“I tell you this now, because the belief in Chip Livingstone was impeding the police investigation of Dungannon’s murder. Now that you know he doesn’t exist, please think harder for anyone you might know who had a reason to want to kill Appin Dungannon, and please give the police any help that you can. That’s all I have to say. Good night.”
No one moved. Ayhan looked skeptical. The rumblings grew louder.
Finally, above the wrangling, Bernard Buchanan’s voice rang out, “Fellow fen! In the video lounge in ten minutes! There will be a memorial service to honor the memory of our lost friend-Chip Livingstone!”
“All right!” someone yelled. “To the video lounge.”
Scattered applause grew into a standing ovation, and the bereaved and indignant Bernard Buchanan marched off toward the TV room with a trail of bewildered mourners in his wake.
Despite the bouquet of plastic flowers on the table at the front, the William Byrd Conference Room looked not much like a chapel, and nothing at all like the bridge of the Enterprise, where the wedding was supposed to be taking place. The imitation wood paneling and short green drapes were more conducive to a discussion of tax shelters than to a marriage ceremony.
“In the midst of death we are in life,” murmured Jay Omega, who thought it was time he said something profound.
“Don’t you start!” hissed Marion. “You’ve done quite enough already. Besides, I was counting on you to remain sane.”
“How can I be sane? I think we’ve fallen down the rabbit hole!” He nodded toward the lectern at the front of the William Byrd Conference Room, where an embarrassed-looking gentleman in the red dress uniform of a Star Fleet officer stood holding a white leather Bible. Ushers who were evidently members of the Enterprise engineering crew were escorting fellow shipmates and other costumed guests to the folding chairs on either side of the red-carpeted aisle.
“Romulan or Vulcan?” the ushers asked each guest.
Marion, who had been poised to say “friends of the bride,” had responded to the question with an open-mouthed stare, and Jay Omega answered, “Klingon!” which got them seats in the back row of the Romulan side.
“Do you suppose their parents are here?” asked Marion.
“Why not?” asked Jay Omega. “Your mother once remarked that if you’d get married again, she’d be so grateful she’d come to the ceremony, even if she had to sky dive out of the Concorde.”
“She didn’t say anything of the kind!”
“Well, she probably thinks it.”
Marion made a face. “Going to make an honest woman of me, then?”
“You mean stick one of those worms in your ear, like in The Wrath of Khan, so you’d tell the truth?”
Marion told him to stick it in his ear, and further discussion was precluded by the sound of “Amazing Grace” played on a bagpipe. The audience turned to stare at Donnie McRory, stuffed into a homemade kilt two sizes too small, marching slowly up the aisle holding—but not playing—the bagpipe.
“Pipe her up, Scotty!” someone called out.
The music, which when one listened carefully, was actually several bagpipes, plus a few drums (the entire Strathclyde Police Pipe Band, to be exact), was coming from a cassette tape recorder on a chair by the window. Donnie McRory, who owned neither kilt nor bagpipe, was authentically Scottish, as Star Trek’s James Doohan was not, but as a stereotype he was remarkably disappointing. Only his Glasgow accent tallied with American expectations of the “typical” Scot.
“How do I get meself into these situations?” McRory was asking himself as he marched down the aisle. “Is it the American beer, or what?”
Having given the matter some thought, McRory decided that he got into these situations because there wasn’t much else to do when you’re by yourself on a tour, and also because people kept asking outrageous things of him. Being a reserved Briton, McRory was psychologically unprepared for the American audacity of imposing on people. He was usually so taken aback at the pushiness of their requests that he found himself complying rather than compound the embarrassment by refusing.
As the tape recorder launched into “Scotland the Brave,” the bridegroom, in his blue science officer’s uniform, came and stood by the lectern, accompanied by a heavyset, blond “Chekov.” He gave the four-fingered Vulcan peace sign to the audience, and smiled.
“What do you think of getting married in costume?” asked Jay Omega.
Marion shrugged. “What do you call spending eight hundred dollars for a white satin gown you’ll only wear once? —Was that question academic, by the way?”
“Absolutely,” Jay assured her.
They turned around to watch as bridesmaids representing Nurse Chappell and Lieutenant Rand inched up the aisle in their black boots and the sexist ‘Sixties costumes that passed for the “women’s wear” of the twenty-third century. In their hands they carried small black gadgets decorated with white satin ribbons and baby’s-breath.
“Isn’t that sweet?” said Marion. “They’re carrying Tri-Corders.”
Jay Omega leaned over for a closer look. “Tri-Corders, hell!” he muttered. “Those things are stud-finders.”
“Ooh! Where can you buy one?”
“No, Trashmind! I mean a device for locating wooden beams inside the walls. Carpenters use them.”
“Oh. Too bad, because it sounded—”
“Shh! Here comes the bride!”
