The Barsoom Project dp-2

by Larry Niven

  Charlene was there, next to Yarnall, who wore a silly self-righteous smile.

  Gwen tweaked him. “What are you so happy about?”

  “Welles, that glorious bastard. He liked the Game I played so much that he kept that double bonus going both days. Told me I could play one of his scenarios, anytime.”

  Onstage was the Island sequence, with various Gamers stalking and skulking about in the shadows.

  “Rl’yeh,” Orson said. “It’s Lovecraft’s ‘At the Mountains of Madness’ combined with his frigging floating island. I never tumbled till I saw it up there on the screen!”

  Max snorted. “So wonder boy blew it once. At least you got out alive.”

  Vail leaned into the conversation. “You know,” he offered, “I saw you both play, and I would bet that both of you would play better if you were going for real points. In a Fat Ripper siblings can reinforce each other’s habitual roles.”

  “I think I saw that,” Max confessed. “Our act is: he’s brains, I’m muscle.” Max punched his brother’s shoulder. “You know, you did some powerful adventurin’ there.”

  They slapped hands. “Yeah…” Orson said contentedly. “It ain’t that I don’t love you-although I don’t-but next time, I’m winging it.”

  Gwen chuckled, then stopped as she watched Michelle. Vail sat on the couch behind her, too casually. Her face was intense with interest on the holo stage.

  “So,” Vail said, once again with extreme casualness. “How are you, Michelle?”

  “Fine.” She looked up at Vail with a face devoid of guile or guilt or trauma. “You don’t have to worry about me, Dr. Vail. That nice Alex Griffin already talked to me about staying around for another week. Everybody’s worried about me. Everybody can stop worrying. I know the therapy I need, and I’ve got him.”

  Max grinned hugely. “Taa-dah!”

  “And the lifetime Gold Pass doesn’t half help, either.”

  “I only love you for your pass,” Max said, and kissed her heartily.

  “Just know,” Vail said, “that if there’s anything we can do-”

  “I’ll call. I promise.”

  Vail moved around to Charlene. “How are we feeling?”

  She was sprawled on the couch, her feet up in Hebert’s lap. He was rubbing the tension out with strong, practiced thumbs. She said, “A little confused, I guess. Nobody will tell me what really happened to Marty. I think that Michelle knows-”

  Michelle’s eyes were woeful as they met Charlene’s. It was Charlene who looked away.

  “It was a security matter,” Vail said.

  “That’s what Mr. Griffin says. And Gwen and Ollie say. And Michelle has this funny look in her eye.” Charlene sighed and leaned back into her cushions. “Oh, darn. My legs are so sore I’m considering amputation. I guess I won’t worry about Marty. Still.” A wistful, hurt look flitted across her, then disappeared.

  With Vail, Gwen toured the room. At his urging they made notes here, compared opinions there… “Only a quick prelim survey, of course. We’ll spot-check them for the next few months,” Vail said. “What we really want to know is, do we affect the Actors more than the Gamers?”

  “Why would you?” Gwen asked.

  “Well, in principle it could work like Alcoholics Anonymous.

  Get ‘em to teach what you want them to learn. Harmony tells me we can put the Actor option in the home Game cassette, but maybe it costs more than it’s worth.”

  They’d made a complete circuit of the room. Vail sighed. “I think that’s about it.”

  Trianna was dancing with Johnny Welsh. Even with her excess weight, she was a woman of such sensuality that half the heads in the room turned to watch. The weight would go when she visited the moon; and then some of the mass would go too. One’s appetite decreased in low gravity. Maybe even Johnny would lose some weight.

  Eight probable successes.

  One cipher: Marty Bobbick. “Hippogryph” had dropped out of the Game most spectacularly. Where he was, and what the conclusion of his story might be, Gwen wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  If there were dungeons down below Dream Park, what would the jailers look like?

  And the rats?

  It had been a good Game. Some of the Gamers had been outrageous enough that she would like them along on a real adventure. Others remained mysteries to her, had never really revealed themselves to her.

  That was the name of the game, the war that it always was. All things considered, their success-failure ratio had been pretty good.

