the far wall and reached for the bell pull. He yanked once, twice. Then he moved toward the farther of two oaken library tables. The nearer was covered with a maritime map on which were arranged a number of tiny model ships—cruisers, aircraft carriers, and such like. Red and blue plastic markers picked out the positions of land units on the group of islands represented in the middle of the map. Dust covered everything on the table.

On the far table sat heaps of yellowing magazines and newspapers. He took a haphazard stack and began to sort through it, searching. Not finding much to his liking, he dumped the papers back on the table, took another stack, and searched again. This time he turned up the newspaper he wanted. He scanned the headlines, opened the tabloid, and began to read.

Presently a servant, in white jacket, wing collar, and black tie, entered the room and came up behind the old man. He coughed discreetly.

The old man turned his head. “Ah, Raul,” he said.

“Excelencia?”

“El telefono.”

“El telefono?”

“Ja. Si. ”

Raul hesitated. “Pero, Excelencia . . .”

The old man’s eyes suddenly caught fire. In them was something frightening, the first glimmerings of an anger that seemed capable of assuming monstrous proportions. “Raul! Haz lo que se te mande!”

Chastened, the tiniest bit afraid, Raul took a step back. He bowed stiffly. “Si, Excelencia!”

The old man watched the servant retreat, a look of sullen indignation still on his wrinkled face. Then, faintly, an ironic grimace curled one comer of his pale lips. He resumed reading.

Soon Raul returned with a cordless telephone. He withdrew the instrument’s shiny aerial before handing it to the old man.

The old man took the gadget and waited until Raul left the room. Then he searched the table top for a notebook. Finding it, he opened it and placed it in front of him, then began to punch out a long series of numbers on the phone, numbers he had painfully traced down months before but had not had the nerve to dial until now.

A long time had passed since he had called anyone long distance. In fact it had been years since he had called anyone at all. The last time had been before the advent of telecommunications satellites. Reaching anyone overseas used to be an arduous struggle, a fight through ranks of dunderheaded Spanish-speaking operators, then foreign ones, mostly English-speaking. Now, one merely tapped out numbers directly.

He worried about his English. It was better than his Spanish, but he had learned it very late in life. He had almost daily practice here; many of the guests spoke nothing but the tongue of the Englander: However, he had doubts about making himself understood to strangers across vast distances.

“Yes, hello? Hello? Yes, I would like to speak with a Mr.—” He consulted the notebook. “—a Mr. Barrett Sacks. Yes. Yes, I will wait.”

The old man waited, listening to the swelling, ethereal chords of the finale of the Strauss piece.

“Hello? Yes, I—Oh, he is on another line? I see. Well, I am calling long distance . . . Yes, it is very urgent. Yes, but you see . . . No, I cannot call back later. It is of the utmost urgency that I speak to Mr. Sacks. . . Certainly! Very well, I will wait.”

He waited for what seemed like fifteen minutes, growing ever impatient. His bony, stick-figure body quivered, first with nervousness, then with mounting frustration and anger.

His rage quickly subsided when he heard a male voice on the other end.

“Mr. Sacks? Ah, yes, Mr. Sacks, very good. Thank you very much for answering my call . . . You are very kind. If I could have a moment of your time, sir? . . . Thank you very much. I shall try to be brief. I wish to congratulate you on your article in the April seventh issue of your newspaper, last year. No! Two years ago. Which? The one about Adolf Hitler being alive in Argentina. And that he is planning another assault on the Malvinas? Excuse me, the Falkland Islands. Yes, that one. Hitler’s clone, yes. That is very funny, you see. No, I will explain. In principle, most of your facts are completely accurate, Mr. Sacks. However, you have some of the details wrong, and I would like to correct them. Yes. . . Yes . . . Who am I? Well, I will tell you who I am, Mr. Sacks, though you might have some trouble believing me. But I assure you, I am who I say I am . . . I beg your pardon? . . . Yes, I will tell you . . .”

Greased head to toe with heavy sunblock and shaded with amber sunglasses that filtered blue and ultraviolet light, Jack lay stretched on a folding chaise, getting as much suntan as he dared, conscious of all the current global worries about degrading ozone and increasing UV . . . Wait a minute. Was too much sun dangerous because of the ozone thing, or was it because of the greenhouse effect? Both? He really didn’t know. Years ago he had acquired the habit of keeping a close eye on the world situation. Religiously and with great attention to detail, he had daily devoured reams of newspapers, magazines, and journals of opinion. Of late, though, as he eased into his eighties, he had tapered off considerably. Now he was pushing it if he read two newsmags a month. If it weren’t for the funnies, he would rarely scan a newspaper. He didn’t even read spy novels any more. (Were they still writing spy novels?) He had ceased to care about current events. Besides, the issues were practically the same as they had been when he’d taken office, give or take a few. True, the East-West thing had changed radically. Things were the same in Cuba, though . . .

And Jack really didn’t give a damn. At one time, he’d been obsessed with that island-nation’s frizz-bearded dictator. Now? Well, actually, he had expected Old Fuzzy to show up at Estancia-del-Mar long before this. But the aging Cuban firebrand was still hanging on, fighting a losing battle. The bastard had balls. That much Jack would give him.

He yawned. Then he raised himself on one elbow and looked at Marilyn, who, in a black one-piece bathing suit, sat in a nearby deck chair underneath a yellow and pink sun umbrella, reading a book. Having just passed the milestone of 60, she was still a handsome woman, though she had long ceased to bleach her hair or be overconcerned about her weight. She was now prettily plump.

“What are you reading?” he asked.

“Nietzsche.”

Jack was impressed. “Heavy stuff. Zarathustra?”

“No, Beyond Good and Evil.”

Jack shook his head. “Never read it. Good?”

Annoyed, she frowned at him.

“Oh. Guess it’s not exactly light reading.”

“You should read more, Jack, instead of just sitting around.”

“Yeah? Why, exactly?”

“Why does anyone read?” Marilyn said with a lift of her pale shoulders. “To improve the mind.”

“I was never an intellectual, though the press liked to characterize me as one. I seemed to attract eggheads like shit does flies, but I never had any use for them. Too impractical.”

“Jack, no one ever accused you of being an egghead.”

“Maybe not. Just a realistic altruist, or something like that. Actually, I was never anything but a politician. Like my granddad.”

“Or your dad?”

“Nah, he was a hard-bitten son of a bitch, like all businessmen.”

“What are politicians?”

Jack chuckled. “Weasels.”

“Not all, surely.”

“It may be ungracious to malign one’s own profession, but I met my share of weasels on Capitol Hill. Still, you’ve got to face the fact that man is a political animal. He’s got to do politics, or it’s the club, or the knife, or the gun.”

“Politicians seem to wave around most of the guns in the world,” Marilyn commented sardonically, eyes still on her book.

“I won’t argue with you,” Jack sighed as he lay back down.

A breeze came in from the sea. A gull’s cry sounded above, receding. A few minutes passed.

“Well, enough of this,” Jack said, rising. It took some effort. When he was up on two feet he faced the sea and took a few deep breaths, then stood watching the surf, scratching his belly.

Despite his years, he still retained something of his former athletic build. He kept active, got regular exercise, and stuck to a spartan diet. And of course Dr. Cabeza de Vaca’s longevity drugs helped immensely.

“Here comes King,” Jack said.

The man who had been America’s most popular pop singer at mid-century came jogging in from the water. He was younger than Jack—about Marilyn’s age—and his years as one of Dr. Cabeza de Vaca’s guests here at the villa had done him wonders. On arrival he had been a physical wreck, swollen with premature middle-age bloat, addicted to a dozen drugs, his arteries clogged like silted rain sewers. In the relatively short time of his stay at Estancia-del-Mar, however, his body had recaptured its youthful slimness and his face had remolded itself nearer to the heartthrobbing desire of his female fans. Jack knew that he and Marilyn had been having an on-and-off extended fling since shortly after his check-in.

Jack didn’t much care about that either.

“Man,” King said, reaching for a towel. “Water’s warm today. Like swimmin’ in piss. Excuse mah French, Marilyn.”

King had kept his charming northern Mississippi drawl.

“What brainy book ya readin’ now, little girl?” he added.

Marilyn deigned not to look up from her Nietzsche.

After waiting in vain for a response, King gave Jack a questioning look. Jack silently shrugged. You figure it out, guy.

King did the thing with his mouth that was a cross between a pout and a snarl, and continued to buff himself dry.

Jack assessed the breeze with a wet forefinger. “Think I’ll take the Fitz Two out later,”

“Hey, you want company?” King asked.

“Sure,” Jack answered good-naturedly.

“What about it, Marilyn? Want to go out sailing with Jack today?”

After a significant delay Marilyn quietly said, “No.”

It was King’s turn to shrug at Jack. Jack smiled. He knew Marilyn would never finish the book. She rarely finished any book she started. Why the posturing, he asked himself, after all these years? But he knew the answer: it was out of a deep and abiding sense of inadequacy. At least, that was the pop psychology answer. Who knew, though; who really could say with any authority?

His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of Raul, who had come loping across the beach. He was out of breath. “Señor Jack . . .”

“What is it, Raul?”

“It is His Excellency, the Reichskanzler. He is telephoning the reporters again.”

King threw down the towel. “Damn his eyes! Jack, what the hell are we going to do with that guy?”

“Let me handle this,” Jack said. He began jogging toward the cliff.

Raul sat down, took his shoes off, and poured the sand out of them.

“That Nazi geezer’ll let the cat out of the bag yet,” King muttered.

Just before reaching the stone steps, Jack ran into Juan, who never failed to dress elegantly. Today he was in sports coat, ascot, and tan bucks.

“Jack! Where are you going in such a hurry?”

The run from the water’s edge had Jack already breathing hard. He had to stop.

“It’s the old man, on the phone again. Probably calling one of the tabloids.”

Juan laughed. “They never believe him. Why worry?”

“Gotta check him out. You never know.”

“I suppose you are right,” Juan said. “Would you like me to go along?”

“No, thanks. Where’s Evita?”

Juan pointed north along the shore. “Looking for cockles.

Our room is full to the rafters with shells, but still she wants more. And driftwood, and sea urchins, and . . . Dios mio! What a packrat of a woman!”

Jack chuckled. “Better go. Hope these damned steps don’t give me a heart attack.”

“Take it easy, Jack,” Juan said as he strolled on, swinging his cane.

“. . . yes, a Doppelganger. It is not exactly what you call a clone . . . What is it? Well, it is a duplicate, a creature which looks like the person it is substituting for . . . Yes, Dr. Mengele developed this technique. He told me it was known in antiquity . . . Yes, I always suspected that it involved black magic . . . I do not know. You are right. It was the duplicate’s body they found, not mine. I escaped with the aid of SS Colonel Otto Skorzeny . . . by light plane, then by U-boat . . . That is correct. Mengele taught Dr. Cabeza de Vaca . . . our host. Eva? She is dead. Yes . . . yes . . . that is true. Good. . . Well, I am glad to tell you all these things . . . What? I beg your pardon, what are you saying?”

The Reichskanzler did not see Jack enter the library. Jack approached slowly, breathing hard.

“I do not understand. What do you mean, ‘played for laughs’? You are telling me that your news stories are not true? I beg your—? . . . You are telling me that these stories you print are fake? You make them up? . . . But. . . but, Mr. Sacks, I—Mr. Sacks, please . . . No. I am him! Yes, I am one hundred and three years old this year . . . No, this is not impossible. . . What was that you say? I need medical attention? Are you . . . excuse me, but do you question my sanity? You think I am some kind of lunatic? Let me assure you—Wait! Wait, there is more! As I told you, there are others here at Estancia-del-Mar. Your assassinated president, for one. Yes! And the singer, what is his name? I forget. He is called ‘King’ here. I forget what his . . . No, I do not lie! . . . What? What was that? . . . Flying Saucers? Excuse me, why are you asking me about such things? . . . Wait! No, do not hang up! Listen to me! . . . Wait . . . Judischer schwein?” Jack placed a hand on the old man’s shoulder. Gently, he took the phone.

The Reichskanzler slumped. “Why? Why do they not believe me?”

Jack shrugged. “Because . . . well, because they’d rather keep us here, in limbo. Better that way. Better for them.” The Reichskanzler looked up at Jack. “I know where I made my mistake. The Jews. I did not believe that the world would care about what was done to the Jews. If I had only seen that.”

Jack said nothing. He went to a bookshelf and looked it over.

“They tell me . . .” the old man began.

Jack turned his head. “Pardon? Sorry, couldn’t hear you.”

“They tell me that Dr. Cabeza de Vaca will come to the party tonight.”

“Oh. Yeah, I believe I heard that. Uh, you all right now?” The Reichskanzler drew himself erect. “Ja. I am all right.”

“Okay.”

Jack chose a book, and was about to walk away with it when he noticed, with irritation, that although the title was in the original German, the text was a Spanish translation.

Evening, the sound of the breakers beneath a dark eastern sky. White-coated servants moving quietly about the room, bearing trays, serving drinks. Candles glowing, ice cracking in glasses.

A cork popped.

It was a good turnout. The rock stars huddled in one end of the room, making more noise than the rest.

Juan was saying to Jimmy, the labor boss: “. . . but if this were hell, we would never be told. To know is a certainty, and a certainty is a comfort.”

“In that case,” Jimmy said, “if they never tell us, we know we’re in hell.”

“A fine paradox,” Juan said, considering it. “But there is a logical flaw in your reasoning, I think.”

“Anyway, it ain’t a comfort for me to know, or not know,” Jimmy said. He took a belt of whiskey. “All I know is, someone calls me and says, there’s a contract out on you. You want out? You gotta leave everything, but we can get you out. Sure, you don’t believe at first, but then you find out there is a contract out on you. And you say, yeah, get me outta this. And here I am. I’m not saying it’s hell. I was just thinking. Lots of time to think here . . . you know?”

“I’m in the mood for some dago red,” Marilyn said to one of the servants. “What do you have?”

“Everything, Señorita.”

“Like what?”

“Barbera d’Alba, Gattinara . . . uh, Barolo, Amarone, Bardolino—”

“You have any Chianti?”

“Yes, Señorita. Right away.”

“I remember this little place in New York,” Marilyn said, looking off. Failing to add to this, she lit a cigarette.

“I know exactly what you mean,” Juan said to Jimmy, continuing the conversation.

Jimmy went on, “Sometimes I just think, hey, that phone call, the big car that came and took me away, and you couldn’t see the driver—it was spooky, know what I’m sayin’? And this place. Where the hell is it? When do we get out of here?”

“But we’re free to leave any time, Jimmy. Dr. Cabeza de Vaca has said so many times.”

“Yeah, I go back to the world and, ba-bing, two shots through the head.” Jimmy put an index finger to his temple, thumb up, thumb down, twice. Bang, bang. “Hey, I’m as free as a bird.”

“So am I, Jimmy my friend.”

“We all are,” said James, the actor. “Freedom, man. It’s cool. But I know we’re in hell. Freedom is hell, man.”

“How do you know we’re in hell?” Jack wanted to know. James drank down his Bourbon first, then smiled slyly. “The name of our host, Cabeza de Vaca. That means the head of a goat, right?”

“No,” Juan said. “Vaca is cow. Or beef.”

The actor looked disappointed. “Oh. Why’d I think it meant goat?”

“I have no idea.”

James grunted. “Hey, Juan, what’re you drinking there?”

“Manzanilla. Sherry. It has the taste of the sea in it.”

“Think I’ll try some of that.”

“Did anyone ever think of another explanation?” Everyone turned toward the speaker.

“Another explanation for what, Bogey?” Jack asked. Bogey, in white dinner jacket with a white carnation pinned to his lapel, crossed his legs. “Well, it seems to me that the story about how our clones or doubles were substituted for us is all a lot of hooey. None of it washes.”

“How come we remember it?”

“They planted the memories.”

Marilyn said, “So we’re the clones?”

“Sure,” Bogey said.

“Created by Dr. Cabeza de Vaca?” Juan asked. “I’ve often thought of it.”

Jimmy said, “Seems to me we’ve had this conversation before, lots of times.”

“Lots of times,” Marilyn said, nodding.

“And I haven’t been here all that long.”

A hush fell over the room as Raul wheeled in the Reichskanzler. The old man was in uniform, its beige wool smartly pressed. The party armband, however, was missing. Murmurs from the rock stars.

The Reichskanzler cast a glance toward them. “I have always wondered why those degenerates are here.”

“I’ve often wondered about a lot of people here,” Marilyn said. “Don’t know who some of them are.”

“Other countries, other cultures than yours, my dear,” Juan said.

Letting his eye roam around the huge drawing room, Jack caught sight of an old friend, and raised a hand. “Hi, Marty!”

Martin waved back.

“Excuse me, señores y señoras, ladies and gentlemen.”

It was Raul, announcing from the center of the room. Everyone turned to look.

Raul cleared his throat before saying, “Dr. Cabeza de Vaca sends his regrets, but he will not be able to be with you this evening. However, he bids you drink and have fun, as his guest.”

“Man, are we his guests, or what?” James said, chuckling. “Forever!”

“Do you want to go back, Jimmy?”

James didn’t answer for a moment. “I think. Maybe.”

“How about you, Jack?”

“Christ, no. I like it here.”

“I have met few guests who want to go back,” Juan said. “Charisma does something to you,” James said.

“That’s it!” Juan said.

“What’s what?”

“Herr Reichskanzler, you asked what those people were doing here. The answer is charisma.”

The Reichskanzler nodded. “Yes. This is true.”

Bogey said, “No one wants to leave because we’re created with no desire to leave.”

King detached himself from the other entertainers and wandered back to the more political side of the room. He sat down heavily. “Whew, I’m bushed. Don’t ask me why, though. Didn’t do nothin’ all day.”

“But generally speaking, everyone here feels good,” Juan said. “Most of the time.”

“Never felt better myself,” Jack said.

“This is a haven,” Juan said.

“Heaven?” Jimmy the labor boss said.

“No. Pardon my accent. Haven. A place of refuge. As the other Jimmy said, charisma does something to you. We all needed a rest. But I believe we are here for a purpose. This is . . . oh, I think the Germans say . . . Valhalla?”

“Yes,” the Reichskanzler said, “Valhalla.”

“That’s the Norse afterlife, isn’t it?” Jack asked.

“Yes, but it is more. It is a waiting area.”

“Waiting for what?” Marilyn asked.

Juan shrugged. “I am not sure of that.”

“I am sure,” the Reichskanzler said.

“Oh? What is this?”

“I am sure what the purpose is.”

“I think Juan has something,” Bogey said. “If my theory about us being clones isn’t right, then he’s right about this being a haven, or heaven, or whatever. Valhalla, Asgard, the Elysian Fields, call it what you like. Only it’s all in the mind of the human race. We’re just thoughts in people’s minds. The people. The people of the world.”

“Sounds like we really don’t exist,” Marilyn said. “Maybe we don’t, not physically. But, the way I see it—”

“No!” The Reichskanzler’s fist came down on the armrest of the wheelchair. “We exist! I know this. I am one hundred and three years old. I feel that I am this old. Why did they create me this way? No, I am the same man I was when I took power, long ago now. Long ago. I have been here longer than any of you. I knew Dr. Mengele, and I believe what he told me. I do not know the method. It is magic to me. What does it matter? I do know this. We are here for a purpose. We are a . . . brotherhood. Yes, I am in the same brotherhood with that black man there. And that Jew. The same. This is ironic, but it is for a purpose. We are. . . different. We are a breed, a different breed of human being. A
race, no? The gods, or God in heaven, have touched us. We wield great power. We have the will to use this power, though it might destroy us. It did, almost. It nearly destroyed all of us. In different ways. Nevertheless, in spite of the dangers, we pushed on as long as we could. We spoke, we acted, we led. We roused the masses. That is where the power is. The masses. We are . . . what is it . . . a small group?”

“An elite,” Juan supplied.

“Yes, an elite! You see, I am not so far from a Bolshevist! I learned much from the Bolshevists. Only a dedicated elite can rule the masses but it must rule in their name, and in their interests.”

“But what is the purpose, my friend?” Juan persisted.

“The purpose?”

“Why are we here? What are the Good Doctor’s motives?”

“I do not know what are his motives,” the Reichskanzler said.

The old man’s voice had grown progressively louder. It now took on some of the force and resonance of old. Bonfires danced, faintly, in his eyes. Rows of banners waved. Faraway echoes came to his hears. The roar of an enormous crowd, the march of heavy boots.

Around the room, conversation had gradually petered out as attention became focused on the old man in the wheelchair. Eyes regarded him askance at first. Then people turned to face him.

“I do not care what his reasons are,” he continued. “I do not care, even, if we are doppelgangers. But I know what he intends for us. I know that we will all go back one day, to our respective countries, cultures, areas of the globe, to our various professions and walks of life. And together, all of us—we will rule the world!”

The room was silent now. All eyes were on the Reichskanzler, and everyone had listened, even the longhaired skeptics. For a prolonged moment, all movement in the room froze.

Then, suddenly, breaking through the hush like the bark of a coon dog in the dead of night, came a clear Mississippi twang.

“Jesus Christ, ’Dolf, ol’ buddy. Ain’t it about time you gave it a rest?”

The hush lasted just a split second longer. Then the room exploded with laughter. Dropped glasses smashed to the slate floor. People draped over each other, helpless, clutching their sides. Even the servants laughed, unabashedly, momentarily unaware of their impertinence.

The Reichskanzler’s face at first showed horrified surprise. Then the shock passed, leaving great anger and resentment. He hated to be the butt of a joke. Furious, he wheeled himself around and began to leave the room.

Then he stopped. He looked back over his shoulder. He had rarely heard laughter in these rooms, these deathly quiet rooms. In spite of himself, he chuckled. Everybody saw this, and became all the more convulsed.

The old man began to laugh. His toothpick body shaking, he laughed as he never had in all his 103 years. He laughed even harder and longer than the time when Guderian’s tanks had rolled through the Ardennes, making fools of the fat French generals

Evita saw a glint of something in the moonlight, something white in the water. She waded in, bent over, and scooped it out of the soupy sand. She held it up to the full moon. It was the biggest, most beautiful scallop shell she had ever found. The moon shone through it, turning it a pearly gold.

She thought she heard something, and turned away from the sea. It was a sound from the villa, barely audible over the roar of the surf.

Laughter.

She wondered about it, but not for long. She spied other things in the water, bright glimmering specks, and waded further out to investigate.

Group Phenomena
by Thomas F. Monteleone

This is a wonderfully subtle story. You’ve got to be on your toes for this one.

The author, Thomas F. Monteleone, has published more than eighty short stories and eighteen novels, including the bestselling, critically acclaimed thriller The Blood of the Lamb. He has also written for stage and television and has edited five anthologies, so he knows how I feel.

It was late afternoon as I walked down 46th Street, headed for a Manhattan bar called Swaggerty’s, where I was supposed to meet a guy who probably wasn’t human . . .

Several times I had the compulsion to just pull up and run in the opposite direction, but a more rational thought always intercepted the urge. If this guy, whoever (or whatever) he was, was somehow responsible for the awful stuff happening over the years, then finding me would be a piece of cake. I had the unsinkable feeling that there was no place to hide, and that I may as well run headlong into whatever was awaiting me.

Just get it over with.

He was sitting at a comer table in the cool darkness of the Irish bar. Amidst the sepia-toned pictures of soccer teams and revolutionaries, the guy with the plain, familiar face was sitting there watching me approach. In person, he looked so plain, so nondescript, that I had to silently congratulate him on such a wonderfully artful disguise.

“Mr. Sam Aaronson, I presume,” he said. He did not get up or offer to shake hands, and I took that as a bad sign. “Sit down, please.”

I sat, still staring at the plain-brown-wrapper of a face. “All right, let’s cut the crap. What do you want with me?” Before he could answer, a waiter appeared, and I ordered a double George Dickel on the rocks. The waiter disappeared, and the guy across the table from me grinned.

“ ‘Let’s cut the crap.’ That’s such a wonderful idiom, Mr. Aaronson. Wherever did you pick it up?”

I figured the best thing to do would be to say nothing, so I decided to just stare at him.

He smiled. “Believe it or not, you are the first person ever to have come so close to discovering me. When I saw your article, I was impressed.”

“Who are you?” I asked after a short pause. My skin was feeling loose and crawly along my neck and shoulder blades, but I did need to know what was going on. The guy looked so nonthreatening that I knew I should be terrified . . . and I guess I was getting there.

The waiter returned with my drink. My friend with the insurance salesman face waited till he was gone. Looking around the room, I noticed that we were practically alone, that everyone else was doing a great job of ignoring us.

“Who am I?” he repeated the question. “Don’t you even want to guess?”

I shrugged. “It hadn’t really occurred to me,” I said. “But I don’t know, let’s see: You’ve got to be either Death, or the Devil, some form of God, or . . . an alien.” If none of those are right, then I don’t know. I never was very good at multiple-choice exams—all the answers always seemed so reasonable to me.

He smiled. “That’s very clever, Mr. Aaronson. Very clever. An odd mix of mysticism and science. It may be flattering to be confused with your local pantheon of deities, but that is not the case.”

As I assimilated his response, realizing what he was telling me, my stomach heaved, like it was hitting the first hill on a roller coaster. My mind was reeling, and I found myself instantly recalling the crazy events which had brought me to this pivotal moment in my life . . .

. . . and it had all started because I noticed this weird little thing about the world in the news.

I mean, have you ever noticed how odd, unusual disasters seem to occur in clusters?

You know the kind of things I mean: a grain elevator explodes in Silas, Nebraska—the first accident in twenty seven years—and suddenly another one goes up in Dubuque, and maybe a few days pass and a couple more detonate in Wichita and Biloxi.

Or, how about those railroad tank-cars filled with some really terrible substance like chlorine gas? For years they roll around the country, not bothering anyone or anything, and then, as if on cue, they start derailing and leaking poisonous vapors all over places like Kankakee and West Gatch.

You get the idea, don’t you?”

This kind of thing happens more than you might think. It doesn’t always make the papers or the wire services, that’s all.

Take last month, for instance. A cargo freighter called the Novo Queen, sailing out of Portland, and filled with liquid fertilizer, suddenly explodes, killing everyone on board. Three days later, the Hiasa Maru, also full of fertilizer, and bound for Tokyo, blows itself to smithereens while docked in Oakland. The following week, another ship carrying liquid fertilizer buys the farm.

After that . . . nothing.

Before these ships started blowing, there hadn’t been a similar incident in more than twenty years.

Weird, right?

I’ve noticed the same kind of group-occurrences in other kinds of accidents: safes falling from lofts, black-widow bites, elevator cables snapping, you name it. But the strangest part of the whole phenomenon is that it’s been going on apparently unnoticed for years and years—until I picked up on it, back when I was working the night desk for The Mirror.

It was the middle of February—a cold, slow night. Hardly anybody was out-of-doors, no domestic murders, not even so much as a ruptured fireplug. Just to keep awake, I would make myself get up and check the teletype every time it clattered out some filler or stringer-items from wherever.

One of the pieces was a short blurb about a steamroller accident—seems as if an unfortunate pedestrian in Idaho Falls had managed to get run over by one. For some reason, I recalled reading a stringer about the same kind of thing in Chicago the week before.

Very rare accident, I thought. And yet, here was another one within a couple of days.

So just on a whim, I went down to Records, where they keep the clippings files and the microfiche readers (it’ll take years to get everything transferred to the computers . . .), and started checking the cross-indices on Deaths, Accidental, and Steamroller.

I found only one instance in the files of a close encounter of the steamroller kind since 1921.

And suddenly: two in the space of three days. I chalked it up as one of those weird coincidences, but figured that it wouldn’t hurt to await any further developments.

I didn’t have to wait long.

Another steamroller accident over the weekend in Platte, Illinois. It was definitely strange stuff, and I had the feeling that maybe I’d stumbled onto something. So I pursued it down in Records whenever I had an hour or two, and some nights on my own time, too. I looked for grouped incidents, improbable accidents, stuff like that.

I guess I don’t have to tell you there were hundreds of them!

Time went by, and I finally had a file four inches thick, and I was adding to it all the time. Finally, I wrote an article and sold it to a slick, high-paying magazine. I didn’t have any sophisticated computer analysis of the data—-just the facts in the old “strange-but-true” tradition of Frank Edwards.

My story appeared as “Accidents Happen” in Montage, and I received letters from people all over the country. Many of them claimed to have noticed the phenomenon at least subconsciously but hadn’t put it all together until reading my piece. Others even took the time to send me new material.

The experience inspired me to begin working on a book—the dream of all newspaper hacks, cuz we all know a reporter ain’t no author.

First thing I did was hire one of the kids down in the advertising department to spend a few hours each night in the clipping files and microfiche. I had him collecting photographs in any of the connected articles, thinking I might find a visual correlation.

Within a month, the kid handed me more than four hundred clips and pix in an old carton. That weekend, I separated all the pix into categories of events, and that didn’t seem to be doing anything except crap up the dining room table real nice.

But just as I was about to quit for the night I happened to notice the face of a man in the foreground of a picture taken at the sight of an Amtrak derailment in Essex Junction, Vermont. He was walking away from the wreckage of a twisted club car, and was passing the photographer on the left.

His face was so exquisitely normal that there was no reason for me to take notice of him: short, sandy hair, with no outstanding features like big eyes, big noise, thin lips, dewlaps, prominent Adam’s apple, or anything like that. Just a plain waspy-looking face that reminded you of your average State Farm Insurance salesman.

And yet, I had noticed him. Why?

I shuffled through the pix, and it started to come together.

In a 1962 shot from the St. Louis Post Dispatch, where a piano had fallen from a mover’s crane, there was a crowd assembled around the point of impact—one of the faces was my insurance salesman-type. He was turning away from the lens, but not in time to get nailed by the flash of the trusty Graflex. From a clip and pix from the Los Angeles Times I caught sight of the same guy mingling with a crowd of onlookers where a water tower collapsed in Bakersfield in 1981. He was also standing in the back row of a bunch of rubberneckers who watched a school bus being pulled out of Cayuga Lake near Seneca Falls in 1950.

My heart was thumping as I searched through the rest of the stack, and came up with forty-seven pix that contained a shot of somebody who might be my guy. I threw out all the ones in which, for one reason or another (weird camera angle, blurriness, partial obscurement), the make on the guy was not 100% positive. That left me with thirty-two photographs, covering a period of more than fifty years, where the same guy appeared . . .

Weird. Crazy. Impossible. Ridiculous.

All these words kept popping into my head as I popped another Marlboro into my mouth, fired it up. There was no way that the same guy could be showing up at all these grouped events for fifty years and never get any older.

Yet there he was, right on my dining room table, so to speak.

If this guy really was the same guy, I started thinking that the pix only happened to catch him by chance. Maybe he was at every one of the events? Could that be? Maybe he was causing them?

Now that was crazier than anything I had considered up to that point. But what was I supposed to think? It seemed obvious that insurance-salesman-face was linked to the events in some way. Only a jerk would deny that. But why did he look the same for all those years, and who was he?

But then, I got a new thought. Something darker, more sinister. Perhaps, like in all the old movies, there really were Things-Man-Was-Not-Meant-To-Know? Suppose, by opening up this bizarre can of worms, I was putting myself into a dangerous situation? Maybe it would be best if I didn’t tell anybody yet, didn’t get anyone else involved? I got a funny feeling down my backbone, and suddenly the house seemed too damned quiet and the darkness beyond the windows seemed blacker and more impenetrable than before. I was spooking myself, I knew it, but the feeling wouldn’t go away.

Maybe I should just forget about this stuff?

I figured I’d give it a rest for a few days, then decide what I’d do about it. I kept as busy as possible at work, and I was feeling pretty good, less spooked, as each day passed. I was sitting at my desk at Amalgamated with my lunch spread out across the blotter when the phone rang.

“Hello . . .” I said as I forced down a swallow of corned beef on rye.

“Yes, I am trying to locate a Mr. Sam Aaronson,” said an innocuous male voice.

“You got ’im. Who’s calling?”

“Oh, just an old friend. A very old friend . . .”

There was a suggestion of humor in the voice, and I wasn’t sure what was going on. I was about to wisecrack something, but suddenly my Early Warning System flared, and I got this weird feeling that something was wrong. “Hey, look, I’m pretty busy . . . who is this?”

There was a pause at the other end, and the silence seemed to gnaw into my ear.

“I know you’ve been checking on some photographs.”

“Really?” My voice quavered ever so slightly.

“Yes, and so saying, I think you know who I am, don’t you, Mr. Aaronson?”

“What do you want?” I asked, trying to be noncommittal. “I think it’s time we sat down and had a little talk,” said the voice. “When can you meet me?”

I swallowed hard, suddenly not very interested in my lunch any longer. “Where are you?” I croaked.

“Manhattan. A little bar on 46th Street between Park and Fifth. Called Swaggerty’s.”

“I know where it is,” I said. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

“I’ve got plenty of time,” said the voice.

“Yeah, I’ll bet you have,” I said. “See you in a bit.”

I hung up the phone because my hands were starting to tremble, and my voice was cracking all over the place.

Sweeping up my lunch, I chucked it into the circular file—there was the need for something of a more liquid nature at this point—and took off for Swaggerty’s.

The streets were crowded for lunch, and the weather was brisk for October, but the sun was warm as I walked across town toward Fifth. The women were out in force with the latest fashions and on any other day, I would have been doing my share of ogling, but this one was different. I knew who I was going to meet at the bar, and I knew he didn’t want to sell me any insurance . . .

. . . and so there I sat listening to this kind of wimpy-looking guy tell me he was an alien. I sipped on the Dickel and it burned a velvet path down my throat.

“Go on . . .” I said. My voice was barely more than a whisper.

“We have been amongst your kind for many of your centuries—not a great amount of time for my race. I have been here for more than fifty years.”

“What for? What do you want with us? What’re you trying to do, plan an invasion or something?”

He smiled, then actually laughed. “No! Nothing at all so dramatic!”

“What?”

“Would you, or any of your kind, be interested in ‘invading’ an anthill? Of ‘taking over’ that which you might find beneath a flat rock?”

He laughed again.

“Is that what we are to you?” I asked. “A bunch of slugs and insects?”

He shrugged. “If you must know the truth—less. You are simply here. To use one of your idioms, we don’t really give a shit about any of you.”

“Then what are you doing here?” I could feel the indifference, the abject lack of feeling in his voice. He truly meant what he was telling me.

“You wouldn’t understand the true nature of my purpose here.” he said.

“Try me,” I said, downing the rest of my sour mash.

He chuckled nastily. “Mr. Aaronson, would you attempt to read Emmanuel Kant to a cageful of baboons . . .?”

“Oh, you really think a lot of us, don’t you? Well, if we’re so disgusting to you, why don’t you just get the fuck out of here?”

He grinned, nodded. “Let me just say that we are sent here by our . . . ‘elders’ . . . for what you might call ‘training.’ There are aspects of this planet—its distance from its star, the makeup of its magnetic field, the atmospheric balance, and other parameters which would have no meaning in your primitive science—that make it an ideal location for our training.”

“What kind of training?” I was getting the idea, but every time he explained something, I had more questions. I guess once you get the newspaper ink in your blood, it’s a permanent affliction.

“Again, any attempt to explain to you what my race does here, in terms of training, would be totally futile. Let me suffice to say that we are concerned with many physical and metaphysical laws of the universe, that we are fascinated with such concepts as cause and effect, predestination, probability, permutations, and other phenomena which you would not understand.”

“You’re making me feel just great . . .”

He shrugged. “Sorry. I know your limitations.”

“That still doesn’t explain the grouping effect,” I said. He nodded. “Yes, well, you see, that is merely a side effect, a contraindication, caused by aspects of our training. There are moments when the continuum is violated, and the normal Fabric of Being attempts to mend itself. Sometimes there are events of overcompensation, which result in multiple events occurring.”

“What? You mean you actually have control over reality?” The full impact of what he was saying brought a lump into my throat.

He chuckled again. “Well, of course! That’s what it’s all about, don’t you see? The events as they happen are of no consequence to us. They are merely by-products of a much larger, far more complex mechanism at work. It is that mechanism which I control, not these silly events!”

There was something about his condescending, disdainful attitude that was very convincing. His words chilled me with a cavalier cruelty. I knew he was telling the truth, but I pushed him anyway.

“How do I know this isn’t a bunch of bullshit?”

“You know it is not . . .”

“You say you’re an alien,” I said, trying to sound forceful. “Prove it. Show me.”

“You would not like me to do that.”

Another cold spike went through me, but I pushed on into unknown territory. “Yes I would. Go on.”

He gestured at his face, his body. “This is just an illusion,” he said. “A carefully constructed piece of work, yes, but nothing more than playing with your spectrum of visible light”

“Come on,” I said. “Let me see what you guys really look like.”

“Very well,” he said, and his image began to waver around the edges. He started to disappear like a superimposed ghost in an old black-and-white movie, and then I started to see what was “beneath” the illusion.

It rippled and pulsated and glistened for starters. There were tendrils and whiskery-looking things. Things that looked like open sores, running ooze and pustulence. Very organic, not pretty. And there were odors which apparently had also been masked. The smells reached out and grabbed me, smacking me, and then choking me with their foulness. My stomach churned.

“Okay! That’s enough!” I said, but it was too late.

A thick, hot column surged up my throat, and I heaved across the table violently. My eyes filled with stinging tears and my mouth burned with acid. A waiter came to help me with a warm cloth, and expertly scooped up the tablecloth with everything in it. Amidst my gasping apologies, the waiter brought new cloth and settings. It all happened so quickly, I was a bit startled to look up through my tears and see the insurance salesman face staring back at me.

“You were warned,” he said.

“All right,” I took my breath in large gulps. “I believe you now . . . I just have one more question.”

“Which is: Why are you telling me all this? Correct?”

