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Chuck Umber. Rick Foss, what are we doing here?"
Foss was a lean, bearded man with a mad smile and an absurd
hat. "We are here to hold Cruisecon, the first World Science Fiction
Convention ever to be held at sea."
"And how did this come about?"
"Nice timing. I notice we're coming about. Well, Gullwhale was a
Green research project, expensive even by NASA standards, but
clean as clean can be. What she couldn't do," Rick Foss said, "was
make money. Between the U.S. environmental regulations and the
unsteadiness of the wind, nobody wanted to risk sending cargo
that way."
"So we got her cheap," Chuck said.
Rick grinned. "I got her damn near free. This is her shakedown
as a passenger resort cruise ship."
"Hotel bill and food all in the convention registration fee. Quite
a coup Rick."
"I didn't tell them it was a science fiction convention, of course.
I just guaranteed to fill the ship up with people who don't mind
being a week late so long as it doesn't cost them any more. But
we're not in U.S. waters now- "
From the rail Poul Dickson shouted, "Ach, ja, now ve can sing
ze old songs!"
A heavy-set black man stuck his head out of a doorway. "Land
ho!"
Chuck swung the camera around to catch him. "Ken, shouldn't
you be up in a crow's nest?"
Ken patted his ample bulk. "It'd never hold me. We've got
Grenada on radar. We're still two hours away, but you should think
about wrapping it up."
Rick grinned mysteriously. "I may have another surprise for
you, Chuck."
"I'm talking to Bruce Hyde and Mike Glider. Bruce, you left the
rescue party to spring any traps at Sherrine's apartment. I take it
that was for misdirection?"
Bruce said, "Sure. At best we'd get the law looking in the
wrong direction. At worst, we had the owner's written permission
to be there, and a key. We went in through a window anyway,
picked up a few of Sherrine's things- still nothing- walked out the
front door and boarded Mike's van and drove north."
"Nobody stopped you?"
"No, but they were following us. I guess we could have
stopped, but- "
"I wanted to cross the glacier again," Glider said. He held
newsprint from the National Enquirer under his chin, for the
camera, under a wide toothy smile. The headline said:
ICE NUDES ORGY ON GLACIER!
Bruce said, "We took the same track as before, with the Angels'
death beam toned down a little- "
"How many of you?"
"- So we could- Huh?" Bruce laughed. "No, no, just me and
Mike, fully dressed. We crossed to Fargo and went straight to the
local TV station- "
"Hide in plain sight," Mike said.
"- and told them about joining the mating rituals of a tribe of
naked semi-humans with pale blue skin. Don't look so disappointed,
Chuck."
"We all got away clean after the launch. Maybe everyone got an
extra day or two because of Moorkith," Glen Bailey said. "You
remember how it looked when Phoenix went up?"
Harry Czescu nodded briskly. "I kept thinking, 'Ours always
blow up. Ours always blow up.' But it was going smooth as silk- "
"Remember the vapor trail, sprawled all over the sky? They
used to call that `frozen lightning,' the Germans did, I mean. It's in
Willy Ley's books," Bailey said. "In the thirties they thought their
rockets were going wild- "
"It's just stratospheric winds blowing the vapor trail around,"
Mike Glider said, sticking his head into camera view. Umber scowled.
"Yeah, but it looks like something spun by a spider on LSD.
The Green bigshot cop, Moorkith, he saw the frozen lightning and
thought the Phoenix must have crashed. He was searching the
desert for Phoenix while the whole gang drove away."
"I missed it all," Ann Hudson said. "I was in New York. I tried to
follow it on the news, but how much could I trust? Gary didn't try
to call me till he was already in orbit."
"But you're going up this time."
"You bet. God help Gary if he already knows how to mate in
free fall. Chuck, I want a copy of this tape to take with me."
"That's why I'm hurrying. I want it finished and copied before
the ship takes off again."
"No trouble," C.C. Miller said. "We just drove off. We even got
the clubhouse cleared out before the Greens came sniffing. But
there are tons of it. If the Angels don't want it, I think we'll just
leave it in Grenada."
"You mean it's aboard?"
"Oh, yeah. We sold the bull semen, but we've still got the
plastic corn and acorns and honeycomb and powdered chlorine and
five cartons of earthworms, and there's a package I don't know
what's in it but it wants out BAD . . ."
"Gordon, nobody spotted you?"
"I could walk, even then," Gordon said. He got out of his deck
chair and spread his arms and bowed. His head nearly brushed the
floor.
C.C. Miller said, "Today I could hide him on a basketball team."
"What have you been doing since, Gordon?"
"Your viewers, they know. I publish Wind Chill in sections. Now
Baen Books, they want it. I can publish because I won't be on
Earth."
"You're going up?"
"Sure. Alex say my family ready to skin him if he can't produce
me, so I go with Annie. Bring a copy of Wind Chill, tell everyone- "
There was a sharp sound, loud above the wind, and a sharp
crack! "Hold it," Chuck said, and he swung the camera around. "It
was- got it."
High in the sky over Grenada, a dot, descending.
"Comes down just like a falling safe, only faster," Chuck said
rapidly. "Those rockets should be lighting any . . . any minute now .
. . it's broad daylight so they won't be too conspicuous . . . shit
fire, will you light?"
"Phoenix is slowing," Gordon said. "Rockets must be lit. See?
Slowing."
"Yeah. Sorry. Ni . . . ice."
The cone had settled behind trees.
Umber laughed. "Your faces! The rocket was too far away to
show much, but you watching it land, that's something. Okay,
Gordon, you published autobiographical material, but there's a
novel, too, isn't there?"
"I am working on it. Should finish, how do you say it, Real
Soon Now."
"He did a verse for the song, too," Harry said.
"Song?"
"Jenny's song," Harry said. He took out his guitar.
The others gathered around, fifty fans on the deck of a sailing
ship, staring across to an island where a spaceship had landed.
"The Angels fell. And rose again," someone said. "And by God
we did it!"
Chuck was still filming. Harry began to play. Jenny sang, and
the others joined in.
"Wanted fan in Luna City, wanted fan on Dune and Down,
Wanted fan at Ophiuchus, wanted fan in Dydee-town.
All across the sky they want me, am I fattered? Yes I am!
If I could just reach orbit, then I'd be a wanted fan.
"Wanted fan for mining coal and wanted fan for drilling oil,
I went very fast through Portland, hunted hard like Gully Foyle.
Built reactors in Seattle against every man's advice,
Couldn't do that in Alaska, Fonda says it isn't nice.
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