by Larry Niven
"Not so fast, Marty. See if you can get me Harmony, immediately."
It wasn't immediate. The Garners sat around him, tense and silent, waiting. Kagoiano, mangled, with edges of bone showing through where the rockfall had smashed him on the third day, brought him a thick sandwich and stood passively until Griffin took it. Griffin forced himself to take a bite, then, suddenly starving, wolfed it.
Ollie said, "Do you know about the Fat-Ripper Specials? They use the same Game, but they cut all the distances by half, and the food is high-protein stuff, and there are paid doctors in the party. Five days rips the fat right off you, and you hardly notice how hungry you are because you're too busy not getting killed. That's how Gwen got her start." He looked anxiously at Griffin, whose mouth was full. "The really good Games sell in places where you wouldn't think there were places. Dream Park stands to lose-"
The wallet spoke. "Griffin?"
"Harmony? Look, if you're asleep, get yourself awake. Pvc been handed a tricky decision, and I'm passing the buck."
"I wasn't asleep. What's the problem?"
"I've taken Tony McWhirter into custody. He admits to stealing the, ah, materials, but he denies killing Rice."
"Very good, Alex! We'll call Sacramento PD and hand them a nicely wrapped package. Do you have the stolen materials?"
"That's our problem, sir. McWhirter has made us an interesting offer. He'd like us both to stay in and finish the Game. It's only a matter of another twelve hours, and McWhirter will show us where he hid the, ah, materials."
"Game. Yes. Ah, what happens to the Game if you and McWhirter leave it now?"
"Worst debacle in Gaining history."
"oh."
Harmony thought it over, and Griffin found that he was holding his breath.
"What if this McWhirter cuts your throat and tries to run? He's killed once. If he perforates a Gamer... lawsuits... hmm."
"We can take precautions. McWhirter will have a machete with a hologram blade. We'll guard him all night. I'll have Marty seal this place-"
Tony whispered fiercely, "For God's sake put me on!" Alex handed over the wallet. Tony said, "Mr. Harmony? Listen, I do not intend to run. Where would I go? And I didn't-"
"Just a minute, McWhirter. Have you been warned?"
"I have the right to a lawyer. I have the right to remain silent. If I choose to speak, I can be recorded."
"You are being recorded."
"Fine."
"Are you in possession of materials belonging to Dream Park?"
"No, but I hid them where nobody else is going to find them. I can give them to Griffin tomorrow. Look, Lopez will cream us if Griffin and I leave the Game now. And how would anyone explain it in Game context? It kills the plot line."
"Will the rest of your party trust you not to try to escape?"
"I swear it-"
"I want their word. On record."
It must have been obvious to all of them: in case Tony perforated anyone while escaping, Harmony was forestalling a lawsuit. One by one they swore they trusted Tony McWhirter's word. Alex spoke last.
"I'm going to lock this place up tight," he said. "A mosquito won't be able to get loose. But I think McWhirter means it. It's going to be a long time between Gaines for him."
"I can hear the Board of Trustees now. Well, go ahead, and good luck. Oh, and I looked in on you while you were stealing that, ah, black fire?"
Didn't everybody? "Yeah?"
"It looked like fun."
The transceiver clicked-and everybody started yelling. Griffin bellowed, "Quiet!" They stopped. To his transceiver Griffin said, "Security, quick. Marty? Listen. I want airtight surveillance at every exit from the dome. If anyone tries to leave, the Game ends instantly. Don't miss any exits, and don't let someone past just because he's wearing a uniform."
"Chief? You're not coming out?"
"Nope. Neither of us, not till one tomorrow, with our shields or on them." Griffin clicked his wallet shut and looked around. "You're crazy," he said. "You're all crazy, and I'm just as bad. I want a Gamer awake at all times to watch McWhirter, who is going to sleep with his feet wired together. Any objections from anyone?" Not a whisper. "McWhirter?"
He was pathetically grateful. "Hands and feet, Griffin, I don't care. Thank you."
"All right." Griffin sank back against the dune. He felt very tired-and light as air. His thoughts finally settled on something. "Henderson?"
The Lore Master still looked apprehensive. "Now what?"
