Bimbos of the Death Sun

by Sharyn McCrumb

  “Better than ‘Happy Days Are Here Again,’” Marion conceded. “I’m sure somebody suggested that.”

  Jay Omega sipped his Gargleblaster. “I don’t have to say anything formal, do I?” he asked Miles Perry.

  “Not a speech,” Miles promised. “But I’ll introduce you later, and you can stand up.”

  Jay nodded toward the audience. “Are you going to introduce him, too?”

  “Who?”

  “Lieutenant Ayhan. He’s sitting at that table on the left.”

  After an invocation by a board member directed to the Entity Who Engineered the Universe, a visibly moved Miles Perry took the podium. “Tonight is a more solemn occasion than we had meant it to be,” he stammered, trying not to stare in Lieutenant Ayhan’s direction. “At this year’s Rubicon we wanted to honor one of the giants of fantasy literature—”

  Several people in the audience snickered.

  “A writer whose stature—”

  Miles Perry reddened and pawed at his notes. “Unfortunately, Appin Dungannon is not able to be with us tonight…”

  “Unfortunately?” called a heckler.

  People began to chant “The Monkey’s Paw!”

  Against his better judgment, Miles glanced at Lieutenant Ayhan. Blast the man! He was smiling again! “Our program designed to honor Appin Dungannon, creator of the Tratyn Runewind series, has instead become a tribute to his memory. We ask that amid the festivities you keep within you a solemn remembrance of Appin Dungannon … a shining star in the annals of fantasy!”

  Someone kicked over a folding chair.

  Further speeches were not scheduled until after dinner, by which time Miles hoped that the hilarity would have worn itself out. He ate his tepid chicken with a grim expression suggesting that he could hear it pleading for mercy. For once he hoped there weren’t any journalists present; the mood of facetiousness thus far exhibited at the banquet would show them in a very bad light if reported in cold newsprint.

  Lieutenant Ayhan had decided that as long as he had to do some questioning at the con, he might as well observe things at the banquet—when all the cracked eggs were in one basket. He was seated now across from a desperately plain young man in a brown polyester leisure suit, and a courting couple who reminded him of Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy. He had planned to say that he liked a good science fiction novel now and then, if anyone had asked why he was there, but so far no one had taken any notice of him at all. The people he had questioned were seated at other tables. Ayhan decided that he would just listen to the general discussions, and if that proved unhelpful, he might try a few conversational gambits of his own.

  “Pass the salt,” said the leisure suit, whose name tag identified him as J. Bonnenberger.

  Ayhan handed him the salt shaker, but before he could venture a get-acquainted remark, Bonnenberger turned to the “Kermit” kid with the turtleneck and medallion. “So who do you think killed McAfee?”

  Ayhan’s fork froze in midair. Who was McAfee?

  “Terrorists, I guess,” shrugged Richard Faber. “My organization doesn’t have any plastic explosives. We can’t afford them yet.”

  “I think he was a double agent, anyway, so it’s probably none of my business who killed him. Unless he still had the microchip on him, of course. We want that.”

  Ayhan’s hand itched for his blue notebook. He might have to call in the NSA on this one.

  “So, if he was a double agent, Bonnenberger, who do you think he was working for?” asked Faber.

  “Probably the KGB. And if that was the case, then the hit was only made to look like a terrorist attack, to divert suspicion from the real power-brokers.” Bonnenberger’s last remark was somewhat garbled by the mouthful of lettuce impairing his consonant-formation. Dribbles of salad dressing ran down each side of his mouth like a thousand-island Fu Manchu.

  “Okay,” nodded Faber, unaffected by his comrade’s table manners. “So you think it was the Girl Scouts.”

  “Definitely,” Bonnenberger managed to say.

  “Okay. Then it was probably O.O. Wolfe. He’d have access to explosives at Fort Belvoir, and he has a high skill rating in demolitions. The Girl Scouts have nuclear capability now, too. Did you know that?”

