INTERVENTION (62 page)

Boskone XXXII was held at the Sheraton-Boston. When the dealers' room opened on Friday the tenth I made my rounds of the tables and greeted old friends and acquaintances among the hucksters. The antiquarian pickings seemed leaner than in other years and the prices higher. Very few new books were now being published in the hardcover format; even first editions from the big houses were issued mostly as large paperbacks. Regular paperbacks, on the other hand, proliferated like fleas on a spaniel in August in response to the reading explosion of the '90s. Desktop printing technology had given rise to a host of cottage publishers of every stripe—fantasy not excluded—and limited collector's editions of every Tom, Dick, or Mary with even the most tenuous claim to fame crowded the good old stuff off the tables.

I did manage to find firsts of the G&D
Fury
by Henry Kuttner, and a fine copy of the remarkable science-fantasy
World D
in the London Sheed & Ward edition of 1935.

As I dickered for the latter with a bookseller acquaintance, Larry Palmira, I became aware of a strange hostility in his manner. At first his subvocalizations were too indistinct to decipher; but as we settled on a final price somewhat higher than I had hoped for, I heard him say:

And you won't coerce ME into going a buck lower dammitall so go try your mental flimflam on some other nebbish!

I signed the credit-card slip and gave it to him smiling. He bagged my book and said, "Always great to do business with you, Roj. Drop in when you're in Cambridge."

"I'll do that, Larry," said I, and walked away thinking hard.

I decided to test my suspicions and stopped at the booth of another dealer friend, Fidelity Swift, pretending interest in a Berkley paperback first of
Odd John,
ludicrously overpriced at twenty-five dollars. She let me beat her down a little. Then I looked her in the eye and murmured, "Come on, Fee, gimme a break. You better be nice to me, kiddo. You know what they say about not getting a metapsychic pissed..."

"No," she laughed. "What do they say?" In her mind was a fearsome image: Nero's garden lit by human torches.

I thought: Merde dans sa coquille! And said, "Damned if I can remember. Double sawbuck, last offer. Cash on the barrelhead."

"Sold!" Relief gushed out of her like blood from a cut artery. The nightmare picture faded but her deep disquiet was now obvious.

I handed over the money and took my prize, saying goodbye while I broadcast the most benignant vibes I could conjure up, superimposed upon an image of her that shaved off thirty pounds and ten years and arrayed her plain features in idealized sexuality.

"See you around, Roger," she breathed, all apprehension swept away. I winked and hurried out of the dealers' room.

The trial. The goddam Scottish trial!

Weinstein had been extremely lucky to win the famous "Not Proven" verdict permissible under Scots law. The lunatic clergyman he had incinerated was unarmed, and witnesses had testified that the old man had offered no threat or resistance when Weinstein ran him down. Only some fancy psychiatric footwork about diminished responsibility due to temporary derangement and Denis's testimony about the inadvertent projections of creative flame exemplified by "Subject C" and documented in his laboratory (Lucille's identity was disclosed only to the judge) brought about Weinstein's acquittal. Even then there were dark editorials about "persons of special privilege" flouting the common law of humanity. The Metapsychic Congress, held four months before the trial, had attempted to anticipate and disarm public apprehension by pointing out that only a minuscule percentage of operants possessed mental faculties that could be classified as threatening to ordinary mortals. There were more reassurances later. How many normals, given Weinstein's provocation, might not have been carried away as he was to the point of violence? In the United States, Weinstein's immolation of the mad murderer became the most hotly argued case since a quiet electronics technician had shot four aggressive young muggers on a New York subway back in the '80s. Behind the rational argumentation and scholarly disputations on the dark side of the unconscious lurked something uglier and more atavistic. The man who had slain Jean MacGregor and Alana Shaunavon had denounced them as witches, and quoted the Bible as justification. Of
course
intelligent modern people understood that metapsychic powers were a natural consequent of human evolution. There was nothing devilish or black-magical about them. But on the other hand...

There was a simple remedy for the irrational fear of a single individual. I had worked it myself on Fidelity Swift. But it was a temporary thing, like a clever actor making an audience believe in a character being portrayed. We operants would be able to disarm the fear of some of the normals some of the time—for a little while. But how would we convince them of our amity over the long haul?

