Now, he thought smugly, this documentary project would put him back on the world’s center stage. He had total and absolute control over the project, and he was feeling very good.
Yes, he thought with a smile, history cannot forget me now.
He had first realized that three days ago, sitting at dinner with Kate Ennis. They had been dining at a posh restaurant in the Adams-Morgan section of Washington, D.C., and Kate had been so damned effusive over his accomplishments, his career, and his future, that he had begun thinking that he truly did have “great man” possibilities. Kate had wanted to discuss his ideas for the documentary, and she had been extremely supportive of those ideas. Phineas himself had not been certain that his ideas would fly-after all, he was not a media person, a director or actor or anything of the sort. Yet he had always thought he could succeed in any of those professions without much of a problem. Nothing like running a moonbase, that was for sure. And certainly not as demanding.
He recalled their conversation with pleasure.
“What do you want the documentary to say about you in particular, Colonel?” Kate had asked over the French onion soup.
“Well,” Kemp said, trying to be as modest as possible, “it’s not really so important that my ego is gratified. No, I would much rather it be made obvious that I am involved in something that is invaluable to the fate of mankind. I would be happy, really, if people were to reflect back on all this and say, ‘Old Phineas Kemp, he certainly did his bit.’”
Kate smiled. She certainly was an attractive woman. In fact her dark hair and striking features reminded him of Becky, not in any singular characteristic, but because they were the same type of woman.
“Well, that was well phrased, Colonel.” Kate laughed politely. “But what I was thinking about was the narration. Do you see yourself in that role?”
Kemp would have loved to have narrated the world-wide broadcast, but he knew his voice was a bit on the reedy side. He was familiar enough with audio-visual presentations to know that they were always more effective when you could employ a rich, attention-getting baritone.
“Actually, no,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve got the voice for it, and I think it would be more effective if I were interviewed just like the other members of the crew. “
Kate Ennis smiled and nodded her agreement at this point, so Phineas decided to push a bit further toward endearing her to him. “Besides,” he said with a quick grin, “don’t you think the words ‘Colonel Phineas Kemp’ would sound good spoken in the rolling tones of a famous dramatic actor?”
* * *
He was interrupted from his thoughts by a warning buzzer on the console of the Oldsmobile. Looking down at the colorful readout displays, he saw that he was fast approaching the off ramp for the road to Neville’s home. Kemp reached out and grasped the steering wheel, resuming control of the vehicle. He eased across the lanes of the freeway and slipped onto the off ramp, following the signs to Westport, a small town on the Pacific coastline.
The town itself looked as if it hadn’t changed in fifty years, and had a quaintness to it that seemed out of place in the modern world. Kemp wondered why a world-famous science fiction writer like Neville would want to live in a place like this. He would have imagined that someone like Neville would want to have his digs in a modern sky-rise condo, or even one of the new oceanic cityplexes that were so popular on the East Coast.
But as Kemp drove through the town, he could see how a writer might like a village like Westport. It was obviously some sort of artists’ colony. There were countless shops and boutiques selling all manner of hand-crafted wares and objets d’art. The prices were stupendous, but it was getting difficult to find good artisans’ work anymore. Kemp also noticed a preponderance of young people, especially young women adorned in the latest chic fashions, which was to say, very little at all. Kemp slowed to a very decent cruising speed, ogling the passersby. More than a few of the young women smiled at him. They hadn’t acted like that when he was a college student.
Well, this was no time to be dallying, Phineas thought. He checked his map on the dashboard monitor, keying in the exact location of Neville’s house and watching it light up on the screen. Kemp turned off the main boulevard, headed north along a quiet residential street, then left along a narrow road cut into the side of a sheer rock face. The road hugged the side of the cliff, winding and snaking gradually upward, finally opening up on a small plateau topped by a sculptured mound of earth.