  “What are you talking about?” demanded Lieutenant Ayhan, who felt that he would explode if he didn’t ask.

  His table partners looked at him with faint surprise at such rude inquisitiveness from a stranger. The fat girl, eager to show off her limited supply of knowledge, explained. “They’re in a TSR game called Top Secret. It’s sort of like D&D, but it deals with spies and secret organizations. You get characters to control, and your organization assigns you a mission. …”

  Lieutenant Ayhan stopped listening, and went back to his chicken. He supposed he ought to see if Miles Perry could help him find one of the con guests who had been mentioned as a vehement critic of Dungannon. Some kid named Chip Livingstone. Truly elusive. Half a dozen people had showed him mimeographed newsletters containing criticisms of Dungannon, all signed “Chip Livingstone.” But he couldn’t get a decent make on the guy. White male, early twenties—that was ninety per cent of the con. And the guy wasn’t on the hotel register, either. Hmmm. Also true of half the people at the con. Everybody seemed to be sleeping on couches, or six to a room. If Ayhan wasn’t in Homicide, he could have a field day writing up misdemeanors. But he had put the word out to find Chip Livingstone and sooner or later he would turn up.

  So far, though, zilch. Probably afraid to. Half the people Ayhan had talked to had mentioned this guy as an enemy of Dungannon. Maybe that was a bit obvious for a murder suspect, but in Ayhan’s opinion, most murderers were obvious. And if the guy was innocent, where was he? Pulling out his notebook, he scribbled a note to Miles Perry, finishing it just as the waiter appeared to refill his iced tea.

  “Could you give this to the gentleman sitting next to the speaker’s stand?” he asked the waiter.

  Faber and Bonnenberger glowered suspiciously as the white-coated waiter glided away with the note. Suppose the old guy with the crew cut was an agent for the Girl Scouts? You couldn’t trust anybody these days.

  When Miles Perry unfolded the note from Ayhan, he lost all interest in his second piece of pecan pie. Two minutes from now he was due at the podium again to introduce Clifford Morgan for the memorial speech. He wondered if he ought to make an announcement first. Probably so. Gumming up a murder investigation could probably put you in prison right along with the murderer. With a sigh and the certain knowledge that the Force was not with him, Miles Perry stood up and faced the mob.

  “Fellow fen …” He looked again at the note. On second thought, why not wait until after the eulogy? He didn’t want to upstage Morgan’s big moment, and besides, he needed time to figure out what to say. Should he warn anyone? “As you know, our guest speaker tonight was to have been Appin Dungannon, so it is only fitting under the circumstances that we offer instead a tribute to that gifted writer by one of his greatest fans. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Clifford Morgan’s admiration of Dungannon knows no bounds. In the persona of Tratyn Runewind, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Clifford Morgan.”

  With a swirl of his blue satin cloak (for formal occasions), the white-maned Tratyn Runewind bowed to Miles Perry, and fixed the audience with a solemn stare. “Men say there shall be no more sagas,” he intoned in a booming voice suggesting John Wayne’s portrayal of Genghis Khan. “But as the pen is mightier than the sword, so is the legend hardier than the scop. Appin Dungannon has died, but Tratyn Runewind is a child of the gods, and he will live forever. …”

  “This is an odd tribute,” whispered Jay to Marion. “What’s he getting at?”

  “Oh, just the usual bit about the writer gaining immortality through his works. Shakespeare said it much better. These people could really use a copy of Bartlett’s Quotations. I think it really means that he doesn’t want to stop dressing up as Tratyn Runewind.”

  J
ay nodded. “The author’s death must have really hit him hard. Sort of a vicarious death. No more Runewind adventures.”

  “Don’t bet on it,” said Marion. “Star Trek ended twenty years ago, and fans are still writing new adventures for the crew of the Enterprise.”