Sunk in the old malheur, I went up to my room to stash the book purchases before going to supper. As I came back into the corridor I was reminded by the number of costumed figures prowling about that the masquerade and meet-the-pros party was in full swing down in the hotel's grand ballroom. There would be music and drinks and conviviality, and such a mob scene that nobody would bother thinking twice about my sinister mental attributes.

The down-elevator door opened to reveal a chamber jammed with exotic fun-seekers. I spotted a squad of youths dressed in medieval battle-gear, a nubile lass with flaming hair and a four-foot "peace-bonded" sword, wearing what seemed to be a bikini of silver poker chips, a Darkoverian mother with two Darkoverian moppets, a statuesque black woman in a white satin evening gown with a little white dragon perched on her shoulder, a stoutish middle-aged gent clad in a conservative suit whose mundane appearance was belied only by the propeller beanie on his head, and a large ape sporting emerald fur and illuminated eyeballs, who had neglected to use a personal deodorant.

"No room! No room!" chorused this bunch as I made to enter the elevator. The ape opened its mechanically augmented white-tusked jaws and stuck its carunculated tongue out at me.

But there is, occasionally, justice in this world. I speared the smelly ape with my most potent coercive impulse and commanded: "Out!" It complied like a lamb and I took its place to universal plaudits. We made a nonstop trip to the ballroom level.

The party had attracted nearly two thousand people. Perhaps half were in fancy dress. A live band played things like "Can You Read My Mind?," "Rocket Man," "Annapurna Saucer Trip," Darius Brubeck's "Earthrise," and John Williams's "Theme from
Gnomeworld.
" In between sets the convention Toastmaster introduced the artists and writers present, and a spotlight tried to pick designated stars out of the crush. There were also parades of the more spectacularly costumed fans across the stage. Those who were particularly beautiful, humorous, or technically awesome received warm ovations.

I headed immediately for the nearest open bar. By the time I had downed three Scotches, I felt considerably cheered. I had repinned my convention badge so that my name was mostly obscured by the lapel of my suit coat. Five attractive ladies (and one flamboyantly gorgeous transvestite, whose gender I detected too late to worry about) danced with me. I introduced myself to the convention Guest of Honor, a tottering nonagenarian survivor of the Golden Age, and by dint of the most gentle coercion and a speedily fetched raspberry seltzer got him to personally inscribe a copy of Boskone's commemorative edition of his early short stories.

And then I withdrew to the sidelines for a breather ... and had my first shock of the evening when I saw Elaine.

Even though she was now over fifty, she was still breathtaking. Her tall slender figure was clad in a long gown of some lightweight metal mesh that flowed from her neck to the floor like molten gold. Her arms, shoulders, and back were bare. The dress's collar was a wide, upstanding band of gold adorned with stones like blazing orange topazes. She had a single heavy bracelet of the same jewels. Her hair was blond now, piled high on her head in an intricate coiffure of stiffly arranged ringlets sparked with gold glints. She was dancing with Dracula.

I gulped down the dregs of my latest Scotch and pressed toward the dance floor. Poor Drac didn't have a prayer in the face of my coercion. For some reason the band was playing a melodic standard, "Old Cape Cod." Elaine stood there among the other dancers, dismayed by the abrupt retreat of her caped and befanged escort, not yet noticing me. I do not recall what my thoughts were. Perhaps seeing her after so many years had drained my brain of everything except the irresistible compulsion to be near her again.

I took her into my arms and we picked up the beat. She stared up at me, wordless. Her mind said: Roger!

"Voulez-vous m'accorder cette danse, Madame?"

"No!...Yes." Oh, my God.

"May I compliment you on your dress. It's much too chic to be a costume." How appropriate that we should meet again at a bal travesti. Do you come to Boskone often?

"No," she said. "This is my first time. My daughter thought I'd find it amusing. She's—she's a rabid science-fiction fan."

Your daughter ... Don's daughter ... she would be twenty. May I ask her name?

"Annarita Latimer. She's there, costumed as Red Sonja."

