Emperor of Gondwanaland

by Paul Di Filippo

did any reader

  of science fiction

  demand.

  The offices of Ruslan’s Science Fiction Magazine. Low-rent quarters on lower Broadway, parsimoniously leased by the parent corporation. Klackto Press. And shared with the publishing chain’s stable- mates. Fishbreeder’s Monthly, Acrostic Fiend’s Friend, Tatting Journal. One receptionist for all the wildly incompatible magazines. A bored young woman with a scatter of freckles. Across acres of exposed cleavage. Avista that stirs Corso’s penis in its hermitage. But like any solitary’s spasm, the moment inevitably passes without relief.

  “Um, Corso Fairfield for Sharon Walpole. She’s expecting me.”

  “Hold on a minute please. I’m right in the middle of printing.”

  Corso sits perforce. Resting his satchel across his damp lap. In case of renewed lust attack. As the woman dances her enameled fingertips noisily across her keyboard. Generating finally some activity in the printer beside her. Corso painfully reminded of his own vain attempts recently to coerce output magically from his own printer. The buffers of which hold not the unborn chapters of The Black-Hole Gun. But only pain.

  Picking up the phone. Reaching Sharon Walpole. Humiliatingly, from the receptionist: “What did you say your name was.” Name conveyed to receptionist again and thence to Walpole. Grudging admittance secured.

  Through a busy bullpen of interns and editorial assistants and graphic designers. Photos of loved ones on the desks. Free donuts by the coffee urn. Happy chatter. All workers earning a regular paycheck. With regular health-coverage deductions, unthinkingly groused over. Yet so willingly would they be assumed by Corso. In exchange for some stability.

  The view from Walpole’s cluttered corner office. A wooden rooftop water tank. A ghost sign for Nehi soda. A sliver of one stalwart tower of the Brooklyn Bridge. Walpole behind her desk. Hugo Awards on a shelf behind her. Trim and blonde. Dressed in a mustard-colored pantsuit. Chunky gold necklace and earrings and bracelets. Fixing Corso with a beam of bright-eyed welcome. Behind which is the message, don’t waste my time.

  “Corso, it’s always a pleasure.” Air kisses. Floral-vanilla scent of perfume. “What brings you into the city.”

  “Oh, mainly meeting with my editor at Butte Books.”

  “That would be Roger Wankel.”

  “Yes, Wankel.” Inwardly, Corso winces. At the memory. Of the recent reaming out endured over the phone. As Wankel screamed about missed deadlines. And penalties incurred at the printing plant. Which would accrue to Corso’s accounts. If not literally, then karmically.

  “And of course I need to touch base with my agent.”

  “Clive Multrum.”

  “Still, yes. And it’s very likely I’ll have dinner with Malachi.”

  No need for a last name. Since everyone in science fiction knew Malachi Stiltjack. Fixture on the best-seller lists. And at many conventions. And on a number of committees. Of the Science Fiction Writers of America. And PEN. Not to mention adjudging many awards. Or making media appearances. As SF’s unofficial ambassador to the mundane world. To discuss cloning. Or the Internet. Or virtual sex. And by God, where did he find the time to write.

  Walpole positively frisking at the mention of Stiltjack. Disconcertingly girlish timbre to her voice now. “Oh please give Malachi my best. Ask him when he’ll have something new for us. We haven’t seen anything from him since he had the cover story two whole months ago.”

  “Ah, certainly, Sharon. Two whole months. Imagine.” Corso’s last appearance in Ruslan’s so long ago the millennium has since rolled over. “Happy to act as go-between, ha-ha. Which actually brings me to the reason for my visit. I was hoping you might take something from me.”

  Walpole begins fidgeting with a bracelet on her left wrist. “Well, of course we’re always happy to look at any story of yours, Corso. After all, our readers are still talking about ‘The Cambrian Exodus.’ But I didn’t think you were currently working at shorter lengths. Do you have the manuscript with you.”

  “Ah, but that’s the rub. I don’t. Damnable oversight. Dashing from the house to catch my train. In fact, the story’s only just begun. It’s a winner, though. I’m certain of it.” Corso’s fugitive mind has blanked on the impressive title he earlier prepared to woo Walpole. Now he has to fashion one out of thin air. He looks desperately out the window. “‘The Towers— The Towers of Nehilyn.’”