In deference to her well-padded thighs, Pamela Jarrod wore a knee-length modification of Saavik’s mini-skirted uniform, and very high boots. Her dark brown hair, augmented by a fake chignon, was swept up in accordance with regulation Star Fleet dress codes, revealing a very convincing pair of pointed ears. She carried a metal sculpture bouquet of aluminum flowers.
The Reverend “Captain Kirk” extracted a typed note card from his Bible, and summoned up a wan smile. “Dearly beloved,” he said to the assembled company, “we are here to launch a life voyage of this Enterprise couple, David and Pamela, whose lifetime mission is to seek out strange new worlds—”
Jay Omega clutched Marion’s hand, looking as if he were going to choke.
“What is it?” she whispered anxiously.
He managed to hiss back, “Is the groom going to go where no man has gone before?”
For the rest of the wedding, they had to pretend they were crying.
Donnie McRory was relieved to discover that the blue “Romulan ale” served at the wedding reception was in fact draft Moosehead with food coloring. The general good will of the festivities had mellowed him to the point of actually volunteering to play for the reception, but the happy Trekkies explained that he would only be needed to appear in the wedding photographs, and that they would be quite happy with their tape-recorded soundtracks from the Star Trek movies.
He decided that he would make a really late night of it, and then call Margaret in Glasgow just about the time she’d be getting up. She wouldn’t believe a word of it, of course, but the newlyweds had promised to send him prints of the pictures. Nice lot these sky-fi people were, he thought. Odd how interested they were in Scotland. Just before the wedding, a funny old gent with a gray crew cut had come up to him in the hall, asking if he were a member of the Scottish Archaeological Society. Fancy that. Not wanting to disappoint a culture-minded yank, Donnie had claimed a deep personal interest in the organization. After all, he had sent them a donation of two pounds when the Lewis Chessmen went on exhibit in Edinburgh, and he’d been on their mailing list ever since. The old gent seemed excited no end by Donnie’s knowledge of the Scottish archaeologists; took notes about everything in a little blue book; said he’d like to drop by in the morning and talk about it.
Donnie McRory sipped his beer, wondering why Mr. Ayhan had asked so many questions about the archaeologists’ fund-raising efforts. He shrugged. Probably just another potty American. They were always on about something.
Marion didn’t know whether it was the bilious blue color of the “Romulan ale” or
the almost palpable reek of body odor emanating from the guest in the brown leisure suit, but she was ready to call it a night. She looked around at the clumps of Trekkies and Middle Earthlings nibbling Kroger-Deli carrot cake and cheese puffs, and decided that it was all unutterably sad. She supposed that the bride and groom would go home to a one-bedroom apartment filled with tatty paperbacks, stacks of back issues of F and SF, and furniture from their parents’ garages. The bride had happily confided that she had just graduated with a degree in history, and that she had already landed a job at Burger King which would see them through the groom’s two more years as a computer science major. Marion hoped that one of the elves around the beer tap could grant wishes: this couple was going to need a gross of them.
“Are you ready to go yet?” she asked Jay Omega. “Don’t forget that you have to figure out how to run a dungeon between now and tomorrow morning.”
He nodded. “I guess so. The first thing I need to know is where this game is supposed to take place. Nobody mentioned that.”
“You’re going to feel right at home,” grinned Marion. “It’s scheduled for the high-tech room. I think the hotel needed a couple of the other conference rooms for other groups, and since you won’t have more than fifteen people there shouldn’t be any problem …”
“Computer room?” Jay evinced enthusiasm. “I think I’ll drop down and check things out. I didn’t see that editor around tonight, did you? I wonder how he’s getting along with the disk …”
“Who cares? Joel’s helping him anyway, isn’t he?”
“That’s right,” said Jay distractedly, “Joel … I think I’ll just see how they’re doing. Do you want to come?”
Marion shook her head. “I’ll be up in the room, studying the scenario they gave you. Don’t be too long!” She kissed him on the cheek. “You know how jealous I am of computers.”
“I know. I think it’s a glitch in your programming.”
By now it was nearly midnight, and most of the con participants had dispersed to private parties in the guests’ rooms. Lieutenant Ayhan had called it a night shortly after eleven, deciding to wait for the ballistics report and the results of other inquiries before continuing his investigation in the morning. In the video lounge Bonnenberger and two other Top Secret players were planning a surprise attack on that dreaded terrorist organization. The Omaha Rotary Club, while on the television screen Superman II played to an audience of empty couches. Somewhere on the sixth floor, Richard Faber lay on his back, panting, and reflecting on the fact that he was no longer eligible to capture unicorns; that he had lost all hope of performing miracles as Lancelot once could; and that he was now Unfit for Minotaur Consumption. Virginity did have its mystic qualities, but he thought, as he reached for Brenda Lindenfeld, experience was handier on a day-to-day basis.
Jay Omega reached the door of the high-tech exhibit room before it occurred to him that it was nearly midnight on a Saturday, and that any con personnel in their right minds would keep the place locked. He was sure that the equipment was all on loan from various electronics firms.