"Eight of us left. All those undead. We don't even have boats. Just how are we going to win this mother?"
Chapter Twenty-Nine
END GAME
When dawn broke that final day, there were nine awake to greet
it.
Their clothes were soiled and torn. They themselves were scratched and bruised and unsteady on their feet, even with the benefit of a night's sleep. But all of them gripped their tools tightly: swords, machetes, and the magic staff now wielded by Chester Henderson.
Chester stood with eyes wide and nerves afire, waiting for the peep of a double sun that would signal the beginning of the Game.
Alex took no offense that Acacia stood with Tony. She had spent the night with the bound man. Not with someone else, not crying or hating or blaming; rarely touching him, but there.
Holly Frost, her Afro frizzled with sand and sweat, stood next to Alex, a Japanese short sword balanced uneasily in her hand.
She studied Panthesilea and Fortunato at a distance, expression carefully neutral.
Tony watched the horizon. He let his eyes sweep back and forth, barely acknowledging the girl at his side for minutes at a time, before relaxing with a great sigh and holding her fiercely to him.
Easy to understand the unyielding focus of his attention. Play well today, Tony. You won't be back for twenty years.
Mary-em, Margie and Ollie stood together. Margie had seemingly gained strength during the night, energy from the endless strategy sessions. She and Mary-em grinned at each other and touched the tips of their weapons together in silent salute. Ollie raised his sword wearily and stitched together the rudiments of a smile.
The group formed a rough circle around their campfire, all directions covered. The circle enclosed Lady Janet, who carried a machete. Chester's instructions had been exact: "You don't fight unless you have to. Getting you out is part of our mission."
Facing the woods with a katana held tightly in his massive hands, The Griffin suddenly laughed out loud. Marty, Millie, Harmony, are you watching? 1 hope you're enjoying this!
The second sun rose; the first faded out. Chester watched, critically, as yesterday's wounds bloomed anew on his Garners and on his own body. The sounds of New Guinea filled the air: bird-calls, the lapping of surf, and a creaking of metal.
Low in the flank of the Spruce Goose, a door began to open. A long black arm pushed it back with deliberate slowness. Under a great black globe of hair, a small scarred face leered at them, mouthing words inaudible at that distance. It disappeared inside, and another figure climbed out, stiffly.
It was an Undead, its clothing strips of tattered cloth hanging against dark, ashy skin. It climbed down into the boat and set itself at the oars. Two Fore priests joined it, untied the line, settled themselves. The boat moved toward shore with smooth, steady strokes from their hellish oarsman.
Chester snorted. "Bastards. Only one boat!"
Griffin stifled a sour bubble of gas, tasting his nervousness. The Fore seemed to be looking directly at him, leering with a mouthful of filed teeth. Now he could see the muscles in the zombie's back as it guided the boat toward shore.
Ten feet from shore, one of the priests stood in the boat and
began to chant loudly. After a time the second priest joined in, creating a melody that made Griffin's skin crawl to listen.
He didn't have leisure to critique the serenade. From the woods came answering sounds: a rustling, scraping promise, fulfilled within
moments as the Undead began to line up.
There were at least thirty of them, all armed. As before, the women and children were the worst. They laughed endlessly, bodies twitching with spasms, the laughter blending to hungry growls. Many of the women were bare-breasted, but the effect wasn't erotic. Alex knew that it would be a long time before he could look at a half-naked woman without remembering the empty-eyed zombies of New Guinea.
Among the women and children were gray old men, crippled and deformed, their frail hands clutching edged weapons. But the front line held the healthy ones, so to speak: a dozen warriors who had died by violence.
Most of them were as dusky as the others, the Fore priests. Two were European. S.J. and Felicia Maddox, Dark Star. S.J. rolled his eyes with zombie fervor. He waved his machete fiercely and grinned from a face ridged and pitted with blast scars. Griffin had to grin back. S.J. didn't care which side he was on.
Felicia's face was supernaturally calm, but she led the other zombies.
The boat had beached. The Fore priests disembarked without interrupting their song.
"This is it, people." Chester's voice was loud but calm. "Everyone do their part and we'll get through this. Shift!"