  Walpole spins one bracelet on her left wrist. Evident excess of impatience. Corso finds it hard to focus. On her unsympathetic face. The golden motion around her wrist is seductive. The bracelet a blur of uncanny energy. He feels the beginning of a fugue. Onset of one of his science-fictional hallucinations. But the prospect of visiting an unreal world is seductive. More enticing than this humiliating begging ritual.

  Walpole speaking schoolmarmishly. “Well, you know we hardly ever commission anything, or buy from an outline. You do have an outline to show me at least, don’t you.”

  “An outline. Not with me, alas. How foolish. Forgotten likewise at home. But if you could signal your faith with, um, a contract, or even a check perhaps, I’d email the whole project folder on Monday. Very extensive notes. World-building, in fact. Equal to Anderson or Clement.”

  Sharon Walpole stands up now. And is plainly unscrewing her hand. Corso fully embracing the revelation. Of Walpole’s cyborg nature. The bracelet revealed as not jewelry, but as the rim of some prosthetic fixture. And now the threaded extension is disclosed. Shiny metal. Reminding one of such familiar terms as “plastalloy” and “durasteel.” And the corresponding threaded hole into her forearm. And Corso is fixated by the dismantling. Overly intimate dismantling. His lower jaw drops further. For now the hand is detached. And the editor lays it upon the desk. Like a fleshy paperweight. And reaches into a drawer. To come up with a substitute hand. A giant lobster claw. Bright red. Which she starts to attach.

  And all the while talking. “Corso, I’m afraid I can’t help you. Your lateness with your novel for Butte is already a scandal. And such a track record does not inspire confidence. There’s no way I can advance the good money of Klackto Press on such a tenuous project.”

  The lobster claw is firmly seated now. And waving. At the incongruous end of a feminine arm. A hybrid. Of sternness and guile. Which Corso should acknowledge. Except how can he honor in others the commonsensical standards which he never upheld in his own life.

  Walpole’s voice. Descending into a droning alien monotone. Now Corso’s calm begins to dissipate. The fantasy no longer an alluring alternative to his problems. But rather menacing, in fact.

  “Send me the story. Send me the story. Then we’ll see. Then we’ll see.” And the claw looming larger and larger. Audibly clattering. Directly in Corso’s wide-eyed blood-drained face.

  And then he’s scuttling backward

  out of the office,

  the building,

  into the streets,

  thinking only

  of the giant pot one would need

  to boil a crustacean that big.

  Lines of office workers at hot-dog and falafel and gyro carts. With nothing on their mundane minds. Save mortgage payments, love affairs, television shows, shopping sprees, and ferrying hordes of overindulged children from event to event. No obsessions with intergalactic ambassadors. Nor fifth-dimensional invaders. Nor the paradoxes of time travel. Only solid, sensible quotidian activities concern them. The eternal verities. Home and family. Sex and status. Untainted with abnormal speculations derived from technological angst. Of sense of wonder. They know naught. They flip the wall switch for the overhead light. And never think. About the infrastructure behind the scene. And why should they really. That’s what engineers are for.

  Corso’s stomach rumbling. Yet he turns reluctantly from the line of vendors. Why purchase a cheap lunch. If Clive Multrum will stand him to a meal. And doesn’t his agent owe him that much. For the monies earned by Cosmocopia. Which was a Featured Selection. Of the Science Fiction Book Club. And optioned by a Ho
llywood studio. Named Fizz Boys Productions. Which proved to be two ex-parking lot attendants from LA. Temporarily flush with profits from an exceedingly large Ecstasy deal. And with no more realistic chance of actually making a film. Than two orangutans fresh from the jungles of Kalimantan. And by the time their option expired. Interest in Cosmocopia was dead. And another flavor of the week was all the rage. Probably something by Stiltjack.

  Multrum’s building on Park Avenue South. Classier by far than the Ruslan’s quarters. Concierge in a Ruritanian uniform. Your name, sir. May we inspect your briefcase, sir. Multrum and his peers here obviously a prime target. For enraged terrorists. Eager perhaps to avenge injustices against disenfranchised writers. Of whom Corso is certainly one. But he manages to disguise his true affiliations from the vigilant guardian. A fat sixtyish man with a dandruff-flecked comb-over. Who directs Corso to the elevators.