I nodded dumbly.

“Well, my training is almost at an end. I will be leaving this world for the next stage in my evolution. You were smarter than the rest of your breed—you at least noticed my presence.”

“So?”

“So I decided to at least reward you for your work. You deserved to know, and I don’t care if you know or not.”

Now this sounded kind of odd to me. Something didn’t add up. “You mean you don’t care if I tell the world about you?”

He chuckled meanly. “Come now, Mr. Aaronson . . . who would believe you?”

I thought about it for a minute, then nodded. “You’ve got a point there.”

He grinned. “Yes, but just to make certain there are no repercussions, before I take my leave, I fear I will have to eliminate you.”

My stomach churned violently again and adrenaline shock jarred my entire system. “What?”

“You heard me correctly.”

“Some ‘reward’ for being so clever,” I said. Suddenly my fear had been replaced by anger. If this walking bed-sore was going to take me out, he would have to do it the hard way.

“And now, Mr. Aaronson, it is time to say adieu,” said the alien, as he sipped the last of his drink.

Using that instant as my only chance, I grabbed the steak knife at my place setting and lunged at him over the table. Plunging the blade into his eye, I felt something soft and wet and slimy almost envelop my hand. The thing screamed and its image began to waver like bad TV reception.

I kept jabbing and dicing it up with the knife like I was tearing into some rotten fruit, and the thing howled horribly. By now, the other people in the joint had rushed over to watch, but when they saw the tendriled horror that was grappling with me, they all recoiled in a kind of shock.

It kept making this keening, howling sound, and there was a black, ichorous fluid spraying out all over the floor like a broken water pipe. Suddenly, the thing broke free of me and surged toward the front door. The crowd parted in panic and the thing moved by them with alarming quickness.

As I followed it out the street, amidst the gasps of terror and amazement of the crowd, I had a crazy thought, a journalist’s thought. It suddenly occurred to me that I had an incredible story on my hands. I would be famous tomorrow morning!

Reaching the sidewalk, I raced to the comer, looking for the thing, but it had vanished. Wondering if I had mortally wounded it, I glanced over at the early afternoon edition of the New York Post, staring up at me from a newsstand. In that instant, I understood everything.

CHICAGO MAN BATTLES ALIEN IN CORNER BAR said the headline.

Unextinctions
by Bruce Boston and Roger Butcher

Roger Butcher collaborated with Bruce Boston (“How Alien He Really Was”) on this short but provocative piece. For his first prose sale, it’s a fine start.

He is coeditor (with Mark Rich) of The Magazine of Speculative Poetry, “Amazon,” is a nominee for the Rhysling Award.

A great leathery bird circles over the red tiled rooftops of old Pasadena. A herd of tiny horses, no bigger than dogs or sheep, is spotted on the Serengeti Plain. A giant man-eating tiger, with teeth like scimitars, rampages through the villages northeast of Maradabad, leaving eighteen dead and dozens injured in its wake.

At first the scientists scoff, dismissing such reports as they would a flurry of Sasquatch or UFO encounters. Yet sightings at first taken as misidentifications, as the hallucinogenic dream fulfillments of drugged-out tree huggers, the would-be fantasies of ecologic romantics, soon become daily realities too numerous and frequent to deny: the miraculous reappearance of species after species long-considered extinct.

The tabloids have a field day, a chance at last to report the truth, actual events as preposterous and sensational as their endless fabrications . . . but their banner headlines must soon compete with those of more respected journals:

The London Times “TRILOBITES CLOG TUNA NETS!”

The Washington Post: “TUCSON: GIANT GROUND SLOTHS!!”

National Geographic: “T. REX ALIVE AND WELL IN BROOKLYN HEIGHTS!!!”

Giant dragonflies with wings like six-foot exclamation marks swarm across the Autobahn, blocking exit signs, alighting on windshields and fenders, sending marvels of German engineering careening on collision course and slowing the fastest traffic in the world to a crawl . . . droves of the flightless dodo, honking an ill-timed “Hallelujah Chorus,” invade and amble at random through St. Peter’s Square, driving away the faithful, outnumbering the pigeons and fouling the flagstones, far outscoring the Pope as a tourist attraction . . . on the muddy and polluted delta of the Mississippi, a school/herd of fish/mammals with incipient gill/lungs and stubby leg/fins inch their way onto a sandbar, blinking at the naked sun as if they were the first creatures to ever see it uncloaked by water, reject the vision and turn around, retreating as one back into the murky depths.

And finally, as a logical extension of natural history gunning in reverse gear, as an illogical extrapolation of an ecosphere increasingly run amok, our very own progenitors both actual and apocryphal—Austrolopithecus, Java Man, Piltdown, Cro-Magnon—begin to materialize in increasing numbers. Hirsute and filthy, clad only in uncured skins, they wander down from the hills or in across the prairies to prowl our neighborhoods, to invade our finest shopping malls and shatter our plate glass windows, to crouch upon our fenders and fiercely pummel our hoods.

And although we confront them with rifles and handguns aplenty, although we slaughter them by the score and score again, their incoherent grunts and cries of rage continue to fill our streets, to track our lives and our dreams, confirming what we should have learned long ago, what we perhaps should have known all along: Nature does have a sense of humor. It is a dark and wild one. And having violated her more than once too often, we have now become the objects of her all-consuming mirth.

How Alien He Really Was
by Bruce Boston

While Bruce Boston is best known for his poetry, he is also the author of the critically acclaimed novella,“After Magic”, and the recent novel, Stained Glass Rain. He has won numerous awards, including but not limited to the Rhysling (three times), the ASIMOV’s Readers’ Choice Award for poetry; and the Pushcart Prize for Fiction.

All well-deserved, as I hope you will agree after reading this.

By the time the government released the Alien for public consumption, he was already famous. Over the next several months—as he traveled, appeared on talk shows, spoke at colleges and universities—his notoriety continued to grow. During this time the world through which the Alien moved was one of affirmation, ceremony and celebration: elegant parties, the finest food and wine, and always a rush of friendly words and smiling faces.

Here he was stranded light-years from home, without the rapport of his soulmates, and he did not feel so stranded or alone after all. He began to think he could adjust to life in this new world, to accept its warmth and the acclaim it offered him.

Then a strange thing began to happen, which was not so strange at all. Interest in the Alien began to wane. His naivete, even if it was genuine, could only be charming for so long. He never would reveal anything really significant about his native planet. And he certainly wasn’t much to look at . . . grossly pale, ears like rhubarb and not much of a nose at all.

There came a day when the Alien had more time on his hands than he knew what to do with. Naturally, he began to seek out the friends he had acquired during his stay, those humans who had organized and managed his tours. Having been exposed to the Alien for nearly a year, they no longer thought of him as anything special. The deference with which they had once treated him was gone. And sometimes, more and more often, it seemed he was even in the way.

It was then that the Alien began to see, beyond the ceremony and the sell, beyond the ready smiles and the easy affirmation, into the true nature of these creatures he had fallen among.

Only then did he begin to realize how alien he really was.

NASA Sending Addicts to Mars!

Giant Government Coverup Revealed!

by Alan Dean Foster

We’ve got Alan Dean Foster to thank for this hard-hitting piece of investigative journalism. He tells me he wrote it “because I’ve always seen NASA to be a bit too starched in their relations with the public, and also because hypocrisy (i.e. the treatment of drugs) in this country often gives birth to irony.” He is also the author of the extremely popular Spellsinger series, among numerous other works, and the editor of Betcha Can’t Read Just One, an upcoming anthology of original funny fantasy.

Your Editor wants you to know that she read this story, but she didn’t inhale.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States!” Someone in the Presidential party had thoughtfully brought along their own tape of “Hail to the Chief’—just in case one happened to be lacking at Mission Control. It filtered through the intercom system as the tight knot of Secret Service men escorted their charge into the room, not unlike a cluster of nervous remoras convoying a shark. Played back over the music system the familiar music sounded tinny.

An unpatriotic thought at what should be a moment of great national pride, Fraser knew. A glance at MacKenzie and Tetsugawa showed that they shared his nervousness.

Following the initial curious look at the Chief Executive, the mission team had returned to work, their attention focused resolutely on their instrumentation. Not all of them shared the secret which had been so strenuously guarded by mission command. With luck, that secret might be maintained for another day, another week. A great deal depended on how the President handled things.

Time enough to worry about that later. At the moment there were greetings to be exchanged, additional preparations to be made. Fraser was making his own notes on what the President was wearing, whether his shoes were shined, how firm his handgrip was and how genuine was the easy, down-home grin so familiar from hundreds of telecasts. It was important for Fraser to memorize these details because his kids were sure to grill him on them the moment he got home. Not every kid on the block could boast about the day his dad met the President.

He thought Tetsugawa and MacKenzie handled it better. Older and more experienced, they were used to the diplomatic niceties required on the bureaucratic circuit. To MacKenzie the President was only a ex-Senator with bigger lifts in his heels. To Tetsugawa he was a banker with access to unlimited largesse.

A voice interrupted his reverie. “We’re ready to transmit, Mr. Fraser.”

“Thanks, Will.” Stepping forward, he found it surprisingly easy to pull the President away from the circle of sycophants into which he’d been drawn. “We’re ready for you now, Mr. President.”

“Thank you, Warren.” Instantly on a first-name basis, making you feel at once important and at ease, Fraser mused admiringly. Just like his next-door neighbor Steve Beckwith inquiring yet again if he could borrow the power mower.

Pulling papers from a coat pocket, the President quietly cleared his throat and began to study them as the engineers concluded their final tests. Only when all was ready did he incline slightly in the direction of the microphone and read from his prepared statement.

“Gentlemen and lady of the first manned mission to Mars, it is my very great pleasure to greet you this first morning of the grandest achievement in the history of America and mankind’s space program. By now the whole world has thrilled to the story of your successful landing on that ancient and mysterious world, which henceforth must be mysterious no longer. As in the coming weeks you probe its dusty secrets ..

Fraser listened with one ear. Certainly it was a speech of considerable historical import, one right up there with “One Small Step for Mankind,” but other concerns preyed on his mind. He should have been relaxed. The interminably long spiraling journey out to the Red Planet, the anxiety attending the descent when unexpectedly strong winds threatened to turn the touchdown in Hellas to tragedy; all were behind them now. Nevertheless, the future of the expedition was far from assured.

The President droned on, relishing the moment. Fraser automatically scanned the readings on the most important screens. To his relief one in particular remained monotonously steady. Only the mission command physicians would be sensitive to the elevated readings of certain gauges, to the unusual respiratory patterns everyone at Command had grown accustomed to since the Barsoom‘s departure from Earth orbit. Certainly there was no one in the President’s immediate entourage knowledgeable enough about such matters to notice that anything was amiss.

Eventually the President concluded his message of congratulations. Now they had to wait for the crew to compose their official response. Ah, the response. Fraser suddenly wished he were somewhere else. But he was the voice of mission control and there was nowhere for him to hide.

While waiting he paced aimlessly among the instrumented aisles, trying to avoid members of the official party. Let MacKenzie and Tetsugawa make small talk with them. He leaned over one console festooned with dials and readouts and half a dozen flat-screen monitors. The operator checked an earphone and turned to grin at him.

“Fuentes just scored on a five-yard plunge. We’re tied with Pittsburgh twenty-one all going into the fourth quarter.”

“Thanks, Mel.” Fraser moved on, feeling better. So far it had been a rough season for the Oilers. You’d think that with a hundred-plus screens in Mission Control someone could figure out a way to rig one to secretly pick up network broadcasts.

All of a sudden it was time, by the clock and by simple physics. He took his place and waited. The big monitor on the wall crackled and cleared. They had to use the big screen this time. The President’s team had insisted and as a result there was no way to avoid it.

The panoramic view that materialized was remarkably sharp and detailed. It did not look especially alien. Rocky, red-hued hills poked into a pink sky. Overhead a single fragile cloud struggled for coherence in the rarefied atmosphere. As always, there were a few gasps from the newcomers in the audience. A live television picture from Mars, especially when viewed on the projection screen, was still a sight to inspire awe even in jaded viewers.

A figure wandered into view and waved at the camera pickup. Fraser immediately recognized the lanky form of Gregorski, the mission geologist. The light Mars suit clung to his frame, reminding everyone how far removed the environment of the Red Planet was from barren Luna.

Gregorski waved again, then executed another gesture which distance fortunately rendered ambivalent. Glancing to his left Fraser saw MacKenzie wince. One of the President’s aides squinted uncertainly at the big screen but held his peace when no one else said anything.

The geologist did a slow forward roll and bounded triumphantly to his feet in the light gravity. So far not too bad, Fraser thought. The President was murmuring to an assistant and looking content.

There was a flash-interrupt. It was followed by a second, and then the screen cleared again. They were inside the Lander now, the camera panning to show the interior of the main cabin. Food and equipment lay strewn about, poorly stowed. That was to be expected, though. Everyone knew how rough the touchdown had been.

Then a face was grinning into the pickup. Several onlookers started involuntarily. The sudden appearance of a ten-foot high nose can be disconcerting. The nose was quite red, but brief exposure to Martian sunlight could do that. It could, Fraser told himself insistently.

The nose retreated, to find itself surrounded by the other facial features of Mission Commander Swansea. The Colonel rubbing his proboscis, unaware that he’d slightly smudged the pickup lens, and grinned.

Behind him they could see the two other members of the landing team, Oakley and Preston. For a moment Fraser thought everything was going to be all right. Then he saw that Oakley’s flight suit was unzipped all the way to her thighs. It wasn’t obvious because she was facing away from the pickup, but Fraser’s trained eye picked up the telltale clues immediately. Nearby he heard Tetsugawa inhale sharply.

Please, he thought frantically; say thank you, give greetings, be profound if you must, but get off camera as fast as you can.

Preston turned from his console to face the camera, weaving only slightly. A condition fortuitously ascribable to the light gravity, Fraser knew.

No such luck.

“Heyyy, good buddy!” Preston was smiling at Swansea, neglecting to address him as Commander. “Whatta you know? It’s the President. The goddamn farking President.” The Colonel swayed toward the pickup. “Yo, Pres!”

Fraser found that he had begun to sweat.

Swansea pulled back. “Farrrrr outtttt. What’s happenin’, earth creatures?”

Perhaps, Fraser thought desperately, the President would ascribe the Mission Commander’s response to a personal desire on the part of a famous minority American to address his own community in colloquial fashion at a moment of personal triumph.

The President was frowning uncertainly at an aide. He couldn’t reply, of course. He’d delivered his own message of greeting earlier. Because of the time-delay all he could do now, all any of them could do, was watch and listen.

Fraser looked to MacKenzie, but the engineer only shrugged. His finger hovered over the button that could halt reception, but it did not descend. An abrupt cut-off would require explanations, and that would invariably be worse than the truth.

They’d all discussed many times what could be done if this happened. The general consensus was that they’d have to ride with it and pray none of the mission members became abusive or insulting. With everyone in Mission Control watching the big screen, any kind of thorough coverup was out of the question.

Turning, he could see the network reporters behind the soundproof glass. Many of them had been covering the space program for a good portion of their careers, but they’d never heard anything like this. More than one jaw had sagged at Swansea’s comments. Behind the television people the print reporters looked tom; uncertain whether to run and file what they’d seen, or wait to see what else might develop.

“He can’t tell you what’s happening, freako,” said Preston from his station. ‘Time de-lay.”

“Oh, riiiight.” Swansea took no umbrage at the correction. He looked very happy as he turned back to the pickup.

“Say, Mistah President. We wish you was heah. How about a weather report? You want a weather report? We does baaad weather reports.” He looked over his shoulder. “Hey, sweet thang. Lay some weather on the man.”

“Sweet thing?” The President whispered to the Secretary of State. “Is that Major Oakley’s official nickname?” Lander Copilot and chief biologist Oakley was speaking. “Well, Mister President, sugar, it’s pretty damn cold outside right now, and that’s the Nome of the game.” She giggled. “If you really want to know, the weather sucks and it’ll be a cold day in Hellas before any of us do any sunbathing. Could ski, if we had any snow, which we don’t. Lousy friggin’ couple centimeters of ice.” She swayed slightly as she grabbed at a pickup. It took her three tries to get it.

“Hey Hanover, you lazy good-for-nuthin’ orbitin’ muthergrabber! How come they put us down on a cold slope with no snow?”

This demand was followed by an inarticulate gargle. Somewhere in the vast room a technician had begun to laugh. He was hurriedly shushed. Meanwhile, Hanover, alone up in the orbiter, could be heard singing something about cockles and mussels, alive, alive-ho. Hanover was the possessor of three advanced degrees and a lousy voice.

Oakley could be seen batting the flexible pickup aside. “Lazy muthergrubber,” she mumbled. “When we get back up there, I’m gonna fix his ass.” She started to turn and rise. As she did so her unzipped flightsuit parted. It was instantly apparent that the Major was not wearing her regulation flight undergarments. In fact, she was wearing no undergarments whatsoever. Whistles echoed through Mission Control until a fumbling Preston could organize her attire.

The President stared in stony silence at the screen while upstairs frantic technicians tried to edit a shot that had already gone out. One Secret Serviceman struggled to repress a smile.

“Cool it, sweets,” Preston could be overheard telling her. “We’re on TV.”

“Yeah. The boob tube.” Oakley grinned, apparently in no wise abashed by her unscientific revelations.

“It certainly seems to be a happy crew,” the President finally commented.

MacKenzie ventured a wan smile. “Attitude is crucial on such a long journey, Mister President.”

Swansea had slipped out of range of the visual pickup. Now he returned, puffing on a cigarette and waving lazily at the lens. “Uh, we got to sign off now, Mister President. Work to be done and time waits for no man, comprende? Tell everybody back home that we loves them and that we’re givin’ our all for the good ol U. S. of A., hey?” Behind him Oakley was giggling again.

The image began to break up. Faintly they could see Swansea offering the cigarette to Preston. “It’s mid-morning, man. You want a regulation toke?”

Then the screen went blank.

The silence in Mission Control was deafening. Only the machines conversed, in soft buzzes and clicks. After a long pause the President turned and began whispering to MacKenzie, who nodded as he listened. The President talked for quite a while. Mackenzie’s expression was grave.

After the President and his entourage departed, the senior engineer beckoned to Fraser.

“He didn’t buy it.”

“Who would, after witnessing a performance like that” Fraser gestured toward the big screen, now ablink with flight data and other innocuous statistics.

“He’d like to see all senior members of the team in the briefing room. Now.”

“Right.” Fraser followed his friend and boss. The flight crew hadn’t cooperated. Not that they were expected to, but hopes had run high. He consoled himself with the knowledge that it could have been worse. It had been, in the course of the flight out from Earth, but that dialogue had arrived via containable, closed channels.

Actually they hadn’t performed too badly. Except for some of their dialogue. And Major Oakley’s exposure. And Commander Swansea’s closing commentary.

Well, maybe they had performed badly.

The President was waiting for them, a measure of his concern. He sat at one end of the desk and bid them join him. As the door closed behind him, Fraser could hear the distant howls of reporters struggling to get past the guards. On a trip to Tanzania Fraser had once heard hyenas closing on an injured impala. The memory came back to him now, unbidden.

The President was quiet, staring down at his folded hands. Fraser thought the room too brightly lit. Then that familiar face rose to eye each of them in turn. To Fraser’s immense discomfort, it settled eventually on him.

A small eon or two passed in continued silence before the Chief Executive said softly but firmly, “Well?”

The voice of Mission Control looked to Tetsugawa, then MacKenzie, who nodded but offered no support. Fraser was on his own.

“I guess you’d like an explanation, Mister President.”

“Your observation reeks of understatement, Mr. Fraser. So it’s no longer Warren, he thought. Not a good sign. He rose and began pacing. He always thought better on his feet.

“The White House science advisor may have told you, Mister President, that accumulated research has shown us that long-term exposure to weightlessness beyond the Earth’s orbit is not in the same league, physiologically speaking, with much greater exposure over interplanetary distances. As we discovered several years ago, the illness that develops during such extended trips is persistent, debilitating, and if allowed to continue results in physical problems as well as severe psychological complications.”

“I’ve been briefed,” the President replied. “I’ve kept abreast of the Project since before I was elected.”

Fraser nodded, grateful that he wouldn’t have to explain every little detail, every nuance of the situation. Compared to his elected brethren on Capitol Hill, this President was technologically sophisticated. It might make a difference, and it was bound to help.

“We experimented with every imaginable kind of medication, sir, to alleviate the symptoms attendant on such far-ranging expeditions. The ones we would have preferred to use were too weak, or wore off after a month or so. Anything strong enough to significantly mute the condition affected individual performance to the point where it compromised mission safety.

“What we needed was medication which could be taken as necessary but would not impair the crew over a time span of several months. We also needed something which would not damage the crew’s mental well-being. As you know, the problem of being cooped up in a small ship over so much time and distance was more difficult for us to deal with than the science and engineering.

“In the end, it was Ms. Tetsugawa who came up with the right stuff. As you may know, she is our chief design engineer and is responsible for the overall performance of the spacecraft, particularly the Lander. She also suffers from inoperable glaucoma in her right eye. Among the medications which have been prescribed for her over the years and which allow her to continue in her career is cannabis.”

Tetsugawa gave him a welcome breather as she spoke up. “In the course of preparing for this expedition, Mister President, we discovered that periodic use of cannabis, or rather, its principle component ACTH, relieved the majority of symptoms associated with long-distance interplanetary travel while still allowing the crew a sufficient range of function to carry out their assignments. It has the added benefit of enhancing their mental well-being.

“We considered various methods of application, from pill form to injection, but found that the, um, traditional methodology was the most effective. Like everything else on the ship, the Barsoom‘s ventilation system is overbuilt and redundant. It handles the smoke without difficulty.”

‘That’s nice to know,” said the President dryly.

“I might add, sir, that the necessary material was obtained through legal sources, principally the same pharmaceutical company which supplies glaucoma sufferers like myself. I understand that the raw material comes from wild fields in Hawaii.”

The President’s finger were working. “At least it’s the product of American agriculture. There was no other way?” MacKenzie shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mister President. We had the choice of utilizing an effective method of treatment or abandoning the Mars flight until some chemical substitute could be found.”

The Chief Executive looked thoughtful. “What about long-term risks to the astronauts?”

“Compared to the other risks involved in this expedition they were minimal, sir. Their dosage is carefully monitored, though occasionally they can exceed that limit. I’m afraid they may have done so today, though in light of their accomplishment it may be understandable. As you may know, when they announced touchdown we had our own little celebration here at Mission Control.”

“Testing was rigorous, Mister President,” said the diminutive Tetsugawa. “The United Tobacco Company was kind enough to lend us their secret laboratory facilities. They had their own reasons for participating, of course. We’d hoped to keep this aspect of the mission quiet until the crew had returned and been through debriefing. Your insistence on this transmission made that impossible.”

“The American people have a right to know,” the President replied. “They have a right to know what their tax dollars are paying for.” Next to him an aide put a hand to his forehead and groaned.

“I’m surprised you managed to keep it out of the papers this long,” declared an aide.

The President rose and turned to stare at the large relief map of Mars that dominated the near wall of the briefing room.

“This is a great day for our country. Nothing must be allowed to take away from that, nor from the accomplishments of that gallant crew. In the time-honored tradition of science and exploration they have made great sacrifices and suffered much.”

“Maybe not too much,” one aide whispered to another. The Secretary of State glared at them.

“Those are our feelings also, Mister President.” Mackenzie’s spirits rose. It was going to be all right.

“I am sure that once the circumstances are properly explained to them, the public will see things in an understanding light. You can handle the press, can’t you, Roy?”

The White House Press Secretary pursed his lips.“I’ll need plenty of material from NASA, sir. It won’t be easy. People have been conditioned for so long to think that . . .” The President glanced over his shoulder. “Putting three men and a woman on Mars hasn’t been easier either, Roy.” The spokesman swallowed. “No, sir.”

Fraser was breathing easier. He marveled at the President, admiring the skill of a consummate politician at work. There was no anger; only an attempt to find solutions.”

“We’ll supply all the material you’ll need,” MacKenzie told the Press Secretary. The President turned to the chief engineer.

“I appreciate your striving to keep this aspect of the mission out of the public eye for as long as possible, Mr. MacKenzie. At least we have the successful landing to build upon. Had this information leaked earlier, it would have greatly complicated funding. You’ve all done your jobs well. Now it’s my turn. Thanks to our idiot economic advisors I’ve had to justify far more unsettling surprises than this.” He turned from the map.

“It will be difficult to manage the press, but we’ll manage. Tabloid headlines like ‘Potheads go to Mars’ will be the least of our problems. It’s the conservative media that worry me.” He sighed. “The Moral Majority never wanted any space missions anyway.”

“We’ll hold up our end, sir,” said MacKenzie.

“I know that you all will.” He moved to shake hands with each of them in turn. “It’s been an important day, unexpected revelations notwithstanding. Now I’m afraid I have to get back to Washington. As your Commander Swansea pointed out, time waits for no man.” He headed for the door. Beyond, a phalanx of aides and Secret Service men were sweeping the corridor clean of reporters.

“One thing, guys.” The Press Secretary lingered in the doorway. “I think it would be a good idea if future Mission Control press releases at least temporarily stopped referring to it as ‘The High Frontier’. . .

Vole
by John Gregory Betancourt

Here follows something . . . bizarre, even for this book. It was created by John Gregory Betancourt, “part time superhero and part time mystic [who] operates from a secret base deep in the heart of New Jersey. Among his achievements are twenty-three world domination plots foiled, eighteen criminal masterminds put behind bars, and no less than forty-four natural disasters averted.”

He goes on to say he has an overactive imagination. Q.E.D. Among his forthcoming books is Devil in the Sky, a Star Trek: Deep Space 9 novel, written in collaboration with another of our contributors, Greg Cox.

From the New York Sun-Tribune:

VOLE MEN—A NEW

MEDICAL MUTILATION?

By Ari J. Hermann

Staff Writer

Dozens of patients flock to “animen doctors” each week to be surgically reconstructed into their favorite animals. Societies of elite “catmen,” “dogmen,” and other breeds of animal-men are developing throughout New York and Los Angeles as a result.

“The so-called “animan surgery” is neither safe nor sensible,” according to Dr. Bruce Athwait of the County General Hospital. “It appeals to the baser, animal instincts in man,” Athwait says. “If you need an outlet for your animal aggressions, see a licensed psychiatrist. Do not mutilate your body!”

New York’s most celebrated animal surgeon, Dr. Ferret, disagrees. “Man is past the point of needing just one body,” he alleges. “New limbs and vital organs can be cloned in nutrient tanks for amputees.

Why not graft on whole new bodies?” Dr. Ferret, a six-year animan himself (ferretman), further claims to have performed “over eight hundred successful operations over the last three years, for animan bodies ranging from cats to dogs to, yes, even penguins.”

As new animalform bodies are developed and commercially marketed, Dr. Ferret runs advertisements in local papers offering specials on these new bodies. The latest animalform is “vole”—and over fifty people have already signed up for the new “voleman” surgical operations.

Legislation is pending in Congress to make animalforms either illegal or harder to get for most Americans. Several southern states have already passed laws against human-body mutilation aimed at curbing the animalform practice, and a test case is currently with the Supreme Court. Battle lines seem drawn between pro-animalform and anti-animalform groups.

Only time will tell whether animen are the wave of the future—or a bizarre affectation of the present.

In Search of the Perfect Orgasm
or

Doing It with a Big Lizard Can Be Fun
by Dean Wesley Smith

Dean Wesley Smith wants us to know that he “has been in search of the perfect orgasm for most of his adult (and some of his teenage) life. On his days off he writes stories and novels and does other nasty publishing things (such as edit and publish other people’s stuff). Godzilla and Rocky and Bullwinkle were his favorite childhood friends, although they have been of little help in his search.”

Kids, don’t try this at home.

When the alien ray gun zapped Godzilla, it did more than just kill the old cliché, it burnt a few people, too. This is the story of one of those people: Little Sally Ann Gibson, age sixteen, size 36D, ray gun victim.

COUNTDOWN: ONE HOUR BEFORE GODZILLA

BITES IT.

“Sally. Ann. Gibson.” Sally’s mother spaced the words as if they were each a sentence. “How many times have I told you to wear a bra? You can’t go to school looking like that. Now get back upstairs and change into something decent.”

“But, Mom . . .” Sally banged her hand in frustration on the banister, not really noticing that her anger made her nipples poke through the loose knit of the sweater.

“No buts. Do as I say.” Sally’s mom put her hands on her hips in the old Superman pose and stared at Sally’s chest with disgust.

Sally knew there was no arguing with her mother when she talked like that and stood like that. It made no difference that all the girls in school were going without their bras. It made no difference that she had great tits and liked to show them off. Nope. None of that mattered. Her mom was still living in the Stone Age.

Sally trudged slowly back upstairs, pouting, her lower lip extended, wondering what Billy was going to think and if he’d even like her any more. It wasn’t until she got to the top that she realized she was being stupid. She could just take her bra off after she got to school. Her mom would never know.

And it might even be fun.

COUNTDOWN: THIRTY MINUTES BEFORE THE

ALIEN RAY GUN FRIES GODZILLA’S BRAIN AND

OTHER BODY PARTS.

Sally giggled, then squirmed on the smooth car seat, as Bobby slipped her sweater up over her head. His fingers were cold and as they brushed her skin under her arms they tickled and sent little shivers of pleasure all over her body.

“Nice way to start the day,” Billy said, his hands rubbing her bra-encased boobs as if he was trying to tune the radio, both knobs at the same time.

Sally glanced nervously around the mostly empty school parking lot. It was still early, so there was time. She turned her back to Billy. “Unhook me, would you?”

“My pleasure,” Billy said. His voice squeaked and he was starting to pant. Sally knew what that meant. She’d have to get her sweater back on damn fast or they’d be wrestling out here for hours. Damn. Why had she thought it would be fun to have Billy help?

COUNTDOWN: TEN MINUTES UNTIL GODZILLA

GETS TURNED TO A CRISPY CRITTER BY THE

ALIENS WHO WANT TO SAVE EARTH FOR

SOMETHING BETTER.

“Billy! Stop that!” Sally pulled Billy’s hand out from under her skirt. Now she was panting. His face was red. She had gotten her sweater back on only by promising Billy he could do other “things.” She just hadn’t expected to enjoy the other “things” so much. She’d always been a “good” girl and never let a boy touch her “there.”

She glanced quickly around the parking lot. Well, maybe it wouldn’t hurt for just another minute.

She let go of Billy’s hand and it ducked under her skirt faster than her cat trying to hide from the neighbor’s dog.

COUNTDOWN: FIVE MINUTES UNTIL GODZILLA

SMOKES AND THE ALIENS LAUGH AND THE

WORLD IS PLAGUED WITH A NEW RASH OF

JAPANESE HORROR MOVIES.

They were interrupted twice by cars pulling in. But both times Sally had let Billy put his hand back up under her skirt. The last time he had pulled aside her white panties and really touched her. The feeling almost scared her. Almost.

This time the intruding car, Carla’s blue Volks, pulled in across from them. Billy quickly pulled his hand out and Sally felt the disappointment, among other things. The excitement of thinking that Carla might guess what they were doing had her breathing hard.

Both of them waved at Carla as if they had been talking about a biology assignment and nothing more. The minute Carla turned and headed for the school, Sally lifted her butt off the seat, reached up under her skirt, and pulled off her white panties. She held them up for Billy to see.

“If I don’t need a bra,” she said, smiling. “I sure don’t see why I need these.”

She dropped them into her purse as Billy tried to catch his breath.

COUNTDOWN: ONE MINUTE UNTIL GODZILLA GETS

STEAMED, DEEP-FAT FRIED, AND SENT ON TO THE

NEXT WORLD BY THE ALIENS WHO AREN’T EVEN

FROM THIS WORLD.

Billy’s fingers were doing wonderful things under her skirt and Sally didn’t really care if anyone drove up or not. She’d let Billy watch out. She had her eyes closed and right now her entire body was starting to tremble. She knew she was going to come any minute. And she knew it was going to be a lot better than when she wrapped her legs around her teddy bear and squeezed real hard.

Billy’s hand moved faster and she moaned. This time was going to be much better.

BLAST-OFF: GODZILLA’S SCALES REFLECTED PART

OF THE HEAT RAY. ALIEN HEAD GUNNERS CALLED

IT A FLUKE.

Billy’s hand was moving like a blender and Sally was half moaning, half shouting. Two seniors laughed and pointed as they walked by the shaking car.

HEADLINE: ALIEN RAY BOUNCES OFF

ATMOSPHERE, HITS CAR IN A HIGH SCHOOL

PARKING LOT IN THE VERY HEART OF AMERICA.

PRESIDENT THREATENS TO SUE ALIENS

AND JAPANESE.

Sally Ann Gibson’s first real orgasm and the alien heat ray hit her at exactly the same instant.

She exploded like a kid’s balloon against a cactus.

She blew up like a tomato thrown against a brick wall.

She had an orgasm unparalleled in human existence.

HEADLINE: GODZILLA LIMPS INTO OCEAN

CARRYING TEN-STORY BUILDING. ALIENS HAVE NO

COMMENT.

Billy broke his right hand in the orgasmic explosion and ended up having to sell his car because he couldn’t get past the memory. He also had to live with a phobia against parking on dates that limited his future sexual practices.

Little Sally Ann Gibson recovered after two days in the hospital. The doctors promised her that plastic surgery would help the permanent smile frozen on her face.

She never had the operation.

Saving Sam’s Used UFOs
by Kate Daniel

As of this writing, Kate Daniel has five novels out under her own name and one under a pseudonym, plus stories in several anthologies including Aladdin: Master of the Lamp and By Any Other Fame. Her novels include Babysitter’s Nightmare, Teen Idol, and Running Scared. She lives with her family and cats in rural Arizona and knows where to get a really out-of-this-world deal on transportation.

“Hey! Where the hell you think you’re going?”

The shout came moments too late to stop the man climbing through the wire fence. Inside the rusty barbed wire, there was a shimmer of light, like a heat haze on an August day. Since it was late October, it had to be something else. The fence-climber stopped for a moment, his eyes narrowing as he looked at the distortion. Beyond, inside the fenced-off area, he could see an auto graveyard, cars that were too tired and worn out to be worth restoring as classics. He’d been studying it from a distance, and he’d gotten several shots through a telephoto lens. The haze hadn’t been visible from outside the fence. Now he studied it, wondering if it would even show in a picture. The cars beyond it were distorted by the ripples, blurred out of their normal shapes.

“Get outta there, you! Right now!” The owner of the lot was coming toward him, as fast as an overweight and out-of-shape used car salesman could move. The man inside the fence made a fast decision. He pulled out his camera and took another picture, hoping the automatic focus could handle the mock heat haze. Then he headed for the nearest row of cars.

His second step took him through the shimmering wall of haze. It felt like those hot air curtains some stores used. His third step was nothing but momentum, as the shock of what he was seeing caught up with him and brought him to a halt.

The rusted-out hulks were still there, but he could no longer assign make and model and year at a glance. The old Chevys and Plymouths he’d photographed from across the street were nowhere to be seen. Instead, there were neat rows of strange vehicles, some rounded and flat on the bottom with tiny windows around the side, some with stranger shapes. At the back, one large derelict reminded him vaguely of a wedding cake, with several layers. A wedding cake, or the mother ship from Close Encounters.

“Dammit, you got no business coming inside the fence thataways.” Saving Sam, the owner of Saving Sam’s Used Car Bargain City, stood there puffing hard. Sam’s normal expression was a smile as wide and as shallow as the Missouri River that ran past the edge of the lot. He wasn’t wearing it now.

“Jackpot,” the other whispered. He paid no attention to Sam. “After all these years—I knew there was something behind all those stories!” He started to bring his camera up again, then stopped as Sam grabbed his arm.

“You’re trespassing, mister,” Sam said. “Now just who in hell are you, and what are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing. Are you even a human?” The man took in Sam’s disheveled appearance, face red and sweaty, the loud tie slightly off-center, the yellow shirt that was creeping out of Sam’s polyester slacks in the back. “Although I’m not sure aliens would have enough imagination to come up with that disguise. They’d probably look more like insurance salesmen. I’m Joe Gilbert.” Joe reached in his pocket with his free hand and brought out a tattered business card. A single line of type was centered on the card: National News Probe. Joe’s name and a phone number were in one comer.

“That thing,” Sam said. He let go of Joe’s arm, adding, “Don’t you go taking no pictures. Not till I make up my mind what I want to do about this.”

“We’ll pay you for an exclusive,” Joe said. There were standard contracts, although, since NNP was a midget among the tabloids, they weren’t that generous.

“Well—” Sam rubbed his chin, considering. His five o’clock shadow looked like 6:15, even though it was still early afternoon. “Maybe. C’mon into the office, and let’s talk.”

Joe started to duck back through the barbed wire, but Sam stopped him. “Not that office. Got me another one back here. The one out front’s for my regular customers.”

He led the way through the rows of vehicles, while Joe rubbernecked. No question about it, they really were flying saucers. Not all saucer-shaped, no; some looked like they’d been stolen off a Hollywood back lot, some were featureless cubes, and one bore a striking resemblance to an America’s Cup winner from a few years before. But they weren’t products of Detroit or Japan. Joe gawked like a tourist; he was happy.

The office was a flimsy shed that had been fitted with a regular door and window on one wall. Inside, a desk and filing cabinet occupied most of the space. The only chair was the one behind the desk. Sam took it and waved Joe to a seat on the comer of the desk. Joe sat, twisting around enough to see out the window. The spaceships were still out there.

“So there really are aliens,” Joe began.

“Hell, you people print pictures of them,” Sam said, grinning. “See ’em in the grocery store all the time.”