The Garners moved. Before the zombies reached them they had formed a wedge, with Mary-em at the peak. They moved toward the rocks at quick-march.
They stopped and turned when the animated army was ten paces away. Chester raised Gina's staff. His fingers ran across its keyboard. Ruby spirals ran down its length, and light flashed from the tip to bathe the front line.
Felicia caught fire. The zombie screamed a wavering wail that would have torn meat from a human throat, and she fell, smoking and throwing sparks. The two to either side were incinerated as well, but Chester's beam was flickering.
S,J.'s zombie had lurched behind one of its undead fellows, sparing him from the initial blast. In another second the rest of the force had passed the smoking corpses and were on the Garners.
The dead Engineer went straight for Margie. She almost stepped out of the circle to meet him, restraining herself at the last moment. She met his downward stroke and growled menacingly.
Griffin kept a measured distance from Holly, and went to work. The blows were coming in a little faster, a little more elusively, and before three minutes had passed two small new patches of red flowed on his limbs. He set his teeth and sent a zombie to the sand with a diagonal crimson wedge creasing his head.
Chester's voice rose above the din. "Keep moving!"
Mary-em screaming and chopping at the cutting edge, the Garners clove the ranks of the Undead. Slowly at first, then with increasing speed the besieged Gainers won their way toward the Fore priests. The eight defenders were roused to frenzied heights now, as they saw the priests back away and move toward their boat. Mary-em swore foully and burst through the zombie wall, breaking formation to do it.
Her short legs blurred as she charged across the sand, diving at the closest Fore and cutting him down at the legs. He fell to the beach at the edge of the water, and rolled in. The surf foamed red.
The second priest paused a fatal instant to gape at his fellow's fate, then sloshed through the water, pushing the boat away from shore. The undead oarsman sat passively. It had received no new orders.
Tony threw his machete.
(Somewhere outside the world, a computer chose among random numbers-)
The blade made a single revolution and slashed into the Fore's shoulder. He screamed as he clawed back at the evil growth; then kept going, pulling the boat one-handed.
Ollie splashed out with Lady Janet behind him. The Fore tried to stop Offle's sword with his bare hand, and failed. While the other Gainers held off the zombies, Janet pulled the boat back toward shore.
Ollie joined her. They had nearly beached the craft, dead passenger and all, when S.J. splashed in and cut Ollie down from behind.
Ollie's aura flashed red. He spun around, and zombie S.J. swung again. In the moment Ollie died, he parried and chopped, and S.J.'s head went black.
Chester shoved Lady Janet into the boat, and helped Margie in
after her. The oarsman did not protest as they tumbled it out. Tony piled in and pulled Acacia up, then fended off a slash from a zombie wading in the surf.
After Holly squeezed in, only Griffin and Mary-em were left out, and there seemed to be no remaining room. "Griffin!" Acacia yelled, indicating her lap. Alex yanked Mary-em toward the boat, and she hissed at him. "Get out of here. You have to survive, Griffin." She butted him toward the boat with her shoulder.
He pulled at her belt. "Idiot! Swim and hold onto the boat!"
She nodded. They backed into the waves, then swam for it. The boat was moving out as Tony and Holly took the oars; they paused long enough for Griffin and Mary-em to grip the stern.
The terrible minions of the Fore waded into the water now, until it rose above their mouths. And even then they marched on, dead eyes blazing as they vanished beneath the lapping waves.
Margie touched a hand uneasily to her chest as the boat pulled out from shore. She watched the zombies vanish. "They almost made it all the way-"
Mary-em yelped and sank.
"Alex! Into the boat!" Acacia wasn't waiting; she pulled him over the stern by main force. A greenish-black hand fastened on his ankle and he yelled. Tony slashed; the hand glowed red and sank. Alex sprawled into the boat, onto the knees of the other Garners.
Now glistening dead hands gripped on both sides, and grinning dead faces surfaced, eyes unblinking and filled with hunger.
As Tony and Holly rowed, Griffin scrambled off Acacia's lap and chopped at heads and hands. The boat rocked unsteadily as he fought for balance, swinging his sword from a crouch.
