The second contestant, an Imperial Stormtrooper in a homemade uniform of cardboard and white styrofoam clumped onto the stage. He pointed his laser-gun at the audience, leered menacingly through the white face mask, and bowed to Appin Dungannon. The judge’s salute turned into a stifled yawn, and the Stormtrooper marched back into the wings.
Miles Perry leaned into the microphone. “And that was contestant number two. Chip Livingstone, as Sanyo the Stormtrooper.” He clapped a couple of times halfheartedly, but the audience response was weak.
Marion turned back to Jay Omega. “I knew a guy once—Brian Something-or-Other—who had read every single book we covered in the science fiction course. He had also read every other book by the same authors. And do you know what grade he got in the course? An F. He didn’t come to class half the time. He even missed the mid-term. He was off role-playing and dragon-slaying.”
Jay Omega frowned. “That doesn’t make sense. It’s an elective course, and he knew the material. Why would he blow an easy A?”
“Beats me. I never could figure it out. A’s don’t mean much to a dragon-slayer.”
“And yet … dragon-slaying does have its charms, even for that rare integrated personality in the universe,” said Jay Omega.
Marion looked at him like, who was he kidding? He was kidding her.
“You’re right,” she sighed, “I guess it bothers me so much because as an adolescent, I used to be one of these misfits. And in some ways, I guess I still am.”
Jay Omega patted her hand. “You mean well, Marion, but you have the soul of an Old Testament prophet.”
Walter Diefenbaker hurried down the steps at the side of the stage and scooted across to the empty chair beside Jay Omega. “I think things will take care of themselves backstage,” he whispered. “So I thought I’d sneak out and watch.”
The next contestant might have stepped off a book cover. It took the audience a moment’s thought to realize that the perfect elf boy on the stage must really be a thirteen-year-old girl. Her smooth, dark hair was shaped to her head like a cap, and her slender body and small, pointed features suggested equally pointed ears beneath the hair. Her costume, vaguely reminiscent of Robin Hood, consisted of a puffed-sleeve shirt, leather jerkin and breeches, and fringed knee-length boots. Tied to her forearm was a stuffed satin dragon, positioned for flight.
Cameras flashed.
“This is Anne Marie Gregory of Reston, as a Dragonrider,” Miles Perry informed the crowd. This time the applause was generous.
“She’s excellent!” said Marion. “For once, a face that fits the costume.”
“Quite talented, too,” nodded Diefenbaker. “She makes those dragons herself. There are some on display in the art room.”
Marion glanced in the direction of Appin Dungannon, who seemed no more interested than usual. “I suppose she’ll win?” she asked Diefenbaker.
Dief reddened. “Well, she certainly has a good costume, and she shows a lot of talent, doesn’t she? We must hope for the best. Of course, judging is purely subjective, and—” His voice trailed away to the sound of two hands clapping—Appin Dungannon’s hands, in fact.
A simpering little blonde of normal weight had wandered up to center stage and was smiling uncertainly across the footlights. Her long golden hair was crowned with a garland of silk flowers, and the elegant white dress was a wedding gown rescued from the Goodwill. She was the personification of cotton candy.
Miles Perry looked anxiously at the applauding judge, and then at the vision in white. “Ah … we have here Miss Brandy Anderson as the lovely Galadriel from The Lord of the Rings.”
Marion scowled at Diefenbaker. “Do you mean that this is going to turn out to be a beauty contest? Does it matter whether you made your costume, or how original you are?”
“Well,” said Diefenbaker. “Sometimes it does.”
“The blonde didn’t make that costume. She just brushed her blonde curls and threw on a wedding dress!” Marion had spent too many years as an ugly duckling herself to approve of beauty winning out over merit.
“You mustn’t rely too much on the judge’s objectivity,” stammered Dief. “Still, the Dragonrider was well done, and I find that I’m never much good at predicting what people will do.”
The next two contestants, a Gandolf in a velour bathrobe and a high-school-varsity version of Conan the Barbarian, drew a ripple of polite applause from the audience, but their appearances hardly disturbed anyone’s conversation. Probably the most original costume of the evening was a tentacled alien, glistening with plastic slime, and belching smoke from his navel. He received loud applause from the audience, and a standing ovation from his roommates, but Dungannon waved him off with a sour smile. A short person in a monk’s robe and a rubber Yoda mask drew some cheers from favoritism, but he rated no more than a glance from the judge.
“That was Matt Simpson from Laurel, Maryland, as Yoda the Jedi Master in Star Wars,” said Miles Perry, as if anyone needed to be informed. “Our next entrant is Clifford Morgan, costumed as … oh, dear!” With a stricken look, Miles Perry dropped his note cards and fled behind the curtain.
In the ensuing fascinated silence, the audience could hear a murmur of voices rising from backstage, building to an occasional crescendo of shouting. After several moments of muffled argument, the curtains parted, and a tall, slender youth with a homespun cloak and snow-white hair appeared at center stage.
The audience gasped and whispered, as the contestant drew his sword and raised it in a salute to Appin Dungannon. “Writer of the Saga!” he cried. “Tratyn Runewind salutes you!”