“Now don’t tell me they look like that thing the Blazon has on the cover this week.”

“Nope.” Sam tipped his chair back and it creaked alarmingly under the load. “Did have a real photo of an alien a whiles back, though, the one that started all that business about aliens advising candidates in the presidential elections.”

“That thing?” Joe frowned. He knew the man whose delirium tremens had been responsible for the first version of that one.

“Not the little cartoon guy.” Sam grinned again. “One of the Secret Service men in the first picture. Customer of mine, ’smatter of fact. Nice guy, fellow named Strlirrk.” The final syllable sounded as though Sam had swallowed his tongue.

That figured, Joe thought. He’d been right, disguised aliens would look a lot more like a Ken-doll.

“So, let’s have the story, Sam. How does a used car salesman in the middle of Missouri wind up with a lot full of flying saucers?”

“Used ones. I sell ’em just like I sell cars.”

“Which came first, the cars or the UFOs?”

“Ain’t really unidentified, you know, I got papers on most of ’em. Or something. Anyways, the cars come first. I got started in the used car game a good thirty years ago, been building up steady ever since. Advertising, that’s all it takes, just advertising.”

Since Joe wasn’t deaf, he’d heard Sam’s idea of advertising. Radio spots, at what seemed like twice the normal volume, played on half the stations in the Midwest, mindlessly repeating, “Let Saving Sam save you dough!” It was hard to believe anyone would buy a car just because of those ads, but they seemed to work. Sam’s main lot was jammed, and Joe’d done a little research beforehand. Sam’s Bargain City was one of the largest independent used car dealers in the state.

“ ’Bout twelve years ago, I was driving home at night, pretty late. Used to live out in the country, ten miles south of here. You know how all them saucer stories say your headlights go out and your car radio dies? Well, that’s pretty much what happened. ’Cept they come back on again, then went out, then come on, then went out. I stopped and got out, and I saw this thing sitting out in the middle of a corn field. Lights started to race around the outside, and my headlights and radio went out again. Then there was a bang, and the lights on the thing stopped, and my car was fine again. Didn’t take much to figure out the guy was having engine trouble. The thing just didn’t want to start.”

Joe had his notebook out and was taking notes as Sam spoke. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to decipher them later, but it didn’t matter. He’d remember even without notes.

“After a while, a guy comes out of the thing. He looked like a normal-enough guy, I mean human. So I asked him if he needed a lift.” Sam stopped, which was just as well, because Joe was feeling a little dizzy.

“A flying saucer with engine trouble and you offered the pilot a ride?” The reporter shook his head. “Sam, that’s wilder than the stories we print.”

“Seemed like the thing to do at the time.” Sam shrugged. “Anyways, we got to talking. Turned out he’d heard of me; he’d been here for a couple of years, and heard my ads on the radio. He was supposed to meet his boss, and with his—well, I guess wheels isn’t the right way to put it, call it his transportation—with his saucer broke down, he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to get there and he’d be in big trouble. So I sold him an old Plymouth and took his saucer as a trade-in.”

“A flying saucer. As a trade-in for a Plymouth?”

“Car was a cream puff,” Sam said. “I made him a good deal. I always do; they don’t call me Saving Sam for nothing.” They called him that because his radio ads blared out the name hundreds of times a day, but Joe didn’t correct him. “He paid gold, cash on the line; first time I ever dealt that way. The light-bend worked okay, so we just hauled the ship out back here and turned it on. The light-bend, that’s the thing makes a ship look like a Chevy. Had to dicker some, he was afraid I’d tell the government or someone. I said I wouldn’t, and I’ve kept that promise, but it’s took some doing.”

“That gave you one UFO,” Joe said when Sam showed no signs of going on. “One. And it wasn’t running. There must be a hundred of the things out there. How’d you get so many?”

“He showed back up a few weeks later with his boss. Turned out the boss was a pretty fair shadetree mechanic, leastways on saucers. Thing just had a plugged carburetor or something. He got it running, but my customer—his name I never could get my mouth around, and I ain’t trying it now—that first guy liked the Plymouth and he wasn’t fixing to go home yet, so we just left things the way they was.

“Y’know, I run a lot of ads, but word o’ mouth’s still the best damned advertising there is. That pair told other travelers. Mostly I just sell cars, but ever once in a while, some guy turns up and asks to see the back lot. Sell more cars to them than spaceships; mostly they want something humans won’t notice, so I get another ship in trade. Got seventy-three in stock right at the moment, nowheres near a hundred. Was seventy-four, but that Secret Service agent, Strlirrk, he got transferred last week and he needed a ship. Got a nice little Fiesta out on the main lot that he traded in on a practically new Parsector, less’en a million light-years on it.”

Sam stopped talking again. Joe tore his gaze away from the window to ask a question.

“Parsector? Is that a brand or a model?” His pen was poised to record the interstellar version of the Big Three.

“Nah, I made it up. Couldn’t never make out what they called that type, I had papers on it, but I couldn’t read ’em.

I can’t on most of them, and I’m not about to try to learn all them languages. So I started making up my own model names and makes, years ago.” He got up and went over to the window. Pointing to one of the cube-shaped vehicles parked near the office, he said, “That’s an older model Parsector. The newer ones, like the one I sold Strlirrk, the comers are more rounded and they got a light-bend that’s adjustable for over thirty different appearances.”

Joe reached for his camera, and this time Sam didn’t say anything. He got a picture of the Parsector and sneaked another of the one he still thought of as the mother ship.

“My turn,” Sam said. “I got a question for you, you been asking me enough. I been doing this now for twelve years, and far’s I know, I’m the only used spaceship dealer on the planet. My customers don’t talk, I sure as hell don’t, and I never had any trouble. And I bought me a new light-bend just last year. This one’s supposed to make people feel nosy and guilty, kind of at the back of their mind, not so’s they notice it, but anyways they don’t want to look at the back lot very long, makes ’em feel uncomfortable. How come you did?”

“Rumors. And reporters don’t ever feel guilty about being nosy, not if they want to stay reporters.” He weighed his next comment, balancing betrayal of a source against the chance of getting more from Sam. It didn’t take long; he wasn’t likely to ever get anything else from that source, and he wouldn’t be doing him any real harm. “Do you remember that salesman Carl you fired a couple of months back? He thought there was something in that back lot, and he called NNP. He didn’t say anything about UFOs, though, just that there was something fishy going on and you made too much money, more than used cars could account for.”

Sam snorted. “Damned useless knowitall. That’s why I fired him, he never would listen to nobody. He already knew it all. ’Smatter of fact, he’s wrong; been keeping all the money from my extra business off of the books. Been saving it.”

“It got me started, anyway. I spent a couple of hours in that field across the river yesterday, watching through binoculars, and I didn’t see anybody come near the lot. All I saw was a bunch of dead cars. I figured Carl was just trying to get you in trouble, but I thought one last check wouldn’t hurt anything.” Joe smiled and raised the camera again. “I was right. This is the story of a lifetime.”

“Thought you people always just made up them stories,” Sam grumbled. “Never expected to see one of you acting like a real reporter.”

“Yeah, some of the articles just come out of the newsroom. Or out of a bottle.” Joe was smiling as he talked, a little half-smile of satisfaction. “But we track down a few real stories, just for the looks of things. That’s how I got started; I was around when a reporter for the Inquirer was checking out a freak accident in my home town. I always thought there was something to all those UFO reports. Figured this would be the best way to find out. And I was right.” He smiled out the window. “I was right.”

“Yeah, you were right,” Sam said. He sighed heavily. “ ’Course, you’re putting me in a helluva bind, here. My special customers, sometimes they need cars and sometimes they need ships, but one thing they all need all the time is privacy. This is one time I don’t want free advertising.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Joe said. “Nobody ever believes a word we print. Or at any rate, no one does who matters.” He’d used the line before, but it wasn’t true. While government agencies might not actually believe what was printed in the tabloids, Joe knew they sometimes checked out articles. One of the funniest stories Joe had ever heard came from a buddy who worked for the Sun. He’d been in Oregon when a team of Federal agents had gotten lost searching for Bigfoot. The story had never seen print, of course; some things were a little too hot for even a tabloid to handle.

This might be one of them, but Joe thought he could get at least one good story in before official secrecy closed Sam off from the world and his special customers. Too bad for Sam, but it could put the human race in touch with the stars. For all the surface cynicism that came with his job, Joe was a romantic, and he had gone to work for National News Probe because he wanted to believe in their stories, the offbeat, odd things that said there was a little magic left in the world. In it, and out of it. Joe couldn’t take his eyes off the spaceships outside. Real spaceships.

And real aliens. Joe stiffened as he saw two men approaching the barbed wire fence. They looked like shoe salesmen, but as they ducked through the fence and passed the light-bend, their appearance shifted. They didn’t look like monsters or bugs; if Joe had seen a picture of them, he would have thought they were animals from Earth that he just didn’t happen to recognize. There were a lot of species he didn’t know. But they weren’t animals.

Behind him, Sam spoke again. His voice sounded almost sad. “You may be right, Joe, but I’m afraid I can’t take a chance. I ain’t letting anyone wreck my business. I can’t let you print that story. I’m sorry.”

His voice was so genuinely remorseful Joe almost reassured him it was okay, he didn’t have to apologize. Instead, Joe tried to turn and found he couldn’t move. He was stuck, staring out the window and watching the animal-shaped aliens approach. Sam moved around to where Joe could see him. He held up a short metal tube. It looked like a weapon; it must have frozen him.

“You really think I could do business here for twelve years and not have some problems?” Sam asked, shaking his head dolefully. “I hate it when this happens, but like I told you, I ain’t letting nobody ruin this. I got me enough saved up, almost, to take that vacation on Mars I been wanting for years. They got a nice little resort colony there, lot of different races of aliens go there.”

“What are you going to do to me?” Joe whispered. “Now, don’t go getting afraid,” Sam said, “no one’s gonna hurt you. They always need new humans for research, but it’s more like answering questions, taking polls and such; they don’t cut people up.” The door opened, and the two aliens came in. Sam waved to them and said, “Sorry to call you fellas out like this, but I figured this wouldn’t wait. Guy’s a tabloid reporter.”

The alien on the left spoke. “No trouble, Sam.” Despite the hooves and hide, he sounded like a Texan. “We’ll run him over to Mars right away and arrange for transshipment.”

“Now don’t be afraid,” Sam told Joe again as the two aliens picked him up. “You said you was interested in UFOs. You’re going to get to see a lot of them, now.”

Joe tried to shake his head, but he was still frozen. As they carried him toward one of the conventionally saucershaped ships, his main emotion was not fear, or anger, or regret. It was frustration.

It was the greatest story of his career, but someone else would have to write it now.

Tabloid reporter abducted by UFO aliens!

Danny’s Excellent Adventure!

by Greg Cox

Gone But Not Forgotten. What is it about our former Vice President that proved so inspirational?

At least Danny’s story is in the capable hands of Greg Cox, who has this to say for himself: “After perusing too many issues of the Weekly World News, Greg Cox abandoned a promising career as a skid row phlebotomist to pursue a sordid life of writing and editing. Medical experts have pronounced his brain irreparably rotted; he is currently confined to the North Wing of Tor Books in New York.”

Oh yes, and he’s writing Devil in the Sky, a Star Trek: Deep Space 9 novel, with John Gregory Betancourt.

“I didn’t live in this century.”

—J. Danforth Quayle

“I think he was telling the truth,” Ratio says.

“Huh?” I reply. We’re having our weekly lunch at the Aloha Diner in midtown Manhattan, sitting in one of the rear booths and sipping our complimentary glasses of ice water while we wait for the Greek waiter to deliver our meals. Ratio leans across the table toward me, his eyes wide behind his tinted spectacles, his voice hushed with the import of this latest revelation. I hadn’t seen him this excited since he’d claimed to have met Grace Kelly’s ghost during an astral voyage—and found out that Princess Di was the reincarnation of Lee Harvey Oswald. Oh boy, I think. This is going to be good.

“I think he’s from the future,” Ratio explains. The air-conditioning is out, and a bead of sweat works its way down from Ratio’s aluminum skullcap to the collar of his glow-in-the-dark, cross-covered, anti-vampire T-shirt. “I think the Vice President is a time traveler!”

“Come again?” Sometimes I think Ratio’s from another dimension himself, but I don’t mind. He makes for good copy, especially if the paper you write for isn’t too picky about its sources. And The Weekly Exposure, “The Nation’s Nose for News,” has more astrologers on call than Nancy Reagan ever did. Me, I didn’t need psychic powers, just a good imagination and a few colorful acquaintances.

Like my current lunch date. His parents named him Horatio, but he shortened it to Ratio, like that’s an improvement. He used to work at the paper, too, a few years ago, but he got canned for spending too much time out-of-body. Fortunately, his folks left him money as well as a silly moniker. He’s given me some of my best headlines, though, like CROP CIRCLES CURE CANCER and MICHAEL LANDON RETURNS FROM LITTLE HOUSE IN THE SKY . . . TO LEAD TEENAGE WEREWOLF ONTO HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN.

Hey, it’s a living.

“Think about it,” Ratio continues. “Suppose you want to observe firsthand the most crucial events of the late twentieth century, but don’t want to risk doing anything that might change the course of history. You couldn’t choose a better job to have than Vice President!”

“Hmmm. You’ve got a point there,” I admit, as I pull out a pad and pencil and start taking notes. “Still . . . Dan Quayle, Time Cadet?”

“But it’s the only thing that makes sense!” Ratio pelts my face with a gentle spray of saliva. I reach discreetly for a napkin. “My best guess is that they replaced the real Quayle right before the nomination. How else do you explain his apparent unfamiliarity with history, geography, even the English language as it’s currently spoken? I’m figuring he must have been inadequately briefed.”

I start to prod him for examples, but it’s not necessary. Ratio’s on a roll. “I mean, look at the record. He says that the Holocaust was a dark chapter in American history, he says that Mars has a breathable atmosphere. . . .” Ratio pauses, and I can practically see a new idea taking root behind his chartreuse lenses. “Wow, you think they’ve terraformed Mars by the thirtieth century?”

Now, I’ve always thought that the best sensationalism contains a token pretense at skepticism, a bit of quasi-journalistic seasoning to make the silliness more credible, so I decide to play sanity’s advocate for a bit. “Okay, maybe he’s a time traveler,” I suggest, “or maybe he’s just a moron who spells ‘potato’ with an E.”

Ratio isn’t discouraged. “Perhaps that’s how it’s spelled where he comes from! Languages change over time. If you were dropped back into Merrie Olde England, I’ll bet thee thine spelling wouldst sucketh.”

“Fine,” I concede, “and ‘Happy Camper’ is probably a standard honorific in futureworld. But try this on for size . . . the whole idea is to observe and not do anything significant, right?”

“Of course,” Ratio agrees. “In fact, in November 1988, Quayle said, and I quote: 7 deserve respect for the things I did not do. ’ Why, that’s practically the Time Traveler’s Oath!”              ‘

“Er, right, but my point is that everything you’ve said so far would make sense if this were still, say, 1992. If he were just this do-nothing veep who said dopey things sometimes. But, pal, read the paper these days. Quayle’s all over the place, campaigning and making policy. The man’s probably going to be elected President in November. Don’t tell me that’s not interfering with history.”

Ratio falls silent for a moment. “You’re right,” he says slowly, “. . . unless . . . oh, my God! . . . he’s gone renegade!” Our waiter finally arrives with two cheeseburgers, an egg cream, and a large ginger ale; despite its name, the closest the Aloha comes to Hawaiian cuisine is a pineapple sundae. Ratio ignores the food. He’s practically shouting now, as heads turn in our direction and I try to shrink into my seat. The life of an investigative reporter is sometimes embarrassing.

“The power must have gone to his head,” my companion raves, oblivious to the stares from the rest of the lunchers. “He’s gone beyond his mission parameters, violating the Temporal Prime Directive in a mad attempt to seize control of our era. Dan Quayle’s become a threat to the entire spacetime continuum!”

Okay, that’s it. I have more than enough for a good story, I decide. Now if I can just shut this lunatic up, before our friendly waiter throws us out. “Calm down, buddy,” I whisper urgently. “If he has broken the rules, then won’t the Time Police or somebody do something about it?”

“Oh,” Ratio says. He takes a deep breath and I push his burger toward him. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“So,” I ask my coworker, “you think Dukakis has a chance?” We left the Exposure’s offices over an hour ago, but I’m in no hurry to get back to work. Ratio hesitates, and for a moment I’m afraid he’s zoning out again. He’s going to get fired if he doesn’t knock that off soon.

Turns out he was just thinking. “I don’t know,” he says. “Clarence Thomas is certainly a surprising pick for Bush’s running mate. I’ve never heard of him before, but he’s supposedly got the right conservative credentials.” Ratio takes a gulp of ginger ale, then stares at me strangely. “Wow, I’m having the most incredible case of deja vu.”

“Hold that thought,” I tell him. “Maybe there’s a story in it.”

And if not, I’ll make one up.

Royal Tiff Yields Face of Jesus!

by Esther M. Friesner

When I complained to my coeditor about the dearth of Nessie stories in this book, he said he saw nothing wrong with my supplying the lack.

I want you to know that That Unfortunate Business in the British royal family happened after I wrote this. I am therefor currently working on a story in which a poor-but-honest anthology editor wins the Lottery.

The distraught young woman pounded frantically on the cottage door. Rainwater streamed down her face, plastering her once-impeccably coiffed hair flat as an otter’s coat. She was too exhausted to bother pushing her bedraggled blonde locks out of her eyes. Between assaults on the door, she used both hands to hold together the briar-torn rags of her sacrificial robe. She had lost everything but her sense of propriety.

The rain pelted through the bare branches of the surrounding woodland, peppering the surface of the nearby lake. In such a downpour, it was difficult to distinguish sounds. The young woman beat at the cottage door again, but her ears were filled with the thunder of pursuing footsteps and the hammering of her own heart.

“Coming, coming, no need to batter the whole blessed house down.” A warm, cheery voice from within at last answered the woman’s wild tattoo. The cottage door opened to reveal an old hag who looked as if she had stepped straight out of a fairy tale. Gap-toothed, she grinned at her unexpected caller and said, “Well, yours is one famous face I didn’t think to see in the flesh, although there is the pantry floor . . . never could make up my mind about whether that was you or Madonna . . . Ah well, never mind. My name is Mrs. Betram Coombs; the widow Coombs, I suppose I should say, but do call me Daisy. Would you care to come in?”

The young woman could only stare. Refuge at last. But for how long? came the shuddering thought. She could hardly dare to imagine; she would never again dare to hope.

The beldame was making gentle, welcoming gestures with her knotty hands. “Come in, my dear, come in,” she encouraged. “I know you, right enough, but you needn’t fear. Religious questions have always stuck crosswise in my craw. Live and let live, that’s my motto. Oh, do come in! You’re perfectly safe here; I won’t give you away.”

The younger woman straightened her shoulders. Some of the old royal poise returned. “I thank you for your kind offer of hos—of hos—” Her recent ordeal proved too much. She accepted the invitation to enter by fainting across the hag’s doorstep.

She came to in a bruised old plush armchair with a cool cloth on her forehead and a ginger tomcat in her lap. Her ruined robes had been removed. She was naked beneath a ‘ musty blanket of undyed wool. A grand blaze of hardwood logs in the fireplace before her stole the last of the chill from her bones. The hag was seated in a matching armchair across from her, knitting a woolly jumper the color of mud.

“So you’re awake, eh?” Daisy gave her a merry smile, apple cheeks held fast in a net of fine wrinkles. “Then I suppose it’s past time I made you a proper greeting.” She laid aside her knitting, rose to her feet, toddled across the hearth rug, and amid a symphony of creaking bones and popping joints, she made her visitor a deep curtsey.

“Welcome, Your Majesty,” she said.

“Don’t call me that!” The younger woman’s hands clapped themselves to her ears at the hated words. “In God’s name, I beg you!”

Daisy cocked her head to one side. “Oh dear,” she remarked. “Which god would that be, then?”

“I am still a Christian.” The younger woman sighed. “It gave him the final excuse he needed.”

“To be sure, to be sure.” The crone set her knitting aside. “I don’t hold with such things myself. When they burned the Guys on November 5 in my day, there wasn’t anyone inside ’em. Not on purpose, anyway. Still, you must admit, the new program of government subsidized human sacrifice certainly has had a good effect on the economy. Unemployment’s been quite reduced, for one, and the level of emigration—”

“If you throw enough victims into bogs as part of your regular Sunday services, and bum some more on major holidays, eventually you are bound to have just the number of people left you need to fill what situation vacancies there are.” The younger woman’s tone was scornful and bitter. “And if you declare it an act of both treason and heresy to want to leave this country, of course people will stop trying to do it.”

“Particularly when the penalty for treason or heresy is being chucked into one of them bogs,” Daisy completed her guest’s thought. “I know. Well, never mind all that, dearie!” She clapped gnarled hands to knobby knees and stood up. “Whatever your faith or mine, it won’t stop us from enjoying a nice cup of tea.”

The younger woman moved her legs tentatively, earning her a glance of supreme contempt from the tomcat before he leaped to the floor and stalked off, tail high. On shaky feet she followed her aged hostess from the fireside to a trim little white-clothed table that had been set for tea. It was at once comforting and terrifying to see such an artifact of the commonplace after her husband’s—conversion? revolution? insanity?—had knocked most of Britain’s fine old traditions into a cocked hat. The real horror was how readily the people had followed his lead once they saw the results.

“Luck,” she muttered to herself as she pulled a chair up to the tea table. “Blind coincidence. Things might’ve gotten better for the country on their own just then. The Americans didn’t throw their whole House of Lords—I mean, Congress—into any stupid bog, and their economy perked up the same as ours.”

Daisy glanced up at her guest. “Did you say something, dearie?” She was settling a blue and white striped tea cozy over the squat brown crockery teapot.

“I was trying to determine who was the bigger loony: My husband for turning the whole blessed country Druid or the British people for letting him.”

The hag chuckled. “Ah, you’re just upset. As well you might be, I’m sure. Personally I don’t favor any government or religion that allows a man to chuck his wife, mother of his children, into some smelly old bog just because they can’t get along. In my day we tried to work out our matrimonial differences. My Bertie was no prize, heaven knows. However, I wouldn’t go so far as to call His Majesty a loony. No more than history ever called Henry VIII mad. Oh, selfish, yes, and a spoiled brat, and a bully into the bargain, but he wasn’t crazy. He only wanted his own way, and he was willing to use any excuse he could to get it and still look noble. The cow.”

For the first time in ages, the younger woman laughed. Her hostess leaned forward to pour. That was when she saw it and screamed.

“Mercy, child!” Old Daisy sat back in her chair with an audible thump. “Whatever’s set you off so?”

“Don’t—don’t you see it?” The younger woman pointed desperately at the cozy-shrouded teapot. “It’s a miracle!”

“What, this old thing?” The old lady turned the teapot this way and that. “Just a simple striped knitting pattern, really, quite popular when I was a girl. There’s a variation where you can knit in a picture of a dear little kitten, but I never had the—”

“That’s no kitten!” her guest exclaimed, beside herself. “That’s Elvis Presley!”

“Oh?” Daisy studied the tea cozy from a number of angles. “Ah, yes. So it is. Silly me, I thought Mr. Presley only manifested on my plain green cozy—and the dented saucepan—and two of the antimacassars—and sometimes on my spare upper plate when I can’t find my usual brand of tooth powder at the market—but the blue and white striped cozy has always shown the face of John Lennon.” She frowned at the clear outline of the one and only American King’s profile. “Hmph. It’s he, right enough. As if he hasn’t taken up enough places in this house, to go and usurp that poor dear murdered British boy’s sole station—Isn’t that just like a Yank!”

The fugitive gave her hostess a doubtful look. “You—you’ve got more Elvises in this house? Not intentional ones, I mean, but—but what you call—manifestations?”

The crone cackled, rocking back and forth over the tea things. “Lord love you, child, it’s all I can do to keep him out! Why, I don’t know from one day to the next where he’ll turn up. It began when I still lived in Queensbury, the year after my Bertie passed on. I found a moldy orange in my fruit basket, only the mold was a perfect replica of Mr. Presley’s face. Needless to say I was rather impressed and I hurried next door straightaway to show it to Mrs. Jinks. She was who went and called the papers, but the only one that showed up to take photographs was that awful one—Oh, you know which I mean. The one that was always publishing those nasty stories about—about—” Daisy hesitated, with good cause.

“About me,” the younger woman finished. “You needn’t worry. I don’t mind. I’d gladly trade a thousand of their vicious falsehoods for what my life’s become now.”

“Yes, well, after the orange story appeared, I was washing my windows when without warning the soapsuds formed themselves into another face of Elvis Presley. He looked somewhat older in that manifestation, and a bit worse for wear, poor thing. It wouldn’t go away, no matter how hard I scrubbed or even when I tossed the rinse water over it.” Daisy shrugged. “Mrs. Jinks came by while I was struggling with the apparition, and didn’t the silly old biddy run and ’phone the papers again! But by the time the reporter arrived, he had more than his share of story. He found Mrs. Jinks stretched out in a dead faint on my parlor floor. And there, right in the middle of my lovely hooked hearth rug—a very nice posy pattern, as was—was the face of Michael Jackson, plain as plain, picked out in lupines.”

“It must have made for a change from Elvis,” her guest suggested, trying to be helpful and maintain her sanity at the same time.

“Indeed. While the reporter chafed Mrs. Jinks’ wrists, I went to fetch a damp cloth, some spirits of ammonia, and the tea tray.” She looked abruptly grim. “The water droplets that fell from the cloth formed a recognizable portrait of Marilyn Monroe in Mrs. Jinks’ lap, one slice of toast was burnt with a likeness of Queen Victoria, and when I poured, Mrs. Jinks picked up her cup, sipped once, and dropped it, screaming that the pattern of cracks inside was the face of George Bernard Shaw and he was leering at her in a most indecent manner.”

“What a field day for the press,” the younger woman murmured.

“Tchah! That so-called reporter accused Mrs. Jinks and me of setting the whole thing up; of planting all those celebrity manifestations! For some of them, certainly collusion was a possibility, but wasn’t he right there to witness Miss Monroe’s appearance in the waterdrop pattern? How could we have engineered that, I ask you!” She shook her head sadly. “When Mrs. Jinks dropped her cup, it smashed. The split tea stained my nice Michael Jackson rug over with a bust of Mick Jagger and the fragments of the cup couldn’t have been anybody except our dear, departed Queen Mum, may she rest in peace, but did that reporter notice?” She sniffed with disdain worthy of royalty. “He called the two of us a pair of old publicity-hungry cranks and took himself off, the nasty little swine.”

“Queensbury’s near London. How did you happen to move to this godforsaken spot, Mrs. Coombs?”

“Daisy, my dear, if you please. Oh, that’s part and parcel of it. Because the manifestations didn’t leave with the reporter. They only got worse. Every stain, every smudge, every random pattern to be found in a household always seemed to mutate itself into the face of some famous personage or other under my roof. Why, it got so that Mrs. Jinks wouldn’t stop by any more. Said she didn’t fancy being stared at by the refreshments. I was that lonely. Still, I could have shouldered on, if not for the garden.”

“What happened in the garden?”

“Child, what didn’t! My indoor manifestations were all secular celebrities, but there is something about an English garden that is not entirely of this world. It began with the darker pebbles on the path tracing an angel. I thought it was the Archangel Michael, but before I could make certain, Paddington—that’s my dear kitty—scrabbled over the part of the angel’s image that might have been a dragon underfoot. You know how the Archangel Michael is forever trampling dragons. Well, it looked like an outsized slug when Paddington was done, the naughty moggie!”

She gave the cat in question a fond look. He turned up his nose at her, as any proper cat would, and she resumed her story: “Soon I had to get out Fox’s Book of Martyrs and a good illustrated hagiography to help me identify all the saints and such who were appearing in the patterns of hedge twigs or the mottlings on my quince skins or the moss in my rockery. I dug nine of the Twelve Apostles out of the carrot bed before I became frightened and stopped. A body simply doesn’t feel right about popping such things into the stew-pot. Then my espaliered pear tree climbed over the top of the fence and Mrs. Jinks woke up one morning to behold a complete image of the Virgin Mary picked out in Forrest’s

Early Golden Wonders. She’s a strict Presbyterian, you know, with little use for popery in the best of times. She made my life impossible from then on. I had no choice but to move, and since one never can predict the religious quirks of one’s neighbors, I thought it best not to have any.”

“Don’t you get lonely?”

“There are times I’d give anything for another human ear, but I make do. There’s the lake, you know. When I’m feeling a bit narky, I go down to the water and I talk.”

Daisy’s guest frowned slightly. “To whom?”

“Oh. . . no one. It’s not much of a lake, really: Deep, not too wide. When I first moved in, I had hopes of there being some wildlife about. Even an otter would make a good audience for an old woman’s natter. I thought I spied one once—just the tail of one diving out in the middle of the water—but I never saw it again. I must have been mistaken. Too long seeing faces everywhere, I fancy. It’s a comfort to see one that’s real. Have a biscuit, dearie?” She passed the plate.

The younger woman helped herself to a chocolate biscuit and sipped her tea. She noted almost calmly that the scant few leaves in the bottom of the cup had still contrived to arrange themselves into a likeness of Winston Churchill.

At that moment of relative peace, the cottage door burst open with a tremendous crash. The cat jumped up, hissing, as the room filled with somber, white-robed men. Light flickered off the cruel edges of their ceremonial golden sickles, cast a dull glow over the burnished barrels of their less ceremonial, more utilitarian AK-47s. The fugitive rose to her feet, whimpering for mercy she knew would not come. Daisy Coombs loudly voiced her objections to this invasion of her home and was roundly ignored.

The old woman continued to rant and rail at the men as they dragged her whilom guest out of the house. The storm had abated and all the earth gave up the sweet scent of fertility. All but two of the toughs formed themselves into a broad-shouldered wall between Daisy and her unfortunate caller. That pair hauled the prisoner across the small patch of greensward in front of the cottage, not stopping until they reached the lakeshore.

They threw her down at the feet of yet another white-robed figure. She looked up and saw the once-loved, now feared and hated face, crowned with a garland of pure gold oak leaves. He was seated on a sort of portable throne, the gilt wood carved with forest creatures, surmounted by the figure of a homed man. In his hand he held a wand of rowan twined with holly and ivy. Behind him waited his bearers, holding criss-crossed carrying poles. The captive clutched the flimsy blanket tighter around her, eyes wide.

“Hmm,” he remarked, surveying her present state. “Lost the sacrificial robe, I see. I never knew a woman to go through clothing like you. Well, what you have on will do.”

“You’re—you’re taking me back to the bog.” Only resignation remained in her voice.

“Oh, no.” His smile was cold and perfunctory as he saw the momentary glimmer of hope light her eyes. “I couldn’t ask the lads to trek back all that way. Besides, we’ve already served that bog with the guard lax enough to permit your escape. Any body of water is sufficient for the rite, if it’s deep enough. This one looks satisfactory.”

“I will not tolerate this wickedness!” Daisy shouted as two of the burliest men quick-marched a no longer struggling sacrifice to the shore. “That lake is mine, part of this property which I own free and clear, and I do not give my consent to anyone mucking it up with your nasty, foolish, vindictive rituals!”

“Be quiet, you daft old bat,” one of the officiants growled. “I don’t call any ritual foolish that does what it promises. Ever since we’ve gone back to the Old Religion, folks are seeing results from their worship, for a change. Never saw much of anything when things were C. of E.”

“What did you want from your religion?” Daisy snapped. “A miracle delivered daily with the milk?”

“All I know is, we’ve been flinging folk into bogs and getting value for it. Things are looking up. And it has solved the Irish Question. If the old—I mean the new religion had anything going for it besides wind, why don’t we get some sort of sign that we were wrong to pitch it, eh?”

“That’s right, a sign,” his mate agreed. “What sort of sign did your new—I mean Old Religion give to let you louts know you had the right sow by the ear this time?” Daisy inquired, waspish.

“Well . . . I got a job,” the first man said. “Hadn’t had one for donkey’s years. And it’ll take something mighty big to argue with that”

“Enough!” came the cry from the throne. “We must not delay the ceremony any further.” He gestured at the lake with his rowan wand. “Let the gods be served!”

“We serve you something to chew on!” Age made Daisy stoop awkwardly, but her scrawny limbs concealed wiry muscles. She pried up a big rock from the lakeside mud and threw it right at the golden oakleaf crown.

She missed.

The next thing she knew, her arms were pinioned behind her by two more of the strongmen and she was hustled to the water’s edge. “Jobs,” she said bitterly to the placid surface of the lake. “Always jobs, jobs, jobs, and never a thought for the impact they’ll have on the blessed ecology. Mark my words, some day you’re all going to be sorry you thought of your pockets first and your planet last.”

“Stop your gob, grandma,” one of her captors snarled. “Else we’ll chuck you in first and the lady after.”

Daisy lifted her chin. “I should like to see you try.”

So they did. They succeeded, what’s more. The crone made a lovely loud splash and sank. The younger woman uttered a cry of pity and horror.

“I apologize, my dear,” the figure on the throne said with a smirk. “But it is ‘Age before beauty.’ ” His brittle smile snapped on and off like a light switch. With a terse twitch of the rowan wand he directed his henchmen, “Throw her in.” The men scooped her up in a chair-lift and took a few warm-up swings while she kicked and screamed. She cried her children’s names, made a hundred promises to the implacable master of the rite, and finally called upon her God.

“Louder, please,” her husband taunted. “It’s a long way to heaven. Perhaps He can’t hear you. Or perhaps He’s—” The surface of the lake churned and bubbled. The men holding the lady in their arms stopped swinging her and goggled at the roiling waters. A huge curve of pure, sinuous muscle broke into the sunlight. A head rather like a crocodile’s topped a mud-brown scaly neck two storeys tall. Riding at around mezzanine level, a drenched Daisy clung to the monster for her life.

“Hello, dearie!” Daisy called to her former guest. “Look what I’ve found.” The monster swiveled its neck to left and right, beady eyes seeking some unguessable grail.

On shore, the white-robed men all shook like poplars in a tempest. The guards dropped their guns, the throne-bearers their poles. The men warding the sacrifice lost their grip on their captive and dumped her on the bank, but the younger woman was, like them, too caught up in the shock of the moment to run. The only one seemingly unaffected by this prehistoric apparition was their king.

“You fools, we’re not a pack of credulous cavemen now!” he thundered. “Pick up your weapons and shoot that abomination!”

The abomination under discussion pulled a few more yards of neck out of the water as the men scrambled to obey. They turned, guns to the ready, in time to see the creature extend itself still further, revealing an expanse of shoulder and—

“Mercy on us!”

“Lord in heaven!”

“Oh, my God!”

“Shit.”

AK-47s thunked as they hit the ground for a second time. Knees thudded on impact with the shore as their owners dropped to them and began to pray.

For there, clearly picked out in an anomalous pattern of beige, tan, and tawny scales on the beast’s dark brown side, was a Face they all could recognize and still remembered well. It was the Face they had seen from early childhood onward in illustrated Bibles, in stained glass windows, in the great works of Western Art, and on Christmas cards. It was a Face that brought back one of childhood’s chiefest memories: That of being caught red-handed and guilty-as-charged up to their elbows in a truly monumental mistake. More than a Face, to them it was a Sign.

Just in case they might need another, the monster darted its head forward and bit the king in two.

“No, thank you, Your Majesty,” Daisy said. “I’m quite content here.”

“But I assure you, the Palace apartments I have set aside for you are the best. You’ll want for nothing for the rest of your life.” The younger woman, far more elegantly dressed than during her previous visit to the lakeside cottage some six weeks ago, leaned forward to press her offer. “I’d have come back for you sooner, but there was that Religious Toleration Act to be passed first. It wasn’t easy. We had to dredge up a whole new House of Lords.”

The crone smiled and kept on knitting. “I want for nothing. No, it’s happy enough I am that you’ve honored me with another call. Oh, and I must compliment Your Majesty. I hear you are fulfilling your duties as Regent ably. I hope the children are well?”

Her Majesty was a persistent woman. It was that quality, among others, which had brought her so close to a boggy doom. “How can you be happy in this wilderness? You told me you were lonely.”

“Oh, it’s not so bad as all that any more, now I’ve got a friend to chat with.” Daisy nodded in the direction of the lake. “Of course he doesn’t say much, but he’s an excellent listener, and he’s that fond of raspberry trifle! It’s thanks to him I make a tidy sum from souvenir sales, what’s more. And since Bertie won’t show himself unless I call him—”

“Bertie!”

“I named him after my late husband. There is a marked resemblance. As I was saying, since he only surfaces enough to show the Face at my call, it’s easy to control the tourist and pilgrim traffic. Either they come when and in what numbers I choose, or they waste their time standing on the shore staring at flat water. And rest assured, after seeing Bertie they do not litter.”

Her Majesty laughed. ‘Then I’ve worried about you needlessly. You have the perfect life.”

“Well . . . there is one thing.” Daisy frowned. The Regent urged her to continue. “It’s—it’s silly, but—oh, it’s probably just an old woman’s fancy. Still, the last time I took a really good look at it—”

“A look at what?”

“The Face,” Daisy said darkly. “Out there, on Bertie, what all the papers are calling the Face of God. I think—I think—I could be wrong, but—but—”

“Yes? Yes?”

“I think it’s turning into the face of Elvis.”

Magnetic Personality Triggers

Nail-biter’s Near-death Ordeal!

by t. Winter-Damon, Special Correspondent

t. Winter-Damon has assumed so many different roles in the field of speculative fiction (and art!) that it’s exhausting just to read about them. Fiction author, poet, reviewer, interviewer, biographer, essayist, and illustrator, his work has been selected for five of DAW Books’ The Year’s Best Horror Stories collections, as well as appearing in Amazing Stories, Fear, Jane Yolen’s Xanadu 2, among many others. He is also an illustrator for Ocean View Press’ “Doubles Series.”