  Clifford Morgan, with his blond hair bleached bone white and his aquiline features, sounded less ridiculous talking “Hollywood Beowulf” than one might expect. Unlike most fen, who attended each year’s con in a different costume, Morgan was always Tratyn Runewind; indeed, few people would have recognized him in non-medieval garb. His knowledge of his alter-ego’s adventures was encyclopedic, and rumor had it that during cons he was so much in character that he slept on the floor of his hotel room and ate only bread and meat, as vegetables were not part of the Celtic winter diet. Even his normal Pennsylvania accent disappeared during a con, to be replaced by his impression of Celtic speech: a cross between Richard Burton’s Hamlet and the poetry of Robert Burns. All of this had become so familiar to the fen, and so habitual to Morgan, that it scarcely seemed artificial anymore. Occasionally, back in the “real world,” Morgan would push his maintenance cart around the hotel he worked for in Philadelphia, and mutter to himself in “Runewind.” causing guests to think he was an immigrant.

  He had begun his alternate identity as a skinny and backward twelve-year-old, when he first discovered the Runewind books. His identification with the white-maned rune warrior was strengthened in scores of D&D games, in which his fellow players allowed him to be Runewind. Now, ten years later, he could almost be said to commute between ancient Britain and twentieth-century America, so much of his life was invested in both places.

  In some ways, he looked on Appin Dungannon as a parent: irascible, neglectful, and inadequate, perhaps, but a father figure, nonetheless. He scanned the biographical notes he had brought with him as an aid to memory, although he scarcely needed them. Dungannon’s life was as familiar to him as Runewind’s.

  After a few more heroics, Clifford Morgan’s speech degenerated into a biography of Dungannon, gleaned from fanzines and a writers’ Who’s Who. With monotonous precision, he detailed Dungannon’s education, early jobs, first publications, and so on through the Runewind books, the lawsuits, the stay at the alcohol treatment center, and the unsuccessful award nominations. The audience grew restive.

  “And as a final tribute to Appin Dungannon, we have an unscheduled performance,” Morgan announced. Ignoring Miles Perry’s look of stricken disbelief, Tratyn Runewind continued. “As you know, the author disliked representations of his hero—”

  “As you know!” someone yelled out.

  “But since the legend has outlived its maker, we will assume that Mr. Dungannon’s objections have been laid to rest with him, and so we will present a short drama by the Rubicon players, entitled ‘Tratyn Runewind and the Druid Priestess.’”

  Miles looked across the table at the other board members and pantomimed the washing of his hands. They shrugged in reply.

  In the space between the audience and the speakers’ table, Clifford and several other costumed players assembled for a whispered conference. Finally a thirtyish man in Robin Hood garb came to the podium to act as narrator.

  Marion recognized him as the weapons vendor from the hucksters’ room.

  In ringing tones the narrator described the encounter between the Celtic hero and a Druid priestess, who, judging from her wig and costume, had spent her winters in Egypt. After a ritual dance by the priestess, and some divination by way of a magic goblet filled with water from Annis’ Well, a barbarian in leather and fake fur appeared, brandished a sword at the hero, and the inevitable combat scene took place in pantomime.

  Jay Omega watched the performance with a thoughtful attentiveness, just as he would watch the lab’s oscilloscope to detect an electrical problem.

  “He’s not planning to have Tratyn Runewind die, too, is he?” he asked.

  “Not a chance,” Marion retorted. “He’d rather shoot his mother.”

  After a few minutes’ clattering and slashing with the reproduction (but genuine metal) swords, the barbarian gave way to the superior strength of the Rune warrior, and allowed himself to be symbolically skewered as the drama ended. He stayed dead until Runewind and the priestess had received the initial applause, and then he and the narrator joined them to take their bows.

  Miles Perry, realizing that it could have been worse, joined in the applause for the actors, and quickly turned the program over to another board member for the announcement of the scholarship winners, and for the recognition of last night’s winners in the writing contest and the costume competition.

