AbductiCon Read online

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Sam murmured. “I wouldn’t call a bunch of Apollo astronauts nobody, and there have been a number of them who’ve looked on the ‘dark side’.” He made the air quotes with his free hand as he spoke. “I seem to recall that the first guy who set eyes on it wasn’t hugely impressed. He said it was just like his kid’s sandpit, or something of the sort. I remember feeling very indignant at that, when I first heard it quoted.”

  “But there have been pictures,” Xander said, craning forward to see. “I’ve seen pictures taken by various probes they sent. Not so many years ago now, there were really detailed photos. There was a crater – ”

  “Dude,” Libby said, staring at the Moon, “take your pick. The place is crater stitched to crater. Look at it.”

  “This one was different… It was a weird Russian name… I forget…”

  “Tsiolkovski,” Marius said faintly, and raised his arm again. “Might that be it?”

  They watched in awe as the Moon turned below them and offered them a glimpse of a secret face that so few humans had ever seen. Conversation lapsed; there was not, in truth, that much to see, but there was everything, they were seeing the invisible, the impossible. A few of the others in the room had realized what was happening and a cheer went up from the crowd at the bar as they all surged towards the windows. Someone’s camera made a small clicking sound close enough to Marius for him to blink at the noise and then mutter something under his breath, searching around for a place to set down his drink. Sam held out his free hand and Marius pushed his glass into it, scrambling for his own phone, lifting it up to take a few frantic shots of the Moon.

  “Mom is never going to believe this,” he said breathlessly.

  “You’re really going to try to explain tonight to your mother?” Sam asked, amused.

  Marius looked so astonished that Sam burst out laughing. “Kid,” he said, “your momma is a great lady but she would not believe a word of this. And if she did, you’re banned from all future conventions while you live under her roof, I hope you realize that…”

  “But…”

  “I know. You’ll want to tell someone. All I can tell you is pick your confidante carefully….”

  His voice faded, and Marius finally turned to look.

  Andie Mae, cradling something that defied description in a tall glass garnished with a little black cocktail umbrella on a silver toothpick, had joined the group. The concoction in her hand had obviously not been her first drink that night because she was actually smiling as she looked at Sam Dutton.

  “Um, it’s called ‘The Dark Side’,” she said, gesturing at the drink in her hand, because it obviously needed explaining. But then she re–focused, and tilted her head a fraction in Sam’s direction. “I might have known you’d find your way up here.”

  “Um, I asked…” Xander began helplessly, but Andie Mae waved him down.

  “Under the circumstances,” she said, “I kind of understand. How am I doing so far, Sam?”

  “Spectacularly,” Sam said, and he meant it sincerely. “Under the circumstances. I know seasoned con Chairs who would have gone to pieces. You’ve taken a king–size lemon and made it into the kind of con lemonade that won’t be forgotten in a hurry.”

  “You wish it had been you?”

  “It should have been me,” Sam said, and it came out far more sharply than he had intended. “Look, cards on the table – I came to see what you’d make of my convention. You have to admit that at the very least I had the right to be curious.”

  “And?”

  “This is hardly a fair test,” Sam said, “wouldn’t you say?”

  “Wait, are you saying that she’d have done worse if the droids hadn’t arrived?”

  “It might have been ordinary,” Sam said. “And I don’t think the Steel Magnolia would have handled ordinary well. You wanted something out of this world, Andie Mae. I’d say you got an answer to your prayers.”

  “I would have settled for Schwarzenegger and Spiner,” Andie Mae said.

  “Hollywood–made against interstellar alien android invaders?” Xander said. “No contest, really. Ask anyone in the party wing tonight. Seems these were the droids you were looking for, only you never thought to offer up the right specifications.”

  “We still don’t know what it is they’re really after or if they got it or if they can get it,” Libby said faintly.

  “Can’t you just tell them the answer is 42 and then send them home?” Liam asked.