Appin Dungannon looked as if he had just sat on Excalibur. He glared at the posturing figure on stage with the look of a fire dragon about to belch forth a wave of fire and sulphur: eyes bulging, nostrils flared, and face an apoplectic shade of purple.
With the possible exception of the immortal Rune Warrior, nobody breathed. All eyes turned to Dungannon. After an interval of suspended animation that felt to Marion long enough to do one’s taxes in, the tableau exploded.
Appin Dungannon snatched up the nearest empty folding chair and hurled it at the stage. “You impudent maggot!” he roared, hoisting another chair over his head. “Out of my sight! Out of this CON!”
“Tratyn Runewind” continued to smile as he dodged folding chairs, comforted perhaps by the knowledge that he had now become a legend in the annals of Fandom. Years from now, oddly dressed misfits would hunch over their Cherry Cokes, and between rolls of the eight-sided dice, they would tell the novices how Clifford Morgan had suffered abuse and risked untold real-life hit points from projectile folding chairs, in defense of the integrity of his player character, Tratyn Runewind.
Fortunately, Appin Dungannon eventually ran out of chairs, and in the lull from bombardment, Miles Perry crept back on to the stage and half-dragged Clifford Morgan behind the curtain.
“But I wanted to ask him about his new book!” Morgan protested as he vanished from sight.
Appin Dungannon took his place behind the table as if nothing had happened. “Proceed,” he said, pointing his pencil at the stage.
The Klingon admiral who appeared from behind the curtain was showing considerably more emotion than his race is purported to have. He stood white-faced and rigid before the footlights, as if anticipating a firing squad. When Appin Dungannon flashed him a benign smile and waved him off, the Klingon bolted for the wings, a performance that was, as Mr. Spock would say, “Highly illogical.”
The remaining contestants strutted and fretted their minute upon the stage, barely noticed by anyone, except when Miles Perry, whose note cards were out of order, referred to a Batman impersonator as “a character who manages to be strong and yet beautifully feminine at the same time.” The next contestant, Wonder Woman, hurried onstage, but the giggles and references to Robin and the batpole continued for several minutes.
Finally Miles Perry announced that the contestants had all been seen, and that after a few moment
s of deliberation, the judge would make his rulings known. Appin Dungannon pulled his cowboy hat over his eyes, and propped his boots up on the table.
“Do you really think he’ll pick the blonde?” hissed Marion.
“I don’t think he’ll pick Tratyn Runewind,” said Jay Omega.
Diefenbaker smiled nervously. “It isn’t important. All the winner gets is an autographed copy of a Dungannon first edition and a gift certificate from Pizza Hut.”
“It’s the principle of the thing,” grumbled Marion.
Jay Omega consulted his program. “It says they’re showing movies in here after this. Want to stay for them?”
“That depends,” said Marion. “What’s playing?”
“I’m not familiar with them. There’s one called Robot Monster.”
“That’s a man in a gorilla costume and a diving helmet pretending to be an alien. And he keeps contacting the mother ship on a Jacob’s Ladder from a high school science lab,” said Diefenbaker.
“Fifties. Low budget,” added Marion.
“Okay. How about The Thing? It says James Arness is in it. I liked him in Gunsmoke.”
“Well, you won’t recognize him here. He’s plays a giant asparagus who crash-lands in the arctic.”
“Hmm. Plan Nine From Outer Space …”
“OH, NO!” cried Marion and Dief together.
“Cardboard tombstones!”
“Hubcap flying saucers!”
“Bela Lugosi died while they were making the picture, and they kept the footage he was in, but they finished the movie with a replacement who looked nothing like him.”
Jay Omega looked hopeful. Visions of the computer room danced in his head. “Well,” he said, “I guess we don’t have to see that.”
Marion grinned. “Of course we do! It’s so bad you won’t believe it.”
All entrants of the costume competition except the offending Runewind had lined up across the stage awaiting the judge’s decision. Batman and Wonder Woman held hands, while Conan and the Klingon scowled at the audience. Yoda chatted with the Dragonrider.
Appin Dungannon pushed back his Stetson and took his feet off the table, nodding to Miles Perry that he was ready. Perry rushed over to receive the results, but Dungannon waved him away, and ambled toward the stage himself. The audience cheered loudly.
After adjusting the microphone some four inches downward, Dungannon smirked at the audience and motioned for silence. “Can it, you sleaze-puppies!” he said cheerfully. “Nothing you think could possibly make any difference to me. In fact, it would be news to me that you did think. Are there any Libertarian assholes out there?”
A few wargamers raised their hands.
“That’s right. Raise your grubby little hands. You should all be belled, like lepers. Where was I? Oh, yeah. To keep from having to say this two hundred more times during this Con while you grovel for my autograph: yes, I am working on the new Tratyn Runewind. In fact, I expect to be finished with it tomorrow, and since I am over deadline as usual, my editor will be coming here to pick it up.”
Several members of the audience began to look alert.