He had been wondering how to go about finding Joel Schumann, and whether he should even bother, when he noticed a line of light under the closed door of the room. Trying the door knob, he found it was unlocked after all.
Joel Schumann was asleep all right, but not in his room. He was curled up in a swivel chair using his windbreaker for a pillow, while at the computer table Louis Warren peered into the TV monitor, flicking up another screenful of green letters.
Jay Omega tiptoed up to Warren’s chair. “Is that Appin Dungannon’s book you’re reading?” he whispered.
“Yes,” the editor whispered back. “I just wanted to make sure that the manuscript’s all there, and in some kind of publishable form, because when I get back to New York, my bosses will ask me that as soon as I walk in. I’ll be finished soon. I didn’t know how to turn this stuff off, so Joel very kindly volunteered to stay.”
Jay Omega looked around the room. There was an empty table and a collection of folding chairs in readiness for the morning’s D&D game. He noticed the Macintosh in its usual place beside its printer. “Did the police check out that computer?”
“The one the note was written on? Yes. Joel made them be pretty careful with the fingerprint powder, so I don’t think they damaged the machine. There weren’t any prints, though. I overheard one of them telling Ayhan.”
“Did Joel remember who had used it?”
“About half the convention, I think. Apparently this room is very popular with wargamers. Some of them were very annoyed tonight because I wouldn’t give up the IBM-PC.” Louis Warren yawned. “These machines aren’t too bad. I guess. I’m just afraid I’ll push the wrong button and make everything disappear.”
“That’s not likely,” smiled Jay Omega, who had had the same conversation with Marion. “Just don’t agree to anything that says delete!”
The editor still looked worried. “Do you suppose there’s another disk containing part of the manuscript? Is this disk full?”
With a few taps, Jay Omega summoned up the directory. “No, it’s fine,” he said. “There’s still about twenty per cent of the disk space left. Why?”
“Well … unless Appin Dungannon changed his methods, there’s something missing.”
“The book doesn’t make sense?”
“No. It’s all here. Once we correct the typos and his variations in name spellings, it’ll be ready to go, but I was expecting to find something that isn’t on this disk.”
“What’s missing?”
Louis Warren explained. “… And on every one of the eighteen Runewind books that I’ve edited, it has always been there. It’s sort of a trademark. His own form of protest, I guess. We never let it get into the publicity releases, of course, because it wouldn’t look good for the series. But I don’t think he’d quit doing it, no matter how rushed he was.”
Jay Omega studied the disk’s directory. “It could have been erased,” he conceded.
“I guess we’ll never know, then,” shrugged the editor.
“Oh, sure we will. Unless the guy really knew his stuff, we can probably get it back. Excuse me while I wake up Joel.”
While Joel Schumann sipped his Dr. Pepper, yawned, and tried to boot up his brain, Jay Omega explained the situation to Louis Warren. “You see, when you erase a file on a disk, you don’t really erase it right then. You just render that file unable to be found by the directory. So if you—”
Louis Warren smiled and nodded and smiled some more. It was gibberish; it was technical; it was Sanskrit. In the back of his mind he wondered if the publisher would switch him over to something more restful, like Gothic romances. SF was making his head hurt.
Joel Schumann yawned again and stretched. “You mean you just want to take a look at a file that somebody erased, but the disk is okay?”
“It’s the one you put in the computer for me,” Louis Warren told him.
“Oh, that one. Because if it had Coke spilled on it, or a staple through it, or you’d stepped on it, there’s a place out on the West Coast that’ll read it for you anyhow. They charge two hundred bucks, though, and it takes a while.”
“No, this is just a regular disk,” said Jay Omega. “If you’ve got your Norton disk, it shouldn’t take us very long.”
Louis Warren thought that they might as well draw pentagrams on the floor and rattle chicken bones, while they were at it. None of it made much sense to him, and he was too tired to devote many brain cells to it, anyway.
Joel Schumann rooted around in a file box full of disks, pulled out the one he wanted, and shooed Louis away from the computer. “Won’t take long,” he remarked cheerfully.
Louis sank into the swivel chair and closed his eyes. “If you find anything, let me know.” His mind settled into a happy reverie involving Jackie Collins, Vogue, and a word processor with keys that said “Chop” and “Puree.” Every now and then he could hear remarks from the sorcerer’s a
pprentices across the room. Things like, “… file may be displaced by a later entry …” and “8 two-sector clusters …”
Several best sellers later, he heard the talking grow louder. “Okay, the right arrow takes you from sector one to sector two, and F8 finds the next pair in sequence.”
“It’ll be choppy, but it’s coming.”
Someone shook his arm. “Wake up, Mr. Warren. We’ve got something on the screen for you to look at.”
The editor ambled back to the computer desk and peered at the gaggle of words in mid-screen, surrounded by various bits of technical hieroglyphics.
The ruddy blonde Norse woman, who was built like a human draft horse, winced a bit as Tratyn Runewind came toward her. He had only had two baths in his life: one the day he was born and one the day after he got drunk in the cow byre, but that was not the …”
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