Atop this mound was “Neville Base Alpha,” as the estate-fortress of John T. Neville had been named by the well-known author, raconteur, and television personality. He had another home in Manhattan dubbed “Neville Base Beta,” and Phineas assumed that if the eccentric man ever decided to set up a third residence it would be called “Gamma.”
The estate was an architectural dream—the confluence of many planes and angles, great panes of passive solar glass, clerestories, heat stacks, and decks. The main building was surrounded by a moat filled with water and protected by an electrified fence. There was a single entrance, overlooked by a small guardhouse and a single oriental fellow in a security uniform which looked suspiciously like the uniform of the “dreaded Hardji of the planet Darskath.” The Hardji were a concoction of Neville’s, having appeared in one of his most famous tetralogies, The Darskath Interregnum.
Phineas had read that series of novels when he was a young lad in Canada, and he had assumed since then that he had seen the last of the dreaded Hardji—until he pulled up to the guardhouse.
“Colonel Phineas Kemp, IASA. I’m here to see Mr. Neville,” he said casually to the guard, who peered down at him through the black glass of his helmet visor while training what looked to be some sort of disintegrator weapon at his face.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Neville is expecting you. But first I must see some identification.”
Phineas smiled as he reached for his billfold in his breast pocket.
“Easy,” said the Hardji. “Now bring it out reeeeeal slow.”
“For Christ’s sake,” Phineas said, handing over his IASA ID plate, “it’s just my fucking wallet.”
Ignoring the comment, the guard studied his ID, then nodded as he handed it back. “All right, sir. Mr. Neville will be waiting for you on the lower deck. Just follow the drive around to the left and pull up in the space marked Earth Visitors.”
“Right-o,” Phineas said. “Earth Visitors it is.”
Accelerating and cutting hard on the wheel, Phineas moved quickly away from the guardhouse, crossed over the drawbridge and moat, and followed the perimeter of Neville’s house until he found the parking lot adjacent to the lower deck.
As he rolled to a stop, he saw the sliding glass doors open on the lower deck and an odd-looking figure appear. After all these years, he was finally meeting the author who had thrilled and inspired him as a boy. Despite his case-hardened exterior, Phineas felt a surge of emotion race through him, and he would have sworn his heartbeat jumped just a tad.
Stepping from the car, he watched Neville approach. The writer was a tall man with broad shoulders and a moon face. He had a large, loose-limbed frame, and his clothes hung upon him as if they were still dangling in a closet. Neville had long hair that frizzed out in all directions, and his eyes had a bulging, hyperthyroid aspect. He walked with an arm-swinging, rollicking gait that suggested that he had suffered a stroke or two, but there was a free-spirited energy radiating from him like sunlight.
“Colonel Kemp, welcome to Neville Base Alpha!” The writer extended a large, bony hand and shook Kemp’s. There was surprising strength in his grip.
“Sir, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Please, call me Phineas.” He looked carefully at the old man. In one moment Neville looked every bit of his ninety-plus years, and in the next he appeared decades younger. There was a mercurial aspect to him—he seemed to be forever changing.
“Glad to, P
hineas. Why don’t we come inside?”
Neville led the way into a room filled with memorabilia from long ago-framed paintings of book covers, original magazine illustrations, plaques, photographs, and other pieces of the past. Phineas felt like he was walking through a wing of a museum. He spotted a painting of a familiar cover—a book he had read in the eighth grade called The Scaling of the Xedrin. He had never forgotten the wonderful intricacies of the plot or the ingenious aliens Neville had dreamed up for that one.
“You know, I remember reading this one when I was twelve years old,” Phineas said, pointing to the painting.
“Ah yes, the golden age,” Neville cried.
“What’s that?”
Neville chuckled. “The golden age of science fiction.”
“Oh, you mean back in the nineteen forties?” asked Kemp.
“No, dear fellow. The golden age of science fiction is twelve. That’s the time when most of us discover it, and that’s when it’s best for us, right?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“Nothing to suppose. Look at all the adolescent male fantasies we used to write about. All those spaceships that looked like our dongs? Do you think that was an accident? Fuck, no!”
