Rick Nelson was a big name fan. In a poll taken by Quarry, one of the leading publications of the day, he rated No. 2. The No. 1 spot was taken by the editor of Quarry. "Well," Rick told his friends when they asked why he didn't get the top spot, "you know how it is."
His fanzine Califantasy, was one of the leading publications of contemporary fandom. Subscriptions poured in. Reviewers praised it to the skies. It was promising to go photo-offset when The Catastrophe happened.
Until that fatal March day Rick had been leading a gay, typically fannish existence. Each morning he would open his mail, read the letters of praise, ignore the requests for free copies of Califantasy, and sneer at the 'exchange' copies of inferior fan-mags. He would reply to his regular correspondents, disregard the others, and write rudely about the promag subscription departments and the booksellers who tried to sell him their shoddy wares. Besides, he couldn't afford them.
Yes, Rick was a typical fan. And then, one day, it happened.
He stepped through a time-warp.
Possibly Einstein, in his Princeton classroom, would have discoursed learnedly on curved space, snarls in the continuum, and similar abstruse matters.
If he'd known, that is; but then Rick's disappearance caused very little stir. There was a minor furore in fandom after it was realised this was not another hoax, but it soon died down and Rick was remembered only by a few Forteans and creditors. He was forgotten, as if he had never been born. What was left? A vacancy on the FAPA roster, quickly filled from the waiting list. A battered Speed-O-Print mimeo. A 1927 Underwood, with some of the numbers missing and the capital 'I' badly worn. A collection of fanmags, promags and books, which were sold to his friends when his parents sadly realised he wasn't coming back. Some material for Califantasy --- his friends took care of that too. A few memories --- perishable things, quickly forgotten or dispersed like dust in a light breeze. Nothing more.
Wait! Did I say nothing more? Did I say he'd vanished forever? But no, that was not so. As far as fandom, circa 1952, was concerned, Rick had vanished completely. But time has many holes and, like the sea, what it takes it often gives back.
It gave Rick Nelson to the citizens of the 29th Century.
This is his story.
Rick's first contact with the world of 2845 came as an understandable shock. He found himself on a tall hill overlooking a light-washed city, watching the rockets pass overhead with a noise like bumblebees, and the cars glide soundlessly along the glowing roadways. Only a moment before, he had been walking along the streets of his home town, bound for the drugstore to buy stamps and a new typewriter ribbon. It had been a fresh spring day, with a breeze blowing through the elm trees. Now, without discernible transition, except for a slight bumping sensation, here he was in a place strange beyond all imagining.
It took him a little while to realise what had happened.
When he did, and had recovered from his initial reaction of fright and bewilderment, he set out in search of the authorities. The authorities, however, found him first. Traffic Patroller Garn Entwistle-Proust, hovering in his gravsled, found him and after a brief interrogation delivered him to headquarters.
The Chief Traffic Monitor, the District Patrol Supervisor, the Commissioner of Patrols, and finally the Evaluator himself interviewed Rick. None of them succeeded in shaking his story --- he was from 1952. A good deal of public disputation then ensued, for he was manifestly unable to care for himself in the complicated world of 2845. Finally, following a decision by the Supreme Evaluator himself, he was made a ward of the State, tax-exempt and work-free.
You may well think that the story ends there, with a happy Rick joyously exploring the World of Tomorrow. But you are wrong. For nothing could be farther from the truth.
What, did you visualize Rick flying through space, visiting distant stars and planets? But alas, in the 29th Century men knew what Einstein in the 20th had only theorized --- that you cannot exceed the speed of light. As for inter-system travel, that was restricted to a few mining engineers exploiting the fast-dwindling mineral deposits of Jupiter and Uranus and establishing new bases and diggings on other worlds. Colonization? But when Terra had, in the 22nd Century, finally licked its overpopulation problem, there was no need to make the harsh planets fit for human habitation on a large scale. Even the mining engineers didn't stay on the outer worlds, but only stopped by to inspect the robot machinery which dug the ore, refined it, and shippd it back to Earth. True, there had been an attempt to colonize Venus in the 24th Century, but it had collapsed when its millionaire backer lost interest and the foundations of his vacation resort were buried below tons of sand. As for the Moon, the astronomers in the observatory had been replaced by robot machinery as long ago as 2533, and no ships ran there but little drone vessels picking up data for closer study than was possible over the video hook-up.
The world of 2845 had its pleasures, admittedly, but Rick soon tired of those of them he could comprehend. Besides, something was missing. The discerning reader will doubtless have guessed what that something was.
Science fiction.
Without space travel, without new wars to speed progress, things had slowed to a standstill. Popular literature consisted of mysteries, adventure tales, love stories and the like. All had a present day background. While this would have been fantastic enough eight hundred years ago, it was now quite commonplace. Also, as Rick discovered, it was not enough. He grew tired of scanning tapes which, despite some bewildering new words and devices, contained basically the same ideas and cliches he had become so tired of back in 1952.