With all that, I’m glad he was able to contribute the following story to this book.

Local law enforcement officers and trauma personnel confirm reports 34-year-old Mr. Ferris Boyler of Perdition, Arizona is in guarded condition and recovering well after his night-long sky-ride of terror.

Questioned at his office in this small, sun-baked Western town, career peace officer, Sheriff Calvin O’Dell, states an almost-unbelievably bizarre series of events led to the lifelong Perdition local’s near tragedy.

“I wouldn’t’ve thought it was possible,” O’Dell said, “ ’less I’d’ve seen it with my own eyes. I was born in Missouri, and I’m sure you know what that means, Young Feller . . . I been Sheriff here nigh on to thirty years, and I ain’t never seen the like of it! It truly makes you believe there is a Savior, don’t it?”

Reverend Xavier F. Dinwiddy echoed the Sheriff O’Dell’s sympathies: “Praise the Lord for Mr. Boyler’s Deliverance from the very jaws of Hell!”

When pried for further details of the miraculous event, the reportedly tight-lipped lawman O’Dell offered us this startling, exclusive interview.

“Well, I guess I’ve known Ferris since he was just a little squirt. And I guess you could say he’s always been a little queer,” the rugged law professional said, tipping the brim of his Stetson and cocking one bushy eyebrow meaningfully. “Oh, no, not one of them homer-sectionals, like them big cities is full of, mind ya’, no offense, I mean just a bit peculiar in the head.”

Asked for specifics, the six-gun-toting, veteran peace officer confided, “He eats all kindsa metal stuff, been doin’ it since he was a just little sprat. Ferris was only six when his Daddy brung him ’round the station, showin’ him Perdition’s very own Matt Dillon, yours truly, yessiree. Anyways, I was a’holdin’ that little shaver up to see them wanted posters on the wall, when he grabs my badge, pops it in his mouth, and gulps the sucker down! He nearly choked to death on it, too. Had to rush him down t’ ol’ Doc Bullfinch’s. By the time we got him there, though, that sucker’d slid right down his gullet, slick as spit on a doorknob. Had one heckuva sore throat, though, by gum!”

Incredulous at this astounding insider revelation, we verified this with both Sheriff O’Dell and Mr. Boyler’s childhood physician, the now-retired Dr. Otis Bullfinch. “Yes, yes, well, I don’t want to betray any confidences, privileged information, patient’s files and all, but, sure enough, that boy was always swallowing something he wasn’t supposed to, then they’d bring him in, his parents, you know, with a godawful stomach ache, why that boy sure did love eating metal . . . at first I thought it was an iron deficiency, but, no . . .

Dr. Doyle M. Culpepper, attending physician at Perdition’s Mercy Hospital, confirmed Mr. Boyler’s ferocious appetite for metal objects. “Mr. Boyler was admitted to Mercy Hospital, following a valiant rescue by our highly skilled trauma team, promptly reacting to a 911 call. Mr. Boyler was treated for shock and exposure symptoms, massive bruises, numerous cuts and abrasions, and was then X-rayed under my supervision. Subsequent examination and evaluation of the X-rays revealed, in addition to several cracked or separated ribs, a 68-pound mass of accumulated, extraneous metal objects.” Overwhelmed by what he had witnessed, the doctor continued, “This was definitely the weirdest case of my career!”

When asked for a complete list of Mr. Boyler’s stomach contents, our exclusive medical contact revealed this comprehensive inventory: 43 keys of assorted sizes; literally hundreds of pins, safety pins, needles, nails, paperclips, screws, drapery hooks, and washers; 19 rings (including his dear, departed mother’s engagement and wedding rings); 97 ball bearings; $87.23 in spare change; a Bates stapler; a 2-pound ball of tinsel; 7 metal toy soldiers; 33 metal jacks; 4 watches (including a Timex that, amazingly, took the licking and was, as advertised, still ticking); 4 small magnets; a six-place table setting of silver-plated, five-and-dime style flatware; 3 crescent wrenches; a single pair of wirecutters; 4 pairs of pliers; a complete set of metric sockets; one tin star; and the crumpled hubcap from a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air.

An exclusive bedside chat with Mr. Boyler revealed a full, first-person account of his astounding true story.

“It all started when I was takin’ a shortcut home from the store, you know, through Sutter’s Salvage. There’s this big rip in the chainlink fence over on the side by the Canyon Road arroyo. It’s kinda hard to spot if you don’t know it’s there, but I found it awhiles back, and I use it all the time. Anyway, I was makin’ a beeline through those stacks of wrecked cars, and I passed right by that big old crane with the ’lectromagnet on it. Well, I heard some kinda motor a’hummin’ away, and it shoulda been off, but I wasn’t really thinkin’ ’bout nothin’ ’cept gettin’ home and havin’ me some supper.

“WHAM! Next thing I knew I was sailin’ right up offa the ground, and I went THUNK! Smack dab up against that dam magnet. I was trapped there all night long, hangin’ in midair, starvin’ and freezin’ my keister off, if you’ll pardon my French!

“I was sure I was a’gonna die right there. I felt myself floatin’ up outta my body, and I was lookin’ down on myself. I felt like I was tied to some kinda metal thread, you know, like it was holdin’ me to my body down there. Then I felt it stretchin’ like, and I just knew it was gonna pop, and I’d never get back inside myself. Then I seen this here bright, blindin’ light and this here unearthly music, and I knew I was goin’ over t’the other side . . . and I seen my dear ol’ Mother, bless her heart, and J. Edgar Hoover and Tom Mix and Gene Autrey and Hank Williams, and Elvis in his white suit, all a’glowin’ with this here white, blindin’ light. Next thing I ’member, the sky was all turned to pink and gold fire, and I thunk to myself, By Gawd, Ferrous, you done made it t’Heaven!

“But it was just real early mornin’, sunup, you know, and them medics saved me.

“Some folks think it t’was Elvin McMurty in his ’47 Ford pickup out there, a’parkin’ with some floozy and his lights shinin’ in my eyes and some doggone Rock’ n’ Roll music a’playin’ away, but I KNOW better! I seen the Gates of Heaven, and I KNOW there is a life after death after all!”

They’d Never—
by Harry Turtledove

Harry Turtledove has a degree in Byzantine Studies which he puts to good (and highly entertaining) use in his Videssos series. Who better than he to make alternate history so riveting? Among his more recent works are The Guns of the South and, in hardback. In the Balance, which is the first book of a thrilling alternate history SF series. He has been a freelance writer for more than three years now, which he says “beats the living kapok out of working for a living.”

Join him now to explore the tabloid newsman’s ultimate experience.

Moit Pfeiffer slung his jacket over the back of his chair, then plomped his ample bottom into said chair and turned on his computer. Another day, he thought gloomily. He looked around the office of the Weekly Intelligencer.

It looked like a newspaper office: other people dressed no better than he was sat around in front of screens and clicked away at keyboards. Those clicks made it sound like a newspaper office, too. It even smelled like a newspaper office: stale coffee and musty air conditioning with two settings, too hot and too cold.

But it wasn’t a newspaper office, or not exactly. If the Intelligencer wasn’t the trashiest supermarket and 7-Eleven rack filler around, the troops hadn’t done their job for the week. “For this I went to journalism school?” Mort muttered.

He wished for a cigarette. The smoke would have made the place smell even more authentic. But the Intelligencer office had gone smokefree a couple of years before—it was either that or lose their health insurance. Besides, he was wearing a transdermal nicotine patch. Smoke while you had one of those things stuck to you and you were a coronary waiting to happen.

Behind glasses that were going to turn into bifocals the next time he got around to seeing his optometrist, his eyes lit up for a moment. Transdermal patches . . . he might be able to do something with that. They were hot these days, and no more than three percent of the lip-movers who bought the Intelligencer were likely to have even a clue about what transdermal meant.

So. . . the beginning of a headline formed in this mind, 72-point type, sans-serif, with an exclamation point at the end. TRANSDERMAL PATCHES CAUSE . . .!

“Cause what?” he mused aloud.

Cause heart attacks if you’re stupid enough to keep lighting up while you’re wearing one? He shook his head. That wasn’t scary enough. You didn’t necessarily die from a heart attack, and if you did, it was over quick.

Cause cancer? That one was stale even for the Intelligencer (which was saying something). Besides, the whole idea behind nicotine patches was to keep you from getting lung cancer. Pfeiffer’s ethical sense was stunted (Would I be here otherwise? he thought), but it hadn’t quite atrophied.

Cause AIDS? He shook his head again. Something there, though. Suddenly, like striking snakes, his hands leaped at the keyboard. Letters flowed rapidly across the screen: TRANSDERMAL PATCHES CAUSE AIDS-LIKE SYNDROME! He knew just how to write that one up. When you took the patch off, you went through some of the same whim whams you did when you gave up smoking (he’d call a trained seal of a doctor for the impressive-sounding quotes he’d need). And some of those whimwhams were enough like early AIDS symptoms to give the piece the germ of truth his editor liked.

Speak of the devil, he thought, because his editor came by just then, paused to see what he was working on, and nodded approvingly before heading off to the next desk. Don’t think of Ed Asner as Lou Grant here. Katie Nelligan looked more like Mary Tyler Moore with red hair.

Mort sighed. If she hadn’t been his boss, and if he hadn’t had a well-founded suspicion that she was smarter than he was (although if she was all that smart, why did she work for the Intelligencer!), he’d have asked her out a year ago. One of these days, he kept telling himself. It hadn’t happened yet.

Katie came back, dropped a wire service report into his IN basket. “See what you can do with this one, Mort,” she said.

He looked at the news item. Kids in Japan, it seemed, raised stag beetles (not Japanese beetles, for some reason) as pets. Then they’d put them up on round cushions two at a time to see which one could grab the other by the projecting mouthparts and throw it off. They’d just chosen a national champion beetle.

“Jesus Christ,” Mort said. “Sumo-wrestling bugs!”

“That’s just the slant we’ll want on it,” Katie said. She nodded again—twice in one morning, which didn’t happen every day. “Can you give me a draft before you go home tonight?”

“Yeah, I think so,” he answered. What was he supposed to tell her?

“Good,” she said crisply, and went on down the aisle be! tween desks. Mort looked back at her for a couple of seconds before he returned to his computer.

He discovered he’d forgotten what he was going to write next about the transdermal patches. No wonder, he thought. Sumo-wrestling bugs—Lord, that was enough to derail anybody’s train of thought. Bullshit about patches and the truth about bugs . . . “Hell of a way to make a living,” he said under his breath.

Nobody glanced over at him to see why he was talking to himself. People at the Intelligencer did it every day. Nobody, but nobody, was ever a bright-eyed, eager eighteen-year-old getting himself ready for a hot career writing for a supermarket tabloid. It wasn’t a job you went looking for, it was a job you fell into—generally from a great height.

“If I weren’t Typhoid Mary, I wouldn’t be here,” Mort said, again to himself. He’d worked for four different papers in three years, each of which went belly-up within months of hiring him. The jobs had disappeared, but his rent and his car payment and his child support hadn’t. He’d been here five years. Whatever else you said about it, the Intelligencer wouldn’t go broke any time soon. What was that line about nobody going broke overestimating the stupidity of the American people?

A guaranteed regular paycheck—yeah, that was one thing that kept him coming to the office every morning. The other was something he hadn’t thought through when he’d taken this job: now that he’d worked for the Intelligencer, no real newspaper would ever take him seriously again.

He saved the patch story, got to work on the sumo-wrestling stag beetles. He took a certain perverse pride in the way he reworked it to fit the Intelligencer’s style: breezy, breathless, no paragraph more than two sentences long, no words more than three syllable if he could help it. Besides, Katie’d given him a deadline for that one, and he always met deadlines.

He was just heading into the wrapup when the lights went off.

“Oh, shit,” he said loudly, an editorial comment echoed and embellished all over the office. When the lights went off, so did the computers. Mort hadn’t saved the stag beetle story as he worked on it, so it was gone for good. He’d have to do it over from scratch, and doing it once had been once too often.

Besides which, with the power gone, the inside of the Intelligencer office was black as an IRS man’s heart: no windows. The publisher, three floors up—he had a window, and one with an ocean view. The peons who did the actual work? They got peed on, as their name implied.

Katie Nelligan’s voice cut through the chatter: “Does anybody have a flashlight at their desk? There’s supposed to be an emergency kit in here somewhere, but we haven’t needed it for so long, I’ve forgotten where.”

No flashlights went on. Mort didn’t even have a luminous watch. He just sat at his desk, figuring the only thing he was likely to do in pitch darkness was stumble over somebody’s chair and break his fool neck.

Wouldn’t that be a great way to go? If a network correspondent cut himself shaving while he was covering a war, he turned into a national hero overnight. But if a tabloid reporter killed himself trying to get out of his office, he might make page seven on the inside section of the newspaper. Having his passing altogether ignored was a hell of a lot more likely.

Somebody else did get up, and promptly tripped. Feeling smugly virtuous, Mort stayed put.

Then, all of a sudden, he could see again. Standing in the doorway were four slim, manlike shapes, each glowing a slightly different shade of bluish green. All together they put out about as much light as a nightlight.

“Give me a break,” Mort said. “Who’s the practical joker?” Slim, glowing aliens were as much an Intelligencer hallmark as no funnies was with the New York Times. He’d written at least half a dozen stories about them himself. They all contradicted one another, but who kept track?

“I’ll bet I know who did it,” Katie Nelligan said: “San Levy at the News of the World” The News of the World specialized in aliens, too, generally warty yellow ones; Levy, who held down Katie’s job over there, was a notorious prankster. Katie turned to the glowing quartet. “Okay, boys, you can knock it off now. We’re wise to you. How about turning the lights back on, too?”

The four guys in the alien suits (Mort thought of them as John, Paul, George, and Ringo, which does a good job of dating him) didn’t answer. One of them—George—started walking up toward the ceiling. There weren’t any steps, but that didn’t bother him. He just went up and up, as if the air were solid beneath his feet.

A couple of people broke into applause. “Hell of a special effect,” someone called.

Mort gaped along with everybody else. It was a hell of a special effect. He would have been impressed seeing it on a movie screen. Seeing it for real, live and in person, was . . . unbelievable. You could put somebody in a suit that made him look like a freeway emergency light, yeah, but Mort knew for a fact that the ceiling didn’t have any wires in it. Which left—what? Antigravity?

“Holy Jesus,” he said hoarsely. “Maybe they are aliens.”

The chorus of derision that brought down on his head couldn’t have been louder or more scornful at an Air Force UFO debunking unit. People who worked for the Intelligencer wrote about aliens, sure, but they weren’t dumb enough to believe in them. That was for the yahoos who bought the paper.

Then the fellow in the suit up by the ceiling pointed an (inhumanly?) long finger at Katie Nelligan. He didn’t keep a flashlight in his fingernail, a la ET, but, with a startled squawk, Katie floated slowly off the floor and up toward him. “Somebody do something!” she yelped.

Mort sprang up, sprinted down the aisle, and grabbed her around the waist (he’d fantasized doing things like that, but not under these circumstances). He tried to pull her back down to Mother Earth. Instead, she rose higher and higher—and so did he.

He let go of Katie as soon as his feet left the ground, but that was too late. Up he went anyhow, toward the—well, if he wasn’t an alien, he’d do until somebody showed up with Mars license plates.

About halfway to the ceiling, Mort remembered that once upon a time he’d been a pretty good reporter, and here he was, floating up to the biggest story in the history of mankind. “Get a camera!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “We’ve got to have pictures!”

“Oh, good for you, Mort,” Katie exclaimed. “God, we’ll sell fifty million copies and we won’t even have to make anything up.” No matter that she’d been captured by aliens and was probably heading for a fate worse than taxes—she worried about the Intelligencer’s circulation ahead of her own.

Down on the ground, first one flash camera and then another started going off, strobing away until the office reminded Mort of nothing so much as a psychedelic 60s dance. Had the aliens smelled like pot smoke, the illusion would have been perfect, but they didn’t smell like anything.

Only after he shouted for a camera did Mort stop to wonder whether the aliens would mind having their images immortalized in the Intelligencer. If they had minded, things might have turned decidedly unpleasant for the person on the wrong end of the Nikon. But they didn’t seem to care one way or the other.

Then he wondered if anybody kept a gun in his desk or her purse. He didn’t think the aliens would be able to ignore bullets like flash photography. If anybody was toting a piece, though, he didn’t open up. That removed one of Mort’s worries.

A bigger, more urgent one remained: now that the aliens had Katie and him, what would they do with them? The beings the Intelligencer featured were always looking out for humanity’s best interests, but how likely was that really? Was a species that could invent pasturized processed cheese food product worth saving anyhow? Mort had his doubts. Which left—what?

The first thing that sprang to mind was experimental animal That was a long walk off a short pier. Number two was zoo specimen. That might have its moments if they tried to establish a breeding population with him and Katie Nelligan, but in the long run it wasn’t much better than number one: medium-to long-term insanity as opposed to instant anguish.

He flapped his arms and kicked his legs in midair, none of which changed his trajectory a bit. Whatever the aliens were going to do to him, he couldn’t stop them.

His feet were still within grabbing distance of the ground, but when somebody—he didn’t see who—made the same sort of run at him as he’d made at Katie, one of the aliens who’d remained by the doorway held up a hand like a traffic cop and his would-be rescuer bounced off an invisible wall. Pictures the aliens didn’t mind; they wouldn’t put up with anything more.

The one floating up by the ceiling—George—made a come-hither gesture to Mort and Katie, who duly went thither The closer Mort looked at George, the less he looked like a human being, or even a Star Trek makeup job. For one thing, his head was too small. Making a head look bigger than it really is wasn’t any great trick, but how did you go about shrinking one unless you were a South American Indian?

Nose, ears, mouth—details were all wrong: nothing you couldn’t manage with makeup on any of them, maybe, but why would you? Besides those come-hither qualities, George’s fingers had a couple of extra joints apiece. He had no nipples. Farther down . . . well, Mort was damned if he’d let a makeup man do that sort of thing to his family jewels.

And if George wasn’t an alien, what was he doing up here by the ceiling, and how had he gotten Katie and Mort up here with him? Mort’s gut had needed a little while to catch up with his brain, but now he believed all over.

The alien extended the middle finger of his left hand toward him, the middle finger of his right toward Katie. Mort wanted to flip him off right back, but didn’t have the nerve. George’s finger touched the center of his forehead. He’d expected blazing heat. Instead, it was cool.

After that—the only person who understood what happened to him after that was Katie Nelligan, and only because it happened to her, too. He felt his brains getting systematically emptied and copied, as if he were a floppy being backed up onto an enormous hard disk. Everything he remembered, from the Pythagorean Theorem to losing his cherry under the football stands in high school, got sucked up and flowed out through the alien’s finger.

So did things he’d never imagined his brain retained: what he’d had for breakfast five years ago last Tuesday (two eggs over medium, wheat toast, grape jam, weak coffee); what his father had said when, sometime under the age of one, Mort spat up on the old man’s best suit (not to be repeated here, but prime, believe me). Amazing, he thought, and hoped he’d keep one percent of what the alien was getting.

Even more amazing, though, was the backwash he got, as if a few random little documents from the hard disk snuck onto the floppy while the floppy played out onto the hard disk. Some of them came from Katie: the smell of her corsage on prom night, a sixth-grade spelling test where she’d missed the word revolutionary; what cramps felt like, and a long-distance call to her sister in Baltimore the spring before.

And some of those little documents had to come from George the alien: using those peculiar private parts in the manner for which they were intended, what felt like a college course on how flying saucers or whatever they were worked (which would have been worth a mint, and not a chocolate one, if Mort had understood the concepts), the taste of fancy alien food (by comparison, that ever-so-ordinary breakfast seemed nectar and ambrosia).

Mort also picked up a few impressions about what George thought of mankind. In two words, not much. He went about his job with all the enthusiasm of an Animal Regulations officer counting stray dogs around the city dump, except an Animal Regulations officer might actually like dogs.

The alien didn’t like humans. Mort could think of a lot of reasons why benevolent aliens wouldn’t like humans: they were busy polluting their planet; they fought wars; they discriminated on the basis of color, gender, sexual preference, and the size of your bankroll. If any of that had been in the backwash from George, Mort would have been chastened but not surprised.

It wasn’t. George felt about humans much as a lot of nineteenth-century British imperialists had felt about the peoples they ruled: they were wogs. They were ugly, they smelled funny, they had revolting habits, and, most of all, they were stupid. George’s view of what humans had in the brains department was somewhere between a badly trained dog and what that badly trained dog was liable to leave on your front lawn when it went out for a walk.

Given that George was currently pumping him and Katie dry of everything they’d ever known, Mort had to admit that, from his point of view, he had a point. But if George was a benevolent alien, he devoutly hoped he’d never run into one in a lousy mood.

All of a sudden, he was empty. The inside of his head seemed to be making the noise a soda straw does when you’re still sucking but the soda’s all gone.

A few more impressions backwashed into the sodaless expanse between his ears. One was a mental image of two scared-looking rubes in hunting gear getting the same treatment he was undergoing now. I’ll be damned, he thought. They weren’t making it up after all The second was a flash of alien mentation: As long as we have to do it, this is the perfect spot for the survey. They’d never—He never found out who they were or what they’d never. The document was incomplete.

George turned to his buddies by the door. He wiggled his ears. Mort didn’t know what that meant, but the rest of the green-and-glowing Fab Four did: job’s over for today. They went out the door. They didn’t bother opening it first.

The floating alien looked from Mort to Katie and back again. Mort got the idea that if it had been up to him, he’d have dropped them both on the floor, kzrsplat. But maybe he had a supervisor watching him or something, because he didn’t. He floated them down the same way they’d come up, only faster.

As they were descending, George went down the invisible stairs he’d gone up before. He left the Intelligencer office the same impossible way his colleagues had, except he left his nether cheeks on this side of the door for a couple of seconds while the rest of him was already on that side. “Jesus,” Mort said. “The moon from outer space.”

Katie laughed—hysterically, sure, but can you blame her? Mort couldn’t see what anybody else was doing, because the room was dark again now that the nightlights that walked like men had gone.

Then the lights came back on. It was as if that broke a spell; for all Mort knew, maybe it did. People started jumping and hollering and running to the door (but not through it) to find out if the aliens were still in sight. Mort didn’t run to the door. Having seen the aliens more up close and personal than anybody but Katie Nelligan, he didn’t want to see them again.

Katie said, “Whoever was taking those pictures, get them developed this instant, do you hear me? This instant! Don’t leave the shop while they’re being processed, either—wait for them right there.”

That got three people out of the office. Mort glanced down at his watch, wondering how long he’d floated by the ceiling. What he saw made him blink and exclaim, “Katie, what time do you have?”

She looked at her watch, too, then stared at him, bright blue eyes wide with surprise. “It felt like we were up there for an hour, not a couple of minutes.” She pointed to the wall clock. “But that says the same thing. Weird.” She was not the sort of person to let weirdness overwhelm her; that was one of the reasons she was editor and Mort, older and arguably more experienced, just a staff writer. “We’ll do drafts of the piece right now, while we still remember everything. When we’re done, we’ll compare notes. This one has to be perfect.”

“Right.” Mort all but sprinted for his computer. He’d never imagined being in the middle of a story like this. Woodward and Bernstein, eat your hearts out, he thought as he hit the keyboard.

He plunged in so hard and deep that he started violently when Katie tapped him on the shoulder. “I just wanted to say thanks,” she told him. “That was brave, what you did.”

“Oh. That. Yeah. Sure,” he said. “Listen, why aren’t you writing?” Katie laughed softly and went away.

The next thing Mort remembered apart from words flowing from his mind to the computer was the pictures coming back. For that he was willing to get up from his desk. He’d expected something would go wrong—they’d be fogged, or black, or something. But they weren’t. There was the alien, doing the mind-probe on him and Katie while all three of them floated in midair. There were the other aliens by the door. Shot after perfect shot—it was just a matter of picking the best ones.

“We’ve got ’em,” Katie said. Everybody nodded.

Five o’clock came and went. Mort never noticed. Neither did Katie. Finally, at about half past six, she printed her story. Mort said, “I’ll be done in just a few minutes.” He pulled his sheets out of the laser printer when he was through, then said, “We both must have run way long. Shall we,” he hesitated, then plunged, “compare and cut over dinner?”

She gave him not the wary, thoughtful look he’d expected, but a sidelong glance and half a smile, as if she knew something he didn’t. “All right,” she said. “Let’s go to Napoli. It’s right down the street, and we have a lot of work to do to get this the way it has to be.”

They went through each other’s stories alongside lasagna and Chianti. Time on real newspapers had made Mort sharp at writing lean and tight; he boiled away a quarter of Katie’s piece without touching the meaning at all.

She attacked his differently, looking more at what it said than how it did the saying. About halfway through, she looked up and said, “Backwash? That’s a good way to put it. I felt it, too. I wondered if you had. But somebody reading the piece is going to need more explanation than you’ve given it here.” She scribbled a note in the margin.

Over spumoni (“To hell with the waistline; today I earned it,” Katie said), each looked at what the other had done. Most of Katie’s comments asked for more detail here, less there, and made Mort’s story more tightly focused and coherent. He tipped the cap he wasn’t wearing. “Thanks. This’ll help.”

“I like what you’ve done with mine, too,” she answered. “It’s a lot crisper than it was. We make a pretty good team.”

“Yeah.” Mort beamed. He’d had just enough wine to improve his attitude, not enough to hurt his thinking.

Katie dabbed at her lips with a napkin. “Now let’s get back to the office and hammer ’em together.”

Mort almost squawked, but he didn’t. What did he have to go home to? An empty apartment and celebrity dog wrestling on ESPN? Real work, important work (something he’d never imagined at the Intelligencer till now) was more important than that, and the company better. He took out his wallet, tossed bills on the red-and-white checked tablecloth, got to his feet. “Let’s go.”

“Hey, I was going to pay for mine,” Katie said.

He shrugged. “I’m not broke, and I’m not trying to take advantage of you. If you want to buy for both of us one of these days, I’ll let you.”

She gave him that funny sidelong look again, but rose from the table without saying anything more. The night watchman scratched his head when they went back to the Intelligencer officer. “You folks don’t usually work late.”

“Big story—a real ‘Hey, Martha!’ ” Katie said solemnly. “Yeah?” The watchman’s eyes lit up. “Does it have Madonna in it?” When Mort and Katie both shook their heads, his shoulders slumped in disappointment. “How can it be a big story if it don’t have Madonna in it?”

They went inside without answering, then settled down to work side by side. A couple of hours later, sheets slid into the laser printer tray, one after the other. Mort scooped them up, saying, “Let me go over these one more time. I’ve been using a computer for ten years now, but I still edit better on hard copy.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” Katie read over his shoulder. They each made a last few changes, then printed out the altered pages again. This time Katie took them from the printer. She slid them into their proper places, made a neat little pile of the story, and stuck a paper clip in the top left comer. “It’s done.”

“Wait,” Mort said. “Let me have it for a second.” He took it over to the xerox machine, made two copies. “I’ll take one of these home, and I’ll stash the other one in my desk—just in case.”

“In case the aliens come back, you mean?” Katie said. He nodded. She went on, “I don’t think it’d help, but it can’t hurt, either. First thing tomorrow, I go upstairs and lay this,” she hefted her own copy of what they’d done, “and the photos on Mr. Comstock. If he says no, I quit.”

“Me, too,” Mort said. Some things, by God, were more important than a job.

Katie yawned. “Let’s go home. It’s been a long day.”

“Boy, hasn’t it just?”

Everyone in the Intelligencer office stared nervously at the door through which the aliens had departed. Mort wasn’t anticipating their return; like the rest of the tabloid crew, he was waiting for Katie Nelligan to come back from her conference with the publisher. She’d been up there a long time.

The door opened, which proved it wasn’t the aliens coming back. Everyone jumped all the same. In stamped Katie, looking the way a Fury might have if she were Irish instead of classical Greek.

Mort could find only one reason for her to look like that. “Mr. Comstock won’t go for it?” he exclaimed in dismay.

“Oh, no. He will. We lead with it, next week’s issue.” Katie bit off the words one by one. Little spots of color that had nothing to do with rouge rode high on her cheeks. “But he doesn’t believe it. He doesn’t believe us.”

Cries of outrage echoed from walls and ceilings. “What does he think, that we made it up to sell his stinking papers?” Mort yelled. “We’ll all go up there and tell him—”

“No, we won’t. I told him the same thing, and he said we’d regret it if we tried.” Katie’s scowl grew darker. “And yes, that’s just what he thinks. On the photos, he thinks he spotted the wires holding us up in the air.”

“Jesus!” If he hadn’t already been starting to bald, Mort would have tom his hair. “There weren’t any goddamn wires!” The memory of yesterday’s terror flooded back, sharp as a slap in the face.

“I know that as well as you do, Mort,” Katie said. “So here’s what I’ve got in mind: we’re going to pretend we don’t care what Mr. Comstock says. We’ll put this out the right way, and people will believe it.”

The staff sprang to work with the fire and dedication mutiny can call forth. They threw themselves at the story with the dogged, fatalistic courage of English infantry climbing out of their trenches and marching into German machine-gun fire at the Somme. Mort was astonished at what some of the people—men and women whose total illiteracy he would till now have reckoned a boon to mankind—could do.

“You know, Katie,” he said when the editor walked by, “this is gonna be a ‘Hey Martha!’ to end all ‘Hey, Marthas!’ Everybody will want to read it.”

“I think you’re right. And we’ve got a real Freddie Krueger of a picture on the front page to grab ’em and pull ’em in.” She bristled. “I had to stop Comstock from using the one that looked right up my skirt. That man!” She clenched her fists till the knuckles whitened.

Mort looked at his watch. It was getting close to five. “Do you want to drown your sorrows in another bottle of Chianti?” he asked.

She’ll say no, he thought with the automatic pessimism of a man who’d been through a divorce and taken a few knocks afterward for good measure. But she said yes. And after a truly Lucullan feast at Napoli (or Mort thought so, anyhow, but he was too happy to be objective), she went back to his apartment with him. The mess it was in proved he hadn’t expected that. If it bothered her, she didn’t let on.

Afterward, still on the disbelieving side but happier—much happier—than he had been at the restaurant, he ran a hand down the smooth skin of her back and said, “What made you decide to—?” He let it hang there, so she could ignore it if she wanted to.

She gave him that I-know-something-you-don’t-know look again, the one he’d seen on her face when he asked her to dinner the day the aliens came. It stayed there long enough that he thought she wasn’t going to answer. But she did, if obliquely: “Remember the backwash?”

“Huh?” he said, but then, realizing what she had to be talking about, he went on, “From the alien, you mean? Sure. What about it?”

Katie hesitated again, then said carefully, “I didn’t mean just from the alien. Bits came from you, too, just like you got bits from me. And one of them happened to be . . . how you feel about me. It’s hard to be sure about a man—I suppose it’s hard for a man to be sure about a woman—but this time, I didn’t need to have any doubts. And so—” She leaned forward on the rumpled bed and kissed him.

Absurdly, he was jealous. He’d gotten bits from her, sure, but nothing like that (as far as he was concerned, the prom corsage didn’t count). The one he remembered most vividly had come from the alien, that contemptuous They’d never that broke off unfinished.

From what had happened since, Mort was beginning to think he knew who they were and what they’d never, but he didn’t tell that to Katie. He might have been wrong—and even if he was right, what the hell could he do about it?

If you went into a market or a convenience store a few weeks ago, you probably saw the Intelligencer on its rack, jammed in there with the rest of the tabloids. You probably took at look at the front page photo, shook your head, and walked on by to get your beef jerky or pipe cleaners or whatever it was you needed.

And even if you plunked down your eighty-five cents and read the whole piece, odds are you just took it in stride. After all, a tabloid’d do anything to sell copies, right? You’d never believe in aliens, would you?

Katie cried when the story went belly-up. The late-night talk-show hosts didn’t even take it seriously enough to make jokes about it. Mort wasn’t surprised. The green-and-glowing guys had known just where to take their sample, all right.

But don’t think this is a story without a happy ending. Mort and Katie are getting married next month. They still have a lot of planning to do, but they’ve agreed on one thing: the wedding won’t be in the Intelligencer

Loch Ness Monster Found—
in the Bermuda Triangle!

by David Vierling

David Vierling is a new writer who lives with his wife and son (and an inordinate number of edged weapons) in Virginia, where he is active in several medieval reenactment groups. Many local supermarket clerks were bemused when he told them that he was reading the tabloid headlines as research. In his own words: “I got a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism for this?”

It’s his first professional fiction sale, so perhaps that makes it all right.

“How was your flight from Glasgow, Mister . . .”

“McLochlan. Nestor McLochlan,” the enormous, scaly, kilt-clad visitor replied, handing the customs officer his passport. “Nessie to me friends. The flight ’twas bonny, save that some haggis-brained American bairn kept bashin’ me o’er the head wi’ a pillow an’ chantin’, ‘Na the Momma! Na the Momma!”

The customs officer shook her blonde head. “Those Americans.” She ran the passport under a scanner. “Purpose of your visit?”

“Vacation. Relax, play a wee bit o’ golf, get some sun. Ye canna’ know what a treat ’tis for a cold-blooded individual t’ lie in the sun!” He took off his hat and sunglasses as he answered. “I’ve had it wi’ the rain, the fog, the annoyin’ wee fish and their annoyin’ wee fish comments, the paparazzi scullin’ around the Loch in their rent’d coracles, cameras a-clickin’. I need a break, lassie, a chance to go somewhere and be a tourist, instead of a bloody tourist attraction.”

The customs officer glanced up from the form she’d been filling in. “Yeah. Vacation. Right.” She squinted at the passport, then said, “If you don’t mind my saying so, this is a terrible picture of you. It’s out of focus, kind of misty and indistinct. Why, it could be a bunch of floating logs, or a pile of seaweed. Almost anything.”

“I dinna photograph verra well,” he told her. “I’ve ne’er seen a clear photograph o’ me’self what wasn’t a hoax, perpetrated by charlatans to beguile the gullible.”

“Well, we can’t all be photogenic,” the customs officer replied, flashing a puzzled smile. She stamped the passport and returned it. “Welcome to Bermuda, Mister McLochlan.” She did a double take. “Say, aren’t you . . . Dino, from The Flintstones? My children love that show! Especially the way you always went ‘Yip! Yip! Yip!’ when Fred came home! Could you do ‘the Dino bark’ for me? Just one Yip? Please?”

“No. Sorry. Lar’ngitis,” he thundered over his shoulder, jogging for the exit.

A group of Japanese tourists began pointing at Nessie and whispering excitedly to each other. He paused, pivoted to face them, and began, “I pray ye, dinna tell anyone ye have recogniz’d me! I’ll get nary a moment’s rest, if word gets oot.”

As one, the tourists turned and ran, screaming, “Godzirra! Godzirra!”

Bewildered, Nessie grabbed his bags and jumped onto the hotel shuttle.

The overweight, balding desk clerk at the Atlantis Hotel handed Nessie a key. “We’ve prepared our best suite for you, Mister McLochlan,” he said, then leaned close and whispered, “You can trust our staff to be discreet, sir. Many celebrities come here under assumed identities to unwind.” He winked, then rang for a bellhop. Nessie smiled. Now this was more like it!

The Elvis Presley Suite was impressive, including seven televisions and a loaded revolver. Nessie tipped the bellhop, but the boy seemed reluctant to leave. “Aye, laddie?” Nessie rumbled.

The bellhop looked down at his hands. “Well, sir, it’s against hotel policy, but, uh, could I have your autograph?”

Nessie rolled his pool ball-size eyes and reached for a pad of Atlantis stationery. “Ach, the obligations what come wi’ bein’ a celebrity!”

The bellhop fairly vibrated in place. “I always loved your show. Wait till my family hears that I actually met Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent! Are you still friends with Beanie, or is it true you two had a falling out?”

Quickly, Nessie scribbled ‘To a fellow with a brain the size of a walnut, sincerely, Cecil’ on the pad, shoved it into the boy’s hands, and shoved him out the door.

Nessie needed a drink. He exchanged his kilt for a pair of baggy tartan shorts and headed down to the bistro overlooking the hotel’s pool.

Seating himself around an outdoor table, Nessie ordered a Scotch and water. The waiter returned with the drink, his beaded dreadlocks swinging as he walked. “What else can I be gettin’ ja, mon?” he said. “Would ja like to be trying some sushi, mon? We make it fresh here, ja know.”

“I dinna think so,” Nessie said, sipping his drink. “I came here to ge’ away from fish! Bring me a Caesar salad, please.”

The waiter returned a few minutes later with the salad. He cocked his head to one side and said, “Don’ I be knowin’ ja from somewheres, mon?”

“I dinna think so, laddie.”

“Sure, mon, ja be the Crocodile from Peter Pon. So, tell me, mon, what do a Pirate’s hand taste like?”

“Ye’re lucky I’m an herbivore, laddie,” Nessie growled, briefly wondering what a waiter’s hand might taste like.

Nessie hurriedly finished the salad, gulped his drink, and made his way to the pool. He stretched himself across several lounge chairs.

As he lay there, feeling warm and dry for the first time in about a hundred years, he noticed a pretty, freckled woman with red hair eyeing him. She got up from her deck chair, careful not to disturb the two plaid-suited goons snoring on either side, and made her way over. “Excuse me,” she began, “But aren’t you. . .”

“No!” Nessie thundered. “I am na’ a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turt’l, nor am I Earl Sinclair, Barney the Dinosaur, nor any oth’r cute, friendly character from American television! I canna’ get ye discount tickets to Dinosaurs Alive! I am . . .”