  “You’ve never met Boss, have you,” Libby said. “He’s a little… literal…”

  “You’d think he would understand irony, given his…” Sam blinked, shook his head over his drink. “What is it about this particular bar that makes me degenerate into bad puns within half an hour of setting foot in here?”

  “Oh, you aren’t alone,” Xander said. “They had quite a chain going up at the bar. You’d think that with that hanging over your head you’d stop thinking about what every red–blooded male is supposed to be thinking about all of the time, but guess what? Some stuff just sneaks through anyway. Someone earnestly wanted to know, if you screw in a forest, does that automatically make it a treesome?”

  “That would be branching out,” murmured Libby.

  “Hah! They didn’t think of that one. But they did ask whether it would just mean that you have to bough to the necessity.”

  “Would that be an aldernate lifestyle?”

  “Or would it just cause too much pine and suffering?”

  Sam glanced at Marius, who was studying the Moon with far too great an intensity, one that spoke eloquently of trying to tune out the conversation. But Sam himself couldn’t resist joining in the pile–up.

  “Can we just stop needling everyone and leaf it alone?” he murmured.

  Libby giggled.

  “Um, just how far would you have to go before someone called you a son of a beech…?” Xander said.

  “I don’t ever want to go home,” Libby announced, a wide grin still wreathing her face, and then lost her balance and staggered sideways into Liam, who slipped an arm around her waist.

  “I think we’d better sit you down somewhere,” he said.

  “About that, going home I mean,” Sam began, and then his head came up sharply as the group by the window was joined by a new member.

  “Sam Dutton,” Andie Mae said sweetly, “meet Boss. Boss, this is Sam. He might have been me, if you had pulled this trick last year.”

  Boss turned his head a little, looking at one and then the other. “He would have been you?”

  “Like Libby said,” Xander muttered. “Literal. What she’s saying is that Sam was the con Chair last year, so he would have been the one in charge, the one you would have met and dealt with, like you have with her right now. The previous leader.”

  “Is everything all right?” Libby, who had resisted Liam’s effort to guide her away towards a seat, turned to ask.

  “Everything is on schedule,” Boss said. “It will not be long before your world comes into your field of view again, as we round the satellite. I am monitoring the telemetry, and everything is within designated parameters.”

  “What are you going to tell your children about this joyride?” Libby asked, and then sighed, leaning her head against Liam’s shoulder and closing her eyes.

  “We came seeking our ancestors,” Boss said. “We have no ‘children’.”

  “But you have a next generation.”

  “There is always a next generation,” Boss confirmed.

  “So how do you procreate?”

  “We re–design, improve, develop,” Boss said.

  “All logic and no play,” Andie Mae purred. “It’s all work. Doesn’t sound like here’s anything at all enjoyable about it.”

  “Not a romantic bone in his body,” Libby murmured, her eyes still closed.

  Boss tilted his head a little, considering. “I understand. I believe we are fully capable of operating under the parameters which you
are describing. Older models may have to be physically modified to fulfill certain kinds of programming requirements, but more advanced ones, such as myself, are able to adapt to requirements. I am able to morph my form into any shape, tool, or appendage necessary for the performance of a specified function.”

  “A little like replicators,” Xander said faintly. “Just pony up what’s needed…”

  Andie Mae appeared to have been taking large gulps from her bizarre drink without anyone noticing, because her glass was suddenly half empty and she was thoughtfully twirling the cocktail umbrella between thumb and forefinger of her left hand. If a living human male had been the subject of the speculative, heavy–lidded, smoky gaze she now bent on Boss, that male would probably have frozen on the spot like a rabbit who dared to lock eyes with a hawk. But Boss returned the gaze without flinching.

  “So what you’re saying is, you’re fully functional…?”

  “Indeed,” Boss agreed. “In every necessary way.”

  “Okay, then. Why not find out? Moonlight becomes you, it turns out…” Andie Mae glanced around, and held out her half–finished drink to Sam, who took it reflexively. “Tower 1, Room 701,” Andie Mae said to Boss. “Be there in five minutes. We can… discuss matters further.” She glanced around at the riveted group who was watching proceedings with close attention, and actually winked at Xander as she turned to leave. “Oh, and I aim to misbehave….”

