FALLEN ANGELS

Probably somebody here in this room knows. So close! But no, they'd have told me, Wade thought.

No. You're a goddam drunk, and sober you wouldn't trust a drunk with anything this big. Why should they?

He was distracted momentarily by two fans winding their way through the crowd. Bob Needleton, he recognized. Physicist at U-Mi

Dick Wolfson gri

Dr. Sherrine Hartley, only Hartley wasn't really her name, it was her first husband's. She'd been active in fandom once.

"Hunh." Chuck Umber seemed miffed. "There are more important issues at hand than that."

"Yeah," said another fan. "Like how to let the Angels know about the Titan."

Wade fell silent while the other fen debated. It was all moot anyway. Until they knew who had the Angels and how to contact them there was no point in composing a message. Someone handed him a drink, and he swallowed mechanically. Besides--" It's the wrong message," he said, but nobody heard.

If the Angels did want to get back upstairs--and Wade could not see where they had any other option--then it was silly to try setting up Ron Cole's old terror weapon. There were better ways anyhow. He narrowed his eyes in thought. Yes, sir. Much better ways. But his head hurt. Someone handed him another drink.

Alex stared at the two-headed creature with the nubbled lips. Doc had wheeled him upstairs for the meeting, opened the door, and there it was.

"It" was a smallish skeleton. The heads, set at the ends of long, flexible necks, were flat and triangular. Each contained what Alex took for a mouth and an eye socket. Between the necks was a thick bulge of bone. The creature stood on three legs ending in clawed hooves, with the rear leg attached to the spine by a complex hip joint. There was a small plaque attached to it.

Alex gripped the wheels of his chair and rolled himself across the room. He squinted at the plaque.

 SIMPSON: RESEARCH AND DESIGN

Contents: ONE MODEL OF PUPPETEER SKELETON

(SPECIMEN A)

THIS MODEL, BASED ON A RARE SPECIMEN TRADED

FROM THE KZIN, SHOWS THE PUPPETEER JUST BEFORE

THE EXTENDED PHASE OF A HIGH-SPEED LOPE…

Alex shook his head. He could just imagine the consternation if, after the fall of civilization, paleontologists of the future were to unearth this… um… sculpture.

"Do you like him?" Doc Waxman wheeled Gordon into the room and parked him beside Alex. He was a gift from Speaker-to-Seafood."

Alex thought he should be used to this sort of thing by now. "Whom?"

"Nat Reynolds, the writer. It's a long story, involving a drunken conversation with a lobster Sava

"You should see my collection… Hi, Fang, Bruce. Come on in. You should see my collection of fa

"What's a bilge?"

You could see the gears adjust in Waxman's head. "My wife and I live on a houseboat in the Marina. We've sealed everything into watertight containers and hid 'em in the, ah, bottom of the boat." He chortled. "Won't help in a thorough search; but it discourages the casual pest, now that we're not supposed to treat the sewage anymore… Stop by when you get the chance and we'll haul some pieces out to display."

Alex gri

"Easy," said Fang opening a can of beer with one hand. "We're sending you back upstairs, remember? On a fire in the sky."

Sure, thought Alex. "Have you found a rocket yet?"

Fang scowled at his drink. "No, but…"

"But we will," Bruce insisted. "Fen are nothing if not persistent. There are stories. Rumors. We'll trace 'em down. One or another's bound to be authentic. The Ghost may know something."

The others came in by ones and twos. Mike. Edward Two Bats. Steve was glowing, as if he had just finished a heavy workout, which Alex thought was rather likely. Thor was wearing faded jeans, with his tin whistle protruding from a back pocket. He had pulled his long, golden hair back into a ponytail. Not too long ago, Alex knew, such hairstyles on men were regarded as outre. Now they were becoming the norm. He wondered if the sudden advent of long hair and beards during the sixties had been an instinctive ecological response to the imminent ice age; like animals growing heavier pelts just before a severe winter.

"Got it," Mike a

"Got what?" asked Bruce warily.

"A way to get the Angels upstairs."

The others waited. "Well?"

"Bang Bang." He opened the bottle.

Edward Two Bats looked at him. "Bang Bang?" Light dawned in his ekes. "Oh, no. No."

"Excuse me," said Alex, "but what the hell is Bang Bang?"

Crazy Eddies hands came up like a fence. "You're crazy, Mike! Orion is fucking radioactive! The whole world made a treaty--"

Mike overrode him. "It's simple. You get a big, thick metal plate. Real thick. You put an H-bomb underneath and set it off. Believe me, that sucker will move." He smiled broadly. Edward Two Bats snarled.

Alex looked at Bruce. "He's not serious, is he?"

"Before you can come down again," Mike continued, "you throw another bomb underneath." He held his hand out, palm down, and jerked it upward in steps. "Bang, bang, bang. Get the picture?"

Alex got the picture. He liked his earlier idea about sticking a missile up his ass better. "I think there may be some difficulties with your plan," he said.

"Oh, sure. Details." Detail work, Alex could tell, was not Mike's forte.

Bob and Sherrine arrived, out of breath and flushed. They paused in the doorway, breathing, heavily and gri

Alex felt a shiver run through him. The others stiffened. A rocket ship? They'd found one? But a ship was only half the battle. There was fueling and guidance and… It was madness. So why should he be shaking?

It was a fragile thing, this imaginary spacecraft, and Alex feared to touch it. He asked, "What sort of bird is it? What kind of shape is it in?"

"We overheard Wade Curtis down in the movie lounge." Sherrine sank into a chair. "Thanks." She took the tea that Doc handed her. "They were listening to the news and jabbering about it and ol' Wade, Ghu bless him, he cut right to the heart of it. The Angels can't hide out indefinitely. And he mentioned that Ron Cole had a rocket, and--"

Bruce snapped his fingers. "Cole! That's right! There were stories, years and years ago. I didn't think they were true, though. Isn't he in Washington, at the Smithsonian?"