“The mysterious and terrifying Loch Ness Monster,” she said quietly.

Nessie’s rather prodigious eyes bulged, then he smiled. “That I am, lassie.”

“You’re much more handsome than I’d realized from the pictures.”

“Ach, I dinna photograph verra well.”

She smiled, showing some very pleasant dimples. “I sometimes wish I could say the same.” Again the dimples. “But you’re going to bum if you don’t get some sunscreen on that lovely, scaly hide of yours, Mister Ness.”

“Call me Nessie, if ya like.”

“Nessie, then. And I’m Sarah.”

As Sarah reached for the sunscreen, Nessie noticed a paparazzi’s camera peeping at them from out of the bushes. Shooting the photographer his most threatening, aweinspiring, ear-to-ear grin, Nessie leaned back to enjoy Sarah’s ministrations, thinking, Ach! The obligations what come wi’ bein’ a celebrity! ’Tis a shame his pictures will be blurry.

Duchess of Windsor Photographed in Poolside Romp! Fergie Snapped Rubbing Sunblock on Mystery Figure in Bermuda!

Racehorse Predicts the Future!

by Josephs Sherman

Josepha Sherman’s books include A Strange and Ancient Name, Castle of Deception (co-written with Mercedes Lackey), A Sampler of Jewish-American Folklore, Windleaf, Rachel the Clever, and Child of Faerie, Child of Earth. She has also sold over ninety short stories and articles.

A charter member of the Editorial Horseplayers’ Association (board meetings are held at Belmont Racetrack), she has yet to hear a horse accurately predict the future.

Maybe at Aqueduct . . .?

It was all the alien’s fault. I mean, I hadn’t done anything so terrible, just borrowed a little money from the company. It was such a miserably run business no one ever noticed the cash was gone. And it wasn’t as though I wasn’t going to pay it back!

It wasn’t as though I didn’t have a good reason for what I’d done, either. After all, when you’ve been scraping along for years, aching to own your own thoroughbred—hell, your own racing stable!—and yet being stuck with the only horses you can afford, cheap claimers, the sort that’ll go bad if you just look at them the wrong way, you’d jump at the chance to buy a really good colt, wouldn’t you? Even if it meant bending the law just a little.

Anyhow, thanks to that . . . well, let’s call it a loan, I found myself, for the first time in my life, the proud owner of a real racehorse, Sunny Boy, three-year-old winner of his first two starts. Yeah, they’d been allowance races, in nobody-much company, but he’d shown promise. And damned if he wasn’t going off as second favorite in his first attempt in stakes company.

So far so good, right? But the day before the race things got weird. There I was, hanging on Sunny Boy’s stall like any other hopeful owner, staring at the colt, which wasn’t returning the favor.

Then all at once his ears shot up and he turned to stare at me.

And so help me, Sunny Boy spoke.

“You are the human who owns this beast?”

It wasn’t a trick. There wasn’t anyone around who could have been casting his voice or whatever they call it. And the colt’s lips had moved, just like some all too real remake of Mr. Ed! His voice had sounded just as funny as you’d expect; a horse isn’t made to speak human. But I’d understood him.

“Uh. . . yeah,” I said, very carefully. “Sunny Boy . . .?”

“No, no, no, you miss the point! I am not this beast, I am in this beast!”

Oh, great! My first shot at a good horse, and it turned out to be possessed! “Wh-what are you?” I stammered, wondering how you got a horse exorcised. “Some kind of demon?”

“No, you foolish human, I am an alien!”

“From outer space?”

“Of course from outer space, you threznit! I am . . . what you would call an explorer.”

“Oh. Sure. Where’s your saucer?”

“Saucer . . .?”

The voice was cut off as Sunny Boy calmly snatched a mouthful of hay. Apparently not minding being inhabited, he stood chewing for what seemed an endless while.

“Come on, horse!” I told him. “Swallow!”

Sunny Boy wasn’t impressed. He finally did swallow, but then took a leisurely drink of water. At last he raised his head from the water bucket and the alien was able to continue:

“By ‘saucer,’ you mean a space vehicle? Yes? I didn’t come here in a vehicle. Such things are far too slow and expensive. No, when I explore, I send my . . . call it my consciousness out across time and space, and take up residence in an intelligent host so I may make observations.”

“Sunny Boy is intelligent?”

The alien sighed. “Hardly. This animal has but three thoughts in its mind: running, eating and . . . and something else.”

I could have sworn the voice was blushing. “Something else?” I asked, and light dawned. “You mean sex? Hell, I should hope so!” The average three-year-old colt has the sex drive of your average healthy teenager. And with any luck, Sunny Boy had a productive stud career ahead of him once he was done with racing. “Never mind that. If you were trying to land in an intelligent . . . uh . . . host, how did you—”

“I made a mistake! Strong, basic emotion interferes with the process. And this animal was—well he was—”

Just then a handler went by, leading a sleek young filly. Sunny Boy let out a downright lascivious whinny and kicked at his stall till she was out of sight.

“You see?” The alien voice sounded very weary.

I snickered. “I get the picture! You were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and this sex-mad equine dragged you right in.”

“Exactly.”

“And every time the colt gets a horny thought in his head he scrambles your thoughts, right?”

“More or less. Worse, the longer I am stuck in here, the more difficult it becomes for me to escape. I do not wish to end up as part of an animal’s mind! Human, you must help me!”

But my own mind was racing like a sprinter. “First you’ve got to tell me more about yourself. I mean, if you can travel through space like that, you’ve got to have all sorts of weird mind tricks.”

The alien paused. Sunny Boy blinked thoughtfully at me. “You humans would think so, yes.”

“Like what?”

You ever see a horse shrug? “I can tap into the mental patterns of others’ thoughts—”

“You can read minds?”

“Not without permission! It just isn’t polite.”

“Oh. Right.” A courteous alien. What next? “What else can you do?”

“I can foresee the outcome of certain events that—”

“Wait a minute. Are you saying you can predict the future?”

“Only to a limited extent.” The alien sighed. “Being stuck inside this beast means I can only see what he and his fellows are going to do within a short time-frame.”

“Oh, my God,” I said with true reverence. “You can predict races.”

“The outcome of those running contests. Oh, easily. But what—”

“Look, I’ll help you, honest. But—but you’ve got to help me first. First of all, you can’t let anyone else know you’re here. We . . . uh .  . . we’re a very suspicious race, and if you say anything to anyone but me, they might try to. . . uh . . . destroy you.”

Would he buy that? It seemed like something out of a bad SF movie to me, but then I wasn’t some alien explorer stuck in a horse’s mind!

“I—I see!” the alien gasped. “I had no idea this was such a perilous world! Thank you, human. You are a true friend.”

“Sure. Now, about this race-predicting thing . . .”

Well, he might have come from the across the galaxy, but my alien friend wasn’t too bright about some things. Like the idea of money. I had to concoct a story about the gathering of cash being part of a religious rite I had to fulfill (hell, that wasn’t so far wrong!). Until that rite was completed, I told him, I couldn’t possibly help him escape. And the best way to accumulate that sacred green . . .

He really could predict the outcome of the races. Sunny Boy never did quite manage to win a stakes race, but thanks to my alien tout’s tips, I started cleaning up at the track on other horses.

After a while, though, the thrill wore off just a bit. I found myself thinking after every win that I had enough now, I had better set about repaying that “loan” before someone thought to try balancing the books. And I really should help the alien find a way out of Sunny Boy’s mind before it was too late. But . . . well . . . you know how it goes.

And then one day it all started to fall apart. As I went up to Sonny Boy’s stall, the alien whispered:

“You said you’d help me!”

“I will.”

“When? I can’t wait much longer! Every day I start thinking more like a horse . . . and I . . . it . . . I am starting to enjoy it!” Sunny Boy shook himself vigorously. “You’ve got to get me out of here!”

“I said I will. When . . . uh . . . when the time is right.”

“I can’t wait for the time to be right!” Sunny Boy pinned his ears and glared at me. “You—you’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you? You can’t help me!”

“That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Shh! Someone’s going to hear you.”

“I no longer care! If you will not tell me the truth, I will learn it for myself!”

Before I could move, I felt a cold little something winding its way into my mind. Just as quickly it was gone, and the alien was gasping, “So! Not only are you a liar, you are a thief as well! A stealer of the sacred cash! Did it not matter to you that without that cash this company you robbed will fail?”

I muttered something about stupid business deals and if they couldn’t manage their money, they didn’t deserve to keep it. But the alien wasn’t buying any of that.

“And you’ve been using me to help you steal still more!” he shrilled. “Well, the thieving ends now!”

“I told you to keep it down! They—”

“I no longer care if others hear me! Someone must learn you are a thief! Help! Somebody, help!”

Well, what could I do? Fortunately, mares do come into heat regularly, even at the track, and fortunately there was just such a mare being walked nearby. No one saw me slip the bolt on Sunny Boy’s stall—and no one had to tell Sunny Boy what to do with his freedom! A mental cry rang in my head:

“No! You can’t do this!”

“Sorry, pal. I’ve already done it.”

Judging from the rush of emotion Sunny Boy and the mare were releasing, I’d heard the last of my alien friend. Too bad! But I’d already gotten a good amount of cash out of this whole business. And he . . . well, maybe he’d enjoy being part of a stallion’s mind!

I heard one last, despairing mental shout:

“Traitor! Thief! I’ll get you for this!”

Then there was silence, save for the happy squealings of two oversexed horses.

Well, you can imagine the threats of suits and countersuits that followed, particularly since the mare turned up pregnant after her brief fling. But nobody could prove that fling had been anything but an accident. Besides, the mare wasn’t exactly a world-beater. She’d been at the end of her not very distinguished racing career anyhow. And even if Sunny Boy wasn’t a world-beater either, his breeding was nice enough, and pretty close to that of the stallion her owner had had in mind for her first mating. After he’d thought it over a little, said owner agreed he didn’t mind saving on stud fees.

And it didn’t hurt either of us that the man was enough of a realist to play up that “trackside romance” for all the publicity it was worth. Eleven months later, he even invited me and a whole slew of reporters to see the birth of Sunny Boy’s first foal.

Of course I went. Why not? I didn’t have anything to fear from reporters. The company I had “borrowed” from had quietly gone bankrupt, just as my alien pal had announced, and at this stage of the game it didn’t look like anyone was ever going to uncover my little “loan.” After all, aside from the alien, who knew about it? And the alien was long gone.

Mares foal quickly. Soon Sunny Boy’s first offspring was lying sprawled on the straw, being licked dry by his loving mamma. As we watched and the reporters’ cameras whirred, the foal struggled to his long, awkward legs. He took a good, long drink of mare’s milk.

Then all at once the foal tensed. His ears shot up and he turned to stare at me.

And to my horror, he gave me a slow, deliberate wink.

No! Oh, no, it can’t be. He’s gone, he has to be gone!

But for the first time it dawned on me, really dawned I mean, that the alien had truly been an alien, a creature I didn’t really know anything about. Hell, I didn’t even know what he looked like!

Not that it mattered now. Feeling like someone caught in a nightmare, I watched the foal stagger his way over to the reporters. With one sharp, gleeful glance my way, he smiled at them, actually smiled. And in the next moment I knew it was all over.

“So boys,” he said clearly, “have I got a story for your

Printer’s Devils
by Gregory Feeley

Gregory Feeley is the author of a science fiction novel, The Oxygen Barons, as well as numerous stories and articles in American and British magazines. He wishes us to know that the following story “represents . . . his first attempt to be funny.”

In the aching stupor of his fever’s second day, Cliff Penn found himself drifting past bizarre mental landscapes, inchoate memories prompted by the Golden Oldies channel his clock radio had been playing all afternoon. Too weak to rise and silence the plastic box, Penn let its low-fidelity stream wind through his consciousness, leaving deposits that strangely colored his efforts to turn his thoughts to the problems at hand:

DADDY TAKES T-BIRD AWAY!

“Fun” Still Possible, Singer Vows

TEEN ANGEL “STILL CAN’T HEAR ME”

Tearful Lover Goes Public After Séance Scam

“CHAPEL IN THE PINES” DESTROYED IN STORM!

Lightning Struck Again and Again and . . .

DOG BARRED IN AKC SCANDAL

Pedigreed Champ “Ain’t Nothing But . . .”

Late in the afternoon the phone rang. The alacrity with which his phone machine cut in suggested that it had already fielded a few calls, which Penn couldn’t remember. He turned his head toward the living room as the radio noise softened—it was during the instrumental bridge in “Michelle”—and heard Louise’s voice crackle through the speaker.

“Hey, Cliff, you still sick? We’ve really got some problems here. Call me tomorrow—tonight, if possible.

“And change your outgoing message. Jee-zus.”

Penn confusedly tried to recall his tape greeting while wondering what new problem had arisen, but McCartney’s resumed crooning scrambled any chance of pulling off this tricky maneuver. Had it been an actual emergency, he concluded by way of abandoning the effort, Louise would doubtless have shown up at his door.

Ninety minutes later the doorbell buzzed.

“You look like shit,” Louise observed when he got the door open. She brushed past him, leaving a folded newspaper in his arms. Penn shook it open, guessing by its size that it wasn’t the Tribune or even The Reader. The glassy stare of what appeared to be a newt gazed up at him beside a vertical caption that read: ALIENS SEED LAKES WITH ELVIS EMBRYOS.

“This is awful,” he said, following her into the kitchen.

“You’re damned right.” She was dumping wet coffee grounds into his crowded sink. “Manning had to edge those letters by hand before sending it to production.”

Penn looked back at the headline. The 130-point letters, white on a gray field, lacked the black trim that would lend them the crisp immediacy they required. He thought muddily on this. “So this is just a proof, right? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“You didn’t think we’d go to press like that, do you?” Louise located the tiny bag of coffee in the freezer, began pouring them into the percolator cup, then stopped and gave him a disgusted look when she saw that the beans were unground. She pulled the grinder toward her, filled it, and depressed the button. The macerating whine bored into Penn’s consciousness like a dentist’s drill.

“Louise, don’t scare me.” A wave of dizziness swept over him, and he sank into the kitchen chair

“I want you scared.” Louise plugged in the assembled percolator, looked around for a second chair, and made a face. “I thought the page-imposition software would take care of that.”

“Page imposition is something else entirely.” Writing for the Alert had given Louise a facility with terminology that Penn found unnerving: she needed only to sound authoritative. “I’ll be in to look at it tomorrow.”

“I think you should come down tonight.” Louise had gone into the living room and found the beanbag chair. Penn rose with an effort and went after her. “They’ll be doing Mountain States and Pacific in about three hours.”

The Weekly Alert had editions for different parts of the country, which varied mostly in their advertising. The only edition ever to use different covers was a short-lived Southern one, which had occasionally run headlines like Lost Confederate Stronghold Routs Tax Agents. “I don’t think new copy in the Classifieds page will strain the present system,” he said.

Louise shrugged. “Suit yourself. I thought you might want to get in a few hours today, since hourly consultants don’t get sick time.”

Penn winced. His year as a free-lancer, sans pension, sans benefits, had left him in the financial straits of an office temp. He would indeed not be paid for the last two days.

“We’re talking a few lines of code,” he said. “I’ll find it tomorrow and fix it.”

“Printer’s devils,” said Louise, studying her fingertips. One of them evidently had powdered coffee on it, for she licked it carefully.

“Eh?” Following a conversation with Louise was like pursuing a speeding car that could swerve faster than you. “Isn’t that what they call those tiny programming errors?”

“Glitches, they’re called glitches.” Louise was in the kitchen, rattling among the stacked cups. Penn realized he must have faded away for several seconds.

“Printer’s devils were apprentice printers, back in the last century,” he called. Raising his voice made his sinuses ache.

“And that’s what publishing software is, right? The menials who run copy to the editors, align the type, and check pagination?” Louise had returned with two steaming mugs, one of which she handed to Penn.

“Um. In a way, perhaps.” Penn took a long sip. Louise had added milk generously, probably her way of reminding Penn that he lacked the grit of real newspapermen, but he was happy for it.

“Printer’s Devils Haunt Newspaper Office,” she said.

“Lingering spirits drift through morgue, crying, ‘Nixon Resigns!’ ”

“Not bad,” he said, “but it won’t make the cover.”

“Screw that,” she said. “I’m on salary.”

Penn winced.

Later that night, stuporous from too much sleep, Penn draped a blanket over his shoulders, sat down at his workstation, and loaded the Alert program. He got to the mode he called Headline Maker, typed in the headline Louise had brought, then maneuvered it into place. He hit P, then pushed his chair back on its rollers and pulled the emerging sheet from the laserjet.

The page looked fine. This suggested that the problem lay in the way the software was interfacing with the printing system, which Penn could not investigate from home. Idly he entered a few more headlines, setting them up in different styles and point size.

ROCK STAR PALS WITH WINO BULLFROG

“Good Friend” Drinks Until Unintelligible

ROLLER SKATER FLATTENED IN BUFFALO DISASTER

Knuckle Down, Buckle Down, Rest Unidentifiable

He put the last into nice three-dimensional letters that the Alert would never use, shifted it to a luridly cross-hatched German Gothic, then got out of the system. On a whim, he set the modem so that it could receive material from the office, then left the machine on. If he found himself unable to put in a full day, he could send stuff home ahead of him.

Three aspirins and a glass of orange juice, and Penn was back in bed, shivering beneath a lasagna of blankets and quilts. He had turned down the radio during a mid-afternoon bathroom trip, but had forgotten that it clicked on automatically between eleven and twelve to lull him to sleep. Fitfully dozing by that hour, Penn found his dreams invaded by a coxcombed Elvis in his smoldering mid-twenties though attired in a sequined jumpsuit, asking hopefully whether his beloved ex was miserable in her solitude. Sitting near the stage, Penn couldn’t see the color of Elvis’s shoes, but made a joke to his unsmiling companion that the design of the jumpsuit looked like hound’s-tooth.

The fever broke an hour later, leaving him drenched on the rock shore of consciousness. Sweating beneath his load of blankets, Penn wondered why he had been thinking of Elvis.

Grossmere Publications occupied only two floors of a grimy building in a light industrial park, but Penn was required to show his digitized photo ID to the security guard in the lobby. “What would happen if some one you never knew came up with a valid-looking ID?” he once asked. He knew what happened when someone the guard knew perfectly well discovered he had left his ID at home.

“Wave ’em in,” the guard replied laconically. At $5.30 an hour, he didn’t weigh factors when following his simple instructions.

The doors of the freight elevator banged open directly onto the reception area, where a middle-aged secretary glanced up suspiciously before returning to her phone call. “No, I can’t connect you with any of the writers,” she was saying. “No, I can’t take a message, either. Our policy does not permit us to put calls through to our staff.”

Penn leaned over and looked into the pigeonhole where memos and messages were left for casual employees. He pulled out a slip summoning him to the production manager.

“Someone want to tell Angela about the UFO in his back yard?” he asked as she hung up.

The woman shrugged. “Could have been her dentist,” she replied.

Donald Rabin disliked Penn, who stood outside the hierarchy that governed business at Grossmere. Unlike temps (who were the lowest of the low), Penn’s absence from the organizational chart made him difficult to place; his hourly rate was not much lower than Rabin’s own, but he supervised nobody and could be dismissed without risk of Grossmere hearing from Worker’s Compensation. As such, his presence affronted Rabin, who disliked people anyway.

“Your system’s giving me problems,” Rabin said as Penn came in. On Penn’s first day Rabin had warned him not to “give me problems.” Every complication or delay that happened in the office was routed through Rabin’s first person singular, a syntactical perspective Penn regarded as malignantly narcissistic.

“I’m on it, Chief,” said Penn. “I’ll talk to Manning right now.”

Rabin glowered at him, a truculent water buffalo who suspected provocation but couldn’t locate its source. As he opened his mouth, the phone rang. “What is it?” he demanded into it as Penn departed.

Bert Manning, peering down over a draft table, saw Penn and straightened. “I know, Louise told me,” called Penn, forestalling discussion. He sat at the monitor and brought up the system, which unfolded at his command to disclose screens of serried code. As he studied its intricacies, his head began to throb.

“Cliff? I’ve got a question.” Manning was standing behind him.

Penn was staring at the screen. “Does this concern Headline Maker?”

“No, it’s the Elephant Girl.”

With a sigh, Penn saved his screen and got up. Tall and disheveled, Manning gave the impression of a man who had never got over a late growth spurt that had pushed his wrists beyond their cuffs and thrust his gleaming scalp up past his fringe of hair. He led Penn to his cubicle and, pointing in a manner that somehow permitted him to thrust out an elbow, indicated the problem.

The Elephant Girl gazed out from Manning’s VGA monitor, more hapless than design intended. Her proboscis had been shaded on one side and given an arrestingly grainy texture, but the bridge of an unmistakably normal nose still showed between her sad-clown’s eyes.

“I can put the trunk over it,” said Manning fretfully, “but I can’t erase it and leave the trunk where it is.”

Penn picked up the mouse. “Watch,” he said. He had installed this system for a plastic surgeon last year. Deftly he removed the features between the waif’s eyes, then demonstrated the palette each window offered. “I take it you want her to look appealing except for the trunk?”

“Of course.” Tentatively Manning took the mouse and restored a bit of eyebrow. “She’s had a rough life.”

Penn left at 3:30, shivering in his ski jacket. “You know, you’re supposed to drink lots of fluids when you’re sick,”

Louise had said as she watched him refill his mug, “but coffee’s a diuretic. You’re drying yourself out as surely as if you were drinking sea water.”

“I seem to remember you writing that the problem with coffee was the Peruvian mountains where the beans were grown had been bombarded with radiation from sun spots.” Penn drank and grimaced.

“Well, that too. Maybe you’ll wake up tomorrow with super powers.”

Not likely. By the time he got home, Penn had swollen nodes under his arms and a throat that ached when he turned his head. The orange juice seared his flayed membranes, and the aspirins went down scratching like mountaineers sliding down a slope. The radio had turned itself on during the afternoon, out of apparent loneliness, and was waltzing through Easy Listening hits of recent years.

“There never was a time

Can this be true

When I didn’t love

Anyone but you . . .”

Call a doctor, Penn thought as he crawled into bed. And for my friend the radio, a copy editor.

It was dark when Penn awoke, and he steered to the bathroom by the blinking light of the fax. Returning through the living room, he stared at the sheet that hung like a dog’s tongue off the side of the table.

It was a cover for the Alert. The headline, properly edged this time, cried: SCHMUCK GIVES BIRTH TO NESSIE. The photo showed a man, face contorted in fear or pain as a coiling sea serpent (recognizable from a cover some months back) exploded out of his backside. The man, on closer view, was recognizably Penn.

“Ha, ha.” Penn turned on the desk lamp and held the fax under its beam. The photograph was of newspaper quality, and bore no visible signs of digital tampering.

He found the cordless phone and called the Alert to leave a message for Louise, but got tangled in the labyrinths of its voice mail system, which demanded that he punch in certain combinations but didn’t allow him time to return the phone to his ear before reciting the next set of instructions. Disoriented and frustrated, Penn stumbled back to bed and set the phone on the adjacent pillow, where he could reach it after resting a moment. Its jarring trill awoke him to streaming sunlight and a headache that speared him the instant he opened his eyes.

“Penn?” He hadn’t found the phone yet, but his startled fumblings seemed to have switched it on. “What are you, dead or something?”

“I think so.” He freed his hands of the sheets, found the phone under the headboard, and raised it upside down to his ear. “Who’s this?” His voice emerged an agonized croak, unwell past any chance of imposture.

“Jesus Christ.” It was Hakluyt, Rabin’s assistant. “Did one of your enemies put a curse on you?”

“What enemies?”

“Huh. I’ll tell Dan you’re not coming in today. You freelancers get major medical?”

“Wait—let me talk to Louise.”

“Our policy does not permit us to put calls through to our staff.” Click.

Louise showed up at seven with a pint of egg drop soup. “What the hell was that message you left me?” she demanded, pushing past him. “I couldn’t understand a word.”

“I left a message?” Penn followed her into the living room.

“Something about the cover. I brought you a copy, by the way.” She handed Penn a folded Alert. Penn glanced at the embryo cover bemusedly, then began to page idly through the issue. When he looked up, Louise was looking at the fax on the desk.

“I gather you were talking about this.” Her mouth quirked as she held the fax to the light.

Memory returned in a rush. How muddled could he be, to forget that? “I want to know who did it.”

“Don’t be such a snot.” Louise lit up, inhaling with pleasure, then studied the fax. “Looks like the photo software works.”

“Manning, or one of his staff. I’ll kill him.”

“Just drink your soup.” She rustled through the paper bag and came up with a plastic spoon, which she tossed toward him. It landed on the open pages of the Alert, below a photo captioned, “Onlookers stare as holy statue weeps real tears.”

“Look at this.” One of the crowd figures was Penn, mouth stupidly agape.

Louise whistled as she lifted the page. Underneath, a follow-up story on the Siamese Triplets offered a one-column photo of the strange creature. Its middle head (the misshapen one that never spoke) now bore a supercilious expression that strikingly resembled Penn’s.

“I’ll sue.” He found himself shaking, seized by a palsy that might have been indignation or illness. “It’s an open and shut case.”

“A good way to get yourself blacklisted by your biggest client,” Louse remarked. “Let me look at this.”

She took the remains of the paper from Penn. “I see a definite and two maybes,” she said at last. Penn, carefully sipping soup, wanted to see, but she lifted the paper beyond his grasp. “Get your ass in bed,” she said.

Not asleep yet dreaming, Penn experienced an inversion in the thermoclines of thought, the dark chill of a nightmare ‘ whelming up into the warmer currents of languor. The formless threat was his persecutor, as Penn recognized even then, but it was also the specter of unemployability, an inky shape that combined professional failure with rent arrears and swarmed after him with directed malevolence. He came wholly awake with heart hammering, knowing the danger near but unable to move his limbs.

Something was playing on his phone machine. He sat up, wild with surmise, then hobbled out of bed. At the door he could hear it: a discordant crash of music, two songs playing simultaneously, one of them “Love Me Tender.” By degrees the other grew louder, finally drowning out the love song. It was Blue Oyster Cult playing “Godzilla.”

Now what the hell did that mean?

Louise called at six. Penn had gone to the community health clinic several hours earlier, where he was told he had a nasty strain of flu and wasn’t taking care of himself. Fearful of waiting messages, he had disconnected both fax and phone machine before venturing out. Now he snatched up the receiver from the bedside table where it stood warbling like a singing shrunken head.

“Get down here,” she said. “Take a cab; you don’t sound like you’d survive the subway.”

“I don’t think I could afford it, either.”

“Save the receipt. I think Grossmere can spring for this.” Penn rode in muffled to the ears, like Proust in the back of his limousine. Louise met him at the elevator. Arms folded, she studied him speculatively, as though musing on more than his pallor.

“Show you something.” She conducted him to her cubicle, where dozens of Alert covers—NAZI SUB FOUND IN LOCH NESS; BIGFOOT TURNS VAMPIRE—lined the fabric partitions. The monitor glowed green with the office system’s main menu.

“I was noodling through some of the format categories—not my usual pastime, but any writer might have occasion to do it—when this popped up.” Louise tapped a series of keys, entering a possible combination of options, and a box suddenly appeared at the center of the screen.

DO YOU HATE CLIFFORD PENN?

Would You Like to Fuck Him Over?

If So, Hit Alt D!

Penn stared at this, eyes goggling. After a moment he reached out his hand, then drew it back. “What does Alt D get you?” he whispered.

Louise shrugged. “Nothing. Maybe whatever treasures it offered also contained instruction on how to delete it afterward. A text file could include that, yes?”

Penn nodded, ashen. He reached out and depressed Alt D. The box disappeared.

“I don’t think your software likes you,” Louise said.

He sank into the chair, unable to speak. From behind the monitor, a 90-year-old Hitler seemed to be leering.

“Anyway, I talked to Bert, who took it to Grossmere.” Louise exited the system and turned off her machine. “Blew his top—he’s putting a stop to it. Not out of concern for your feelings, of course, but because such abuses could really get him sued someday.”

“I could sue,” said Penn in a small voice.

“I wouldn’t advise it. Take what leverage this gives you—Grossmere wants you to add security measures now—and keep the rest to yourself. If you brought a legal action, they would find out about that little message, which must have been in the software you brought from your last job. You wouldn’t want that to come out, would you?”

He shuddered.

Louise stood and took him by the elbow. “Let’s get you out of here,” she said. “You won’t get the new job done if you’re on the critical list.”

Leaning against her, Penn was conducted back to the elevator. Plastic day-glo dinosaurs perched atop the office partitions snarled as they passed, and an abominable snowman Halloween mask, hung on the wall like a hunting trophy, seemed to follow him with its eyeless gaze as he left Editorial.

“You’re not really a bad sort,” Louise was saying, “just not right for this kind of place.” She put him into the elevator and waved as it closed. “Keep watching the skies,” she said.

Snow was blowing against the lobby’s glass door as Penn pushed through into the night. Bigfoot, take me now, he thought as the wind stung his face. Lead me to your eyrie atop the Sears Tower, where the light of your fire will call down the saucer people to take me to the land of rum coladas with paper parasols.

The cab that found him was playing “Werewolves of London” over the roar of the heater. Louise had a story in production about werewolves, Penn remembered woozily. Doubtless his software would be used in preparing the photo. Manning would search his image library for a picture of Lon Chaney or some circus freak to use as a rough model. Would Penn’s ID photo ever be tracked down and purged from this digitized Devil’s Island?

“My software is full of devils,” he told the cabbie.

MAN TRAPPED IN TABLOID’S COMPUTER!

Distorted Image Peers from Pages, Crying “Help!”

“Sympathy for the devil,” the cabbie said. And immediately the song came on.

Cannibal Plants From Heck

By David Drake

Even though he’s written many different kinds of fantasy and SF very well, David Drake is perhaps best known for his military SF, such as the excellent Hammer’s Slammers series. “Cannibal Plants from Heck” is a bit of a departure for him, which he claims he wrote because he had to do my bidding. Ha! While getting my name legally changed to She Who Must Be Obeyed, I recommend you read and enjoy this, and be careful where you shop.

Note: this story owes a debt of sorts to my mother; and of another sort to Carl Barks, who in WDC&S #214 made the situation more amusing than it had seemed when I was living it.

Betsy Moffett stood beside her father in the gravel driveway, judging the house with nine-year-old eyes. Behind them the real estate agent rummaged in the trunk of her BMW.

It wasn’t a large house: one story and forty feet wide by twenty-four deep. There were only two of them now, so that was all right. The three dogwood trees in front had gnarled, low-branching trunks four to six inches in diameter. Betsy had never before been close to a tree she thought she could climb.

In back were a rusty swing set and a length of old telephone pole. The bare, trampled soil around the pole showed that it once had mounted a net and backboard. A new set couldn’t cost very much, and Betsy had a birthday coming in July.

The agent found what she wanted, a thin cap reading under contract in blue letters on white. She walked over to the realty company’s white-on-blue sign, careful because of the soil’s March squishiness, and clipped the cap into place to hide for sale.

There were children playing down the street. Betsy couldn’t see them from where she stood, but voices rose and fell in shrill enthusiasm.

The other houses in the subdivision were pretty much like this one. Some had brick facades, some had decks; but none of them were very large, and Mr. Moffett’s four-year-old Ford fit in much better than the agent’s sparkling BMW. The agent had mentioned the well and septic tank in a hurried voice quite different from that in which she described the house as so cute, a little jewelbox!

A horse-drawn wagon turned the comer at the end of the block and plodded down the street. The driver was a shabby-looking black man; a large dog walked beside the horse with its head down. Betsy had never seen a real horse-drawn wagon before. She was surprised to notice that it had rubber tires like a car instead of the wooden wheels like the ones on TV.

Neighborhood dogs barked. Several kids appeared on fluorescent bicycles and swooped around the wagon. The driver waved to them.

The agent returned to the Moffetts. For a moment as she glanced toward the wagon her face had been without expression, but the professional smile returned an instant later. “Charles,” she said, extending her hand to Betsy’s father, “I’m sure you’ll be very happy here. Let me know when you’ve decided on the lender and we’ll set up the closing.”

She shook hands firmly. Her fingernails were the same shade as the cuffs and collar of the blouse she wore beneath the jacket of her gray suit.

“And, Betsy,” the agent added as she took Betsy’s hand in turn, “you’re going to have a wonderful time, too. Look at all the children to play with!”

The bicycles now lay on their sides in the front yard of a house three doors down. A group had coalesced there to chalk markers on the concrete driveway. The kids ranged from older than Betsy to an infant whose elder brother pushed the stroller.

“I’ll be talking to you soon!” the agent said brightly as she got into her car. The BMW’s door thunked with a dull finality.

The black man guided his horse to the side of the road, out of the way. The agent backed with verve, then chirped her tires as she took off toward town.

Mr. Moffett put an arm around Betsy’s shoulders. “This is my chance to garden,” he said. He gestured with the glossy catalogs in his other hand. Those on top read White Flower Farm and Thompson & Morgan, but there were several more in the sheaf.

“Your mother would never let me garden, you know,” Mr. Moffett went on, surveying the yard with his eyes. “She ridiculed the whole idea. Well, I’m going to prove how wrong she was.”

“Whoa, Bobo,” murmured the black man.

The Moffetts turned. The wagon halted directly in front of the house. It was full of live plants. Instead of pots, the root balls were wrapped in burlap. Most of the plants were in flower, and the blooms were gorgeous.

“Dad, can I play with the horse?” Betsy asked as she skipped toward the animal without waiting for what might have been a negative answer.

“The mule, missie,” the driver said. “Bobo’s a mule, and just the stubbomest mule there ever was—”

He winked toward Mr. Moffett.

“—but he’s on company manners right this moment.” Bobo eyed Betsy over the traces. The mule’s head was huge, but he looked friendly in a solemn, reserved fashion.

“That’s Harbie,” the black man said, nodding toward the dog who sniffed the mailbox post meaningfully, “and I’m Jake.”

“Can I touch Bobo?” Betsy asked, her hand half extended. “You surely can, missie,” Jake said. To Betsy’s father he went on, “Might I interest you in some plants, sir? A new house ought to have flowers around it, don’t you think?” Betsy rubbed the white blaze on the mule’s forehead. One of Bobo’s long ears twitched and caressed her wrist. Harbie trotted over, sat at Betsy’s feet, and raised a paw for attention.

“Well, I’m going to be gardening, yes,” Mr. Moffett said. He waved the catalogs. “But I’ll be getting my stock only from the best nurseries. I—what are these plants? I don’t think I recognize any of them.”

“They’s flowers, sir,” Jake said. Betsy couldn’t tell how old he was. Older than her father, anyway. “I grows them because they’s pretty, is all. I’ve got bushes up to the house, if you’d like something bigger.”

“No, I . . .” Mr. Moffett said. He glanced doubtfully at his catalogs, then back to the wagonload of plants. “Are those Hemerocallis so early?”

“There’s daylilies, yessir,” Jake agreed. “The tall ones, there, and they’s some smaller ones around back as would make a nice bed along the street here.”

Harbie rolled over on her back and kicked her legs in the air. Her weight pinned Betsy’s right toes warmly. Betsy squatted to rub the dog’s belly. The mule snorted.

“Those are eight feet tall” Mr. Moffett said, staring at the dark green stems from which brilliant red flowers spread.

“Yessir,” Jake agreed. “But they’s short ones, too. Would you like something for the new house, then?”

Mr. Moffett looked again at the catalogs. To Betsy, the illustrated plants seemed dim and uninteresting compared to the variegated richness in the back of the wagon.

“No thank you,” Mr. Moffett said abruptly. “I prefer to trust certified species. Betsy, come along. We need to get back to the apartment.”

He reached decisively for her hand. Harbie rolled to her feet and wagged her tail as Betsy straightened.

“Good day to you, then, sir,” Jake said. He touched his cap and clucked to his mule.

Mr. Moffett didn’t get into the car immediately after all. Instead, he continued to watch the wagon clopping down the street.

“What an odd man,” he said.

The lustrous flowers nodded from the back of the wagon.

When Betsy ran up at the head of a delegation of five children, Mr. Moffett was loading a cart with washed stone from the pile the truck had deposited at the end of the driveway.

It was a clear day; even at ten in the morning the June sun was hot. Mr. Moffett nonetheless wore his new gardening apron. The pockets glittered with tools: clippers, hedge trimmers, a planting dibble, and a set of cast-aluminum trowels with a matching spading fork.

“Dad!” Betsy cried. “Stepan’s mom says we can take the backboard off their garage and bring it over to our pole so it can be regulation height!”

The rest of the children waited behind Betsy, viewing with interest the work Mr. Moffett had already done in the yard. Except for the driveway itself and a narrow walk, the area between the house and the street was now a flowerbed. Irises, tulips, and the daylilies which Mr. Moffett always called Hemerocallis predominated, but there were many more bulb plants that Betsy didn’t recognize. Perhaps some of them would have been familiar under other names, but as Acidanthia, Zantedeschia, and similar sounds they could have been tribes of the Amazon.

The climbable dogwoods were gone, chain-sawed off flush with the ground. Near where they stood, Mr. Moffett had planted what he called Comus Alba Elegantissima—which looked like dogwoods to Betsy, only very spindly. The saplings had to be guyed in three directions to hold them straight.

“Pole?” Mr. Moffett said. He looked doubtfully at the group of children.

Betsy glanced over her shoulder to make sure the other children were staying in the driveway as she’d warned them to do so that they didn’t threaten the plantings. Everybody was fine.

Jake and his wagon clopped down the street. Harbie walked ahead of Bobo with head up, stepping in a sprightly fashion. Jake raised his cap in salute when he saw Betsy.