  Several certificates later, he was back at the podium for the final summation, and last-minute announcements of schedule changes. “The Tratyn Runewind D&D Adventure will take place tomorrow morning as scheduled,” he told the crowd. “And the DM will be none other than Rubicon’s remaining guest author Jay Omega!” Jay Omega stood up for a millisecond, and Miles Perry continued, “At 10 P.M. tonight, in the hotel’s William Byrd Conference Room, there will be a Star Trek wedding—this is a real wedding, folks—uniting in marriage Dave Phillips and Pamela Jarrod, as Mr. Spock and Saavik. Guests of Rubicon, particularly those in Star Trek costumes, are invited to attend.”

  Miles Perry looked nervous again. “There is one last announcement I have to make before we declare the banquet officially over. As you know, the police are investigating Appin Dungannon’s death, and of course, we are all anxious to help in any way we can.”

  He saw that he had Lieutenant Ayhan’s undivided attention.

  “The lieutenant in charge of the investigation has made it known to me that in his questioning of people about those with grudges against Appin Dungannon, one name is mentioned again and again. This person has written savage book reviews of the Runewind series in a number of fanzines, and in personal letters he has indicated an antipathy toward Dungannon personally, and in general he has been the most vocal critic both of the author and his work. And the lieutenant would like to interview this individual. So … I thought … rather than mislead anybody anymore …”

  “My god!” muttered Diefenbaker. “He’s going to do it!”

  “Do what?” whispered Marion.

  “Will the real Chip Livingstone please stand up?”

  THIRTEEN

  Thanks to the unscheduled murder of Appin Dungannon, Rubicon had earned its place in fannish history long before the banquet degenerated into a shouting match between rival fanzine publishers over the heretofore unexplained identity of the mysterious, fiendish Chip Livingstone, and before one desperately sincere femmefan burst into tears and subsequently severed all contact with the hobby.

  Lieutenant Ayhan, who had simply muttered, “I love this case!” was probably the calmest person present.

  The chaos had begun approximately thirty seconds after Miles Perry had asked superfan Chip Livingstone to stand and identify himself. After a moment of ionized silence, Bill Fox pushed back his chair and stood up. So did Diefenbaker. Miles Perry, who was already standing, raised his hand to indicate that he, too, was “standing.” A wargamer from Minnesota and a Texas fanzine publisher also got to their feet.

  Miles Perry explained. “Chip Livingstone has been in the hobby for only two years now, and already he has made himself prominent among the fen. He is a prolific letter-writer—of computer-generated letters—and a regular contributor to a number of fanzines. He doesn’t take phone calls, but he always answers letters. And from time to time people report having met him or seen him at a con. Usually Dief, or Bill, or I will claim to have seem him at a wargamers’ convention, or in a private visit.”

  “I broke up with my boyfriend over him!” wailed the femmefan.

  Miles Perry hesitated. “Well, he did write good letters. What happened is that the five of us created him, and we took turns writing his articles and answering his mail.”

  “Hold it!” yelled Richard Faber. “He was in the goddamn
ed costume competition. I saw him!”

  “Yeah! Me, too!” mumbled several wargamers.

  “That was Bill,” Miles Perry told them. “Remember, ‘Chip’ was dressed as an Imperial Stormtrooper, with full body covering and a mask you couldn’t see through. You couldn’t tell who it was.”

  “And remember,” said Bill, “his character was called Sanyo the Stormtrooper, which was a tip-off. More than anything else, Chip Livingstone is a product of a Sanyo MBC-775, because all five of us own one. Think about the name! Chip Living-Stone.”

  “First a Macintosh and now a Sanyo,” muttered Ayhan. “I love this case!”

  “Anyway,” said Miles Perry, “I thought we’d better explain that Chip Livingstone’s hatred of Dungannon was just a personality trait that we invented to give him a quirk. All of us are wargamers, so we didn’t care one way or the other.”

  He had to raise his voice to compete with the angry mutterings of the crowd. Bernard Buchanan kept saying, “But he liked my writing. He liked my writing.”