In the last issue's article, we lamented the fact that no one ever would see those unpublished yarns of ours. As all Trufandom knows, in the mid-Fifties, after the Lanthanides had gone their separate ways, the TVA turned the whole valley into a lake, and the famous Wall Hollow Fan Farm was hundreds of feet under water. For the past thirty-five years the time capsule has been at the bottom of the Gene C. Breedlove Lake. (Known to fandom as the Gene Pool.) (Gene C. Breedlove was some mundane Tennessee politician. Not important.)
Be that as it may (and I'm not sure that it was), after I printed this tale in the last Alluvial, I had a letter from a Tennfan, who enclosed a newspaper clipping from the Bristol Herald-Courier, saying that THEY'RE GOING TO DRAIN THE LAKE. The dam needs repairing (no noun omitted here, folks), so the TVA is going to drain the Gene Pool, and after a few phone calls from Ye Editor, it was all settled. It turns out that Jim Conyers and his lovely femmefan Barbara (would you believe she's a grandmother now?) still live in the area, and they were receptive to the idea of a reunion. Jim's going to make the lodging arrangements for this micro-mini con. Many of the Lanthanides are going back to Tennessee to attempt the recovery of the Lanthanides' Time Capsule. Surn! Mistral! Angela Arbroath! And Moi. What a reunion! Fan history in the making. And a new chapter in the
annals of Science Fiction. Yours truly will be on the scene, and the next ish will carry a full report!
#30
TO THE FUTURE WITH LOVE:
The Contents of the Lanthanides' Time Capsule*
(* To the best of my recollection
and that of Jim Conyers)
• One WAR OF THE WORLDS poster, wheedled from the manager of the Bonnie Kate Theater in Elizabethton.
• Deddingfield's treasured copy of the August 1928 issue of AMAZING, signed by E. E. "Doc" Smith and Philip Francis Nowlan.
• One jar of grape jelly (in case Claude Degler should survive the Nuclear Holocaust).
• One typewritten manuscript of a short story or novella from each member of the Lanthanides.
• John W. Campbell's Letter to the Twenty-First Century.
• Curtis Phillips' copy of THE OUTSIDERS by Lovecraft, annotated by Lovecraft expert Francis Towner Laney.
• Letters from various people now famous, or infamous for being nonexistent (e.g.-Sgt. Joan Carr).
• Copies of all the issues of Alluvial up to that time.
• Copies of ASTOUNDING and WEIRD TALES, including a dummy issue of the last, never published issue of WEIRD TALES, containing a story by Peter Deddingfield.
• Some Ray Bradbury fanzines.
• A picture of a dog (To confuse the Aliens).
• One propeller-beanie.
• Other stuff that we have forgotten over the years.
editor's note: All you Trufan collectors out there know that this stuff is worth a lot of money in today's market, but of course the greatest treasure of all is the manuscript collection of the Lanthanides themselves. (Little did we know!) (But we had a hunch!) – Anyway, I foresee all kinds of excitement over this resurrection of the Holy Grail of Fandom. Look for news about a forthcoming anthology in future issues of ALLUVIAL! (Sure LOCUS will report it, but WE'LL KNOW FIRST.)
#30
George read the articles, inserted a few open parentheses, and pronounced them up to his usual standard, despite his fatigue. He thought he'd better make himself a pot of coffee before he tackled the article on the future of NATO. He would have to pull an all-nighter to finish the issue. It would be better to get it in the mail to his subscribers before Earlene read it and found out he was gong to raid their Christmas club account to fund a trip to Wall Hollow, Tennessee. At least the phone bill wasn't too bad this month. Woodard didn't have telephone numbers for most of the Lanthanides, even if he could have afforded to call them. He did manage to reach Ruben Mistral, and Bunzie had put one of his secretaries to work arranging the rest. George clutched the lapels of his bathrobe, trying to keep out the basement chill. It was good to know that somebody still treasured the old days, even if he had become rich and famous. Ye Editor resolved not to use the term "Dirty Old Pro" quite so often in the next few issues.
Brendan Surn, the legendary lion of science fiction, no longer lived on earth. For some time now, his mind had been elsewhere; it returned from time to time for increasingly shorter intervals, but the ties between the author and his life and work were nearly severed. Soon he would be gone for good.
Surn sat in his monogrammed deck chair, staring out at the placid sea. He wore a cowled beach robe of natural fibers and leather sandals, and his white mane of hair reflected the sunlight in a halo around his serene face. He looked like a monk in holy contemplation. Even the architecture of the house fitted the conceit: its exposed-beam cathedral ceiling formed a nave above Surn's head, and the setting sun turned the window to stained glass. With his classic features and that expression of sorrowful contemplation, he could have posed for a portrait of a medieval saint. He might have been Thomas a' Becket, saying his last mass at Canterbury.
Lorien Williams wondered what Brendan Surn did think about these days. He spent most of his waking hours gazing out at the ocean, saying little and writing nothing. She liked to think that he still lived in the dreaming spires of Antaeus, the world featured in his greatest works, but he never mentioned his books to her. She hoped that he had not forgotten them. The sound of the ringing telephone a few moments before had pierced the silent house, but it had not reached his still point. He sat as calmly as ever, studying the endless motions of the green waves.
Lorien stood with her finger poised on the hold bar of the phone, wondering what she ought to do about the call. There wasn't anyone to ask. When she had first arrived on her fan pilgrimage to Dry Salvages, Surn's futuristic aerie on a cliff in Carmel, she had been afraid that no one would let her in to meet the great man. His reputation for solitude was legendary, and few people dared to test it. But Lorien had read all of Surn's works, and she felt that she had to express her admiration for him in person. She hoped for an autograph; maybe even a picture of herself standing beside him.
Surn himself had answered her knock, shambling to the door in his robe and slippers and admitting her without question. A few moments' conversation, and the litter of spoiled food and unopened mail told Lorien what she had stumbled into. Her grandmother had been much the same in the last years of her life. Lorien didn't remember being affected much by that, but Brendan Surn was her idol, and she could see that he needed her. So she cleaned up the mess and fixed him a hot meal, and then she decided to stay until someone else turned up. Surely he had a housekeeper? As the weeks passed, Lorien became used to her new surroundings. Her fast-food job in Clarkston, Washington was not something she had wanted in the first place, but it supported her science fiction activities and placated her parents. She wrote to them and said that she'd found a better job in Carmel, which, in a way, was true. She noted that Surn had good days and bad days. Sometimes he was almost normal. He could still carry on a conversation, write checks, and decide what he wanted to eat, but he seemed very much like a little boy. The depth of adult emotions was missing, and he compensated for it by becoming more pleasant, and by agreeing with almost anything she suggested. Lorien thought it was lucky that it had been she who found him, rather than some gold-digging blonde or some unscrupulous business person. She wondered if Surn ought to see a doctor, but when she suggested it, he would become agitated, making her afraid that he might tell her to leave. That would be bad for both of them. It would mean that she would have to go back to a deadend job somewhere, and he would be thrown to the mundanes. He might even end up in an institution. It was better this way; at least, until he was much farther gone.