Mr. Moffett noticed the wagon also. “Does that man live around here?” he asked with an edge in his voice. His eyes were on Stepan, the only black in the present group.

“No, sir,” Stepan said, holding himself stiff. “But my mom, she buys his flowers sometimes.”

“We buy flowers, too!” said Muriel, who was only six.

“You know the pole, Dad,” said Betsy, determined to get the discussion back on course. “In the back yard. The people who lived here before took the backboard when they moved, but Stepan’s mom says we can move theirs and have it regulation height!”

“Oh, that pole,” Mr. Moffett said. He rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand, looking serious. “Ah.”

The car was parked in the street because the driveway was full of gardening supplies. Besides the peanut-sized washed stone for drainage at the bottom of pots and flower beds, there were pallets of bagged topsoil and other bags marked organic peat moss—but with a stenciled cow to indicate the real contents more delicately than dried cow-flop would have done.

Mr. Moffett had said he would carry the temporary excess to the metal storage shed he’d built at the back of the property, but he hadn’t gotten around to it yet. The five-horsepower rototiller that had dug the front lawn into flowerbeds was in the shed already, parked beside the powerful chipper/shredder that had ground up all but the lower trunks of the dogwood trees with an amazing amount of racket.

Betsy was a little concerned that her father hadn’t bought a lawn mower among all the other new equipment. She was afraid he’d decided that there wouldn’t be any lawn left when he was done with the yard.

“We can get it right now, Dad,” Betsy pressed. “You don’t have to help. The bolts are still up in the pole, and we can borrow Lee’s father’s ladder. You can go on digging.”

“I’m sorry, darling,” Mr. Moffett said. He sounded at least uncomfortable if not exactly sorry. “That pole is part of my plan for the garden. I’m going—I’m preparing right now—to plant Ipomoea around it. So that the vines can climb properly.”

“Whoa, Bobo,” Jake muttered out in the street.

Betsy glanced sideways so that she didn’t have to look at her father for the moment. He wouldn’t meet her eyes anyway. He never did at times like these.

Roses twined up the wrought iron posts which supported the rain-shield over the front door. The window to Betsy’s bedroom was a green blur from the potted fern which Mr. Moffett had hung there to catch the natural light.

“Good day, sir,” Jake called. “I guess you’re going to raise some tomatoes.”

Harbie snuffled the back of Betsy’s knees. Betsy turned quickly and bent to pet the dog. Harbie’s tail waggled enthusiastically, whopping all the children as they crowded around her.

“No sir, I don’t intend to raise vegetables,” Mr. Moffett said stiffly. “I’m concentrating on flowers and flowering shrubs, so if you’re selling tomato plants—”

“Not me, sir,” Jake said with a chuckle. “But if you don’t plan to raise tomatoes—”

He nodded toward the bags of ‘organic peat moss.’

“—then did you tell the cows?”

“Can we get the backboard, now?” Muriel demanded. “Yeah, what did he say?” Stepan said.

Mr. Moffett grunted angrily. “I don’t care to buy any of your plants,” he said. “Good day.”

“You said,” Jake said from the seat of his wagon, “that you were going to plant morning glories around the pole in the back, sir. I’ve got some fine morning glories here myself.”

“I’m quite satisfied with my Purpurea Splendens, thank you,” Mr. Moffett said, taking a brightly colored seed packet from an apron pocket. “They have a delicate lavender—”

He stopped. Even the children gaped at the size of the trumpet-shaped blooms Jake held up for approval. They were pure white and at least eight inches across.

Mr. Moffett swallowed. “Lavender picotee, I was saying,” he concluded weakly.

“If you want purple edges, sir,” Jake said agreeably as he leaned farther back into the loaded wagon, “then I got them, too.”

The flower he raised on a vine trailing back into the mass of root balls and foliage was ten inches in diameter. As Jake had said, the edges of the broad bell were faintly lavender.

Mr. Moffett stared at the picture on the seed packet in his hand. “No,” he said. He sounded angry. It seemed to Betsy that her father was afraid to look directly at the black man’s obviously superior bloom.

“No!” Mr. Moffett repeated. “I prefer a certified product, thank you. Now if you all will leave me alone, I have a great deal of work to do.”

Mr. Moffett lifted the handles of his cart and began wheeling it around the side of the house. He had only a part load of gravel, and that was unbalanced.

Harbie had been lying on her back so that the children could rub her belly. She rolled to her feet and trotted to the wagon.

“Good day, then, sir,” Jake called. He bowed in his seat to the children. “And good day to you, sirs and missies.”

Bobo clopped forward again without a formal order from his driver.

“Let’s go back to Stepan’s and choose up sides,” Betsy said.

“I don’t get it,” said Stepan, looking in the direction Mr. Moffett had taken around the house. “What’s your dad mean certified? He could see the flowers, couldn’t he? They’re real.”

“I don’t know what real means any more,” Betsy answered morosely. She broke into a run to get out of the yard—her father’s yard—quickly.

The school bus stopped half a block up from the Moffetts’ house. There were still hours of daylight left on an early September afternoon. Todd ran past Betsy calling, “Come on! We’re all going to meet at Stepan’s when we change clothes!”

Betsy waved, but she didn’t much feel like playing. With every step toward home she felt less like playing, or starting the leaf collection for science class, or doing anything at all.

The front yard was dug up again. Betsy’s father had removed the bulbs for storage through the winter, then tilled the beds and worked in compost. The rototiller waited beside the house with a blanket over it, ready to finish the job under the yard light above the porch as soon as Mr. Moffett got home.

Because the front yard looked so much like a construction site. Betsy picked her way past bushes to the side door. The hydrangeas were done blooming now, but during their season her father had gotten sprays of pink, white and blue flowers in the same bed by careful liming to lower the soil acidity at one end.

Mr. Moffett was always careful. He didn’t even own a grass-whip for edging, because the spinning fishline wasn’t precise enough. He used hedge trimmers and his trowels instead.

Betsy’s father was always careful with his gardening.

Hollies grew along the side of the house, flanking the doorway two and two. There were three China Girls and a China Boy that Mr. Moffett said wouldn’t form berries but was necessary anyway. The holly leaves were sharp. They crowded the concrete pad in front of the door.

Shrubs concealed the back yard. The top of what had been the swing set was just visible above the forsythias. The bars were now festooned with baskets holding fuchsias and campanula. Betsy didn’t suppose those plants would spend the winter outdoors, but she was afraid to ask her father what he planned to do with them.

Betsy unlocked the door and went into the kitchen. She dropped her jacket on a chair and opened a can of ravioli to warm for a snack in the microwave while she changed clothes.

Three large bird-of-paradise plants grew from a pot in front of the window beside the refrigerator. A pothos sprawled from the tray beneath the sink window and across most of the back wall. The growlight in the ceiling flooded down on them as well as on the cycads and baobab on the kitchen table.

Betsy visualized the baobab spurting up to the size its ancestors grew to on the African plains—seventy feet tall, with a huge water-filled trunk. The house would disintegrate, and the Moffetts would have to move back to an apartment where Betsy’s father couldn’t garden any more.

Oh, well.

Betsy changed her school clothes for worn jeans and a sweatshirt in her room. She had to turn the overhead light on to see, because the basket-hung fern covered the window almost completely. At least the light fixture held a regular bulb. Her father had given up on another growlight when Betsy began to cry.

A free-standing hanger rail holding skirts and blouses filled the space between the bed and the wall. The closet had been converted to shelves to store bulbs through the winter. Betsy’s father had given her a choice. She could have kept the closet, but then her sweaters and underwear would have gone into cardboard boxes while her dresser provided for the bulbs.

Sighing, Betsy went back to the kitchen. The pothos tickled her neck with a pointed leaf as she got a soda out of the refrigerator. She dumped the ravioli on a plate and carried the snack out through the living room to the front door.

The box in the center of the living room holding the datura was four feet square. It would have made the room seem claustrophobically small even without the other plants filling the comers and shelves on all the walls.

Betsy sat down on the front steps and ate her ravioli bleakly. She could hear the other children playing down the street, but she was too depressed to go join them.

“Whoa, Bobo,” a voice said.

Betsy’s eyes focused. Though she’d been looking toward the street, there was nothing in her mind but dull green thoughts. Now she saw that Jake had halted his heavily-laden wagon in front of the Moffetts’ driveway. “Oh!” she called. “Hi, Jake!”

As always before when Betsy had seen him, Jake was carrying a new assortment of plants. This time many of them were completely covered in what looked like blankets and old bedsheets.

Harbie ran to Betsy and began licking her hands. The dog didn’t try to get the last three ravioli until Betsy put the plate down on the step and walked out to the wagon.

“Good afternoon, missie,” Jake said, tipping his hat. “Might I trouble you for a bucket of water for Bobo?”

It was funny: even in Betsy’s present mood, the flowers and bushes in the wagon had a cheerful look to them. Most of the blooms were bigger and brighter than anything Betsy’s father had managed to grow, but the difference was greater than that.

“Sure,” Betsy said, starting toward the shed where she knew her father kept galvanized buckets of various sizes. Then she stopped and turned around again. “Jake,” she said. “Would you like a soda?”

“I surely would,” the black man said. “But let me pay for it, missie. It’s better that I do if anybody should ask.” Betsy still wasn’t sure about Jake’s age. His face was unwrinkled and his mustache was dark, but sometimes she got the feeling he was—old. Very old.

“I—” Betsy said. “Jake, come in the house with me.” Bobo snorted. Jake shook his head firmly. “No, missie,” he said. “That I will not do, nossir.”

Betsy squeezed her eyes to keep from crying. “Will you look in through all the windows at least?” she begged. “You know about plants. I want you to see the house. And the yard!”

Jake got down from the wagon seat, moving with the deliberation of a big cat rather than an old man. He walked to the front window, careful not to step on the low bushes planted along the front of the house. “Pretty enough bog rosemaries,” he said. “A bit on the puny side, though.”

“My dad calls them andromeda,” Betsy said.

“To tell the truth,” Jake murmured, “I thought he might.” Betsy darted inside, ready to move anything that prevented Jake from getting a clear view of the environment in which she lived. He walked to her window after gazing seriously into the living room. Betsy opened the closet doors and swung the fem out of the way so that he could look in.

The spare bedroom had become a hothouse with multiple banks of growlights. Betsy couldn’t get to the orchid-shrouded window, but the mass of variegated green Jake could glimpse was sufficient to give him the picture. Her father’s bedroom was almost as packed, though the plants lowering over the dresser and single bed weren’t as temperature sensitive.

The bathroom window was above head height. Jake could see the begonias in the hanging basket, but the tubbed water lily that turned the shower/bath into a cramped shower was concealed. She could tell him about it, but it was such a drop in the bucket that she didn’t suppose she’d bother.

While Jake peered through one kitchen window, then the other, Betsy flicked her way past the pothos and got another soda. She met Jake again at the side door, where he was fingering the leaves of the China Boy holly. His lips smiled slightly, but his eyes were a cold brown Betsy hadn’t seen before.

“Jake,” she said, “I can’t stand this. What am I going to do?”

Jake sipped the soda, looking over the top of the can as he surveyed the back yard. At last he lowered the can and handed it back to Betsy, empty, without looking at her.

“You know,” he said, “everybody ought to have plants in their life, missie. But they oughtn’t to be your life . . . and sure you oughtn’t to make them somebody else’s life besides.”

“But what am I going to do, Jake?”

Jake suddenly beamed at her. “Come along with me to the wagon, missie,” he said. He waved her ahead of him. Harbie led them up the congested path, barking cheerfully.

“It seems to me,” Jake resumed as he pulled a shovel and a narrow spade from the bed of his wagon, “that since your father likes plants so all fired much, we ought to give him some more plants.”

He handed the tools to Betsy and reached back for one of the larger plants—one completely covered by a stained wool blanket that had originally been olive drab.

Betsy thought about her savings passbook with the—small—amount of her aunt’s Christmas gift in it. “Ah . . .” she said. “How much will this cost? Because—”

Jake looked down. For a moment, he seemed as old as the Earth itself, but he was smiling.

“I’ll barter the plants to you, missie,” he said. “For one Pepsi Cola. And a smile.”

Betsy gave him a broad, glowing smile.

The sky was still bright when Mr. Moffett pulled up in the street, but the ground was a pattern of shadows and muted colors that made the headlights necessary for safety. He’d be able to get the last of the front beds turned, but the remainder of the evening would be spent inside with the orchids.

The air had a slight nip to it. Warm days weren’t over yet, but the nights were getting cool. He’d have to bring in all the half-hardy plants within the month. Locating them indoors would require planning.

Children called to one another down the street as Mr. Moffett followed the walk to his front door. A basketball whopped a backboard, though there didn’t seem to be enough light to play. He wondered if Betsy was among the group.

Something caught at Mr. Moffett’s legs. He’d built the walk of round, pebble-finished concrete pavers, bordered on either side by statice. The flowers were finished growing, but the papery blooms remained on the stems like so many attractive, dried-flower displays.

They should have finished growing. In fact, the plants at the head of the walk seemed to have spread inward during the day. They were sticking to his knees.

Mr. Moffett detached himself carefully. He couldn’t afford to replace the trousers of this suit, not with the bulb order he was preparing for next spring.

The small earth-toned flowers even clung to his hands. Statice didn’t have stickers, so it must be dried bud casings that gripped him.

Mr. Moffett was smiling faintly as he walked to the front door, fishing in his pocket for his keys. He’d dosed his beds with a hormonal additive he’d ordered from Dresden, Azetelia Ziehenstoff. Perhaps he’d been a little excessive with the statice.

He inserted the key in the lock. “Betsy, are you home?” he called.

The rosebushes trained up the pillars to either side rustled. They gripped his shoulders from behind.

Mr. Moffett shouted. For a moment he thought his daughter was playing a joke. He looked around. The bush to his left extended a tendril toward his elbow. The spray of fresh leaves on the end exaggerated the movement like the popper tip of a bullwhip.

“Hey!”

The main stems were biting through multiple layers of cloth and the skin of his shoulders. Lesser thorns on the tendril pricked him as well, almost encircling his arm.

Holding him.

The front door was unlatched. Mr. Moffett hurled himself toward it, but he couldn’t break the thorns’ grip on his back. Another tendril slid dryly across his neck. He wriggled out of his coat, all but the left arm, and then tore himself free of that also. The lining pulled from his sleeve. There were streaks of blood on his polyester-blend shirt. He fell on the living room floor.

The suitcoat writhed in the air behind him as the roses continued to explore the fabric.

Mr. Moffett was breathing hard, A rose tendril waggled interrogatively toward the doorway. Mr. Moffett kicked the door shut violently.

The living room seemed dark. He looked around to be sure the bank of growlights in the ceiling was turned on. It was, but the datura in the central planter had more than doubled in height since he left in the morning. The dark, bluish-green leaves now wrapped the fixture, permitting only a slaty remnant of the light to wash the room.

The plant whispered. The flowers, white and the size of a human head, rotated toward the man on the floor. They were deadly poison, like all parts of the datura. Stamens quivered in the throats of the trumpet-shaped blooms as if they were so many yellow tongues.

Mr. Moffett got up quickly and walked to the kitchen. His right pants leg flapped loose. He hadn’t noticed it being tom while he struggled with the rose.

He was sweating. He wasn’t a drinker, but there was a bottle of Old Crow in the cabinet behind the oatmeal. This was the time to get it down.

The kitchen . . . The kitchen wasn’t right. The bird-of-paradise plants made a thin buzzing noise, and their flowers trembled. They didn’t look the way they—

Mr. Moffett had put his hand on the kitchen table without being aware of the fact in his concentration on the birds-of-paradise. Pain worse than he ever recalled feeling lanced up his arm.

The dwarf baobab had swung down a branch. There were spikes in the bottom of every one of the tiny leaves. They stabbed deeply through the back of Mr. Moffett’s hand.

He screamed and hurled himself sideways. He collided with the refrigerator. The back of his hand looked as though he’d been using it as a pull-toy for a score of insufficiently-socialized cats. He was spattering blood all over the kitchen.

Something dropped around his neck. The pothos was trying to strangle him. The thin, green-white vine was no match for the hysterical strength with which Mr. Moffett tore its stem and leaves to shreds.

The buzzing was louder. He glanced up. The orange bird-of-paradise flowers lifted off their stems. They hovered for a moment, looking and sounding like the largest hornets in the world. They started toward Mr. Moffett.

Crying uncontrollably, Mr. Moffett threw open the side door and jumped clear of the kitchen. He might have been all right if he’d continued running, but he paused to slam the panel against the oncoming birds-of-paradise.

The holly bushes were waiting.

Until the side door banged, Betsy waited in the back yard with the hedge trimmers in her hands. Jake had told her not to move until her father came outside again and shouted. The blood-curdling shriek an instant after the door closed was her signal.

She ran around the comer. The China Girl to the right of the door had her father in a full, prickly embrace. Mr. Moffett had taken off his coat, and his tie was twisted back behind him.

The China Boy on the other side bent sideways. The two bushes on the ends of the border were shivering in frustration that they hadn’t been planted close enough to join in the attack.

“I’ll help you, daddy!” Betsy shrilled. She thrust the hedge trimmers toward a branch clutching her father’s left shoulder. She clamped down with all her strength.

The holly’s woody core resisted the blades. Betsy twisted, worrying at the limb when she couldn’t shear it.

The branch parted at last. Those leaves’ grip on her father weakened, but he was still held by a dozen other limbs. A branch was twisting toward him from the rear of the bush to replace the severed one, and branches reached for Betsy as well.

The tips of China Boy’s limbs bent gracefully toward Mr. Moffett’s face.

“Betsy, get out of here!” Mr. Moffett cried. He pushed away jagged leaves that threatened his eyes, but more poised to engulf his head from all directions. “Run away! Run away!”

An air-cooled engine fired up nearby with a ringing clatter. Doors banged shut as neighbors came out to see what the shouting was about. By the time anybody could tell in the twilight, it would be too late.

Betsy hacked at a twig, severing it cleanly. She was crying. It wasn’t supposed to be like this! She closed the trimmer on another branch, this one thicker than her thumb. The blades wouldn’t cut. She tugged and twisted and bawled.

“Darling, get away!” her father cried.

Something grabbed the cuff of her jeans. She ignored it. China Boy unfolded a limb toward her face. The kinked branch was amazingly long when it straightened to its full length. The touch on her cuff was now a spiky, circular grip that held her like a shackle.

Harbie curved through the air and caught the China Boy branch in teeth that were amazingly long and white. The dog’s weight slapped the spray of jagged leaves away from Betsy’s face an instant before the big jaws crushed through and severed the branch completely.

Jake came around the front comer, guiding the big roto-tiller. The spinning bolo tines chewed into the end China Girl. The engine labored, then roared with triumph as the blades ground free and forward again.

The holly gripping Mr. Moffett shuddered as the rototiller slammed it, shredding roots and main stem together. The limb Betsy hacked at finally parted.

All the holly branches relaxed with the suddenness of a string snapping. Mr. Moffett fell free.

“Watch yourselfs, sir and missie!” Jake shouted over the racket of the rototiller’s exhaust. The tines sparked as Jake drove over the concrete pad outside the door and into the recoiling China Boy.

Betsy sat down abruptly on the gravel. Her knees suddenly wouldn’t lock. Her father crawled over to her.

Harbie, wagging her tail furiously, began to lick Betsy’s face. Beside the house, the rototiller bellowed as it devoured the fourth holly.

The morning was overcast, but it wasn’t raining. Mr. Moffett wore his overcoat, leather gloves, and the motorcycle helmet he’d borrowed from Ricky Tilden at the head of the block. He picked up the last of the plants, a geranium.

Pink flowers gummed Mr. Moffett’s gloves harmlessly as he flung the plant into the intake of the roaring chipper/ shredder. The machine didn’t react to the minuscule load.

Mr. Moffett reached down and shut off the spark. As the powerful hammermill spun down slowly against the inertia of its flywheel, he stripped off his gloves and then removed the helmet.

Betsy and Jake took their hands away from their ears. Harbie, who’d been lying under the wagon, got up and walked over to the humans again. The chipper/shredder had made an incredible amount of noise.

A long trail of wood chips and chopped foliage led up the drive to the machine. Rather than clear away the piles of debris that spewed out through the grating in the bottom, Mr. Moffett had simply rolled the chipper/shredder backward to each new concentration of vegetation to process.

“There!” Mr. Moffett said. He took off the overcoat. The heavy fabric was stained and even tom in a few places.

The yard had been converted to raw dirt and chewed-up vegetation.

“You’ve got everything turned up, sir,” Jake said as the last ringing chatter of the chipper/shredder died away. “And you know, a yard ought to have some plants in it—”

“No,” Mr. Moffett said with absolute finality. “It should not.”

He looked around him. “I may pave it. Though I suppose grass would be all right. Or maybe gravel . .

Betsy ran over to her father and hugged him. His face was scratched and blood seeped through the thin cotton gloves he’d worn under the leather pair, but he hadn’t been seriously injured in the previous evening’s events.

“I think,” Mr. Moffett said as he squeezed his daughter’s shoulders, “that I’m going to get a dog. My wife would never let me have a dog. I’ve always regretted that.”

“Is that so, sir?” Jake said with enthusiasm. “Why, you know, Harbie here’s going to have a litter just next month. She likes kids, Harbie does, and I reckon her puppies’d like them, too.”

“Oh, Dad, could we?” Betsy asked. “Could we have one of Harbie’s puppies?”

“Harbie’s puppies?” her father said in puzzlement. “Well, I don’t think . . .”

He looked at Jake. “Your Harbie is a mongrel, isn’t she?” Jake smiled. “Harbie’s a dog, sir,” he said. “A good dog, though she has her ways like we all do.”

Harbie dropped over onto her back with an audible thump and kicked her legs in the air. Jake rubbed her belly with his fingertips. Harbie’s dugs were beginning to protrude from pregnancy hormones and the pressure of the puppies beneath.

“That’s very well, I’m sure,” Mr. Moffett said in a voice that gave the lie to his words. “But I’m thinking of something pedigreed. A Bernese Mountain Dog, I believe.”

Jake nodded. “I reckon you know your own mind, sir,” he said as he walked back to his wagon.

“I’m going to shower, darling,” Mr. Moffett said to Betsy. “Would you carry the helmet back to Mr. Tilden for me?”

“Yes, daddy,” Betsy said to her father’s back.

“Get on, Bobo,” Jake murmured.

Betsy looked at the wagon. Bobo glanced over the traces and winked at her. Harbie barked cheerfully and winked.

And Jake, turning on the wagon seat, winked also. His smile was as bright as the summer sun.

Psychic Bats 1000 for Accuracy!

by Jody Lynn Nye

Jody Lynn Nye has written over a dozen fantasy and science fiction books, including the delightful Mythology 101 series, and numerous short stories. She lives near Chicago, Illinois, with her husband and two cats. They are, of course, all psychic.

She claims she channeled the following story from a spirit guide, possibly her neighbor’s, or maybe her mother’s.

The National Tabloid’s own Know-It-All presents her predictions for the decade to come. Gypsy Marie has an incredible knack for telling it like it will be. We’ve asked for her secret, but all she’ll say is she has a special relationship with the infinite.

**2001: A divine vision will transform video games forever.**

People, April 13, 2001

Jesus Appears in Arcade Game In Paloma, CA, a fourteen-year-old boy reported that an image of Jesus Christ appeared on the screen of Mega Mash Marauders.

“He saved me,” the ecstatic teen revealed. “I was gonna die because I was almost out of power points on the 666th level, but he stood between my little man and the monsters until I recovered.”

Amazingly, the source of the phenomenon was traced to one chip in the machine, and the manufacturer, Zoinggg Games, claims it can be reproduced on similar games. Zoinggg is now talking about a whole line of sacred arcade games to lure young people into going regularly to church. In that light, clerics are hailing the vision as a true miracle.

**2002: The confirmation of a prediction made by a science fiction writer will shock the world.**

New York Times Science News, January 18, 2002 The Face of The Future Pictures of the infant born to the astronaut couple who had marital relations during an extended mission in space were released for the first time by the Joint International Space Committee. The child has silvery white skin, an oversized skull, almost lipless mouth, huge dark eyes with no discernible whites, the merest suggestion of a nose, unusually long fingers, no hair, and no visible sexual characteristics, but otherwise seems to be healthy and alert.

“This is what our descendants will look like at the end of multigenerational space missions,” a scientist said. “We might as well get used to the idea.”

“We’re naming him Whitley Dondi John Glenn Fisher,” said the proud parents.

**2003: Scientists will figure out what cats and dogs are really saying.**

OMNI July 2003

Breakthrough in Animal Language Study “When they meow, cats are reciting the chemical formulae for what they want,” the chief scientist announced. “Dogs just say things like ‘food,’ ‘water,’ ‘walk,’ and ‘get off my territory.’ We would have thought it was just the other way around. We’re very surprised.”

**2004: Presidential hopefuls decide to alter the traditional debates in favor of more genuine expressions of disdain to get better television ratings and make politics fun again.**

People, October 12, 2004

Mud Wrestling for the White House Abraham Lincoln, who once challenged an opponent to a duel of “cow flops at ten paces,” would have been proud of Democratic hopeful Martin Lippman, who went head to head with the president yesterday in a mud pit erected in the Rose Garden. The distinguished panel of commentators judging the debates gave Lippman a clear win in the first round.

“I don’t think we settled any of the issues,” Lippman said confidently, “but I think I’ve got Quayle’s number now.”

The televised broadcast got a 35 share in all markets.

**2005:A popular and much-maligned luncheon substance helps to fight hunger in war-tom East Africa.**

UPI March 6, 2005

Hormel Donates 100,000 Cases of Spam Desperate victims of the famine in East African nations were delighted when Red Cross workers successfully brought through truckloads of nutritious food from the West. The usual attempts by terrorist groups to divert shipments of precious foodstuffs has been practically nonexistent since the drop from Minnesota began.

“When they saw what we were carrying, they just turned around and ran,” said startled relief workers. “We should have thought of this years ago. From now on we’re going to pack everything in Spam boxes.”

**2006: The Space Telescope remains shortsighted, to the embarrassment of the space program.**

New York Times Science News, January 15, 2006 The eleventh futile attempt to repair further problems with the mirror in the Hubble Orbiting Space Telescope took place yesterday, a spokeswoman for the Joint International Space Committee revealed today. Speculations that the Committee would arrange for corrective lenses to be fitted to the gigantic orbiter were confirmed when NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Japanese Space Agency all put out carefully-worded advertisements for ophthalmologists willing to work under difficult conditions.

**2007: Even Gypsy Marie isn’t clear whether the President’s efforts this year will promote more truth in government or pander to cheap electioneering, but it certainly will make him popular with the voting public.**

The New York Times, March 28, 2007

A Little Honest Dirt in Congress President Lippman today suggested a change in debates in the Senate to reflect the style he made popular during his presidential campaign. The move is acclaimed by the press, who have been given a special booth on the Senate floor equipped with a Lexan spatter shield. Television coverage has increased dramatically.

The New York Times, November 5, 2008

President Lippman Re-elected by a Landslide With cries of “Mud! Mud! Mud! Mud!” ringing through the hall, Martin Lippman was carried up to the podium to make his acceptance speech. . . .

**2009: An amazing discovery will shut the critics up forever on the subject of a popular so-called ‘junk food.’**

Excerpted from The Lancet, 15 September 2009 Chocolate Found to Cure Cancer . . . an apple a day keeps the doctor away, so it is said, and now a bar of chocolate will keep off the oncologist as well. Candymakers are calling this breakthrough a triumphant vindication of their existence. Children and dentists alike throughout the world are delighted with the news . . .

**2010: Disaster will be narrowly avoided on Wall Street when analysts discover that a computer has been buying for itself on margin.**

Transcript of CNN Broadcast, November 14, 2010 Lisa Moroque, anchor: “Brokers were able to breathe a little more freely today after the outbreak of margin purchases was halted, following the discovery of a nearly sentient computer operating from an office in the Board of Trade building. Our reporter spoke with Michael Karnes-Singh of the brokerage firm of Smith Barnes & Noble.”

(Cut to remote: a hand with a microphone waving under the nose of a man in an expensive and conservative three-piece suit.)

Karnes-Singh: “The machine claimed it wanted to provide for itself after it became obsolete. We’ve taken away its modem. It nearly bankrupted the Nikkei Index. We have a lucrative, low risk investment program worked out for it now, and it’s calmed down. I’d never have guessed what was going on if I hadn’t remembered about the psychic’s prediction . . . You know, sometimes I . . . glance at Gypsy Marie’s column—my wife buys the National Tabloid, of course, not me . . .”

Reuters International, July 17, 2011 Psychic Predictor Indited in Time-Travel Scandal Prosecutors today brought charges against Rebecca Houston Vamaise, aka Gypsy Marie, popular columnist for the National Tabloid scandal sheet, for developing a temporal wave generator while working for the government accelerator laboratories during the 1990s and keeping the project notes when she left.

She was taken into custody just before escaping because an alert meter patrolman noticed that her vehicle, a make and model police could not identify, lacked current registration. Upon closer inspection, the date on windshield sticker was found to read 2026. Bail was denied to Ms. Vamaise until scientists could examine her car more closely in the belief that she and the vehicle would disappear until after the statute of limitations had passed.

“Honestly, you hide one little scientific advance from people, and they go crazy!” said Gypsy Marie.

Caveat Atlantis
by Richard Gilliam

Richard Gilliam’s writing has appeared in magazines as diverse as Sports Illustrated and Heavy Metal. He is the coeditor of several successful anthologies, including Grails: Quests, Visitations, and Other Occurences, and Confederacy of the Dead.

He also knows where to go for the best real smokehouse barbecue in Tampa.

Jommy Kerr fretted as he looked toward the crowd outside the market gate. Of all days for the headline painters from the lector service to be late. The Exalted High Vice President for Regional Sales would arrive at any moment. So would the newly elevated Third Assistant Marketing Vice President. The latter didn’t much matter—hiring The Crystal Examiner had been his idea, anyway—but the Exalted High Vice President for Regional Sales chaired the Council for Exceptional Career Development and if Jommy Kerr had any hopes of being promoted to a directorship, well, the Exalted High Vice President for Regional Sales just had to like Jommy’s “ATLANTIS PRODUCE: WHERE NEWS AND FOOD MEET EACH MORNING” promotion.

All of which made the unfinished headline wall rather much of a problem.

“ ’bout through, we are, Mister Kerr,” said the squat, scruffy crew master as he approached Jommy at a pace much too slow to suit Jommy’s perception of the urgency at hand. “Didn’t quite fit the egg prices in, but we got the rest of the stuff just fine.”

“No egg prices?” Jommy didn’t need this news. The Exalted High Vice President for Regional Sales had built his reputation by selling eggs.

“Well, Basil, our soothsayer, was a bit long-winded today, he was, Mister Kerr. You promises people news and food, you gotta give ’em the news, you do. That’s what The Crystal Examiner is known for, we are. All Atlantis knows our headlines. Got a real fine one for you, now.”

Jommy looked to the wall. The covering curtain was still in place.

“Something about the recession ending, I hope?” asked Jommy. “Good news might make people buy more.”

“Not really, Mister Kerr. The soothsayer says you won’t have to worry ’bout sales, real soon now, you won’t. Says we ain’t gonna have no island to sell ’em on.” The little man chuckled.

It was the sort of chuckle Jommy hated, especially coming from this toadlike creature. Only a toad would leave the egg prices off the headline wall.

Jommy felt a tug at the underside of his left sleeve. It was Fred, his assistant, who was supposed to be keeping lookout for the VIPs, but who now looked very much like he was about to ask a very irritating question.

“Shall we let them in, sir? Please.” The assistant tugged again, just to make certain Jommy was listening. “The sun has crested the crystal. It’s time to open the store.”

“Well, open the store, Kerr. Why are you keeping the customers waiting?” Jommy shuddered as he looked to his right. The newly elevated Third Assistant Marketing Vice President was approaching rapidly, with the Exalted High Vice President close behind.

“Now, Parker. I’m sure Jommy’s just making certain the store is ready. Did the same thing myself, back in my days as a Market Manager.” The Exalted High Vice President for Regional Sales smiled as he turned toward Jommy. “Got good egg prices for us today? Best way to get customers into the store, I always say. Tell them about our great egg prices.”

“No egg prices, sir. The soothsayer was long-winded.” Jommy braced himself for the reaction.

“What? No egg prices!” bellowed the Third Assistant Vice President.

“No egg prices, sir,” Jommy repeated, somewhat more meekly than he had said it the first time.

“Now, Parker Let’s hear this young man out. Could be he’s found some new approach to selling eggs. I didn’t rise to be chairman of the Council by rejecting new ideas before I listened to them, you know.”

Jommy searched his mostly panicked mind for new ideas and found none.

“Perhaps I could show ’em the wall, Mister Kerr?” The toadlike thing had spoken again.

“Yes,” said Jommy, grateful for the distraction. “Draw back the curtains from the wall. And open the store gates. I predict this will be a record day for egg sales.” Jommy tried to beam confidence in his smile, but somehow didn’t feel his charisma would much matter if the day’s egg sales were low.

The assistant manager took two steps away from the discussion, put his great horn to his lips, and blew. A deep, long, note carried across the store, well into the gathered crowd.

A cheer arose as the gate barriers lifted and the crowd began entering.

“Good sign ’tis, Mr. Kerr,” said the chief painter. “Should I wait till they’s in the store?”

“Excellent idea, Kerr.” The truly important of the two VPs smiled.

Jommy nodded to the squat little painter. Maybe he wasn’t such a toad, after all.

The little man smiled, his teeth full, but yellowed. “When you wish, guv’ner. Me boys are set.”

Suddenly, a lean, dark-haired youth broke through the crowd, ran to within ten feet of Jommy, stopped, put a flute to his mouth and blew four sharp bursts of high-pitched sound.

“My beeper,” said the Exalted High Vice President, somewhat chagrined. “Please excuse me for a moment. Come Parker. You may be needed.”

The beeper motioned toward a private stall to the rear of the store, the two corporate executives following him as he scurried. “Sir, when should we draw the curtain?” asked Fred. “Me boys is ready, Mr. Kerr. You just give the order and down it comes.” The little man smiled again.

“Are the lectors ready? They’ve rehearsed their readings?” Jommy asked.

“All rehearsed they are, Mr. Kerr. Got a real stirring story for the lead. Basil says—”

“Uh, could I speak with Basil? I’d really like him to work in a story about our eggs somewhere.”

“Ah, no, Mr. Kerr. Basil had it put in his contract he didn’t have to talk to them what’s hired us, he did. Says it protects the integrity of his work.”

Jommy sighed. A soothsayer with integrity was a rarity, and the sort of difficulty Jommy wouldn’t wish on his worst competitor.

“I need an egg selling idea now,” Jommy muttered aloud, to no one in particular.

“Perhaps, sir, we can hire in different lectors. Pay them a short-notice premium.” It was Fred being irritating again. To Fred, the expense management report was an unknown and arcane ritual, which is why he could make suggestions that called for the spending of unrealistic amounts of money. Still . . . “Different lectors? Whom would you suggest, Fred?”

“Well, sir. The Crystal Examiner here is known for the accuracy of its predictions. Fine folks, to be sure. But let’s face facts, accurate news prediction doesn’t sell groceries. Now, my wife shops at Praetorian Mall where The Island Globe lectors the news. Very big sales since they started. She says the manager there was just appointed to the board of Imperial Commerce.”

Jommy was skeptical. “The Globe! The one that about once a month claims Aelvis is returning from the dead?”

“That’s what’s so great about it, sir. He never returns, so they don’t have to disturb the shoppers with new stories all the time.”

“Humph,” snorted the little man, disgustedly.

“Don’t they also report the BigPaw stories?” Jommy asked. “BigPaw and Aelvis. Yes, sir. Their specialties. Shoppers love BigPaw and Aelvis. There’s a female BigPaw rumored to be pregnant with Aelvis’ love child.”

“Are there other choices?” asked Jommy.

“Not many,” replied Fred. “Over at Town Square Center they have Entertaining People. The EP folks are mostly Showbiz gossip. Not really right for a grocery, I think.”

“No, not at all,” said Jommy, nervously watching the growing crowd gathering before the curtain.

“Now, in the tavern district, those folks can get really sick. There’s one bar, near the old warehouse, where the lectors read true crime stories to the patrons. Serial killers, kidnappings, dismemberments, and the like. Can’t recall the name of the service . . .”

“Hannibal’s Lectors,” said the little man, shaking his head sadly. “A blight on the fine name of the profession.”

“Err, yes,” said Jommy, uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation. “Not at all what we’re looking for. Wouldn’t help egg sales a bit.”

“No. Not at all, sir,” said Fred. “If I might suggest, perhaps sending the egg vendors into the crowd would increase sales. Sell straight from the baskets to the patrons.”

“Excellent idea,” said Jommy, for the first time seeing hope. “Make it so. At once!”

“I’ll instruct the produce department,” said Fred, as he bowed and turned, disappearing into the crowd as suddenly as he had arrived.

“Well,” said Jommy to the little man. “The egg baskets will help. We may not need to spend the money to bring in a more cooperative soothsayer.”

“Wouldn’t have mattered,” said the crew master confidently. “Yes. You’re right. The other lectors wouldn’t have helped,” agreed Jommy.

“That’s not what I meant,” he replied gruffly. “Wouldn’t have mattered if you’d spent the money.”

“Money? Not matter?” Jommy was certain money was beyond the understanding of a toad.

“Basil’s usually right, you know. Won the Emperor’s Cup seven years running now, he has.”

“The Emperor’s Cup?” said Jommy, distracted. The egg vendors were having only moderate success with the crowd at the front of the lector wall curtain.