My eyes followed her mental indication and I was surprised to see the strapping redheaded wench in the silver-dollar bikini. She was too far away for me to scrutinize her directly for operancy, and I am unable to detect operant auras in lighted places. So I simply asked, "Did she inherit the mind-powers?"

"I—I think so." She won't let me in, Roger. There's a barrier, like a shining wall of black glass. One doesn't notice it except at very close range...

That explained my failure to spot her operancy in the elevator.

"What does Annarita do?" I asked easily. "Is she going to college?"

"She's at Yale Drama School. I think she'll be a very good actress."

"Sans doute," I murmured. "And your husband?"

The music was ending. We applauded, and then the M.C. took up the microphone to announce the costume prizes. I led Elaine to the edge of the dance floor, where Dracula waited, glowering.

Her mind told me hurriedly: Stanton died three years ago Roger now I am married to
him.
"Gil, darling! Let me introduce you to a very dear old friend of mine, Roger Remillard. Roger, this is my husband, Gilbert Anderson." The Third, she appended telepathically.

Dracula shook hands with me as though I were Von Helsing. His features, blandly handsome aside from the well-fitted orthodontic fangs, wore a pensive, well-bred little frown. "Remillard ... Remillard. You wouldn't by any chance be related to—"

"It's really a very common Franco-American name," I said. "Thanks for letting me dance with Elaine. We haven't seen each other in years. Are you enjoying the convention?"

He uttered some hearty inconsequentialities, deftly extracted from me my modest means of earning a living, and decided I was no threat after all. "Maybe we can get together for lunch or something later on this weekend."

"Great idea. Let's try to do that," I replied with equally false enthusiasm, simultaneously reassuring Elaine that I was out of it. I asked her: What is he? Upper management? Stockbroker?

She said: VP and chief corporate legal officer.

I said: It figures given the fangs.

And then I pretended to see someone across the crowded room that I had to speak to, so I bid the pair of them adieu. Fleeing, I told her: You are more lovely than ever be happy chérie and never never have anything to do with metapsychic operants...

Then I hurried out of the ballroom, wretched again, and sought a dark corner to lose myself in. I found it in one of the hotel cocktail lounges. Hunched on a stool at the bar, I ordered a double vodka on the rocks.

When I had finished it my brain was as incapable of telepathic reception as any normal's.

And so he had to tap me on the shoulder to get my attention.

I peered groggily at the intruder standing behind me. It was a tall young man with dark curly hair wearing a Flying Tiger jacket, haloed by a fierce neon-red aura. Victor said, "I might have known I'd find you here getting sloshed. On y va!"

He took hold of my arm firmly and seized my mind in a grip like a pit bull's. I saw stars and lurched against him. A rude rummaging was going on in my head, punctuated with offhand thrusts of pain. I was unable to speak. Victor whispered urgently in French, trying to get me out of the bar, but my feet weren't moving. Then something inside my skull seemed to crumple and I moaned out loud and began to walk, biddable as any zombie.

"That's better," said Victor. He steered me toward the elevators. "You're all checked out. We'll go up to your room and pick up your things."

"What ... what the hell?" I protested.

The elevator was crowded with noisy conventioneers. Victor pressed the button for my floor. I didn't know what kind of mischief he had wrought in my brain, but I was sobering rapidly and was once again able to understand mental speech. I also had a hideous headache.

He said: We're driving north Uncle Rogi up to Berlin Maman needs you and I'm taking you to her.

I said: Sunny?...Dieu is she all right what's happened is it serious have you called Denis—

Shut up Uncle Rogi. There is no crisis. When I said Maman needed you I was speaking generally. She needs you if she is to get well and I am to be freed from Denis's meddling.

The elevator door opened and we got out. My head was swollen with lava and the corridor rolled from side to side like a skiff caught in the trough of storm waves. Victor held me up, inserted the coded plastic key-card into the slot of my room door, and thrust me brutally inside. I staggered to the bed and collapsed on it. Muttering obscenities, my nephew relaxed his hold on me and went into the bathroom to gather my things.

Going horizontal must have helped my brain by increasing its blood supply, and I regained a measure of self-control. What the devil was going on? What did Victor really want?