Marion snickered.
“No,” said Jay Omega earnestly. “It’s really very scientific.”
“No explicit sex?”
“Not even close,” Marion assured him. “Jay’s idea of a stag movie is
Bambi.”
The young man wandered away, and several more fen, like browsing cattle, edged up to the book table.
“Do you make a lot of money writing paperbacks?” asked a Dorsai.
“No,” said Jay Omega. “Hour for hour, the Seven-Eleven pays better.”
“Do you have an agent?”
“Uh. Yeah.” Her husband was from the same hometown as his college roommate; but only Marion had been trusted with that secret of how he got his big break in publishing.
“And what’s your agent’s name and phone number?”
Jay Omega was still wondering how Appin Dungannon would have fielded this question when Marion leaned over and said, “Never ask an author that, unless you want to be taken for a complete jerk!”
“Well, I have this great manuscript…”
Marion turned to Jay Omega. “What’s your consulting fee in engineering?”
“For companies? Two hundred and fifty dollars a day, but—”
“Fine.” She smiled up at the would-be author. “He’ll read your stuff for two hundred and fifty dollars. In advance. Next!”
Joel Schumann, on a break from the computer displays, pulled out his wallet. “Is this your book, Dr. Omega! Hey, great! Would you autograph it for me? Boy, I can’t wait to tell the guys in lab that—”
“No! You can’t do that!” gasped Jay Omega. “Look, Joel, what if I give you a book, autographed and everything. Will you not tell anybody I wrote it?”
He blinked. “Well, sure, I guess, Dr. Mega. If that’s what you want.”
“It is, Joel. It really is. Here, take the book. Now, is that ‘Schumann’ with two ‘Ns’?”
“Yes. Say, Dr. Mega, are you coming back to the computer room?”
“Tomorrow for sure,” he promised, avoiding Marion’s disapproving glare.
“You’re hopeless,” sighed Marion, when Joel was gone. “All you want to do is play with your high-tech toys. You ought to hire someone to be Jay Omega for you.”
“Someone like that?” asked Jay Omega, nodding toward his fellow author.
Marion looked at Appin Dungannon, who was posing for a Polaroid photograph with two barbarian maidens in leather battle garb. “Forget I mentioned it, Jay.”
T
he Rubicon Costume Contest, held in the hotel ballroom, was the social event of the evening. Since no audience participation was required, except lust, which was optional, even sociopaths like Bonnenberger chose to attend. Wargamers, Dungeon Masters, NASA freaks, comic book junkies, and other assorted fen, costumed and otherwise, sprawled in metal folding chairs facing the stage and waited for the pageantry to begin.
As official judge of the competition, Appin Dungannon was given a seat of honor in full view of the stage, and a small table with refreshments and a yellow legal pad, on which he might make notes about the various contestants. At the moment, however, he seemed more interested in the lint on his cowboy hat than he was in the proceedings at hand.
Miles Perry, who was master of ceremonies, clutched his note cards in a sweaty fist, and glanced toward the wings. “Are they ready yet?” he mouthed at Diefenbaker.
Dief shook his head vigorously, and made a little sign that meant “Stall them.”
Miles tapped the microphone. “Ah … hum. Can you hear me out there?” An electronic shriek accompanied his voice, sending two technicians scurrying for the sound system. “First of all, I’d like to thank … I’D LIKE TO THANK … Testing.”
“The costumes are really works of art,” whispered Marion to Jay Omega. “It’s rather sad, really.”
“Why? I think it would be nice to have such … talent,” he said almost enviously.
“I was thinking of how they use it, Jay. Imagine working for six months on a costume that you’ll only get to wear once or twice a year, instead of going into dress designing or some other profession related to that skill, where you could actually accomplish something.”
Jay Omega smiled. “Not everyone has a tenure-track mind, Marion.”
“I still think it’s a waste.” She looked up at the stage where the first contestant had made her entrance. “And that is particularly a waste.”
The costume was impressive: yards and yards of green velvet, carefully embroidered with gold thread and artificial pearls. A leather cummerbund with criss-crossed laces cinched the waist, and the white satin bodice stopped quite abruptly to expose two aggressively prominent breasts. The effect of this medieval artistry would have been pure enchantment, had the ensemble been ten
sizes smaller, and had it not been battened on to a fierce-looking redhead who might have outweighed the average calf.
“This … ah … this is Brenda Lindenfeld of Annandale, portraying the Welsh goddess Arianrhod.” Miles Perry’s voice made little puffing sounds in the microphone as he leaned over his note cards.
The audience waited in polite silence—or perhaps weary indifference. No catcalls rang out from the darkness, and even Appin Dungannon remained solemnly bent over his legal pad, although the time he had spent evaluating the costume could be measured in milliseconds.
“I’m glad nobody laughed,” murmured Jay Omega.
“Oh, no, they wouldn’t,” Marion assured him. “These guys know what it’s like to be outcasts; they are very tolerant indeed. Except intellectually. Besides, look around you.”
Jay Omega glanced toward the rows behind them, wondering what he was supposed to notice.
“Yes? Looks like one of my engineering classes to me.”
“It would,” grinned Marion. “Mostly males. Women are at a premium in this hobby, and therefore even the plain ones are prized. That poor creature up there could pick up six guys by Sunday if she chose. I expect she’ll settle for one.”
Jay Omega peered at Brenda Lindenfeld, who was rotating slowly to show off her hooded cloak. “Any six guys?”
“No, silly. Any six losers. You know, the terminally shy guys who have no idea how to talk to a woman; the runty little nerds that no one else
wants; and the fat intellectuals who want to be loved for their minds. She can take her pick of those.”
“That’s nice. I guess.”
Marion shook her head. “I find it very frustrating. It seems to me that they all cluster together like sheep with their backs to the wind, when they would be a good deal better off coming to terms with the world.”
“They seem happy enough,” said Jay Omega, wishing somebody would laugh or applaud to prove his point.
“Sure, they’ve moved their egos into fictional bodies on the paperback rack so that they can ignore the rejection in real life. I teach science fiction, Jay! I know these people.”
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!”