  Orson and Johnny: failures. (But if Orson joined a real game, he’d have to train. Hmm?)

  Robin Bowles, Francis Hebert, Charlene, Yarnall-time would tell, but both she and Vail were confident that progress had been made.

  Max, Kevin Titus, Trianna: breakthrough city. And of course Michelle: success beyond their dreams.

  Lastly… Gwen and Ollie?

  She’d had fresh fruit for dessert, and loved it. And salad for a main course, and loved it. And a plain baked potato, and strips of freshly wokked chicken. And no fat or sugar at all. She hadn’t felt much of an urge to snack. She had all the catch-phrases memorized, she could persuade herself of anything for minutes at a time… but only time could measure how she would use what she’d learned.

  She didn’t want to lose weight. She didn’t need to lose weight..

  But what would Ollie think of her in that Y-band monokini at the Blue Lagoon Shop, the scandalous one three sizes too small for her?

  She could guess how he would react. And if it didn’t work out perfectly, she had every confidence that she could gain the weight back.

  Yep, she thought, feeling the contentment expand within her like a warm tide, it had been a very good Game.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  LEVIATHAN

  Scratchy-eyed and exhausted, Alex Griffin stood in the security room overlooking the main floor of Gaming A, scanning, watching for..

  For what?

  For three days after Marty’s confession, he had wrestled with the problem, and it just wouldn’t resolve. They had scoured Gaming B, had double-checked all of the identifications, had increased security scanning at all checkpoints. It was supposed to make him feel better. It didn’t.

  He knew that something was terribly wrong.

  His knuckles were white where his hands gripped the safety rail around the balcony. He was hungry, he was bone-achingly tired, and he continued to watch the crowd.

  Ambassador Arbenz and his niece Charlene were in the-front row enjoying the closing ceremonies. Everyone around them looked like dwarves. Somebody needed a swift kick for putting Falling Angels between the Japan and China contingents. As many security men as he had walking the floor, surely Arbenz was as safe as a man could be..

  Alex continued to scan, verifying for the fourth time what a single glance at the computer printout could have told him.

  Fekesh wasn’t here.

  Some of his representatives were there, but “pressing business” had prevented Kareem Fekesh from personally attending the ceremonies. Extreme regrets, all best wishes, et cetera.

  Everything was going fine, everyone was perfectly happy, and Alex Griffin was terrified. He forced his breathing to calm, and his mind back to the job at hand.

  Cary McGivvon stood next to him, sipping a cup of coffee. “Sure you won’t have some? Caterers just brought it down. Good stuff.”

  “No. Thank you.” He said it through gritted teeth. The aroma was driving him crazy. He had to escape. “I’m going down on the floor. I can’t just stand still.”

  “Okay, Chief. I’ll stay on the holovision.”

  “And treat Dwight Welles like one of the team. We’re looking for something very subtle here, and he’s got a good overview.”

  Alex walked down the spiral staircase of the two-story security building erected behind the rows of chairs, the stages, the demonstration areas which crowded the huge dome. Today was the finale, and over twelve thousand guests were watc
hing the final recap of the entire project.

  “ All of you have children,” the narrator said. “ Many of you have grandchildren… ”

  Within the dome’s illusory black sky a pair of immense, ungainly Phoenix Fl rockets rotated nose to nose around six hundred meters of tether, for the coasting period between Earth orbit and Mars. Two truncated cones with rings of rocket nozzles around the bases. “Aerospike configuration,” he had heard someone say. Whatever that meant.

  Now the sky was filled with rockets, lightsail vehicles, orbital tethers made of Falling Angel cable, and more. It was a carousel of possibilities, a panoply of mankind’s future greatness, served up with soul-stirring music and the finest effects Cowles could create.

  Alex moved down one of the side rows, walking lightly, scanning faces, examining badges, nerves afire but still uncertain of the play.

  What was Fekesh up to?