No science fiction meant no fandom, and to Rick this was the worst blow of all. No hordes of letter-writers, no enthusiastic amateur publishers, no meetings, conventions or feuds. In short, no anything.
He was miserable.
I will not recount the futile devices he invented to relieve his torment. The letters he wrote (to himself of course, since letter-writing was an outmoded custom), the fanzines he published (with a staff and circulation of one), the feuds he started (with imaginary opponents), the sf stories he rewrote from memory. Unluckily for him, he had in his pockets only 78 ¢ in change, a pack of Chesterfields, a cigarette lighter, a pencil, his wallet, and two unmailed letters to out-of-town fans. No science-fiction. No fanzines. Not even a letter from one of his correspondents. He had to start from scratch.
His misery was relieved somewhat when one day he discovered in a museum an incredibly ancient mimeograph machine, a 1979 model. He pleaded with the authorities, used his influence as a guest of the state, and even bribed people, for he was kept well supplied with money. He finally secured possession of the machine. Ink was hard to get, but he obtained a supply from one of the city's research laboratories, who were able to reconstruct the substance from the formula on a tin which had been part of the museum exhibit. Paper was even harder to get -- in fact it proved to be impossible. He settled for specially cut and treated sheets of the plastic material which was the nearest thing to it in the 29th Century civilisation. Finally, he even succeeded in procuring stencils and a typewriter.
Now he could put out a real fanzine, and he did. In fact, he published 823 issues of Califantasy (29th Century Edition), with contents entirely by himself, including fiction, articles, artwork, and reviews. (Since there was nothing else, he reviewed past issues of Califantasy.) He finally formed a fanclub with eight members. The other seven were robots, which Rick bought and fitted out with helicopter beanies, starry-eyed looks, and brain mechanisms preset to take The Long View. He was always the guest of honour, and the talk was always about the contents of Califantasy. He even held a Convention, the 'Wimplecon' (Wimple was the name of the city where he was living) and auctioned off all 823 copies of Califantasy.
This event, attended by some 50 robot-fen, was the climax of Rick's 29th Century career. After the banquet (where the speeches were all recordings made by him and spoken by various robot BNFs and celebrities) he collapsed quietly in a corner, unable to carry on the pretence any longer. "If I didn't know better," said the City Patrol Examiner, "I'd swear he died of a broken heart."
He did.
No, gentle reader, you are once again premature. The story does not end there. For after Rick's death, a strange thing happened.
A roving telereporter, looking for an odd story, chanced on an account of the Man from the Past recorded on an aged videoreel. He decided to look up this strange refugee from a bygone era, to see how he had fared in the years since then. When he learned that Rick was dead, he decided to go through his effects for a possible lead. And so he came upon the letters, the mimeograph and, most important, the 823 issues of Califantasy. He took the letter to a university to be translated, expecting to find some kind of a diary. He was greatly surprised to discover instead that they were copies of something called a 'magazine'. Curious, he inspected the translations.
"Odd," he mused. "Science fiction, it was called."
He copied one of the items onto a reel and sent it off to a publisher he knew. The publisher was in turn intrigued, absorbed, and enthusiastic.
He decided to reprint it.
The rest --- to the people of the 29th Century, at least --- is history. The reel was an instant hit. It sold thousands, millions of copies. More were requested, more supplied. Every story in each of the 823 issues of Califantasy was inscribed on a reel and each one was sold out completely.
To the citizens of the 29th Century, their appetites jaded by conventional adventure and love reels, all this was fascinating and amusing -- quaint. With the same strange desire that made the citizens of 1952 admire the ways and customs of thirty years before, read the old books and adopt the old fashions in women's dress, with the same odd attitude that had caused the revival of the zoot suit in 2190, the inhabitants of the Earth of 2854 clasped science fiction to their bosom.
With the antique-collector's fervour they bought all the stories there were, then cried out for more. Museums, libraries, old houses were ransacked, but in vain. They found, as Rick had before them, that there was no sf left. There was only one thing to do. New stories must be written. The leading reel-scribers of the day began studying the works of the Master, and succeeded at last in producing acceptable substitutes. The fad spread as more scribers, more publishers, more readers were embroiled. Science fiction once more became important.
In reverential tribute to the stranger from the past who had made all this possible the Rick Nelson Society, headed by the ex-telereporter (now the fabulously wealthy Literary Executor of the Nelson Estate) erected a monument over the grave of their hero.
From a simple plastistone base, a synthetic marble shaft soars skywards. At its summit stands the sculptured form of Rick Nelson, proudly erect, wearing on his head the emblem of his kind --- a helicopter beanie. Under his arm is a copy of Califantasy, and his free hand is resting on the crank of a mimeograph. His eyes are turned upwards, towards the stars.
Engraved on the base, in gilded letters a foot high, is the simple inscription:
(Data entered by Judy Bemis)