"Bimbos Of The Death Sun - 02 - Zombies Of The Gene Pool" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCrumb Sharyn)

Marion sighed. "No," she said. "Because, after all, we really don't know who he was." But suddenly she did.

When the chimes sounded the hour, Marion got out of the room faster than the football players. She ran down the hall and into Professor Giles' turn-of-the-century lair without bothering to knock. "Why did you take my copy of The Golden Gain?" she demanded.

He looked up from a stack of term papers, genial but apparently puzzled. "Did I?" he said mildly. "It must have got mixed with my own papers."

Marion almost wavered, but then she remembered. "You weren't carrying any papers when I ran into you."

He sighed. "Oh dear. Well, I'm afraid it isn't a very good book. Reverse alchemy, in factЧturning gold into lead. Must you include it?"

Marion looked stern. "May I have my copy back, please?" With a sheepish smile, Professor Giles reached under the stack of term papers and brought out the tattered paperback.

Marion made no move to retrieve it. "May I have it autographed, please?"

He blinked in confusion. "I beg your pardon?" Marion sat down on the arm of the easy chair. "Look," she said, holding up the volume of Kipling. "You're a Kipling scholar. God knows why, but you are. And on the frontispiece of this book, someone has written 'Stormy.' And I think I know where the name C. A. Stormcock came from. Listen to this." She turned to the page on which "The Mine Sweepers" was printed and read aloud:

"Mines reported in the fairway,
Warn all traffic and detain.
Sent up Unity, Claribel, Assyrian,
Stormcock and Golden Gain."



Marion snapped the book shut with an air of triumph. "I can't imagine why no one picked up on that before."

"The Stormcock and Golden Gain connection?" said Giles. "Science fiction people wouldn't catch that. They don't do much out-of-field reading. Why, the great Irish fan Walt Willis had a column once called 'The Harp That Once or Twice,' and for years fans asked each other where the title came from."

Marion allowed herself to be diverted from her prey. "It's vaguely familiar. The harp that once through Tara's halls Е "

"Exactly. Thomas Moore. An Irish poet. And no one got it!" Professor Giles smiled sadly. "Of course, this isn't literary scholarship, because neither Willis nor Stormcock matters. It's a form of Trivial Pursuit. All the same, it was well noted on your part. But it does not give you the identity of the author."

"Oh, no?" said Marion sweetly. "How about this? The main character is Selig Stone. Selig is Giles spelled backwards, and that comment you just made about 'reverse alchemy' is the punchline from the review of the novel in a fifties fanzine called Grue. Now don't try to tell me all that is a coincidence, or you'll find yourself in Locus so fast it'll make your head spin!"

He groaned. "Oh, please! Not that!"

"We thought you were dead," said Marion. "We weren't even sure you existed. Why all the secrecy?"

Erik Giles smiled sadly. "I grew up."

Chapter 2
Just like a Daugherty project, except that it will actually happen Е

ЧFRANCIS TOWNER LANEY: An expression of anticipation in Fifth Fandom



"I'm very glad you're here, Jay," Erik Giles was saying. "Actually, I need your help."

Jay Omega immediately looked around for a broken radio or a new-looking computer. That's what people usually meant when they said they needed his help, but he saw no evidence of electronic disasters in the English professor's office.