  Eleventh floor. Corridor with doors to numerous suites. Into number 1103, anticipatorially unlocked upon notification by the admiral downstairs. Impeccable furnishings. Rugs from Araby and Persia. Paintings by artists as yet unknown outside New York. Yet inevitably destined for fame and fortune. Such is Multrum’s unerring taste. Leather couch. Wet bar. Bookshelves holding hundreds of tides by Multrum’s clients. Looking like some Hollywood set designer coordinated them. Cosmocopia on the lowermost shelf, pardy shadowed.

  Multrum’s personal assistant emerging from the back. Well known by Corso. And likewise. An imperturbable Korean woman. Soberly dressed in black linen. Flat face and hair so jet-dark it should be sprinkled with stars. Named most improbably Kichi Koo. And Corso has always longed to ask her. Did you assume this cognomen deliberately. In some kind of madcap Greenwich Village fit of bohemianism. Or were your parents so blithely cruel. But he never has nor will he. Since Koo has never once so much as cracked a smile in his presence.

  “Mr. Fairfield, hello. Mr. Multrum is on the phone presently. But he will see you soon.”

  “Thank you, ah, Ms. Koo. I believe I will help myself to a drink then. To ease the wait.”

  Koo’s wall-like face assumes an even sterner mien. “As you wish.”

  Corso pours himself some of Multrum’s finest single-malt. Often dreamed of, seldom tasted. By writers. Of Corso’s stratum. Sipping it with pleasure. Letting his eyes rove over the shelves. Where they encounter a long row of books by Malachi Stiltjack. Stiltjack being Corso’s entry point into Multrum’s aegis. Not the only debt Corso owes the man. And the rightmost title not familiar. Gods of the Event Horizon. Taking it down. Published last month. And probably already in a second printing. Reading spottily in the text. Yes, yes, transparent style, stirring action, big ideas. That’s the winning formula. To be applied to The Black-Hole Gun. As soon as one returns home. With a face-saving check in pocket. To stave off the bill collectors. And stock the fridge. With beer and jugged herring.

  “Corso you bastard, are you drinking up my entire bar.”

  Multrum slapping Corso jovially on the back. Causing expensive liquor to slosh. Onto Corso’s shirt.

  “Ah but no, of course not, Clive. Just a small tot. To enliven the humors. And prime the digestive track. For lunch.”

  Multrum has Corso by the elbow. A large fragrant cigar projects from Multrum’s face. His agent steering him away from the bar. A silver-haired man of middling height. Clean-shaven and smelling not only of Cuban tobacco but also of expensive aftershave. Available only to literary agents above a certain income level. No doubt. His face engraved with lines that oddly map both a habit of smiling and one of sneering. Not plump but layered with a generous amount of self-satisfied tissue. As if to say, I am insulated by my success.

  “So you haven’t eaten yet. Surprise, surprise. Well, me neither. Let’s go to Papoon Skloot’s. I have something important to discuss with you.”

  “And is this, um, Skloot’s a pricey establishment.”

  Another slap rattles Corso’s bones. Hail fellow well met. We’re all adults here. Don’t give your shameful poverty a thought. Old bean.

  “Don’t sweat it, my friend, it’s all on me.”

  “So very kind of you, Clive.”

  “Can the shit and let’s move.”

  A taxi ferries them to Papoon Skloot’s. During the ride Corso can ponder only Multrum’s mysterious words. Something important to discuss. One senses the ax about to fall. Ass meeting sidewalk. Creditors gnawing on one’s bones. Unjust fate for a simple soul. Who never asked for much. And since youth dreamed only of traveling the star lanes in prose. And who deserves some slack. Now that he is temporarily stymied. By a lack of belief in his own fictions. While at the same time beset. By those very science-fictional conceits made real.

  Corso nearly gives way to self-pitying tears by the end of the ride. But manfully stifles them. Instead adopting an eager air of gaiety. Commensurate with the atmosphere inside the posh restaurant. Where various literati and glitterati clink flutes of champagne. Amidst expensive fabrics, elaborate chandeliers, and servile attendants. And consume tiny portions of elaborately mangled foodstuffs. From plates big as the shields of warriors. In a bad fantasy trilogy.