  And then she was gone.

  “Excuse me,” Boss said politely, after a moment, and turned to follow.

  Sam glared at the drink he held in his hand, and put it down on an occasional table as though it had bitten him.

  “What was in that?” he said. “Is she serious? Did someone put something in that drink?”

  “It’s tonight,” said, of all people, Marius, and it was so unexpected coming from him that Sam actually turned to stare. “I mean, tonight… is a once in a lifetime…. I’m not saying I would… I’m just saying… it’s tonight. They could have served nothing but water at that bar and everyone would still be tipsy with tonight.”

  “We’ll make a writer of the boy yet,” Sam muttered. “Xander – seriously, though – is there something…?”

  But Xander had a strange small half smile on his face. “It’s partly tonight. It’s partly the whole thing. It’s the weight of it, the expectations – and all the things she herself arranged that never happened and then this all happened instead – and Al never did turn up – ”

  “But should we have…” Liam began.

  Xander shook his head. “She’s a big girl,” he said. “Somehow it only seems fitting, in the end, that the Steel Magnolia goes off into the moonlight with a Silver Metal Lover. But I still feel… as though I should follow and find out… if everything…excuse me. I’ll find Simon and have a chat.”

  He parked his weird cocktail beside Andie Mae’s on the table and then he too was gone.

  “Well,” Sam said, draining the rest of his Scotch, “who else wants an Irish coffee? I’m told this place keeps a special Bushmills bottle in the back, and I think tonight is the night to crack that open. Call it an Earthrise Good Morning Wake Up Call Coffee. If we’re to believe the management, we’re soon going to be homeward bound. And I’ve never felt more eager to raise a glass of something to good old Earth.”

  SUNDAY

  Sunday morning came down on everyone like a steel door slamming.

  The euphoria of visiting the Moon, the endorphins stirred into life by being one of the chosen few humans to receive the sudden and inexplicable gift of looking upon the far side of the Earth’s faithful satellite, had all subsided; the parties had gamely gone on all night, but even the most gung–ho of the party goers wilted in the face of the fact that it was now over, over and done with, and the Moon was inexorably behind them and shrinking every moment. The sight of the approaching blue globe of the mother planet had served as a galvanizer for a little while, when it was first sighted in the blackness of space, glowing and solitary in the night – but it was still far away, too far away to anticipate arrival, and besides nobody really wanted to think about the logistics of that arrival too closely.

  Or perhaps at all. There were simply too many unknowns. All the questions thathad been deferred while they basked in the reflected glory of the Moon’s white light had not gone away, they had just donned a mask of gaiety and partied with the rest of them during the night, but now, as those who had finally fallen into exhausted slumber were starting to wake and wonder, the masks were off and the questions stood stark… and just as unanswerable.

  Liam, Andie Mae’s erstwhile right–hand man, made his way down to the Con Ops Room just after 9:30 AM, The few worker bees who were present, looking wan and spent, barely managed more than a nod of acknowledgment.

  Simon, the con security chief, had looked up at Liam’s entrance, but did not get up from his chair in front of a monitor showing some of the hallways covered by the con’s strategically deployed cameras.

  “You look like hell,” Liam said by way of greeting, taking in the huge dark rings under Simon’s eyes. “Did you go on a bender?”

  “Thanks,” Simon said dryly. “No party for the wicked, alas. I was here most of the night, or doing duty in the hospital wing up in Tower 3, or prowling the halls in search of potential problems. I had a few hours’ catnap on Friday night but I haven’t slept since then. I’d like to see you look any better under the circumstances.”

  “Did you get to see it? Any of it?”

  Simon’s face broke into a tired grin. “Oh, hell, yeah. Made sure of that. You?”

  “Libby took me up to the party at Callahan’s,” Liam said. “I had the best seat in the house.”