  “- and as always, men will be needed. To supervise the machines, test the environment, and reap the rewards-”

  The sky exploded as a comet impacted on the surface of Mars, bringing new life and possibilities. Red and blue light washed over Alex’s face, over the room, painting it luridly, and the audience applauded the holographic display, flinched from the stereophonic thunder.

  Alex barely noticed it. His ears were deaf to the sound. He scanned the faces.

  In time-lapse fantasy, greenhouses and bubble cities sprang up across the surface.

  “- atmosphere by now, enough for airplanes, bubble cities. The question is, and must always be, how can we make money from this at every turn?-”

  As Alex finally reached the front of the room, the narrator was deep into his pitch. At every step of the way, it seemed, there was a fortune to be made. From the mining of comets and the Martian surface, to the manufacture of fusion plants and lightsails; from the design of life systems for the surface of Phobos to the new fashion crazes it would all trigger on Earth. Gaming spin-offs. Edible delicacies for the insanely rich. It went on and on, and they touched enough fiscal nerves to set the room sizzling.

  They were ready. After a week of delicate foreplay they were hot, eager, and ready to jump into the metaphorical sack with Falling Angel and Cowles.

  The floor rumbled, and for a moment he was startled. Then he looked behind him, at the 300-by-500-foot stage, where glowing mining machines, surface transport vehicles, and other wheeled craft were beginning their circular parade.

  The music was John Philip Sousa. Christ, all they needed was to whip out a United Nations flag, and half the room would jump up and salute.

  Mitch Hasagawa was standing against a huge hanging curtain, eyes glazed with the spectacle.

  “Oh, come on,” Alex said to him. “It’s not all that great.”

  “Huh?” The stocky security man shook his head.

  Alex must not be the only one on short sleep. “The display.”

  Mitch smiled, tried to suppress a yawn, and failed. “Yeah. Right, Chief.”

  Disturbed, Alex walked out of his earshot and touched his throat mike. “Cary,” he asked, “how long has Mitch been on duty?”

  There was a long pause.

  “Cary?”

  Another pause. “Ah… right here, Chief.” She sounded woozy. “Ah-about nine hours, I guess.”

  “Jesus, have some more coffee, will you? You sound like hell. Send down somebody to relieve Mitch.”

  “Sure, boss.” Cary signed off.

  Alex peered through the darkness. Where was the rest of his security force? He spotted one uniformed figure over to the side of the stage, and observed her for a minute before approaching.

  She was partially slumped, standing but numb. In her right hand, loosely held, was a foam coffee cup.

  The blood sang within him. Finally. He triggered the throat mike again. “Cary! How many of our people have had coffee today?”

  The pause was even longer this time. “Cary?”

  There was a thump behind him, and, sweating now, Alex turned to look.

  The Leviathan IV robot mining rig. In some way that he couldn’t quite define, it seemed out of step with the other display models.

  Was it his imagination? Wasn’t it supposed to move in that fashion? The Leviathan was huge, the size of an armored tank, a complete environment for the precomet days, built for three men to roll from home base.

  Griffin suddenly had an awful, ugly suspicion. What was it that Fekesh had done at Colorado Steel? An industrial accident during a safety inspection.

  And what had happened at Dream Park eight years before? An accident in Gaming B during a proxy fight for control of the company.

  And what had happened three days ago? He touched his throat mike. “Cary!”

  “Ah… yes?”

  “Don’t let anyone else touch that coffee, do you understand?”

  Dreamily. “Sure… boss.”

  He didn’t bother to curse. Alex tapped out Millicent’s code on his watch, and was relieved to hear her voice come in crisp and alert.

  “Hello?”

  “Millie, it’s Alex. No time. Get medical over here to Gaming A. Fekesh has drugged Security’s coffee-”

  “What? Alex, my God!”

  “-coffee supply. And find me Dwight Welles.”

  Alex kept an uneasy eye on that mining rig, offering a silent thanks to his ulcer. His earphone beeped.

  “Welles here. Alex, give me a break. I haven’t had sleep in two days-”

  “And you’re not getting any now. Tie in to Gaming A display autocircuits. Hurry!”

  “Jeeze.” Welles sounded injured, but did it in less than twenty seconds. “Got it.”

