Gather in the Hall of the Planets

by Barry N. Malzberg

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Alien Contact

Synopsis

Science fiction writer Sanford Kvass has a problem. Three problems, actually. He suffering from terrible writer's block and owes his agent a large sum of money. The last thing he needs is the approaching distraction of the World Science Fiction Convention, with it's obsessive fans, sex-mad SF groupies and professional writers and editors getting drunk and behaving badly. But we said 'three problems', didn't we? The best that can be said about Sanford Kvass' third problem is that it renders his first two irrelevant. Kvass is approached by an alien ( a genuine alien, not a cosplay one) who informs him that the human race is to be tested: an alien will appear at the World Science Fiction Convention, disguised as a human being, and unless Kvass can unmask it, the Earth will be destroyed. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn't present much of a challenge. All he's have to do, is to observe as many people as he could and identify the one who clearly had no experience of normal social interaction. Voila! One unmasked alien. There's just one problem: this is Worldcon . . .

Release date: September 29, 2011

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 121

Sample

In the August night, three aliens come to Kvass and sit to converse with him. He is not sure whether it is a dream or merely his drunkenness that makes the experience seem hallucinatory. “Listen, Kvass,” the leader and apparent spokesman of the three aliens say, “the whole fate of your planet hangs in the balance now and you are charged with the task of saving it. Only you can rescue Earth from a fate more terrible than any of you could conceive. You’d better listen in.”

“Come off it,” Kvass says shakily, but with his customary ebullience. “I’ve been writing this stuff all my life. I don’t believe a word of it when I’m writing it and I don’t believe it when I’m away. It’s just a question of making money. I could have gone to the sex novels but I have a certain integrity and besides the market there is too uncertain. And Westerns and mysteries are finished in paperback original. Pulp, it’s all the same to me. I never even liked the stuff, I just read it when I was young and found that I could do it too.”

“You’d better attend closely,” the alien says with a certain grim intensity which rides over Kvass’s protestations. Perhaps he is deaf. “What we are going to do is to infiltrate one of us, an alien, into the coming world science fiction convention at the Hotel Northport in New York City. This observer, this alien, this one of us will be present at all the goings-on of the convention and his path will cross yours many times. In fact, it will cross constantly. You will have to deduce who the alien is. If you cannot, we will conclude that your race is so stupid and without mental alertness that you are undeserving of an independent fate in the galaxy and we will move in on you. On the other hand, if you are able to deduce the identity of the alien, we will decide that you are a pretty tough and gritty little people after all and we will be afraid to mess around. So you see, the whole outcome rests with you. We have enough cosmic detonators to destroy your planet ten times over very quick so don’t think that this is an empty threat.”

“That’s no test,” Kvass says, deciding to play along with them for the time. If a group of aliens comes into your room in the strange hours of the night and talks to you about large issues seriously, it makes sense to deal with them on their own terms. It is this attitude which more than once has saved him from a writer’s block even more deadly than the one which has seized him for the last several weeks. “You don’t look like any human beings I’ve seen recently. In fact, you look pretty horrid. I’ll just find the one that looks strange and turn him in to the authorities, right?”

“Oh, it won’t be that easy, Kvass,” the alien says with a rasp, shaking its tentacles so that small, bell-like protrusions squeal and ring in the spaces of his furnished apartment “You don’t really think we’re that naïve now, do you? I mean, you’re dealing with a pretty shrewd, developed intelligence here. Masters of the galaxy, and so on. We have the ability to assume human size and shape and we will simply replace someone at the convention with one of our own who, having already sucked out his mind and history, will be able to, uh, pass for him. You’ll have to deduce it by cleverness, Kvass old friend.”

“You mean, you’re going to abduct someone?”

“Someone you know very well, Kvass,” the alien says with a chilling giggle, “someone as much a part of your life at the convention as the very hair on your head. This one we shall call the Other and when you think you have found him, you will simply say unmask! He will unmask, revealing his natural form and color and vanish with a shriek of exposure, thereby ending our plot. On the other hand,” the alien says casually, “on the other hand, if you ask the wrong person to unmask, and that person turns out to be human we, who will be observing all of these events from afar, will chuckle at your stupidity and commence at once the destruction of your planet. Not that this should make you nervous.”

“How can I believe you?” Kvass says, reaching to the corner table and his pipe. He puts it cautiously within his mouth which still seems to work. “How do I know this isn’t all a practical joke or a horrid scheme? Maybe you’ll destroy the Earth anyway. Maybe I’m imagining this. Maybe you’re some people I know in disguise.”