A joyful scream cleft the air as they reached the Spruce Goose. Tony tied the line in and helped Holly up. She nodded briskly and pulled herself up the rope ladder and through the open door.
They heard her jubilant shout. "Cargo!"
Behind her Tony yelled, "Look out!" She turned as a gibbering Fore priest hurled a snake at her.
Her hand blurred as she whipped her short sword into a tight S and dropped to the floor. The snake separated into halves and flopped to either side. "Hear me, 0-" she had to interrupt herself to roll away as the priest threw another snake. She chopped off its head as it hit the floor.
Her roll took her ankle close to the first snake's severed front end. Dying, it bit.
"Drown you!" She stomped at it and stood, lurching toward the priest, who bared filed teeth and hissed vilely. Her aura was blackening from the ankle upward. "Hear me 0 Gods," she cried, "give me fire!"
The priest gestured defensively. The flames from Holly's fingertips veered to either side. Holly's wakizashi stabbed through the flame and caught the Fore in the throat.
The Fore fell. Holly, her aura quite black, collapsed gracefully on top of him.
Chester was the last Gamer through the door. He shut it hard behind him. "All right, let's see-" His eyes found the sprawled bodies, and he winced. "Oliver, Mary-em, Holly... Christ, what a Game." Then he saw further. "She was right. This is it."
The shadowed walls seemed to curve up and up forever, meeting at an indistinct ceiling. The hold was piled impossibly high with Cargo. Packages of all shapes and sizes filled the hold, in fact blocked it to the very roof.
"Margie. Is your rating good enough to fly this thing?"
She pursed her lips thoughtfully, but didn't answer directly. "Let's find the cockpit."
The cockpit was at the top of a stairway. Its door was slightly ajar, and Alex poked his sword ahead of himself cautiously, then entered.
Footing was unsteady in the relative darkness, but there was light ahead, streaming through the dusty windows. The cockpit was musty with disuse, but nothing seemed to be broken. There were panels filled with antique meters and dials.
Margie followed him in and pointed to the pilot's and copilot's chairs. "That's what I need," she said, and pushe
d gently past him, swinging around the pilot's seat.
She jumped back, stumbling, and steadied herself against Alex. He turned snarling, blade at the ready, then relaxed.
A mouldered skeleton slumped in the chair. Pieces of cloth stuck to the bones.
"Whew." Margie edged closer to it and nudged it with her toe. "All right. I don't think it's going to be moving around much, now that we've killed the priests." She carefully turned to the other chair, and sighed as she found another skeleton. "Gary...riffin, would you help me get this out of the pilot's seat, dear?"
He trundled it back out of the cabin and to the cargo sections. Bones fell loose; he went back for them.
"How are we doing?" Chester sounded exuberant, and fresh as a daisy. He climbed into the cockpit and stood behind Margie's shoulder. Her hands explored the controls; twisted something. The panel lit up.
She said, "I think that's the fuel gauge. It reads empty."
"It would. Damn!" He leaned against the wall, gazing out at the water. "Ah. The fuel dump." He gripped Margie's shoulder. "Remember? At the dockyard, near the headquarters building? Get this thing started up and we'll see if we can get that far."
Margie's hands played over the controls. "I've never flown this model," she murmured, and twisted something. An engine coughed, then roared. The plane began to swing in a circle.
Margie hummed happily to herself. She got another engine started, a third, a fourth. By now all four Gamers plus Lady Janet were crowded into the cockpit, admiring her performance.
The plane finished a full circle. Margie took the joy stick. The plane's curve straightened out. The Goose rose on its step and picked up speed, enough for the vertical fin to bite air. Margie turned east along the shore.
"Motors one, four, six and seven now running, Admiral," she told Chester. "The rest are dead, I think, but I'll keep fiddling if you think-"
"Not just now. We don't want to take off. We don't have the fuel for it."
Tony said, "Griffin?"
Griffin glanced at him questioningly. Tony's long face grew serious, and he nodded. Alex shrugged out of his pack and followed Tony into the cargo section. McWhirter went directly to a crate labeled "U.S. Army surplus" and levered it open. He pulled out a couple of handfuls of shredded wood, then lifted a blue cloth pouch. With lowered eyes, he handed it to Griffin.