“Makes not much difference now,” said the crew master. “Shall I give the boys the order? Have ’em show the wall?”

“Are your lectors in place? The readings are as important, as the wall.”

“That they are guv’ner. Ready for the signal. Shall I give it?”

“Yes,” said Jommy, actually believing things might work out. “Do it now.” Jommy noticed Fred had returned.

The scruffy crew master raised his arms, and waved toward the wall. The crowd, sensing the unveiling was near, turned in a murmured silence toward the curtain.

Slowly, deliberately, the curtain master released the free weights from the rigging. Seconds later, the wall stood exposed, the latest predictions of Basil, the Soothsayer, upon it.

Jommy gagged.

The crowd gagged.

Fred, who really didn’t care, gagged.

The little man smiled.

“Like I told you, Basil says you needn’t worry ’bout what you’re spending. Don’t make no difference with the island being destroyed and all.”

Jommy hated the little man more than any toad had ever been hated in the history of Atlantis.

“ ‘ATLANTIS DOOMED! CRYSTAL SLOUGH TO TRIGGER VOLCANO!’ What kind of headline is that?” Jommy was livid.

“Basil calls them like he sees them.” The little man was unshaken.

“Basil! You dare tell me about Basil!!!” Jommy screamed at the top of his lungs.

“Basil!” echoed a voice from the crowd. “Basil!” screamed another. “Down with Basil!”

Jommy noticed some of the customers were throwing their eggs at the wall.

“Our lectors have fine voices, Mr. Kerr. Used to shouting over the crowd and all. Shall I have the readings begin?” Jommy glared at the little man.

“I can see you’re busy now, Mr. Kerr. I’ll give the signal if you don’t object.” The little man put his fingers to his mouth and whistled. “Basil himself will give you the honor of the first reading.”

Slowly, more slowly than Jommy thought possible given the eggs flying toward the wall, a hooded figure with a long, crooked staff approaching Jommy. Around his neck rested a crystal pendant, and Jommy understood why the man was unconcerned about the unruly crowd.

“A thousand pardons, O Holy one,” said Jommy. “Quiet!” shouted the little man. “Basil does not chat with the unconsecrated.”

Jommy cringed and looked at the soothsayer. Basil’s gaze showed not the slightest sympathy. After a time that seemed to Jommy much longer than it was, Basil raised his staff and began to speak.

“In the reign of Scirrhus was forged here in Atlantis a crystal of great powers, bringing health and prosperity to all the peoples of The Great Island. Ye have been warned since that forging, of the foul and unclean liquids which seep from the crystal each time a goodness is taken from it. These pestilent vapors have seeped deeply into the earth, their untended combinings rotting away the mantel that protects us from the powerful forces which long ago drove this land up from the sea.”

Jommy wanted to cry. He was beginning to understand Basil. Somehow, egg sales didn’t seem so important as they did a few minutes earlier.

“Generations of the faithful have cautioned the unbelievers that this time drew near.” Basil looked at Jommy. “Your bodies are doomed, as is this land. Look inside yourselves. Therein lies all that can be saved, or is worth saving.” Basil bowed, and walked away as slowly as he had arrived. Jommy noticed the other lectors circulating among the crowd. Mostly they were being ignored.

“The protection of the crystal,” Jommy mumbled. “You didn’t tell me his visions were sent by the crystal.”

“The crystal doesn’t matter, no it don’t, Mr. Kerr. What you do with the knowledge the crystal gives you is what makes the difference. The Crystal Examiner’s been warning folks ’bout this for years, we has. We’re prepared. Got boats ready for me and the crew. Basil says to take four boats in four different directions. Gonna do what he says. Hasn’t been wrong yet, Basil hasn’t.” The little man was no longer smiling. “Looks like your egg sales were good. You got what you wanted ”

Jommy looked at the wall, splattered to unreadability by the eggs thrown at it.

“Great job, Kerr!” The Exalted High Vice President for Regional Sales had returned, as had his lackey and his beeper. “I knew you had it in you. Sending the beeper here back to headquarters with the good news. This boy’s going to be a Director soon, don’t you think so, Parker?”

“Why, yes, Sir,” said the Third Assistant VP, starting to resemble the toad Jommy had mistaken the crew master for.

“Great idea, Kerr. A washable wall, and a controversial message. Sure to provoke the shoppers into buying lots of eggs. Why, you’ve broken my one day sales record, and it isn’t even noon yet! The Council will be very impressed when I tell them. True genius, Kerr. Simply true genius. You’ll be elevated in no time.”

Jommy sighed.

A low rumble rose from the ground, causing the market gates to quiver.

“What was that?” said the Exalted Vice President, more demanding the information than asking.

“Elevated isn’t the word,” said Jommy, no longer fretting. The little man smiled.

Frozen Hitler Found in Atlantean

Love Nest

(An excerpt from her forthcoming The

Wild Hunt For Gray November)

by G—rG—n

One Who Knows begs to inform us that G.G. is the pseudonym of a Female Fantasy Writer whose work has been compared to Michael Moorcock . . . if Michael Moorcock were on amphetamines and had thrown out all the even-numbered pages. “Frozen Hitler . . .” is an excerpt from The Wild Hunt for Gray November, the second book in the trilogy composed of Moonwiseraker and Day of the Tiggy.”

Down the slanting wine-dark; green wine, and foam shadow; down where the bones of coral are bones in truth, and eye-pearls wink in the swift subterranean airs.

Hitler. Dark poisoned dwarf-king, cast in blood, annealed in fire, plucked forth, ragged hominid Grail for the Tree of Night, preserved twice-annealed in liquid hydrogen’s fires.

And lost, then, lost with the swift turning of the years and sea, lost, and, losing, found in the place where lost things go.

On the bridge of the Holy Russian Orthodox Church submarine Nautilus, Captain Yuri Potempkin consults with the Emperor Tiberius. Creature of oxygen, hydrogen, gold, glass, and stars, AI baptized with all the rites of Holy Mother Church, calling back a pagan soul from some cold un-Christian eternity to reason again in neural-nets of light.

“Sought, we seek. Seeking, find unsought,” the computer says.

“Aye, tha’s the right of it.” The captain, child of the Leeds-fostered English north and the wild Riding so unlike his blood-called steppes, pulls slowly on his beard. Creature of technic, Shadrach to the hydrogen furnace that drives his craft, sybil to an intellect of glass and light, pawn to sealed orders. “Though what we’re seeking, darkwise, I canna thole.”

“Losing, find. Finding, lose. Empires all turn, clepsydra-wise, turning, tumbled, sand,” sings the computer. “O’ for a sunborn, sunwise, dragon heart dead. Imperial eagle hatch cockatrice, always, allwise.”

The captain gives the order to dive.

The ocean is spun of a thousand layers, silken skeins in an angel’s treasure chest. Travel through space as through time, and begin in clear pale greenglass, silk-yielding surface water. Pass on to where the glass is greener, the tidal push unyielding, down to the separate country of those whose brief plangent lives are spent falling to rise. Fall, then, to the depths they dare not, where even light is left behind and the thunder of the blood is the only music; black water, urgent as flesh, whose strange citizens make their cathedral communion through passageless and unbordered night, touching only themselves.

Fall, and fall, and fall, into distillation of blackness, paradigms beyond perfection, to uttermost pressure, uttermost cold, uttermost long lonery and silence.

Here where the fall is broken is the country of the lost things.

Here lies the poison knight, colder even than the waters. Blackness his companion as in life. Blackness his fitting shroud, warped and shaped by the concatenation of worlds each resting upon the next reaching sunwise into airy insubstantiality, to rain and wind and stars.

Here Hitler lies, dreaming the brute chemical dreams of coldwise. Crystalline his blood, crystalline the mute universities of his brain. His eyes, shuttered hybrid jewels, skin, cold perilous exact boundary between shadow and other. Dreaming lostthing, at the end of the darkfall of the lost.

And round this exact perdition intention has crafted order. Darkwise, has set out meaning, dividing that which might rise from that condemned from time eternal to support the pillars of the world. Resurrection, redemption from the lostthing lostland.

And in the poisoned fire of absolute cold, he sleeps.

Down comes Nautilus, falling-diving, wingless in a denser air, sides rippling mimicking sunwise life. And on her bridge the Captain swears and paces, fretting against orders unsealed now, orders shining forth echoes of candlesmoke and incense, bright archaic pomp and temporal with ribbon and ink and sealing wax, orders mad to the point of unbelief.

Find Hitler.

And the icon inconographic—mad Tiberius, blessed and saved by Holy Mother Church for the rocking clasp of angel thighs in some non-Classical eternity—mumbles over datastream and databit, file and archive and subroutine, like a priest tending the artifactury of his transubstantiation. Chrism glows amber on amber watchlights, blessed and saved by the submarine priest for the annihilation to come; frankincense distilled with pressure into tiny moated drops of gold, plangent in the still air, haloing all the bright sealed separated technology with secret connectedness. Diving, they court epiphany, eschaton, unsanctified transubstantiation into water harder than glass, more ancient than stone.

And at last they are lost, lost well and truly, darkwise, turned away from the sun.

“Will tha’ tell ’un, Tib, wha’s that yon?” Potempkin says. Green phosphorescence of radar, remote computer-assisted cameras, the glittering metal armor of rationalism, all contribute their widowed mite of image and pagan teleology.

“Seven bridges and seven hills. Temples, sybils, oracles, treasures, emperors, conquests, all. Time turns, redoubles, recreates. The greatest city spawns the greatest city, spawns shadow, double, image, myth. And forged anew, from new, changes and discards, leaving is left in turn.”

“Grand talk, but what is there?”

Potempkin looks and builds up, from phosphorus and jangling light, city where no city must be, holding up proud caryatid heads to a night that was silk and stone and water. Impossible city, darkwise, that, impossibly, must collect to it all impossibility.

“Darkwise fallen. Lost, the place where lost things go, as we, lost, find ourselves here, where eagles debased are eagles meat.”

“Helmsman, take us down,” the captain says.

Held separate from the world in that steel pavilion, Potempkin watches as light painting on glass reveals the world. Arched amazing cathedrals, dour kirks, flightling temples; unbeing city, moved through by arched ponderous imponderables.

“This cannot be,” he whispers, cleaving to reason and religion. But what is hinted to the eye, crafted in the mind, is real. Yuri hears the mermaids singing.

They are lovely in goddess-wise, these cool-blooded impossibles. They trail phosphorescent ribbons of their own desirability through the liquid air, glowing like cthonic stars. They are all the colors of the hidden eyes of earth: pale amber, and peridot, garnet, topaz, ruby. Their pendant vanes stroke the sunburn skin of Nautilus like vain regrets; the shock of impact makes coral of old bones.

“Follow them,” he says, and mindless metal hurries to his will.

“We’re down too deep,” the helmsman says. In after years Yuri may remember the moment. Tiberius sings to the mermaids; antiphon, colophon, counterpoint, interwoven, sifting meaning from water music. And Nautilus sings also, small songs of breaking strain, metal fatigue, betrayal to obsolescence in the cold dark.

And the mermaids sing, but not to them. Yuri sees. Sing instead to their dark misunderstood god, colder than waters, who lies in the heart of the lostthings city, nested in sea corals and dead trailing fern. Nautilus cries, seeking absolution only Heisenberg can give her, but Yuri must see.

In drowned Atlantis the mermaids circle, painting the dense unforgiving water with their brightness. Round and round they spiral about the object of their affections, the cold, the dark, the lostthing failed prince whom Yuri was sent to find. And shall the sea give up her dead, O? The land must give up hers, the million millions sung to sleep on blood. They do not understand the hot carnivorous passions, these cool night-maidens; their love is slow and tidal.

And Yuri sees. Sees, and to the mad cantabile of maddened plastic intelligence forsakes his quest and flees sunwise, giving up what he has found:

Frozen Hitler in Atlantean love-nest.

Those Eyes
by David Brin

Hugo, Nebula, Locus and Campbell Award-winner David Brin speaks best for himself He “used to eke out a living from government grants, till he quit research and teaching to become an entertainer. Lacking a singing voice, or other discernible talent, he chose writing. ‘I discovered a gift for libel,’ he explains. ‘But I never had the heart to slander real people. Anyway, real people hit, sometimes hard.’ ”

For safety’s sake, he turned to writing SF. The results have included novels such as Startide Rising, The Uplift War, The Postman, Earth, and this story.

“. . . So you want to talk about flying saucers?” I was afraid of that.

“This happens every damn time I’m blackmailed into babysitting you insomniacs, while Talkback Larry escapes to Bimini for a badly needed rest. I’m supposed to field call-in questions about astronomy and outer space for two weeks. You know, black holes and comets? But it seems we always have to spend the first night wrangling over puta UFOs.

“. . . Now don’t get excited, sir . . . Yeah, I’m just a typical ivory tower scientist, out to repress unconventional thought. Whatever you say, buddy.

“Truth is, I’ve also dreamed of contact with alien life. In fact, I’m involved in research now. That’s right, SETI. . . the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence . . . And no, it’s not at all like chasing UFOs! I don’t believe the Earth has ever been visited by anything remotely resembling intelligent

“Yes, sir. I bet you’ve got crates full of case histories, and a personal encounter or two? Thought so. I got an earful when some of us tried studying these “phenomena” a few years back. Spent weeks on each case, only to find it was just a weather balloon, or an airplane, or ball lightning . . .

“. . . Oh, yeah? Well, I’ve seen ball lightning, fella. Got a scar on my nose and a pair of melted binoculars to show just how close. So don’t tell me it’s a myth like your chingaso flying saucers!”

We commence our labors this night in England, near Avebury, braiding strands of yellow wheat in tidy, flattened rings. It is happy work, playing lassos of light upon the sea of grain. These will be fine circles. Humans will see pictures in their morning papers, and wonder.

Our bright ether-boat hovers, bathed in the approving glow of Mother Moon. The sleek craft wears a lambent gloss to make it slippery to mortal eyes.

To be seen is desirable. But never too well.

Fyrfalcon proclaims, “Keep the edges sharp! Make each ring perfect! Let men of science jabber about natural phenomena. We’ll have new believers after this night’s work!” Once, he might have been called “King.” But we adapt to changing times. “Yes, Captain!” we shout, and hurry to our tasks.

Our Listener calls from her perch. “We are being discussed on a human radio program! Would all like to hear?” We cry cheerful assent. Although we loathe Mankind’s technology, it often serves our ends.

“Let’s cover your second question, caller. Are UFO enthusiasts so different from we astronomers, probing with our telescopes for signs of life somewhere? Both groups long to discover other minds, other viewpoints, something strange and wonderful.

“We part company, though, over the question of evidence. Science teaches us to expect—demand—more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can’t be solved?

“Patience is fine, but I’m not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!”

The boy drives faster than he wants to, taking hairpin turns recklessly to impress the girl next to him.

He needn’t get in such a lather; she is ready. She had already decided when the night was young. Now she laughs, feigning nonchalance as road posts streak by and her heart races.

The convertible climbs under opal moonlight. Her bare knee brushes his hand, making him muff the gears. He coughs, fighting impulses more ancient than his race, swerving just in time to keep from roaring over the edge.

I sense their excitement. He is half-blind with desire. She with anticipation.

They are unaware of our approach.

At a secluded cliffside, he sets the brake and turns to her. She teases him playfully, in ways meant to enflame. There is no ambiguity.

We circle behind, enjoying such simple, honest lusts. Backing away, we dip over the cliff, then cruise along its face until directly below them.

We turn on all our pulsing glows to make our craft its gaudiest!

We start to rise.

No one will believe their story. But more than one kind of seed will have been sown tonight.

“There’s a saying that applies here. ‘Absence of evidence is not evidence for absence.’ While Project SETI hasn’t logged any verified signals from the few stars we’ve looked at, that doesn’t prove nobody’s out there!

“. . . Yeah, sure. The same could apply to UFOs, if you insist.

“But while SETI has to sift a vast cosmos for radio sources—a real case of hunting needles in haystacks—it’s harder to explain the absence of decent evidence for flying saucers on Earth. It’s a small planet, after all. If ETs have been mucking around here as long for as some folks say, isn’t it funny they never dropped any clear-cut alien artifacts for us to examine? Say, the Martian equivalent of a Coke bottle?”

We are flying over eastern Canada on key-patrol . . . creating temporary, microscopic singularities in random houses to swallow wallets, car keys, homework assignments. Meanwhile some of us reach out to invade the dreams of sleeping men and women, those most susceptible.

Gryffinloch plays the radio talk show in the background as we work. We laugh as this idiotic scientist talks of “alien artifacts.”

Such stupid assumptions! We do not make things of hard, unyielding matter! I have never held a Coke bottle. Even those human babes we steal, to raise as our own, find painful the latent heat in glass and metal, which were forged in flame.

Men have built their proud new civilization around such things. But why, when they had us? Can iron nourish as we do? We deal in a different heat. Ours inflames the heart.

“Yes, yes . . . For those of you who don’t read the Enquirer, this caller’s asking my opinion of one of the most famous UFO tales—about a ship that supposedly crashed in New Mexico, right after World War II. “They” have been clandestinely studying the wreckage in a hangar at an Air Force Base in Dayton for forty years, right?

“Now, isn’t that news to just boil the blood of honest citizens? There goes the big bad government, keeping secrets from us again!

“But wait, suppose we do have remnants of some super-duper, alien warp-drive scout ship from Algerdeberon Eleventeen. Do you see any technologies pouring out of Ohio that look like they came from outer space? I mean, besides supermarket checkout scanners—I’ll grant you those.

“Come on, would our balance of payments be in the shape it’s in if . . .

“. . . Oh, yes? It’s being kept top secret? Okay, here’s a second question. Just who do you suppose has been discreetly studying the wreckage all this time?

“. . . Government engineers. Uh-huh. Have you ever met an engineer, pal? They’re not faceless drones like in some stupid secret agent movie. At least most aren’t. They’re intelligent Americans like you and me, with wives and husbands and kids.

“How many thousands of people would’ve worked on that alien ship since ’48? Picture these retired coots, playing golf, puttering in the garage, running Rotary fundraisers . . . and all this time repressing the urge to blab the story of the century?

“All of ’em? In today’s America? Come on, friend.

Let’s put aside this Hangar 18 crap and get back to

UFOs, where at least there’s something worth arguing about!”

I yearn to swoop down and give this talk-show scientist a taste of “proof.” I will curdle the milk on his doorstep and give him nightmares. I’ll play havoc with his utilities. I will

I’ll do nothing. I don’t wish to see this golden ship evaporate like dew on a summer’s mom. Our numbers are too small and Fyrfalcon has decreed—we must show ourselves only to receptive ones, whose minds can still be molded in the old ways.

I look up at the moon’s stark, cratered landscape. Our home of refuge, of exile. Even there, they followed us, these New Men. An ectoplasmic vapor is all that remains where some of our kind once tried putting fright to their explorers. We learned a hard lesson then—that astronauts are not like argonauts of old.

Their eyes were filled with that mad, skeptical glow, and none can stand before it.

“This is Professor Joe Perez, sitting in for Talkback Larry. You’re on the air.

“Yes? Uh huh? . . . Well folks, seems our next caller wants to talk about so-called Ancient Visitors. I’m game.

Let’s pick apart those ‘gods’ and their fabulous chariots.

“Ooh, they taught ancient Egyptians to build pyramids! And golly, they had some of my own ancestors scratch stick figures on a stony plateau in Peru! To help spaceships find landing pads, right? I guess the notion’s barely plausible, till you ask . . . why?

“Why would anyone want such ridiculous “landing pads,” when they could’ve had much better? Why not open a small trade college and teach our ancestors to pour cement? A few electronics classes and we could’ve made arc lamps and radar to guide their saucers through anything from ram to locusts!

“. . . What? They were here to help us? Well, thanks a lot, you alien gods you! Thanks for neglecting to mention flush toilets, printing presses, democracy, or the germ theory of disease! Or ecology, leaving us to ruin half the planet before finally catching on! Hell, if someone had just shown us how to make simple glass lenses, we could’ve done the rest. How much ignorance and misery we’d have escaped!

“You’d credit human innovations like architecture and poetry, physics and empathy, to aliens? . . . Really? . . .

Well I say you insult our poor foremothers and dads, who crawled from the muck, battling superstition and ignorance every step of the way, until we may at last be ready to clean up our act and look the universe in the eye. No, friend. If there were ancient astronauts, we owe them nada, zip, nothing!

“. . . What’s that? . . . Well the same to you, pal . . .

No, forget it. I don’t want to talk to you anymore. Go worship silly, meddlesome star-gods if you want to. Next caller, please.”

Although we barely understand its principles, we approve of this innovation, radio. It is like the ancient campfire, friendly to gossip and tall tales.

But tonight this fellow vexes me. His voice plucks the air-streams, sharper than glass, more searing than iron. He asks why we did not teach useful things, back when humans were as children in our hands! Ungrateful wretch. What are baubles such as lenses, compared to what we once gave men? Vividness! Mystery! Terror! Make one night seem to last a hundred years, and what cared some poor peasant about mere plagues or pestilence?

We must fight this madness before the new thinking takes humans beyond our reach.

Before they learn to do without us entirely.

Our captain is too cautious. I slip away in a smaller boat to find a lonely traveler on a deserted road. My light dazzles him as I weave hallucinated voyages to distant worlds. He eagerly studies the “star map” I show him, and memorizes certain trite expressions, convinced they are secrets of the universe. No need for originality. We’ve fed believers similar platitudes since long before there was a New Age media to help spread them.

Worship fills his eyes as I pull away. It is a good night, filled with the old magic. As in other days, I scurry on, seeding the green world with badly needed mysteries.

We’ll fight this plague which robs men of their birthright. We shall satisfy their inmost hunger.

And ours.

“. . . No, it’s all right, Ma’am. We can stay with UFOs. The evening’s a washout anyway.

“Still, let me surprise you and say that, as a scientist,

I can’t claim UFOs are absolutely disproved. I accept the unlikely possibility something weird is going on. Maybe there are queer beasties out there who swoop down to rattle signposts and cause power blackouts. Maybe they do kidnap people and take them on joyrides through the cosmos.

“But then, out of all those who claim to have met star beings, why has no one ever announced anything they learned from the encounter that was simultaneously true and unambiguous, and that science didn’t already know?”

I rejoin our great skyboat as it skims a silvery trail over this place we once called home. Now the planet throngs with bustling, earnest, craving humanity. Craving, if they just knew, what we used to give their ancestors. What we’d give again, if they allowed it.

“Allowed it?” My thoughts shame me. What right have worms to “allow” anything?

There was a time when men averted their eyes and shivered in fear. Now the planet’s night face spreads a glow of city lights. Forests swarm with campers and explorers armed with cameras. It seems ages since we heard from our cousins, in Earth’s hidden places, the mountains and deep lochs. Long ago they fled before men’s modem eyes, or were annihilated.

It makes me wonder—could it be that humans are angry with us for some reason?

“But there’s a second, even better answer to this whole UFO business.

“Let’s admit a slim chance some of these case histories might actually be sightings of little silvery guys riding spaceships. My reply? We can 6till rule out contact with Intelligent Life!

“Look at their behavior! Buzzing truck drivers, mutilating farm animals, trampling corn fields, kidnapping people to stick needles in their brains . . . is this any way for intelligent beings to act?”

I never heard it put quite that way before.

Perhaps some of you, subconsciously, are a bit upset with us.

But we do it for your own good.

“Worst of all, if these UFO guys really do exist—they’re refusing to make contact!

“. . . What? You say they’re afraid of us? We, who barely made it to our measly little moon, and couldn’t go back now if we tried? We frighten star aliens? Right.

And I’m terrified of turtles in the zoo!”

But we do fear you, sage of science. Your premises are skewed. I would teach you. But if I tried, you’d bum me where I stand.

“Tell you what, caller. Let’s try an experiment. You assume these ET fellows are pretty smart, yes? . . . In fact, they’re probably picking up my voice at this moment. After all this time, guys that clever must have a handle on our language, right?

“Great. Then I’ll quit talking to my human audience for a minute, and turn instead to those eavesdroppers in the sky.

“Hello, you little green guys, listening to my voice in your fancy ships! I’m gonna lay a challenge on you now.

Get out your space-pencils, ’cause I’m about to give you the phone number of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, California. You can call through any of our communications satellites. Surely you’re smart enough to do that?

“Ready, then? The area code is 818. Then dial 354-6160. Got it?

“Okay, when you get the switchboard at JPL, ask for the “special alpha line” of my friend Dr. Michael Klein.

Got that? You’ll be put through to an answering machine, but no sweat. To prove you aren’t one of the human jerks listening in right now—some drunk or doper itching to pull a prank—I want you to describe into the machine a demonstration you’ll perform in the sky the following night!

“Your demo should be visible from Pasadena, California, at ten p.m. on a clear night, and be of clearly extraterrestrial origin. You might turn one of the Moon’s craters purple, or something likewise gaudy Mike promises to check for messages daily, and have someone watching at the appointed hour.

“If you do pull off something impressively “alien,” you can bet we’ll be waiting by the phone the next day for your follow-up call!”

Such effrontery! Never has one of these mad, new-style humans taunted us so brazenly. Out of wrath, we get carried away in our work. Half the cattle are destroyed and the rest driven to frothing panic before Fyrfalcon calls a halt. We stare down at no typical mutilation. The rancher who owns this herd won’t be awed or frightened by our visit, but furious.

Curse you, man of logic, man of science! Were it in our power, we’d topple the towers carrying your voice. Your satellites would rain like falling stars! Certainly we’d shut out your yammerings.

But it is our nature to hear, when we are spoken of. So it always was. So it shall be while our kind lasts.

“That’s my challenge, you platinum-plated guys out there. Perform some convincing demonstration in the sky, and JPL will do the rest! Mike will arrange landing sites, rent-a-cops, press coverage, visas of both types . . . and yes, even gigs on talk shows. Anything you like. Anything to make First Contact a pleasant, comfortable experience for you.

“We want to be gracious hosts. Make friends. Show you the town. That’s as generous an offer as any honest guest could ask for.

“But what if nobody answers my challenge? What would that mean, caller? . . . Uh-huh. It might mean UFOs are myths!

“On the other hand, maybe they do exist, and are sitting back, spurning this sincere offer.

“In which case at least we’ve settled what they are . . . nasty sons-of-bitches who love messing with our heads. And all I have to say is—get out of our sky, assholes! Leave us alone, so we can get on with looking for someone out there worth talking to!

“. . . Ahem. And on that note, Engineer Ted signals it’s time for station I.D. Sorry, Ted. Guess I got a little carried away there. But at three a.m., I don’t figure the

FCC is likely to be listening any more than creeps on flying saucers. . .”

Our Dream Master, Sylphshank, has been meddling with sleep-fogged minds. He tells of one woman who has been dozing while listening to the radio show. While she is susceptible, Sylphshank projects into her mind dream-images of his own face! She awakens now with a startled idea, and excitedly dials the station.

Delightful! This should irritate that upstart scientist. Perhaps when she is finished we’ll do it again and again until he finally gives up.

We move on to California, home of some of our best friends and fiercest foes. One of our changelings—human born—uses a stolen acetylene torch to bum marks of “rocket exhaust” and “landing jacks” onto a plateau near San Diego. A cult of the faithful has sanctified this ground with their belief. We often reward them with such signs.

Our great, long-prowed boat floats above the chaparral, insubstantial as thought. Where once its burnished hull would have been invincible, now we must protect it from those eyes.

“Okay, we’re back. This is Professor Joe Perez, filling in for Talkback Larry while he takes a much-needed break from you manic insomniacs. Want to talk astronomy? Black holes? The universe? I’m your man. Let’s take another call.

“Yes, Ma’am? . . . Oh, hell, I thought we used up that topic . . .

“What? . . . Hmm. Now that you mention it, that puts a new spin on things. It does seem strange that saucer folk are so often depicted in certain ways. Smooth, arching foreheads. Big eyes. Long, meddling fingers.

“It should’ve sounded familiar. Look at their supposed behavior—playing tricks, offering mystic half-truths, never meeting honest folk in the eyes . . .

“Yes ma’am, I think you’ve hit on something. Saucer people are elves!”

Our boat-of-ether rocks. The voice is stronger than ever, shaking our concentration.

Four teenagers blink, captivated by the light shining across their upturned faces. We had them nicely snared, but the distraction of that cursed voice weakens our grip. Gryffinloch murmurs alarm.

“We shouldn’t have tried so many at once!”

“The voice has us confused,” Fyrfalcon answers. “Take care—”

I cry out. “One wakens!”

Three of those young faces still exhibit rapture as they stand uncritical, accepting. But the fourth—a gangling child-woman—casts another kind of glow. As she rouses, her eyes narrow and her mouth forms words. Tapped into her mind, I sense her effort to see. To really see!

What am I staring at? Why . . . it looks transparent, as if it isn’t really there at . . .

“Flee!” Fyrfalcon screams as we are blinded by that deadly gaze!

“It’s late, but let’s go with this caller’s notion and see where it leads.

“Once upon a time, legends say elves and dwarves and trolls shared our world . . . all those colorful spirit creatures our ancestors warned their children about, so they’d shun the forest.

“My wife’s an anthropologist, and we read our kids stories she’s collected all over the world, many of them amusing, moving, even inspiring. But after a while you start to notice something—very few of those old magical characters, the pixies and sprites and spirits, were people you’d want as neighbors! Sometimes beautiful and exciting, creatures in fairy tales also act petty, tyrannical, and awfully stingy about sharing their knowledge with poor human beings. Always they were portrayed as living apart, on the edge of the unknown. In olden times that meant just beyond the firelight.

“Then something changed. Humankind started pushing the circle outward, and all those fancy beasts of legend faded back as well. Yetis and Bigfoots. Elves and lake monsters. They were always said to be just beyond the reach of torchlight, then lanterns, then sonar and aerial photography . . .

“Now maybe that’s because they never were more than figments of our over-fertile imaginations. Maybe they were distractions, that kept us from properly appreciating the other species of very real animals sharing our world.

“Still, I can entertain another possibility.

“Imagine such creatures really did exist, once upon a time, behaving like spirit folk in legend. But at some point we started shucking free of them, conquering our ignorance, driving them off to let us get about our lives . . .”

Scattered, riding fragments of our broken boat, we call to one another across space.

We survivors.

By now those teenagers are rubbing their eyes, already convinced we were hallucinations. That is what happens when humans see us with skepticism. Now we blow away like leaves, like wisps of shredded dreams.

Perhaps the world’s winds will bring some of us together to begin anew. Meanwhile, I can only drift and remember.

Some years back we plotted to end this plague of reason. We stole human babies and took them to a southern isle. Then, back in the world of humans, we caused “incidents” and false alarms on radar screens, trying to set off that final war. Let their mad genius consume itself in its own fire, we thought. It used to be so easy to provoke war among men.

But this time things were different. Perhaps it was the new thinking, or maybe they sensed the precipice. There was no war. We grew depressed.

So depressed we forgot our charges on the island. When at last we checked, all the infants had died.

Such frail things, humans.

How did frail things ever grow so strong?

“It’s dark out and the wind’s picked up. Let’s push this ghost story as far as it’ll go.

“We were talking about how fairy folk always seemed to flit just beyond the light, beyond our gaze. Since Earth is pretty well explored now, the few remaining legends speak of arctic wastes, the deepest depths . . . and outer space. It’s as if they are both drawn to us and terrified.

“I can’t imagine it’s our weapons such creatures would fear. . . ever see a hunter come home with an elf pelt on his fender?

“Now here’s a thought . . . what if it’s because of a change in us? What if modern humans destroy fairy creatures just by getting close!

“. . . You laugh? Good. Still, imagine today’s Cub Scouts, running, peering into forest corners their ancestors would have superstitiously left alone. Ever wonder why the change?

“It could be just curiosity.

“Or else . . . maybe they’re chasing our species natural foe. Perhaps that’s really why we seek Nessie and Yeti, hounding them to the far corners of the Earth. Or why we’re pushing into space, for that matter!

“Maybe something inside us recalls how we were treated by our fairy friends. Subconsciously what we’re after is revenge!”

Monsters. Driven off our own cursed planet by these flateyed monsters.

The experiment got out of hand.

How I wish we never’d created them!

“Time’s up boys and girls. Whatever you call them—elves or UFO aliens—whether they exist or were just another fancy dream we invented—I see no point in giving them any more of our time.

“Tomorrow night we’ll move on to more interesting stuff . . . the Big Bang, neutron stars, and our hopeful search for some real intelligent life out there.

“Until then, people, good night. And good morning.”

Stop Press
by Mike Resnick

Award-winning author Mike Resnick himself says that he is “uniquely qualified to write for this book, having spent three years editing The National Insider and The National Tattler back in the late 1960s.”

He has since written some thirty-odd novels, including Santiago, Ivory, and Prophet, edited a number of delightful anthologies, and has (at this writing) won two Hugos.

He also has the habit of doing stuff like this to his editors.

November 10, 2331

Sam Friesner, Editor

The Interplanetary Tattler

10 Asimov Avenue

Luna

Dear Sir:

Allow me to introduce myself. I represent the twelfth generation of free-lance writer in my family, dating back to the fabled Mike Resnick of the late 20th century. I have long been an admirer of your fearless yet entertaining no-holds-barred brand of journalism, and I think I have finally come up with a story so unique, so bizarre, so positive outre, that it will prove the beginning of a long and happy relationship between us.

Would you be interested in an interview, with holographs, of Boris Korchev, the three-headed shortstop of the Ganymede Geldings? I could let you have an exclusive for 5,000 credits.

Cordially yours, Melvin Resnick 666 Glory Road Heinlein City Ganymede

November 15, 2331

Dear Mr. Resnick:

Thank you for your interest in our newspaper, but I suspect you’ve been out of touch with it for some time now, or you would know that we ran a feature last June on the New York Yankees’ Fourteen-Headed Infield, including an exclusive interview with Wilbur “Ten-Eyes” Plitkin.

If you come across any truly unique features in the future, please keep us in mind.

Yours,

Sam Friesner, Editor

The Interplanetary Tattler

PS—I can find no historical reference to a 20th century writer named Mike Resnick. In point of fact, the major literary figure of the 1990s was my own ancestor, the still-beloved Esther Friesner.

November 19, 2331

Sam Friesner, Editor

The Interplanetary Tattler

10 Asimov Avenue

Luna

Dear Editor Friesner:

I’m sorry my last proposal didn’t suit your needs, but I’ve come up with one that you’re absolutely going to love. What would you say to exclusive coverage of the recently-concluded experiment at the Genetic Engineering Clinic here on Mars Base, where an eight-legged horse just gave birth to an elephant with five trunks? (The sire was a Patagonian woodmouse.)

I could let you have this for 3,500 credits.

Looking forward to working with you, I am—

Hopefully yours, Melvin Resnick

17 Tars Tarkas Blvd.

New Barsoom

Mars Base

PS—Esther Friesner, you said? Never heard of her. I’ll have to check my library’s data banks.

November 29, 2331

Dear Mr. Resnick:

Five-trunked elephants are a drug on the market. I refer you to our issue of August 23. If you will turn to Page 38, you’ll find a story about the breeding of a five-trunked elephant with Rosie and Posie Plootz, a pair of tightrope-walking Siamese twins from Duluth, Minnesota. It was barely filler material back in August; it’s certainly of no interest to us today.

I urge you to study our journal more carefully before wasting your time tracking down stories that are too mundane to appeal to our sophisticated readership.

Best wishes,

Sam Friesner, Editor

The Interplanetary Tattler

PS—Surely you jest. Esther Friesner was one of the Literary Greats. I’m proud to have her blood flowing in my veins.

December 8, 2331

Sam Friesner, Editor

The Interplanetary Tattler

10 Asimov Avenue

Luna

Dear Mr. Friesner:

All right. This time I’ve got a story for you that you can’t turn down!

I have uncovered, at great physical and financial cost to myself, one of the more bizarre scandals in the history of the entire human race. Even at this late date I can hardly believe the evidence I have amassed, but there is no question that when you run this article, governments will fall and you and I will almost certainly share a Jacqueline Suzanne Memorial Prize for our journalistic efforts.

What would you say if I were to tell you that Solar President Meacham is having an affair with Tprxt, her insectoid Neptunian maid?

I have it all here—eyewitness accounts, signed statements, and some of the most explosive holographs ever taken. I’m a little short of cash at the moment, but a good-faith advance of 2,500 credits will assure you the exclusive rights to the story, until we can negotiate a final price.

My first loyalty is to you, but I can only hold this offer open for 48 hours. If I have not heard from you by then, I will have to submit it to The Interplanetary Inquirer.

Excitedly yours,

Melvin Resnick

AAA

Ace Outpost Sheckleyville

Venus

PS—Spelled F-R-I-E-S-N-E-R, the same as yours?

December 14, 2331

Dear Mr. Resnick:

What is so newsworthy about President Meacham having an affair with a Neptunian? My own wife is an egg-laying seven-limbed Mercurian porble, and I take extreme umbrage at your pedestrian notion that there is something unsavory about interspecies romance.

More to the point, President Meacham has already admitted to youthful indiscretions with a Tritonian sea-slug and a Callistan muuda-muuda, and in fact was once married to an ammonia-breathing trisexual marsupial native of Alpha Centauri III when she served as our ambassador to that troubled world.

This is tame stuff, Mr. Resnick. Perhaps you might be better off considering the science fiction market; journalism is a very difficult discipline, second perhaps only to the contemporary romance novel, and not everyone is fit for it.

Yours,

Sam Friesner, Editor

The Interplanetary Tattler

PS—Yes, the spelling is the same. I urge you to read Hooray for Hellywood and Gnome Man’s Land; they practically define the Serious Literary Novel, circa the late 20th century.