  Buck up. In the face of elitist pretensions. One must go out in style. This is Corso’s vow. Despite liquor-sticky shirt, soapy trousers, and satchel containing only a return Amtrak ticket, a toothbrush, and a recent issue of Fantascience Journal. With a picture of Hugo Gernsback on the cover.

  “What’ll you have, Corso. Can’t decide, huh. Used to ordering through the drive-up window, hey. Okay, let me get us started.” Multrum rattles off a litany of dishes. The server brings their drinks. Corso allowed one sip. Before Multrum launches into business.

  “Now listen to me, Corso. You and I both know you’re in deep shit with Wankel and Butte Books. But I’ve negotiated you one final extension. However, the grace period hinges on you going over there in person and kissing some ass.”

  “Exactly my own strategy, Clive. Of course, kowtow and touch cap. Not too proud to beg. Yes, certainly. I already have an appointment later this afternoon with Roger.”

  “Excellent! Then back home to dig into Neutron Cannon.”

  “Ah, The Black-Hole Gun.”

  “Sure, whatever. But before then, you’re going to do both of us a big favor. You’re going to knock out a tie-in novel. Vestine Opdycke from Shuman and Shyster called me, desperate for a last-minute replacement for Jerome Arizona. Arizona bailed on this project, and they need it yesterday.”

  His second drink of the day is inflating Corso’s brain. Leery of visionary states. But no untoward incidents so far. No smerps or thoats rampaging through the restaurant. As they once did in the Wal-Mart. Where the beasts received no cheerful hello. From the oblivious store greeter.

  Allowing a drift of mellowness to overtake his anxiety-plagued day. “But Arizona is usually so reliable. Never misses a deadline.”

  “True. But that was before he was caught by the local cops in bed with two sixteen-year-olds.”

  “Oh.”

  “So, are you on board.”

  “But what’s the nature of the project.”

  “A novelization of the Starmaker movie.”

  Corso misbelieves his ears. “The Stapledon classic.”

  “I think that’s the guy’s name.”

  “But there’s already a book. Hundreds of pages of impeccable speculative text. They must have used that as a source of the script. Can’t they just reissue the original.”

  “The movie doesn’t exactly follow the original anymore. Just the new love interests and space battles alone demand a different version. C’mon, it’s easy money. No royalties though. Strictly work for hire.”

  Corso is bewildered. Lowering his glance to his immaculate napkin in his lap. How to answer. Traducing one’s youthful idol. But quick cash. And a foot in the door at Shuman and Shyster. Maybe a good way to dissolve one’s block. Crib from a master. What choice does one have.

  Corso raises his eyes to Multrum’s face.

  The agent’s
brow is mutating to a jutting ledge. Features thickening. Facial pelt growing. Stained horsy teeth protruding. Multrum has devolved. To Neanderthal status. And so have the other diners. And staff. Walking awkwardly with curved backs and bowed legs. Their neckties cinching their enlarged necks. Like barbed wire overgrown by a tree.

  Multrum grows impatient. His voice remains unchanged. Thankfully. No primordial grunts to misinterpret. “Well, Corso, what’s your answer.”

  Even as Corso rummages for his own voice, Multrum continues to devolve. Scales. Fangs. Horns. Spiked tail. Multrum now an anthropomorphic saurian. A dinosaur in Hugo Boss. And the rest of the patrons. Similarly antediluvian. One female dinosaur. Categorized by her dress. Picks up her steak with disproportionately small forelimbs. And pops it entire into her slavering, razor-toothed mouth.

  Sweat soaks Corso’s shirt. Reptilian stench emanates from his table companion. Must phrase one’s acceptance of the odious assignment in the most genial terms. Lest agent take offense. And disembowel one with a casual kick.

  For Corso sincerely doubts

  Multrum would stop

  after only fifteen percent

  of his client

  was eaten.

  One’s third female gatekeeper of the day. The receptionist at Butte Books. Cheeks still hamstery with adolescent avoirdupois. Purple nail polish. Gingery hair secured in two outjutting tails on either side. Of a face both too wise and utterly naive. A recent graduate, no doubt. Of a prestigious school. That should be ashamed of itself. For culturing and feeding innumerable such starry-eyed hapless romantics. Into publishing’s voracious low-wage maw.

  “Ah, Mr. Fairfield to see Mr. Wankel.”

  “Go right in, please.”

  Corso expected to wait. The easy access discommodes him. For he needs to utilize a “jakes.”