Appin Dungannon sneered. “Stop salivating, vermin! You have all the creativity of a Spellcheck disk! I have told my editor not only to avoid you at all costs, but also to disinfect his overcoat after he leaves, in case some of you brush past him in the halls.”
“I don’t believe this!” whispered Marion. “He’s alienating his fans.”
Diefenbaker shook his head. “He’s always like this. People expect it.”
“Can you tell us about the new novel?” yelled a guy in the fifth row.
“No, pinhead. Your attention span isn’t that long. Besides, I want all of you to save the quarters you receive for casual sexual encounters in the men’s room, and buy the book. And after you have finished reading it, with your lips moving no doubt, I want you to write me a nice long letter saying exactly what you think of the plot, the characters, and every little detail—and use it for toilet paper! Because I don’t want to hear from you morons! None of you can even spell ‘literature,’ much less recognize it!”
“Who won the costume contest?” someone called out.
“See what I mean about your attention spans? Shut up, cretin, I’m vilifying you. When I have finished abusing you, I will announce which of these poor afflicted sociopaths gets a free pizza to encourage his delusions.” Dungannon shaded his brow with his hand and leered across the footlights at his captive audience. “A pizza! You people need pizzas like TWA needs terrorists.”
Murmurs rippled through the audience.
Dungannon looked pleased. “I’ve wounded you? That’s a promising sign. You’re too stupid to leave, but at least you know when you’re being insulted.” He beamed at them. “By the way, I see according to tomorrow’s schedule that some of you will be staging your own pathetic D&D variant at an ungodly hour, running all over the hotel pretending to be elves and things.” He shook his head. “Isn’t ridicule enough for you? Must you have contempt as well?”
The costumed fantasy fen booed gently.
“Oh, spare me your whines! I wish I could arrange for cannibalistic orcs to lurk in the halls and eat the lot of you, but—contrary to your delusions—that is not possible. So let me just warn you that any asshole who dares to disturb me during your morning antics, while I’m writing, will have an IBM keyboard for a suppository!”
Dungannon answered the catcalls and cries of “The plane! The plane!” (an oblique comparison of his size to that of Herve Villechaise) with a tip of his cowboy hat. When the hissing died down, he consulted his legal pad. “Now about the costume contest. May I suggest that next year’s prize be a lifetime of therapy and the sedative of your choice? I came up with several possible categories of merit. Most Likely to Be Mistaken for a Dirigible …” He nodded in the direction of the velvet-gowned Brenda Lindenfeld who reddened and scowled. “Most Sexually Ambiguous. Most Ludicrous. Most Pathetic. An outstanding bunch; the competition was fierce. —But not for first place. That choice was quite simple. The winner is Miss Brandy Anderson as Galadriel.”
The blonde in the wedding gown clapped her hands and rushed forward to hug Appin Dungannon amid faint applause.
“I don’t believe it!” hissed Marion. “That old satyr!”
“I’m afraid it was no surprise to the rest of us,” Diefenbaker reminded her. “Remember, it’s only a pizza.”
Marion nodded. “Didn’t you say that the Gregory girl had stuffed dragons in the art show?”
“Yes, you can bid on them during the auction Sunday.”
“Fine. I’ll bid what I think the piece is worth plus the price of a large pizza! Somebody has to see that justice is done.”
Jay Omega grinned. “Thank you, Mrs. Peel!”
“We said that we were going to announce the winner of the writing contest tonight,” Dief reminded them. “Are you ready?”
Jay looked at Marion. “I think so.”
“Give us a few minutes to confer,” Marion told Dief.
When he had gone to alert Miles of the delay, she and Jay put their heads together. “Okay, I eliminated all the garbage and the written accounts of D&D episodes. Do you remember the three stories you read?”
“I remember what they were about, I think. I didn’t have much time,” said Jay.
Marion handed him a piece of paper. “I wrote down the titles and authors to refresh your memory. ‘The Prodigies’ is about the group of kids with ESP.”
“Oh, right. That was pretty well-written. It looked like a lot of work was put into it.”
Marion sighed. “Fiction shouldn’t look like a lot of work was put into it. It should flow. But the story was okay.”
“Which one was ‘Memory Awake?’ The computer that had killed the ship’s crew?”
“Yes. The title is a line from Emily Dickinson: ‘Remorse is memory awake.’”
“That’s okay, isn’t it?”
“That’s wonderful, Jay. It
shows a glimmer of literacy. And the grammar is better than the rest of them.”
“I thought the technical material in that one was well done. Some of the details I’d quibble with, but it held my attention.”
“That’s because it was hard science fiction. Your genre. But you’re right. It was a good story. The last one is ‘Elfsong.’ It’s fairly standard fantasy, but the author handles description beautifully. The writing is very strong, but the story is so-so.”
Onstage, Miles Perry had finished presenting Miss Anderson her pizza certificate, and after urging a final round of applause for all the contestants, he gripped the microphone and looked inquiringly at Diefenbaker. Dief pointed to Jay Omega and nodded.
Bimbos of the Death Sun Page 6