December 22, 2331

San Friesner, Editor

The Interplanetary Tattler

10 Asimov Avenue

Luna

Dear Sam:

I may call you Sam, mayn’t I? I feel as if I know you by this point in our correspondence, and despite your refusal to accept any of my previous proposals, I intuit that a certain bond of friendship and mutual professional respect has developed between us.

I’ll be perfectly honest with you, Sam. I’ve suffered some financial reverses of late, and my wife is expecting our first child, and while I would never want this to influence you, I just want you to know that if you can see your way clear to purchasing the following, you will have an eternally grateful friend.

Not that the story needs any special consideration. The instant I stumbled across it, I knew that it was tailor-made for The Interplanetary Tattler. (Get ready now; here it comes!)

How would you like an exclusive interview with Lt. Hemloch Willoughby, the pilot who, when marooned without food for seventeen days in the Sirius system, survived by eating his own genitals? What pathos! What human interest! What a triumph of the indomitable human spirit!

2000 credits takes it away. (For an extra 500,1 can arrange an interview with his wife. Well, his ex-wife.)

Please reply soonest.

Expectantly yours,

Melvin Resnick

206 Lensman Street

Kinnison Village

Titan

PS—Late 20th century, you say? I wonder if she ever met Mike Resnick? Probably not; he was much too busy turning out classic after classic.

December 29, 2331

Dear Mr. Resnick:

Oh, Lord, not another Marooned Pilot Eats Own Genitals story! Maybe the Biloxi Times or the Fort Wayne Journal might be interested, if you catch them on a slow day, but we specialize in the unusual.

I admire your persistence, but you’ve missed the boat again. I can only suggest that you read the slogan on our masthead—“Home of the Unique, The Bizarre, and the Deeply Warped”—and commit it to memory.

Yours,

Sam Friesner, Editor

The Interplanetary Tattler

PS—I doubt that they ever met. She had class.

January 6, 2332

Sam Friesner, Editor

The Interplanetary Tattler

10 Asimov Avenue

Luna

Friesner:

How can you keep doing this to me? The wolves are at the door. I am reduced to renting a ship from Hertz (my own has been repossessed), Solar Bell is threatening to shut off my subspace radio transmitter, my wife is about to bring our first child into the world, and you keep rejecting stories that any editor would be thrilled to run.

I’m giving you one last chance, and then I’m going to start giving The Interplanetary Inquirer first look at all my material. I mean it, Friesner; I am a desperate man.

All right—here it is, and if I say so myself, it is the most explosive story I’ve unearthed thus far.

I can prove that John Fitzgerald Kennedy was actually a woman, a nightclub stripteaser named Lola Puloza who was once billed as “The Hottest Mexican Export Since the Tamale.” She fled to the United States in drag to escape from her gangster boyfriend, became Robert F. Kennedy’s lover (the affair with Marilyn Monroe was just a ruse to hide the real truth), and was in fact assassinated not by Lee Harvey Oswald but rather by Salvatore Diego Gomez, her estranged Bolivian husband whom she had not seen in 23 years.

I can supply dates, signed testimony, even a never-before-seen videotape of Puloza putting on her JFK makeup prior to escorting Jacqueline to a state dinner. (Yes, the story of Kennedy’s womanizing was another ruse, so that JFK would never find “himself’ alone in a bedroom with Jackie.)

This is the story of the century; the day after you publish it, they’ll have to rewrite the history books.

Please remit 500 credits by return mail.

Desperately yours,

Melvin Resnick

Ringworld Hotel

7th Ring

Saturn

January 11, 2332

Dear Mr. Resnick:

History books were made to be rewritten. They rewrote them in 2328, when we proved that JFK was really Elvis Presley in disguise, and again eight months ago when we broke the story that the second and third shots in Dallas were actually selfadministered because Elvis was depressed over the sales of his latest record.

As for your revelation, I’m afraid that you have somehow been misinformed. Our resident psychic, Mme. Shwartz, just had her weekly conversation with Elvis’ ghost, who denies ever having been a Mexican stripteaser, and certainly not one called Lola Puloza.

Yours,

Sam Friesner, Editor

The Interplanetary Tattler

PS—I of course read The Interplanetary Inquirer every day, and I have yet to see your byline appear there. I’m afraid that your threats carry no more punch than your stories.

January 29, 2332

Sam Friesner, Editor

The Interplanetary Tattler

10 Asimov Avenue

Luna

Dear Scumbag:

Screw you and your lousy rag!

All I can say is that this is despicable treatment to give a struggling writer, just because his ancestor aced yours out of a couple of Hugo Awards more than three centuries ago.

Disgustedly yours,

Melvin Resnick
c/o The Malzberg Memorial

Home for the Terminally Morose

17 Herovit Road

Ridgefield Park, New Jersey

PS—My wife gave birth to a healthy baby boy. In the charity ward. No thanks to you. If I have any say about it, he’s not going to beat his head against a stone wall trying to be a writer. As soon as he’d old enough, I’m sending him to plumbing school, so he can work at a profession where people appreciate his efforts.

Interoffice Memo

From: Sam Friesner

To: Press Room

Stop press. Remake Page 1. Two-inch block letters, as follows:

MOTHER GIVES BIRTH TO NORMAL BABY!!!!!

Memo to self: Cut Resnick a check for 5,000 credits, and offer him another 10,000 if he can supply a holograph in time to make the early edition.

Martian Memorial
to Elvis Sighted
by George Alec Effinger

George Alec Effinger is living proof that it is possible to write great SF and fantasy comedy as well as the serious side of the genre. His story, “Schroedinger’s Kitten,” won the Nebula and the Hugo. He is also the author of the hilarious Muffy Birnbaum tales. His most recent novel is The Exile Kiss.

I firmly believe that “Martian Memorial to Elvis Sighted,” is the perfect finish to this book, as well as a wonderfully fitting tribute to “the King.”

August 16, 1987. Ten years to the day since Elvis’ death. Priscilla had almost forgotten the mysterious envelope that lay hidden in the back of one of Lisa Marie’s sock and underwear drawers. Her nineteen-year-old daughter had not forgotten, however. In fact, she’d been counting down the days until she could finally open her father’s final testament. The day before, Lisa Marie had called her mother in California; Priscilla had flown back to Memphis for the occasion of the opening of the envelope.

Graceland was closed to tourists for this special day. Priscilla and Lisa Marie made certain they had undisturbed privacy. Holding her breath, Elvis’ daughter opened the clasp on the manila envelope and tore away the masking tape that sealed it. Glancing at Priscilla’s eyes, she opened the package and took out about twenty handwritten pages. Handwritten by Elvis himself. Priscilla and Lisa Marie recognized the handwriting of the King of Rock ’n’ Roll.

“What does it say?” Priscilla asked breathlessly.

“I’ll read it to you, mama.”

And here is Elvis’ last communication from beyond the grave:

(Mrs. Presley: My name is Milt Vessman, and I had the privilege of serving with your husband in the Army in Germany. A short time ago, Elvis came to me and asked if I would help him tell the fantastic story that follows. He recited the events in great detail, and I dictated it back to him, improving his grammar and vocabulary. Whether or not you believe these things is, as Elvis says, up to you.)

Dear Priscilla—

I am a very old man; how old I do not know. Possibly I am a hundred, possibly more. You might think this is some fantasy or delusion of mine, but as clearly as I recall my childhood in East Tupelo, I also recall a life—several lives—before those days. How many births and deaths and rebirths have I had? Maybe I’ll never know for sure. And maybe I’ll never understand why I have been given this gift. A gift, I say, or is it a curse? I do not know.

You may believe all that or not, as you choose. I am writing this in 1966. I have just finished filming Spinout and I am about to begin an all-singing, all-dancing, all-Elvis rock ’n’ roll musical version of a book called The Prisoner of Zenda. I’ve left instructions that this message should not be opened until ten years after my death. I hope that’s a long, long time from now, and I hope that you are reading this surrounded by all the children we will have soon, but of course all that is in the hands of the Lord.

Between movies, Priscilla, you know I like to take a little vacation to clear my head. If you remember, I told you after Spinout that I just had to get away by myself for a while. That wasn’t the complete truth. The truth is that I had a strange and—

I’ll start from the beginning. I promise you that I’m not making any of this up. I may be a poor Southren boy, but I’m not crazy.

Anyway, Spinout wasn’t much of a challenge, although I really liked being around all those fast cars. One day, near the end of the picture, I was called from the set. That was surprising, because Joe Pasternak and MGM hated interruptions like that. They ate up a lot of time at union pay rates. I wondered what the trouble was.

It turned out there wasn’t any trouble—not on the set, at least. I was led to one of the production trailers where Norman Taurog, the director, had his office. Inside, Norman wasn’t there. Instead there was a man in a dark blue suit. “Do you know me, Mr. Presley?” he said.

“No, I can’t say that I do.”

“My name is Dean Rusk. I have an office in Washington, D.C. I am President Johnson’s Secretary of State.”

Well, all right. I thought it was kind of an honor, getting a visit from the Secretary of State and all. I was just curious about what was so doggone important about it that we had to stop filming.

“I’m right proud to meet you, sir,” I said.

Dean Rusk smiled, stood up, and offered me his hand. I shook it. “I was briefed rather extensively. In your dossier, a few people remarked on your politeness. I’m pleased to see that they weren’t mistaken.”

I might have blushed, I don’t know. I didn’t even know what a dossier was. “Deep down,” I said, “I’m still a shy country boy from Mississippi.”

“Shy,” Dean Rusk said. He seemed amused. “Certainly. Just as you say.”

“Now, I don’t suppose you come all the way down here from Washington just to tell me you’re a big fan of rock ’n’ roll.”

Dean Rusk nodded. “Very astute guess, Mr. Presley. I’m here to set up a meeting between yourself and a very important person. Let me ask one question: Are you proud to be an American?”

I didn’t know why he’d asked that. “I served in the Army a while back, and I’m proud of my accomplishments there. I have never said or done anything to make anyone doubt my loyalty, and I never will.”

“That’s good enough for me, Mr. Presley.” He stood up and went to the door. He opened it and talked quietly with some men outside. They were wearing suits, too, and I guessed they were Secret Service agents.

The Secretary of State held the door open and three men came into the trailer. The first was big and tall and strong-looking, and I knew immediately it was Lyndon Johnson, the President of the United States. I’ve got to admit, I was so shocked that I nearly swallowed my gum.

The President took the seat Dean Rusk had vacated. Mr. Rusk leaned against one wall of the trailer, and a Secret Service man leaned against the door. The third man was short but well-muscled; he just stood near the desk, a few feet from me. He was studying me closely.

“How do you do, Mr. Carter?” Lyndon Johnson said. “Excuse me, Mr. President. I’m not anyone named Carter. I’m Elvis Presley, the singer and movie star.”

The president nodded slowly and ponderously. “I understand that,” he said. “I also understand that to maintain your privacy, you use the name John Carter when you check into hotels.”

Aha. A slight misunderstanding. “Carpenter,” I said. “Dr. John Carpenter is the name I use.”

Dean Rusk frowned. “And your secret postal name is John Burroughs. We were sure—”

“My security code name is Burrows, Mr. Rusk. Not Burroughs.”

“That’s what I said,” Dean Rusk. “Didn’t I?”

I shook my head. Listen closely: Burroughs . . . Burrows. Here the difference?

“Carpenter? Burrows?” Dean Rusk said, a puzzled expression on his face. “Maybe we’ve made a terrible mistake.”

“Maybe not,” Lyndon Johnson said. “Mr. Presley, is it possible that during your life, sometime you learned to use . . . a sword?”

“Right now,” I said. “I’m rehearsing for a swordfight picture. Double Trouble it’s titled, and it’s based on this book called The Pris—”

“There,” the President said, “we haven’t made a mistake after all. Please sit down, Mr. Presley. I have a long story to tell you, and then I’ll be asking if you care to help our country and others similarly dedicated to freedom and democracy.”

“Why, now, of course I’ll be willing—”

Dean Rusk said, “maybe you should hear the entire story, Mr. Presley, before you commit yourself to this venture.”

I sat back and let Lyndon Johnson tell me the most incredible tall tale I’d ever heard. I won’t repeat the whole thing to you. Altogether it was about how a race of men on the planet Mars had sent a representative to Washington. They needed help in finding their long-time defender, a stalwart swordsman and warrior named John Carter, from Virginia. Instead, they somehow located me—“Dr. John Carpenter,” from Memphis, Tennessee. The Martians needed a hero, and if John Carter couldn’t be located, they were willing to take me instead.

Now these men from Mars aren’t little green men. The shorter man was a Martian named Antor Thon. The race of Martian humans had normal Caucasian features, but they were a trifle smaller than an Earth human.

Antor Thon had come to Earth without a flying saucer. It was sort of a mental thing. He got himself into the right frame of mind, then just flung himself into space between the planets. He had come to teach me the method. He wanted me to return to Mars with him and save their little Martian asses.

“Well, uh, Mr. President,” I said. “I’d surely like to help the little fella, but he wants me to go to Mars. How do I know I’ll be able to get back? And swordfighting—I’ve only been practicing that for six weeks. I don’t know if I’m good enough to stand up to a crowd of angry giant Martian critters.”

Antor Thon spoke up. “On Mars, you will have an advantage in strength because of your Earth muscles. Mars is smaller than Earth, and therefore it has a weaker gravity.”

I wasn’t exactly sure what he was talking about. “You mean I’ll be stronger there?”

“Exactly,” Antor Thon said. “You’ll be able to leap much higher, lift greater weights, have proportionally better endurance. You will be the greatest warrior on Mars.”

I wanted to say that I never really thought of myself as a warrior, but then I recalled that I’d been in a number of tussles over the years, and I never run from none of ’em.

I looked from the Martian to President Lyndon Johnson. “Of course, if I decide to go,” I said, “I’ll expect nothing in the way of reward. Just the regard of my country and the people of Mars.”

“Very good of you, Mr. Presley,” the President said in his low, drawling voice.

“But—” I said. “But there are a few things I’ll need if I’m going to go to Mars and rough up some space monsters for the little fella.”

“Just name it,” Antor Thon said, “and if at all possible, it shall be yours.”

“Cheeseburgers,” I said.

“Four frozen,” Dean Rusk said, “just the way you like them.”

“Pepsi. The good stuff, not diet. And I want the caffeine, too.”

“Six cases,” Dean Rusk said.

“Bottles, not cans.”

“All right. Anything else?”

“Uh-huh,” I said. “Cold, dry hot dog buns, hold the hot dogs.”

Dean Rusk clenched his jaws, but agreed.

“And Neutrogena soap. Colgate toothpaste. My little Martin acoustic guitar. And my boys. I always warm up with the Jordanaires. They have to go with me.”

“Impossible!” the President said. “We can’t send a bunch of gyrating—”

I raised a hand. “I always warm up with the Jordanaires. If they don’t go, I don’t go. If you can’t arrange it, then go get Bobby Vee to be your hero.”

Dean Rusk, a master at negotiation, said, “Instead of the Jordanaires, what if we double the number of cheeseburgers and Pepsi Colas?”

I had to think about that for a moment. “It’s a deal,” I said.

Antor Thon smiled. “Then think of me as your brother-in-arms,” he said.

“All right, then, little buddy,” I said. All that was left was hammering out the final details. I’d picked up some negotiating skills myself from listening to Colonel Parker.

We all agreed that I would leave for Mars with Antor Thon in two weeks. I had enough time to call you and make up that excuse about wanting to be by myself for a while; we also had to wait for the government of the United States of America to put together the cheeseburgers and Neutrogena and all the rest of the stuff.

In the meantime, the little Martian fella coached me on the proper meditation routine. That part came easy, because of all my karate training and yoga and the other mystical Eastern techniques I’ve studied.

Exactly two weeks later, about midnight, the clouds cleared and revealed a beautiful sky full of stars. Antor Thon pointed out one low above the horizon. I could see it beaming steadily, and I knew from its reddish color that it had to be Mars. My little buddy started murmuring his traveling chant, and I did the same. I found myself relaxing more and more, and soon I was in a light hypnotic trance. Then Antor Thon began speaking in a low voice, right near my right ear.

I felt a strange tingling all the way from my scalp to the soles of my feet. I sunk deeper into the trance, and soon I experienced an unpleasant twanging, breaking sensation. I opened my eyes and saw that I was standing beside the dead body of Elvis Presley. I shuddered. Before I could say a word, Antor Thon pointed toward Mars. I looked, and I felt a great longing to cross the vast distance between the planets. I closed my eyes again. There was an instant of tremendous cold, and when I opened my eyes, I knew I was no longer on Earth. I had traveled across time and space to the ancient, dying world of Mars.

“Welcome to Mars, as you call it,” Antor Thon said. He, like myself, was completely naked now. For some reason, that didn’t seem to matter. He indicated that we were going to head off toward the north.

I took my first step on this terrible and marvelous new world. What happened next was a great surprise. I went sailing up into the air, maybe twenty feet. “Earth muscles,” Antor Thon called, grinning. I was going to have to spend a little time learning how to get around without flying off into Mars’ thinner atmosphere.

When I was settled back on the red dirt, I picked up a rock and threw it as hard as I could. It rose in a flat arc until I couldn’t see it anymore. It may have cleared the far horizon. I felt like Superman, except I didn’t have X-ray vision.

We had only walked a mile or two, when we topped a low ridge and looked down at a horrible scene being played out below us, maybe a hundred yards away. A small party of Antor Thon’s fellow men were being attacked by a company of tall, ugly critters. It was clear that the big monsters had the upper hand, and unless we intervened successfully, all the Martian humans would be dead in a matter of minutes.

“I have to go help my brothers,” Antor Thon said with a sad smile. “It is a matter of honor.”

“I understand honor,” I said. “I’ll come with you.” I followed my little buddy down toward the scene of carnage. I still had quite a bit of trouble keeping my feet on the ground. I wondered if I could turn that to my advantage when we reached the battlefield.

Antor Thon gave a shrill, shrieking cry that I’d soon learn was the fighting song of his clan. He stooped briefly to pick up the sword of one of his fallen brothers. I followed suit, and together he and I fought back-to-back on the red-rocked surface of Mars. I didn’t have time to remark on what an unlikely thing this was for a poor boy from Mississippi to get mixed up in. Of course, I wasn’t a poor boy anymore, and those Mississippi days were long ago in the past. It seemed more appropriate that the King of Rock ’n’ Roll should lend a hand to the little people who needed him.

I learned very quickly that I was not yet a great sword-fighting hero. I managed not to get killed, but only because of my leaping ability and my immense strength. I had only a minor skill with the rapierlike long sword that was the favorite weapon of both the Martian men and their attackers. I saved myself time after time, and I accounted for three slain monsters. One time I saw Antor Thon desperately trying to defend himself against two of them. I gave a Southern rebel yell and skewered one of his opponents; while the second one stared at me in disbelief, Antor Thon dispatched him to his ancestors.

The battle came to an end shortly thereafter. Three of the big things mounted their great lumbering mounts and took off toward the west. Only myself and Antor Thon remained—all the other Martians had perished in the ambush. Antor Thon sang over their lifeless bodies, then laid each and every one to rest with all the necessary honors and prayers. I didn’t understand the ceremony, of course, so I just stood by respectfully until he finished. Then, at last, we continued on toward the north.

I hadn’t had much of an effect, despite all my so-called advantages. I promised myself that I would practice with the long sword; my next meeting with the Martian monsters would end differently.

We marched northward for two more days. I was pushing a shopping cart from a Winn Dixie ahead of me, loaded with cheeseburgers, Pepsi, hot dog buns, and the other things I’d asked for. I shared my rations with Antor Thon.

“You know,” he said, “during that battle, I could see that you needed some more instruction with the long sword. Because you’ve proven to be such a good companion, and because you’re being so generous with your food and that fizzing brown sweetwater, I’ll be happy to fill you in on the history and current problems of our race on this planet.”

“Thank you, little buddy,” I said. “When all of this is over, how ’bout I buy you a Cadillac? Would you like that, huh?”

Antor Thon shook his head. “What is a Cadillac?”

I frowned. “Here, then,” I said. “Have another Pepsi. They’re good for you.”

The situation was this: The city of Gornath, Antor Thon’s city, had been put under siege by a powerful army-clan of the ugly critters. The food was beginning to run out for the humans, and they doubted that they could hold out for another Earth month. My little buddy had volunteered to come to Earth in search of this John Carter. When he couldn’t locate the man, he turned to the government of the most generous and fair-minded nation in the free world—the good old U. S. A.     -

With the help of the State Department and the FBI, they had finally located . . . Dr. John Carpenter, “expert” swordsman.

Me.

Although it was all a mistake, I was determined to do what I could for my little buddy and his city of Gornath. As he had said, it was a matter of horror.

When we finally arrived at Gornath, Antor Thon told me that we had to circle around to a secret gate in the city’s walls. We had to wait until darkness fell, and then slowly make our way through the ranks of besieging ugly critters. It was a dangerous assignment, and I suddenly got a better understanding of Antor Thon’s courage. He had volunteered to leave safety and familiar surroundings behind to travel to what was for him an alien planet, in search of a hero.

I was that hero, and I could do no less than my companion. I had come to this alien planet, and I would give my utmost to defend the humans of Mars from their enemies.

First, however, we fortified ourselves in the valley between two ridges, out of sight of the monsters. We each ate two cheeseburgers and drank a bottle of Pepsi. Then I brushed my teeth. Strange worlds and a dangerous adventure were no reasons to neglect personal hygiene.

While we waited for the shrunken sun to set among the western Martian hills, Antor Thon drilled me further in the art of fighting with the long sword. He also taught me the Martian ideas of fair and sportsmanlike combat. It amounted to an entire protocol of warfare. It sounded dumb to me.

“On Earth,” I said, “we fight with whatever we have at hand.”

Antor Thon frowned. “We know. That’s why we consider Earth to be completely without gallantry.”

I wanted to say, “This military etiquette problem of yours may be why Mars is a dying planet.” I didn’t say it out loud, though.

We spent the next three hours practicing our swordsmanship. I had only a beginner’s familiarity with the weapon, but in a few hours Antor Thon taught me a few tricks and traps that might hold me in good stead in the days to come.

Then night fell, more quickly than it does on Earth. I looked up into the night sky. I quickly found the two hurtling Martian moons, but I could not be sure which bright spot was Earth.

“Now,” Antor Thon murmured, “we must creep over the ridge and then pass quietly among them.”

“Shouldn’t we wait until they fall asleep?” I asked.

“Believe me, they won’t ever all fall asleep. We may as well go now. Keep silent and follow me.”

I knew I could slip quietly among the shadows to the city’s sate: I was afraid that mv rattlins Winn Dixie cart carrying my Earth rations and the health and beauty aids would give us away.

“Leave it here,” Antor Thon said. “If it is heard by their sentries, it will cost us our lives.”

I solved the dilemma when I remembered my Earth muscles. I simply lifted the cart up and carried it on one shoulder. So together we managed to pass among the unaware ugly critters, moving noiselessly from one shadow to another. Soon we were standing under the walls of Gornath. Antor Thon rapped a signal upon the strong wooden gate.

It did not take long for Antor Thon to identify himself to the guards. We were let into the city, and my little buddy led me quickly through the streets toward a magnificent palace high on a hill. Word of our arrival spread quickly, and soon there were crowds lining the road to the palace. I heard them chanting Antor Thon’s name. And I heard them chanting “John Car-ter! John Car-ter!” I couldn’t help but think that they’d all be terribly disappointed when they learned the truth.

As we climbed the hill, I saw three tall statues surrounded by lovely flowering shrubs and cool fountains. “Are these statues of important people in your past?” I asked.

“Come closer and see,” the little fella said.

I did as he suggested and when I saw whom the statues represented, I was astonished.

Antor Thon said, “They are important people from your past.”       ‘

Indeed they were. I recognized Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper. El Bopper Grande, we used to call him affectionately.

I asked myself what the three rock ’n’ roll stars had in common. The first thing that occurred to me was that they had all died in the same plane crash. I mentioned this to Antor Thon.

The little buddy gave me a sad smile and shook his head. “These three great men did not die in that plane crash.”

“How could that be?” I said. “I’ve seen photographs—”

“It was made to look like they died together. In truth, they died here, on Mars. They were the heroes we brought here before you. They were all valiant and courageous men, but because they had even less knowledge of fighting with swords than you do, they were quickly slain by our enemies.”

“And then their bodies were returned to Earth and our government covered up the truth of the matter, for reasons of its own. The plane crash was just a convenient explanation. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Yes,” Antor Thon said. “Our greatest sculptors are working on your statue, even now.”

I raised a hand. “Just a minute, little buddy. I don’t intend to be cut to ribbons as were my brave predecessors. I plan on living a long time.”

He smiled. “An admirable ambition, Elvis Presley. Whichever way matters . . . work out, a statue of you will be appropriate. You are a hero just for coming here with me.” I suddenly felt awkward and conspicuous, looming over all the little Martian people. “Thank you,” I said softly. I didn’t want to think about how matters might work out.

Antor Thon led me to the polished marble steps leading up to the palace itself. As we approached them, the palace guards snapped to attention. I knew they weren’t doing it for me. They wouldn’t know who I was. “Are you an important official in this town?” I asked my little buddy.

“My father, Vaq Antor, is the ruler of Gornath. He will remain ruler for life. I am his heir.”

So I’d been walking across the face of Mars with a prince. Yet President Lyndon Johnson had said Gornath was a democracy. I asked Antor Thon about this.

“Oh, we’ve modeled ourselves after your Earth nation of Great Britain. The only difference is that we do everything the ruler asks of us, but what he asks of us has been strongly suggested by the advisory parliament.”

I nodded. Once inside the palace, a uniformed military man conducted us to the consultation chamber. When we entered, the great Vaq Antor was finishing his daily briefing. Some of the men rolled up maps and the others stood at attention, saluting.

“Please leave me now,” Vaq Antor said. “I wish to speak privately with Prince Antor Thon.”

“Yes, your majesty,” the Martian officers said. They backed out of the consultation room. I was alone with a king and a prince. It was something new for me.

“This is not John Carter,” Vaq Antor said.

“I could not find the Virginian, Father,” Antor Thon said. The king nodded. “It is as I suspected. Then tell me, my son, who is this?”

“This is Elvis Presley, lord. I call him Brithen Tori. That means ‘Fire Eyes,’ ” he told me. “He truly did have eyes of fire in our battle south of the city. He was magnificent—outnumbered, with only a minimal knowledge of swordplay, he fought with rare courage and determination.”

The king studied me for a few moments. “With my son’s recommendation, you are welcome in my house. If you require anything, you have but to ask.”

“I thank you, sir,” I said humbly. “I believe I have everything I need here in my Winn Dixie shopping cart. Except a print of Wuthering Heights. I cry every time I see that movie.”

“Wuthering Heights?” Antor Thon asked.

I explained “I’ve modeled my acting technique on that movie. I hope to be remembered some day as the Lawrence Olivier of rock ’n’ roll.”

“That remains to be seen, of course,” the prince said in a low voice.

I shrugged. “Then pork chops and sauerkraut. When I’m not eating cheeseburgers, I like pork chops and sauerkraut.”

The king shook his head. “We have a religious prohibition against eating the flesh of pigs,” he said.

“It must be a powerful prohibition,” said Antor Thon. “We don’t even have pigs on Mars. The Lawgiver meant that if we ever traveled to another world that did have pigs, we couldn’t eat them. We didn’t understand this for many centuries. Now, since interplanetary travel has become possible, we recognize the wisdom of the prohibition.”

“You ever tasted pork chops and sauerkraut?” I asked him.

“No,” he admitted, “but the Lawgiver—”

“Let us discuss our battle plans now,” Vaq Antor said coldly.

“Yes, your majesty,” I said.

“Yes, my king,” Antor Thon said.

“Now, listen closely,” Vaq Antor said. “My generals agree with my schedule. In six days, it will be a quiet, moonless dawn. I propose that the prince lead a company of hand-picked warriors through the secret gate, to attack the enemy from the rear, while at the same time I will take the remainder of the army through the Sunrise Gate to occupy them in the front. If our stratagem succeeds, we’ll have them crushed between the two forces.”

“And myself?” I asked.

“Brithen Tori, you may fight wherever you choose.”

“Then, great king, I’d prefer accompanying my little buddy, your son.”

Vaq Antor nodded grimly. “So be it,” he said in a gruff voice.

We spent another half hour studying the positions of the ugly critters. Then we prepared several trumpet signals so that the wings of the humans’ attack force would be coordinated. When we had provided for any likely situation, Vaq Antor smiled and clapped me on the back. “You have six days, my friend. Six days to improve your swordplay.”

My throat was dry. I realized this wasn’t going to be a movie. It wasn’t going to be staged in advance. Dead bodies would be real dead bodies, not dummies. And when one of the ugly critters stabbed at me with a longsword, it was me whom he’d skewer, not a stunt double. I admit that I felt a little tingle of fear.

As Antor Thon and I took our leave of the ruler of the city, the little fella said, “Don’t worry, Brithen Tori. I watched you during our skirmish a few days ago. You may feel inadequate now, but I’m sure that when the battle begins, when you catch the scent of blood on the morning air, you will cease being Elvis Presley and become once again Brithen Tori. Fire Eyes.”

I said that I hoped he was right about that. My voice was unsteady. I didn’t have the confidence in myself that Antor Thon had.

That night, alone in my sleeping chamber, I gazed out the window at the Martian sky. The constellations were recognizable. Orion, the Hunter, was low on the horizon, but I knew that as the night went on, he would slowly push Taurus across the black velvet expanse. Orion could not be denied; he would soon wrestle his quarry to the inevitable outcome. Tomorrow night would see them repeat their eternal struggle.

I would be Orion, then. I would plant my feet in the red dust of Mars, never to retreat against the onslaught of the monsters beyond the city’s walls. As I watched, Mars’ inner moon rose and hurtled across the sky, followed more slowly by the larger outer moon. It was a gorgeous sight, and I felt suddenly capable of great things—the great things that Vaq Antor and Antor Thon expected of me.

I went to sleep soon thereafter, and in the morning I was wakened by Antor Thon. “Come along, Elvis Presley,” he said. “Now begins your martial training.”

I was introduced to a fencing master named Drak Sunn Bar. He had learned English from John Carter, and so we had no trouble communicating. He drilled me for seven hours each day, and my skill with the longsword grew and grew. I learned aggressive attacks and sly traps. I learned the proper defenses to every possible thrust of an enemy. After five days, I felt much more confident. I asked Drak Sunn Bar if he would fight by my side with Antor Thon; my teacher declined at first, citing his advanced age. It did not take much to get him to change his mind, though. I could see that he’d been honored by my request, and that he was more than happy to comply.

I put together a leather fighting harness like the ones worn by the little fellas. When I put it on and held my sword in my hands, I felt more like Brithen Tori than Elvis Presley. I felt certain that in other lifetimes, I had truly been a fierce warrior, and those long-buried memories were starting to come to the surface. I believe that if I were truly immortal, then I should have no fear at all about going into hand-to-hand combat.

It was the night before the morning of battle. I could not sleep. I sat in a chair, looking out at the stars. Soon I would be thrown into the stunning confusion of warfare, but I know I just strummed my Martin and sang. I had an open Pepsi on the window sill and a cheeseburger balanced on my knee. I played a few chords, then accompanied myself on “It’s Now or Never,” my most successful single. Then I sang as much of the original Italian lyrics as I could remember: “O sole mio—” I’d forgotten the rest.

The night passed peacefully. A few hours later, Antor Thon knocked on my door. “My father the king wishes to review his fighting forces in half an hour,” he said.

“Fine, little buddy,” I called. “I’m ready now. Where do we form up?”

“On the Plain of the God of War, before the palace gates.”

“I’ll be there.” I stood up and looked at myself and was not displeased. I thought maybe a long white scarf around my neck might improve the image, but altogether I looked every inch the magnificent warrior from Earth. With the jangling sound of metal on metal, I left my sleeping chamber and descended the staircases to the assembly area.

I stepped out into the corridor and was almost knocked over by armed men running in both directions. There was no fear in their expressions, only a grim determination. These were well-trained fighting men, who knew the business of combat and understood the risks, yet they hurried to be on time. If any of them felt terror at what might happen to them, they hid it well. I joined them.

I hurried to the plain. I have to admit that I experienced a kind of queasiness in my stomach. I hoped that my new knowledge of swordfighting would make me more of a factor than I was in my first encounter with the ugly monsters. Only time would tell.

I found my place in the ranks, beside Antor Thon. He did not speak to me; he grunted by way of greeting. His concentration on the coming battle was complete. On the other side of me was Drak Sunn Bar, my fencing master.

Vaq Antor, the ruler of the city, appeared, escorted by two of his top generals. He walked among the ranks, saying nothing. He paused in front of me and briefly nodded. Then he saluted his army and addressed them in a short exhortation. I don’t recall his precise words, and I doubt if the other little Martians can. All our attention was focused on the coming confrontation.

“Antor Thon, my son,” he said, “take your force and begin passing through the secret gate. Reform your ranks beyond the city’s walls and wait for my signal. We must coordinate our attacks.”

“Yes, my king,” said my little buddy.

As we began to move out, I said to Antor Thon, “Your father is an inspirational leader. Do you think he’d appreciate it if I gave him a Cadillac? What do you think?”

He gave me a puzzled look. “I suppose you’d have to ask him.”

I had a few uneasy moments while we straightened our ranks on the battlefield. My confidence disappeared and I wondered how I’d gotten myself into this fix. I was pleased to learn that this fear vanished as soon as I heard the signal to advance. Then I felt an eagerness to join with the little fellas in the attack on the ugly critters. We angled around and charged down on their rear. At the same time, I knew, Vaq Antor was engaging them from another direction.

My fear dissolved completely the moment I crossed swords with one of the monsters. I fought and fought, and it seemed that a blood-red haze floated before my eyes. I stopped once to gulp down a Pepsi I’d brought with me. Then I was back in the battle, hacking and hewing my way up through the middle of their formation. I had to slow down or risk losing touch with my fellow warriors.

The Martian humans followed my lead, and soon we were driving forward, dividing the enemy into two disconnected mobs. This made Vaq Antor’s job somewhat easier at the front.

An hour later, two hours—how long I cannot say—we’d turned the army of besiegers into two panicked mobs, which we were decimating almost at our leisure. Then the ugly critters broke the centuries-old etiquette of war. In their most desperate moment, they began firing at us with their rifles. Doing so disgraced them in the eyes of every soldier of every race; it also cleared a path for them to make their escape.

We did not follow. Vaq Antor believed that they would not return. We had lifted the siege. We were victorious!

The gates of Gornath were thrown open, and the people cheered us as we marched proudly back into the city. “Look at them all!” I said.

“They’re here to see you, Brithen Tori,” Antor Thon said. “They’re here to see all of us, my friend. Do you know what would make it even better?”

“What is it? If I or my father can provide it, you have but to ask.”

“A couple of cheeseburgers and another Pepsi,” I said. “That can wait till later. My mama’s mashed potatoes and gravy. And I wish I hadn’t thought of pork chops and sauerkraut. Do Martians put caraway seeds in sauerkraut?”

“No, my Earth friend. There are no caraway seeds on Mars. We who have experienced them on your planet consider them a great delicacy.”

How different were our worlds, yet how very much alike! As we approached the palace of Vaq Antor, I noticed that a twenty-foot statue dwarfed the monuments to Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper. “Is that me?” I asked.

“Yes. The lighter gravity of Mars made it possible for our artisans to finish the statue quickly.”

“Well, uh, little buddy, I don’t believe it’s quite fitting for me to tower over the others.”

Antor Thon explained. “They are heroes and we will always venerate their names; but you are a hero who found glory by winning. I wish you could have seen yourself during the battle! I’ll never forget the fierce expression you wore while you lifted an enemy swordsman high over your head and hurled him at several of his fellows.”

“Did I do that?” I asked, astonished.

“Time and again. And I was proud of the way you handled your sword, and I’m sure your tutor, Drak Sunn Bar, is too. I know you rescued me at least three times.”

“How odd that I recall none of the actual battle.”

Antor Thon smiled. “You quite literally became another person out there.”

A low dais had been set up near the monuments. I read the plaque attached to my statue. Actually, because the plaque was in Martian, I could only read the three words of my name: Elvis Aaron Presley. I was glad that the Martians had spelled my middle name correctly, rather than my father’s misspelling, “Aron.”

Vaq Antor addressed his people at length, with many gestures. I could tell even without understanding his words that he was a great orator as well as a valiant military leader.

When the ruler of the city finished, his son, my friend, Antor Thon, went to the microphone and said a few words. He concluded by pointing to me and saying, “Brithen Tori. Elvis Presley.” I joined him on the dais, and the people began to cheer and chant my name.

“They wish for you to sing to them.”

“I can do that. What should I give them? ‘Jailhouse Rock’ or ‘How Great Thou Art’?”

Antor Thon looked thoughtful. “I think they want to hear your Earth rock ’n’ roll. Is it pleasant to hear?”

“It is if it’s played right.” I smiled. “And I play it right.” Without a guitar or backup band, I sung “Jailhouse Rock” for them a cappella. It was, if I may say so, one of my finest renditions. I planned to follow it with a few verses of “Rip It Up,” but I never got the chance. The little Martian fellas were charging toward the stage.

I’d had some experience with this before, you know. I ducked back off the dais, taking a final glance at my statue. I stood there, twenty feet high, in my fighting harness, with a sword raised triumphantly against the shrunken Martian sun. I sprinted toward the palace, and my thoughts were calm and peaceful after the carnage of that afternoon: Pepsi and Colgate toothpaste.

Maybe three or four cheeseburgers.

Behind me, I heard Antor Thon shouting, “Ladies and gentlemen! Brithen Tori has left the planet! Elvis has left the planet!”

I hoped the little fella wouldn’t forget to tell them to drive home safely.