Neville wheeled erratically and began walking down a long hall, motioning Phineas to follow. They entered a large room decked out with the latest communications and media gear—laser decks, computer consoles, telecom centers, monitors, hologrammers. It looked like the bridge of a movie spaceship from the eighties. At the opposite end of the room was a desk where a middle-aged woman dressed in nurse’s white was sitting studying a computer monitor.
“This is the nerve center of the whole operation,” Neville said. “I call it the bridge. Pretty nifty, eh?”
“Impressive, yes.” Phineas was getting a kick out of the old guy, and smiled easily.
“And that old bag over there in the white clothes is my nurse, Ms. Jane Wilkins. Say hello to the colonel, Nurse Jane.”
The woman stood up and smiled wanly. “You’ll have to forgive Dr. Neville, Colonel. He’s just had his nap, and he’s always a bit high-strung when he first gets up.”
“High-strung? Listen, Colonel, Ms. Wilkins thinks I reached this ripe old age by playing by the rules, see? She doesn’t realize that I smoked a couple of packs a day for sixty years. That I could hold more Jackie D. than any writer since Dick R. Gordon.”
Phineas laughed politely and searched for a place to sit down, selecting a couch in front of what was obviously Neville’s command chair and desk console.
“Ah ... Dr. Neville, I think I’d—”
“Listen, Phineas, don’t bother with the ‘Doctor’ business. I only make Nurse Wilkins do that when I’m feeling feisty.” Neville laughed at his small joke, reached down behind the desk, and produced a two-liter bottle of Jack Daniels. When he noticed Kemp watching him with an expression of genuine surprise, he smiled and paused before putting it to his lips. “Hah! Don’t worry about this. It’s not really Jackie D. I just keep my vitamin gruel in the old bottles. Kinda makes me think of the good old days when I could keep a fifth of that shit next to my chair leg and type out a whole book in one sitting. Sometimes I’d sit there for twenty-four, maybe forty-eight hours straight, just to meet a deadline. And ole Jack would always see me through. Some people said they were my best works—the ones I wrote when I was blind drunk. Funny how literature is, isn’t it?”
“Yes it is,” Phineas said. “Now, I was wondering if we might get the particulars of this event ironed out.”
“What’s to get ironed out? You want me to star in your documentary, right?”
Phineas cleared his throat. “Well, not exactly star, but you would play a significant role. I’d like to arrange for you to meet with the leaders of the Saurians, and we would record the historic event live for a worldwide television audience.”
Neville rolled his slightly bulging eyes for a moment, then smiled broadly. “Of course. I knew I wasn’t the star, but I wanted to have a bit of fun with you.”
“Very well.” Phineas was beginning to have enough of the old gaffer’s humor and just plain nuttiness. “What we have planned is for you to be picked up next week by one of our IASA limo-jets. You would then be flown down to Vandenberg AFB and taken on board one of the lunar shuttles. You would be met at Copernicus Base by some of my officers and staff, and we would personally escort you up to the Dragonstar, which is orbiting at Lagrange Point 5. You would arrive in plenty of time-enough to afford you ample opportunity to tour the lunar installations as well as a complete inspection of the Dragonstar itself.”
Neville did not reply, but simply sat watching him with a strange look on his face.
“Is there something wrong?” Phineas asked.
“Wrong? No, of course not. It’s just that I’ve never been in space before. Seems kind of silly, doesn’t it? The world’s greatest SF writer, and he’s never been in space.”
Neville threw back his head and laughed somewhat maniacally. Then he stopped suddenly and stared at Phineas with a look of mock seriousness. For a moment, the man looked quite mad.
Phineas didn’t know what to do. “Well, there’s a first time for everything,” he heard himself saying.
“What’s the matter, Doctor?” Nurse Wilkins asked. “You’re not becoming afraid in your declining years, are you?”