“This could be,” the alien says judiciously, “but then again, you might as well take us seriously. After all, we’d be taking excessive means for a practical joke and then again we wouldn’t go through this whole proposal simply to destroy you outright, would we? We’d just pull the trigger. No, a test is a test. It’s perfectly fair. We try to be fair and reasonable about these matters.”

“But why?” Kvass says, “why of all places would you take a world science fiction convention? Of all the unreasonable ideas—”

The alien produces a massive shrug. The two others shrug as well although with not nearly as much élan. “You know, Kvass,” it says, “win a little, lose a little. It struck us as having a certain irony. Anyway, why not a world science fiction convention? It seems appropriate.”

The three vanish. They leave Kvass quite alone except for his pipe, which seems to paint an unpleasant heat along his chin. Perhaps it is not tobacco but exit fire.

After a while, he stands and moves back to the bed, passing his typewriter on the way. The typewriter contains a sheet of paper with one paragraph. This paragraph has been there for several weeks and Kvass has been able to think of no particular way to improve it or to move beyond its simple substance. He shakes his head, collapses on the cold sheets, takes out his pipe and closes his eyes, telling himself that he will think of it no more.

No more. It is all part of the insane game he is playing with speculation and, in any event, the block has got to subside sooner or later; shortly after the convention (which is only a few weeks away) at the worst and after that things will be looking much better. He will put the whole thing out of his mind.

But of course, he does not quite. Not really. And not for a long time.

Kvass finds himself, in the month of August, thinking about the matter quite a bit and regarding the dim, polluted sunsets of the west side of New York with unnatural tears sometimes blocking the usual keenness of his vision.

THE NEWYORICON NEW YORK WORLD SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION Hotel Northport

FRIDAY, September 2

5:00–(?)

Check-in, registration, assignment of rooms. Masquerade contestants to the Great Hutch on the mezzanine. Participants on the panels will please get their tags. THE BAR AND ROOM SERVICE WILL BE OPEN ALL NIGHT FOR THE CONVENIENCE OF GUESTS. Huckster rooms open 7 P.M. and are open all weekend.

SATURDAY, September 3

9:00

Wake-up and free time. Heralds and Messengers will knock on doors.

10:00-12:30

Panel: Is Science-Fiction Necessary? Harlow Houthwaite, Billy Mitchum, Rose Foote

Panel: Science-Fiction in the Age of Technology: V. V. Vivaldi, William Culp, Sanford Kvass, Michael Foote

Panel: The discovery of Hyper-space: John Steele, Katerina Elizabeth Templeton

12:30-3:00

Lunch, free-time, nap-time, huckster’s rooms. Masquerade contestants rehearsal in the Great Hutch.

3:00

Grand and Glorious Auction: In which Harlow Houthwaite will be auctioned off by Billy Mitchum to the lowest bidder. Also, Billy Mitchum will be auctioned off by Harlow Houthwaite to anyone who will have him. Also diverse other celebrities may auction themselves.

5:00

Cocktails, liqueurs, aperitifs and booze are served in the Grand Ballroom. Masquerade contestants final rehearsal in the Great Hutch.

7:45

Exceptional and never-to-be-forgotten grand masquerade ball in the Great Hutch … in which wondronsly and before your very eyes, fannish friends and foes will attempt to impersonate the personna of your favorite characters of your favorite science-fiction writers under the tutelage and baton of Joseph Jacklin and his Merrie Old Band. Prizes, folly, foolishness, bedazzlement, and a wondrous conclusion with an assortment of prizes.

SUNDAY, September 4

12:00

Wake-up and free-time. Heralds and Messengers may be heard from.

1:00

Lupowitz Banquet #21. The Awards of the Associated Fans of America

5:00

SAYONARA

Registrants are reminded that they are guests of the Hotel Northport and the management of the hotel requests that they comport themselves at all times in accordance with that status.

Only those actually registered will be permitted in their hotel rooms.

No responsibility by the convention committee is assumed for the registrants.

No responsibility by the management of the Hotel Northport will be assumed for registrants.

You must be twenty-one or over to be served in the bar or to receive alcoholic beverages in room service.

Program and memory book edited and published by Billy Mitchum and through the courtesy of the Explosive Magazine Newspaper staff.

Participants in special Package Plan must check out at 3:30 P.M. Sunday; otherwise, higher rates must apply.

Sanford Kvass, winner of the 1963 Boilerplate Award from the fan clubs of America as the most promising new science fiction writer of the previous year (but that was a long time ago and besides there had been little competition; Kvass himself having had to publish only fifteen short stories and thre. . .