She failed to notice a pair of con — goers who had paused as she flung herself unseeingly past them, but the older of the two, a middle — aged man with a receding hairline of salt — and — pepper hair that swept around the back of his head like a half — tonsure and a lush gray beard, halted as he turned to follow Andie Mae’s progress with glittering gray — blue eyes.
“Thar she blows,” he muttered.
His companion, a lanky youngster in perhaps his late teens, turned his head marginally.
“She didn’t even look,” the young man said, in a voice dithering between obligatorily aggrieved (on his mentor’s behalf) and vaguely puzzled.
“Oh, she wouldn’t pay attention to the likes of me, Marius, not in public,” Sam Dutton, Andie Mae’s predecessor as the con Chair, said. “I only owned this con for the last three decades, that’s all. But it’s her baby now and she doesn’t want to be reminded of history, not today. And I’m history. I’m not surprised that she wouldn’t stop and chat. But still — she looks rather more singularly focused than one should be at this stage of the game. I wonder if everything is okay.”
“Do you miss it?” Marius Tarkovski asked, turning back to Sam with a small smile.
Sam waved his hands in a gesture that implied a complete inability to answer the question. “Some part of me does,” he admitted. “I just know I should be in the thick of things, and it feels odd — like a mental itch — being here and not being on the inside. But on the other hand… anything that does go wrong won’t be my fault this time, dammit. Her show. Her game. Her responsibility. It’s what she wanted, and I hope that she gets exactly what she wanted.” He stopped, and looked almost astonished. “That came out rather more claws — out than I intended,” he said. “Who knew. Maybe it does rankle just a bit more than I thought it would.”
“You sure it was a good idea coming this year?” Marius asked.
“Well, your Mom is happier knowing that you’ve got me on standby — your first solo con and all that,” Sam said, grinning. “So there’s the babysitting aspect of it…”
Marius aimed a polite but still affronted fist bump at the older man’s shoulder. “I’m seventeen,” he said.
“Exactly,” Sam agreed laconically, and followed the passage of a trio of scantily — clad female fairies wearing the barest minimum of chiffon and oversize pink wings. One of them became aware of the scrutiny and half — turned, offering a flirtatious glance from underneath drooping eyelids that looked too weak to support the weight of glitter piled upon them. Marius flushed a bright scarlet, right to the tips of his ears, a reaction to both Sam’s implications and that particular response, and looked down to the toes of his sneakers.
Sam laughed, but not unkindly; he gave Marius’s shoulder an understanding squeeze and at the same time used the gesture to propel him forward once again in their original direction.
“Come on, kid,” he said. “We’ll mingle a bit more — I’m sure there are friends out here somewhere — and then we can turn in. Tomorrow the fun begins. AndieCon starts in earnest…”
“Sam…?”
Sam’s head turned very slowly at the sound of his name, to face a young man a good thirty years his junior but with signs of exactly the same receding hairline beginning to make an appearance. They looked remarkably similar, in fact — that hair, and eyes of almost exactly the same color, of almost identical height and build allowing for some middle — aged spread on Sam. Marius, who immediately recognized the new arrival as Andie Mae’s ex — liutenant Liam Connors, wondered not for the first time if there was actual truth in tales of time travel and whether it was possible that somehow, without even knowing it, Liam was a young Sam and there was a dangerous time — line crossing occurring here which meant that the entire con would implode into a temporal black hole any minute.
But nothing of the sort happened, and Sam smiled a tight little smile as he acknowledged Liam with a small nod.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey yourself,” Liam said, awkward, not knowing whether to smile or how broadly to smile or whether he really should have said anything at all. He was, after all, at Andie Mae’s side when the two Young Turks had orchestrated the coup that had removed Sam from the con Chair — but then Andie Mae had ditched Liam, also, to go solo. And now he was stuck in limbo, in no — man’s land, betrayer of the old guard and betrayed by the new. “I, uh, didn’t think you’d come.”
“This? I wouldn’t miss it for the world. And there’s also the fact that I haven’t actually missed one of these for three decades and I wasn’t about to start now. Habit, you know. How about you?”
“Me?”
“Well,” Sam said, one eyebrow rising Spock — like into the middle of his forehead, “you are kind of compromised with the leadership, aren’t you?”
Liam flushed. “I don’t think — ” he began, but Sam waved him into silence.
“Son,” he said, “ I rather knew that. You don’t think. That was the problem last year. You might have known she wouldn’t share, but eh, she is Andie Mae and we all know how persuasive she is. I just want to know if it was you behind the Big Name Writer GoH no — show — did you sabotage that? To get back at Andie Mae for ditching you? I figured it might be.”
“Why?” Liam asked defensively.
“Because he was my original contact, and I passed his contact details to you, and you were the one dealing with him for this gig… until it all went pear — shaped for Andie Mae after she ditched you. Hey, you can’t blame a guy for trying to draw the lines if all the dots are lined up.”
“I wouldn’t do that to her,” Liam said, stuffing both hands into the pockets of his jeans.
“No, of course not,” Sam agreed without rancor. “And Vince Silverman is a pleasant enough replacement. I am quite looking forward to cornering him for a chat, actually. There are things I’ve wanted to ask him about his books, so it works out nicely.”
“I thought you wouldn’t come,” Liam said. “After… after…”
“I accept your apology,” Sam said regally, all but offering up his royal hand to be kissed. Whether or not an apology was actually what Liam had had in mind, he didn’t say anything more — and after another short and awkward silence, during which Liam could not or would not lift his eyes to meet Sam’s steady gaze, Marius took it upon himself to try and defuse the situation, latching onto the very person they had just named, who had turned into their corridor as though summoned by a spell cast by those syllables.
“Isn’t that him?” Marius said, nudging Sam with an elbow. “Vince Silverman?”
“I believe so,” Sam said. “Well, if you’ll excuse me, Liam… Hey, Mr Silverman! Vince!”
They sidestepped an immobile Liam and made their way to where Vince Silverman had halted at the sound of his name and turned to see who had hailed him.
“We met a number of times at this con or that,” Sam said. “Of course you probably don’t remember me at all, but there was that dinner that we had, you and me and Larry Niven and Greg Bear at the Natcon in Seattle a bunch of years back… black hole pudding, if you recall…”
Vince Silverman did, vaguely, but he was damned if he could call up a name. He stuck out a hand anyway with a smile that came out commendably sincere given that it was so completely staged. “Yes, of course,” he said. “The name escapes me, I’m afraid, but I do remember that conversation…”
“Dutton. Sam Dutton. We actually emailed some, over the years — I used to be con Chair of this very con right here until a year ago, but now it is under completely new management and I am just a humble fan again. But I’m very glad to see you again. As the Guest of Honor, they must have you scheduled down to the minute but — well — how long are you staying? If you find yourself in the market for dinner company, perhaps on Sunday night after most of the real festivities are over, perhaps we might connect.”