This seemed to ignite something in Neville. He erupted like a dormant volcano. “What? Long Jack Neville afraid of anything?”
The writer moved to his feet quickly. Some lights on a console by Nurse Wilkins started blinking, and a warning klaxon began to bleat out its insistent message that something was amiss.
“Watch it, Doctor,” Nurse Wilkins said. “You’re setting off your life-support monitors.”
She made a few radio-remote adjustments to her console and Neville started to calm down. The klaxon died out, and Neville stared solemnly at Phineas.
“Never let it be said that Long Jack Neville was afraid to go out into fucking space.” The writer’s face was somewhat contorted, and the life-support monitors chimed lightly. Then he relaxed again.
Phineas had to laugh openly as he watched and listened to old Neville. The guy was a real character, that was for certain. “Please, sir,” Phineas said softly. “Take it easy. No one’s going to be saying anything of the sort.”
“Of course not,” Neville gathered his composure once again. “If the truth be known, I’d be ready to go instantly. When am I supposed to get down to Vandenberg?”
Phineas grinned. “ASAP, sir. I can have a limo-jet up here within the hour if you’d like.”
“That fast, eh? Well, I suppose I’ll have to pack, and things like that ... and I’ll be needing to take along my life-support monitors, and probably the old bag over there as well.”
“No problem with that,” Phineas said. “Have you ever wanted to take a trip to the Moon, Ms. Wilkins?”
The nurse giggled appreciatively, and for a moment appeared to be a young girl again. “God, yes. You won’t have to ask me twice. Do you think I’ll be able to see the Sauries?”
Phineas winced at the mention of the media word for the Saurians, but he covered it quickly with a smiling nod. “Oh yes, if you’re going to be accompanying the good doctor, I don’t see how you could miss them.”
Neville took a long pull from his Jack Daniel’s bottle and seemed to sink a little deeper into his command console chair. “Well, then, I guess there’s not much else to discuss, is there, Colonel?”
“Just when you would like to leave?”
“Couldn’t I wait until you’re ready to go back, and just ride with you?” For the first time Neville seemed to be less manic, more concerned and serious.
Phineas sighed audibly. “Normally, perhaps, but I have some additional business to take care of here on Earth. I’m going to be running from place t
o place for the next few days, and I didn’t want you to be bored—being dragged around with me. That’s why I arranged the private jet and the rest of your itinerary.”
“Oh, I see. That was very thoughtful of you.”
“Well, we tried to think of everything. Believe me, Dr. Neville, the IASA and the World Media Corporation would be honored to have you participate in our project.”
Neville’s eyes brightened a bit. “Yes, you’re right, Colonel. It is only fitting that I be part of the programming.” The writer stood up and walked to a collection of photographs of men in baggy suits, white shirts, and skinny ties. Everyone had short haircuts, horn-rimmed glasses, and pear-shaped bodies. Neville pointed to several of the framed photos. “You know who these guys are?”
Phineas looked closely at the old black-and-white prints. The men appeared to be standing on some forgotten street corner in Brooklyn. “No, I can’t say that I do.”
“That collection of first-class nerds is First Fandom. I came along a little too late to really be a part of them, but they soon adopted me and all the other great writers of the forties and fifties. They knew brilliance when they encountered it, and they accepted me into their select fold, Colonel. They believed in the Future with a capital F! And l owe it to them to be a part of your documentary project. Don’t you see that?”
Phineas wasn’t certain what the old man was getting at, but he did the most diplomatic thing he could think of and nodded with a great show of affirmation.
Neville sucked in a long breath, filling his bony chest with air, and exhaled grandly. “Very well, Colonel, let’s be off on our great adventure. Ms. Wilkins, pack all my shit! We’re going into Space—The Final Frontier.”
“Well,” Phineas said as Neville eased into his command console chair. “I think I’ll be leaving now. I’ve got plenty of work to do before getting back up to Copernicus Base.”
DS02 Night of the Dragonstar Page 6