  “Libby asked you…?” Simon began, belatedly putting Liam back into the world order and remembering that he wasn’t a part of the inner circle any longer. “And Andie Mae didn’t…? And where is Libby this morning, anyway? Haven’t seen her… For that matter, where is anybody…?”

  “Libby’s still asleep,” Liam said. “She was a little too out of it last night to actually remember what her room number was, so I took her back to mine.” He caught Simon’s look and glared at him. “Nothing happened. The woman was in her cups and there are rules about that. She got the bed, I made do with the armchair, which was very uncomfortable, and then the floor for a little while. She was still sleeping when I left. I figured I might concoct a hangover cure because she’s sure as hell going to need one when she finally comes back to the world of the living…”

  Simon gestured towards the replicator monolith in the corner of the room. “Ask that thing. So far it’s provided strong black coffee of a considerably better vintage than the hotel offerings. That might do, for starters.”

  Liam eyed the machine curiously. “The Star Trek McGuffin, is it? Interesting… But hey, speaking of Andie Mae… did Xander find you last night?”

  Simon hesitated. “He, uh, yeah,” he muttered. “He told me… uh… Apparently she hit it off with the android–in–chief…”

  “What did you do?”

  “Me? Nothing – what was I supposed to do? I prowled around in the corridor outside her room for a bit – but I couldn’t exactly bust down the door and demand that she be unhanded… or whatever was going on in there… I couldn’t exactly hear – ”

  “You were eavesdropping in the corridor?” Liam demanded incredulously.

  “At the door, actually,” Simon confessed, looking vaguely ashamed of himself. “Look, I just wanted to make sure that she was okay…”

  “And you did that how? By eavesdropping?”

  “All I heard,” Simon said defensively, “was the Rebel Yell.”

  “The what, now?”

  “YEE–HAW!” Simon said, demonstrating, and Liam jumped, almost knocking over a teetering pile of paper on a nearby table.

  “Ow,” said Xander, who had just walked in, wincing and putting his hands up over his ears. “Please don’t. I’m going to find whoever made those vic
ious cocktails up in Callahan’s last night and shoot them. Slowly. Ow.”

  “You can’t shoot someone slowly,” Liam said.

  “Stop trying to make sense,” Xander said in a pitiful voice. “I don’t understand. I am not even remotely capable of rational logic this morning. Is everyone okay?”

  “Here,” Liam said, handing Xander a steaming cup of strong black coffee which he had just retrieved from the replicator. “You look like your need is urgent. And I’ll have another one of these, thank you,” he said conversationally, turning back to the replicator.

  “What do you mean, is everyone okay?” Simon said, frowning.

  “Well, I’m not. Exactly.” Xander took a sip of his coffee, shooting a grateful glance at Liam. “I kind of feel like that disco–ball Moon last night dropped off its chain and landed on my head. Ow. So what’s the status this morning, then?”

  “Of what status do you speak?” Simon said, turning back to glance at the still mostly empty corridors surveilled by the cameras. A few brave souls had risen and wandered the halls in search of breakfast, in the hotel restaurant where staff had bravely reported for duty that morning at the appointed time, but the hotel as a whole still had the air of Sleeping Beauty’s castle just before the Prince came upon the sleeping princess.

  “They were too busy being excited or weirded out last night to care, but this morning… they’re going to want their entertainment,” Xander said. “They’re going to want something to take their minds off things.”

  “You’re still thinking about programming?” Liam said incredulously. “After everything that’s happened? How much luck did you have with actual scheduled programming yesterday?”

  “Well, the panelists mostly turned up,” Xander said. “And yeah, we had some audiences. Not everyone could go stare at the freaking Moon every waking hour. And besides, this morning we’re supposed to have the star turn – the Guest of Honor panel – and that’s supposed to be starting…kind of… in an hour!” The last was more of a yelp than an actual coherent utterance as Xander took his first real look at a clock and realized just how late it was. “I’d better go see if anyone relevant is up and about! Where’s Andie Mae?”