  “Good. Now take manual control of the Leviathan.”

  “Got you, Chief. Mmm… nothing.” Welles was talking to himself. “Nothing nothing… mmm? Zzzt! Listen, Chief, the manual control is locked. There’s something crazy in here.”

  Griffin was moving, running. In the dark, the luminescent rigs were all that could be seen, not the human being moving to intercept one of them. He dodged robot jeeps, running across a fantasy landscape. “Welles, is there any way into that thing?”

  “Wait, I’ll get the specs on the screen. Okay… The top is sealed, but there is an emergency exit door on the belly. There’s just enough room to squeeze between the treads. I think.”

  “Great.”

  It was rolling now.

  “Let me know the instant it diverges from its programmed path.”

  “Got you, Chief. Nothing so far-I just can’t take control from here.”

  Griffin whipped a pencil-light from his jacket pocket, panting now. There was a trillion dollars’ worth of juice in that audience, enough to ruin Cowles Industries, to cripple plans for expansion, to foreclose on outstanding loans, to deny access to proprietary technology. The future of Cowles and of the Barsoom Project was in his hands.

  “Can you cut power?”

  “No, Chief. Power is self-contained.”

  “Just great.”

  The thing was lumbering straight at him now, and he had to calm his fears.

  He lay down on his stomach, and shone the pencil-light directly between the treads. There-Welles had been correct. There was just barely enough room.

  And if it turned to left or right?

  His world was filled with the sound of churning mechanicals as the tank began to pass over him.

  “ And there will be dangers on the surface of the-”

  A blast of their damned ultrasonics passed through him, and he blanched. He was too close to the speakers, and his body vibrated like a tuning fork. He floated away on a sea of nausea, overwhelmed, mind lost in agony.

  Keep your mind on the job, asshole!

  Alex made his hands take hold of the front bumper of the tank as it rolled past his head.

  It was dragging him now, and his back was already abraded. He’d only be able to stand a few seconds of this. He climbed down the underside of the tank, sucking air, trying to calm himself as the subsonics
roared through his blood.

  And then he had the hatch. With trembling fingers, he worked at the latch lever, and was insanely grateful that the Dream Park technos took their maintenance responsibilities seriously. It was well oiled and opened immediately.

  He wiggled up through the tight machinery-

  What, did they think Barsoom’s miners would be midgets? Oh, bloody hell, it was a 2/3 replica, wasn’t it? It was going to break his hip. He couldn’t quite get through, when-

  “Griff. Problem. Something just took over the program.” “What is it?”

  He pulled, strained. Skin could give, fat and muscle could give, but not bone.

  “It must be a virus. It hasn’t shut me out yet, I can still see what it’s doing. There’s a search program in action on the Leviathan’s sensors.”

  “Search? What is it searching?”

  “Oh, shit-it’s searching security badges. It’s looking for someone. Goddamn! It just locked.”

  “On who?”

  Alex lowered himself. He’d suddenly remembered a story. Something about a monkey who got his fist caught in a jar. if he relaxed his fist, and dropped the candy Or, if the Dream Park security man could back out again. The

  Martian surface savaged his lower body, and there was no way to protect himself.

  Bump bump bump.

  “It’s locked on Ambassador Richard Arbenz. Oh, shit, Griff! It broke out of the circle. It’s heading off the platform!”

  Griffin heaved himself up into the cabin. There was enough room to move now. But he was sore, and there were muscles and tendons sprained where he hadn’t even known he had muscles and tendons.

  “Where is the computer link?”

  “Should be obvious. Leviathan was borrowed from Rockwell. They were using a manual system-”

  “Where? Wherewherewhere?”

  “It’s just a box chipped into the CPU. Under the main screen-”

  There was a horrible bump as the entire mining rig left the platform. With a crunching sound the barrier separating stage and audience gave way.

  Someone screamed.

  Too late! Too late!

  Angry, sick, terrified, Alex twisted sideways, stretched, still partially caught in the trapdoor, but stretched far enough to grasp the box. He yanked and tore and twisted, cursed vilely, and something gave.