"Maybe the Eskimos have them," Horowitz suggested. "The paper says that there were tracks around the scooper. "
"It doesn't matter," Chuck replied. "Well find out who has them, sooner or later."
Bob tried to sink down lower in the sofa. Sherrine's pressure on his elbow stopped him.
"Maybe we shouldn't try to contact them, Chuck," said Dick Wolfson. "Whoever's got the Angels might have to hide them for a long time. The fewer people who know who and where, the better."
Chuck shook his head. "Not when the people are fen. I'm going to try and reach the Oregon Ghost. He must know something."
"Sure, Chuck. The Ghost runs his own fanzine. You think he'd let a competitor in on whatever scoop he has?"
Chuck stood up taller. "He will. Because this is the--biggest thing to hit fandom since Star Wars… or Apollo Thirteen. We've, got to transcend factions and feuds and pull together."
Harry and Jenny had started a song, singing softly as background as the others talked. "… and he knew he might not make it, for it's never hard to die, but he rode her into history, on a fire in the sky!"
Wade Curtis uncurled and stretched and said, "They can't hide them."
There was an instant hush when the writer spoke.
Drunk or sober, the hard science fiction writers were supposed to know everything. Fans laughed at them when they made mistakes, but always listened… and Wade Curtis had a voice that filled every corner.
"Whoever it is, they can't hide the Angels forever. Think it through. No, there's only one thing to do, get the Angels back where they belong. God damn NASA. Where we all belong. God damn them, they ate the dream. For money. For money. The Angels belong up there. We have to send them back."
"That's crazy." "No Wades right." "Hell, he's drunk." "Wouldn't you be?" "But how?" "They'll need a rocket." "Where can you find a rocket these days?"
Sherrine clenched Bob's upper arm so hard he winced. Yes! Yes, where can you find a rocket? She leaned forward, to hear better.
Wade laughed. "The nearest rocket I know of is Ron Cole's Titan."
Chuck and some of the other older fen laughed, too. A younger fan spoke up. "What Titan is that?"
Wade flipped a hand. Someone put a drink in it. "Old fannish legend has it that Ron once cobbled a Titan Two together from spare parts he bought from government surplus sales. Cost him less than a thousand dollars, too. He was on the Board of Trustees for the Metropolitan Museum of Boston. He wanted it for an exhibit, of course. The Boston papers caught him trying to get the motors through the doors. They ran an article calling him 'the world's sixth nuclear power.' "
Sherrine clenched and unclenched her fists. But where is it now? She dared not draw attention to herself. But a Titan! Titans had lifted the Gemini capsules into orbit.
Chuck laughed. "I remember that article, Wade. Boy, was Ron mad! He tried to tell the papers that he did not have a nuclear warhead; but you know how 'danes are. Rockets equals missiles equals weapons equals nukes. Sometimes I wonder if Ron didn't go ahead and build a bomb just for the hell of it. As long as everyone thought he had one… "
"Building a warhead isn't as easy as the 'danes think. I don't care how many TV movies they show with terrorists and mad scientists whipping 'em up in their garage. Uranium hexafloride isn't just radioactive, it's toxic as hell. Refining U-235 is not something you can do in your garage; not without an ample supply of disposable terrorists," Wade said wistfully.
Chuck ran his fingers through his goatee. "Still, if anyone could do it, Cole could. He always had something wonderful in his pocket. A laboratory opal, a big chunk of artificial sapphire for armor, a couple of strips of platinum--"
"Platinum?"
"I never knew why. Some failed project. And once he typed a guy a check on a sheet of soft gold. The first check bounced, see--"
"Not Ron," Wade insisted. "Not a bomb. He knows better. But I did hear that he squirreled away a couple of tank cars of RP-1 and LOX. Just in case he decided to take a trip." He shook his head. "Poor guy is mad as a hatter these days. They kept booting him out of one museum after another. Didn't like his technophile leanings. Is it still paranoia when they really are out to get you?"
"Where is he now?" asked Wolfson. Sherrine held her breath.
Wade pursed his lips. "Ron and his Titan wound up in Chicago at the Museum of Science and Industry. Don't know where his fuel trucks went, maybe there. The LOX is long gone anyway, of course, but that's not so hard to make…"
Sherrine's heart pounded. Chicago! Why, that was just a short drive across Wisconsin. So close! She tugged on Bob's arm. "Let's get up to the room. We've got to tell the others."
Wade Curtis listened with half an ear while Chuck and Dick debated the wisdom of searching for the Angels.
Someone had to know something. Any two people in the country were connected by a chain of no more than two intermediate acquaintances. That was elementary probability. So, he knew someone who knew someone who knew the people who had the Angels. The question was who? He knew a lot of someones.
Reason it the other way. Start with the people who had the Angels. Figure out who they had to be.Government? Possible… but then the government would be bragging, the ACLU would be protecting their rights…
Inuit? Maybe, but not for long. The Inuits lived a physical life, and the Angels weren't going to be ready for that.
Some third group. Someone with medical resources, because if they didn't have medical resources the Angels would be dead already. Maybe they were. Assume they weren't, see where that got you. Like in playing bridge, decide what it takes to make the contract; then assume the cards did fall that way, and go for it.
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-Minn. The other he recalled as a fafiated femmefan he had known years ago. Computer whiz. "What's their big hurry?" he asked, nodding toward the two.
Dick Wolfson grinned. "If you'd've seen them earlier, you wouldn't have to ask. I didn't know Sherrine and Bob were back together. Haven't seen her in years. "
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.