Flying to Byzantium

By Lisa Tuttle

Pity poor Sheila Stoller, writer of some small stature, lured by her ego to a tiny sci-fi convention. She expects boredom and annoyance, but fails to anticipate the actual fannish and metaphysical horrors that await!

The Paul Di Filippo Presents series showcases modern masterpieces of science fiction and fantasy selected by acclaimed author and critic Paul Di Filippo.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wildside Press
• Release date: Apr 18, 2021

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COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

FLYING TO BYZANTIUM

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright © 1985 by Lisa Tuttle.

Originally published in Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine May-June 1985.

Published by Wildside Press, LLC.

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FLYING TO BYZANTIUM

by LISA TUTTLE

The steady noise and pressurized atmosphere inside the plane made everything seem slightly unreal. Was she really going back to Texas?

She thought of flat, coastal plains, mosquitoes whining in the humid night air, dirty white plumes of smoke rising from industrial stacks, her mother’s house, and the dreary brightness of the Woolco, and a familiar misery possessed her.

No. Her hands clenched in her lap. She was going back to Texas, but not to the stagnant little town on the Gulf Coast where she had grown up; she was flying to Byzantium.

The name of the town made her smile: how the dreams of the pioneers became the lies of property developers! She didn’t know Byzantium. She had never heard of it before the invitation to spend the weekend as a guest of honor at a science fiction convention held there. According to the map, Byzantium was more than five hundred miles west of the southeastern swamp where she had grown up. West Texas to her meant deserts and dust, cowboys and rattlesnakes, rugged mountains etched against postcard sunsets: it was the empty space between Houston and Los Angeles, traversed by air.

She lived in Hollywood now, and Texas was no longer home. She was Sheila Stoller, author of Moonlight Under the Mountain, and her fans were paying for the privilege of meeting her.

Sheila pulled her traveling case from beneath the seat and took out her notebook, thinking of Damon. He had been impressed by her invitation to Byzantium, more than she was herself. But then he was an actor. Public appearances were something he understood, a sign of success. It had never occurred to him that Sheila might not accept—perhaps that was why she had. Away from him, though, she felt her confidence flag. She knew nothing about science fiction. Wouldn’t the others at the convention see her as a fraud? She had written a speech in her notebook, the story of how she had written Moonlight Under the Mountain, but the speech was a fraud, too, a carefully constructed fiction. She stared down at the page wondering if she would have the nerve to read it.

The notebook had been a gift from Damon. For your next novel, he had said, giving it to her with his famous, flashing smile. And she had taken it, unable to tell him that there would not be a next novel.

Ordinary people had ordinary jobs in Hollywood, as they did everywhere else, as sales assistants, as