Dream Park

by Larry Niven;Steven Barnes

  Kasan was in the aisle, waving his arms and chanting in an unknown language, while two Gamers held him steady with hands on his belt.

  Tony almost forgot his own fear as he stared out. Closer now . . . and the control tower was only wickerwork on pontoons, and the lights were floating torches tethered by ropes, forming lines too close together to make a real runway. It was a mockery of an airport laid out on water.

  The mock-airport veered sideways, and gee forces pulled savagely at the passengers. The DC-3 pulled out of its dive. The wing on the right side bent far enough to pop two lines of rivets, then eased back into place; but fluid was streaming from where the metal had crinkled. Stimac’s intercom voice screamed, “Got it! I think we’re all right now. Whatever it was, it’s—Oh shit!” as the wing unrolled a flapping flag of red-and-yellow flame.

  “I’ve got to get us down,” said the crackling intercom voice. “Brace yourselves. This isn’t going to be neat.” They were barely at treetop level, trailing flame and black smoke. “I’ll try for Chambri Lake. There are life rafts in the rear of the plane . . .”

  Tony could restrain himself no longer. “Just what the hell is happening?” He couldn’t look away from the line of trees whipping past the plane at paint-scraping levels.

  Acacia looked down. “The real lake should be somewhere close up ahead. If we can make that—” her eyes were fixed on the window, and as an expanse of dark green came into view, she sighed in relief. “There it is!”

  The plane plunged, shaking like a dog drying itself, an there were fourteen throat-rendering screams and one “Yah-hoo!” In the instant before the plane struck water Acacia was aware of Tony’s fingers dipping clawlike into her arm.

  The impact threw them forward. Water surged over the plane, bubbles streamed past the windows. At least the fire was out. The plane bobbed to the surface, wobbled, righted itself. Water lapped at the windows.

  Chester was the first to regain his balance. “All right, everybody, let’s get out the lifeboats and get the gear together. We’ve got work to do.”

  Seatbelts clicked like castinets. Duffle bags were pulled out of their overhead racks with almost feverish eagerness. Tony looked toward the nose of the plane, where Captain Stimac lolled limply in his chair.

  “Hey, is he . . . ?’ Unnoticed by the rest of the Gamers, Tony advanced to the front of the craft, shouldering his backpack unsteadily. “Captain Stimac?” There was no reply. He took another cautious step, feeling the plane yaw slightly beneath him. “Captain?” Stimac’s head rolled back loosely from a neck that seemed broken, and a trickle of blood ran from his mouth. Eyes stared sightless from a slack and pasty face. Tony felt his stomach convulse, and clutched at himself, suddenly afraid. “Oh my God.”

  Then Stimac winked at him. Straightening in mid-retch, Tony glared at him and stalked out of the cabin. He grabbed Acacia by the shoulder and spun her around. “That’s the last time, understand? Absolutely the last.”

  Acting calmly and with near-military precision, Chester had four boats out on the water and was directing the inflating of the fifth from a cylinder of compressed gas. Tony and Acacia were in a raft with S. J. Waters, and Tony was looking back at the DC-3 with a half-smile. ’Boy that looks real. You really have to strain to catch even the outline of the Phoenix under the—”

  Acacia laid a hand gently on his arm. “Tony,” she said with genuine affection, “Stop fighting. It is real. Everything here is real. Just relax and let it happen, okay? Please?”

  Her dark eyes sparkled with unmocking laughter, and Tony nodded. He gripped her hand hard. “I’m sorry, babe. I guess maybe I’m—” He paused and looked around at the rafts bobbing in the lake. “I don’t know what’s going to happen or what it will do to my head. It throws me.”

  The rafts, five strong now, were bobbing next to the settling DC-3 in the middle of a huge lake. It was impossible to tell the actual size of the body of water; perspective was no barrier to Dream Park technology. Chester and Maibang were last into the water, in a raft loaded with bundles of supplies.

  “Which way, Kasan?”

  The guide looked around in feigned confusion. “This is difficult to say, but I’m not sure.”

  “What do you mean?

  “I mean that this lake isn’t what it should be—it’s shaped wrong.”

  Chester’s long face became thoughtful. “Wrong shape. How so?’

  “Chambri Lake is rounder than this. See, two of the shorelines are clearly visible, but the other two edges are lost to our sight.”

  Chester carefully got to his feet, standing precariously balanced as he looked. Just as carefully, he sat back down

  All right, if s not Chambri Lake. What is it?”

  Kasan wagged his head sorrowfully. “Not sure. Very bad magic, I fear.” He gazed contemplatively across the lake. “I think we should head to the north shore. It’s closest. “

  There was a feather touch of suspicion on Chester’s face as he nodded assent. “Okay, people, let’s move out for the north bank. We can regroup there.”

  Two out of the three people on each raft hefted paddle and began guiding their boats ashore. Tony and Acacia provided propulsion for their boat while their passenger S. J., merrily called, “Stroke! Stroke!”

  It became a race, with Tony and Acacia in second place, behind Eames and his two boatmates, one a Magic User named Alan Leigh, the other the irrepressible Mary-em, who as second paddle did not so much stroke as wrestle the water into submission. Leigh, his pouchy cheeks somewhat incongruous on his spare frame, watched the water ahead of them intently, and when his hand shot into the air all five of the rafts backpaddled to a halt.

  Acacia shaded her eyes and cautiously stood, testing her balance. “There’s something there. . .” Tony started to ask, then saw it himself.

  Just ahead of Eames’s boat, the water was rippling unpleasantly. S. J. got to his feet, almost upsetting the boat. Acacia skewered him on a raised eyebrow, and he sat down. “Water snake,” he muttered, watching the approaching ripples.

  Chester, two rafts back, had seen it too. “Snake!” His voice was surprisingly clear and loud. “Big one! Leigh, take first assault.”

  In the front raft, Leigh stood up. When the snake rose from the swirling water the magician was ready.

  The snake was easily thirty feet long, its trunk thick and banded with muscle. Its head was broader than a horse’s, long black tongue slipping in and out of its mouth with hypnotic rhythm. Its torso showed yellow and dull red against the blue-green of the lake, and as it hoisted fully eight feet of its length out of the water and glared at them, an uneasy cheer went up from the other gamers.

  Leigh spread his arms in supplication. “Gods above!” he screamed at the top of his voice, “hear my plea!” Almost immediately a green glow surrounded him, and he nodded acknowledgement. The snake glided closer. “Let’s see now—”

  “God’s sake get on with it!” Mary-em snapped.

  He glared at her. “No respect for artists. All right, then.” He refocused his gaze on the snake, now only meters away. “Snake, you are a thing of water. I give you—fire!” He gestured magically, and nothing happened. He repeated, “Fire!” and the glow around his right hand melted from green to red. He made a hurling motion at the snake.

  A fist-sized ball of fire sailed from his hand, bright even in artificial daylight, expanding as it pierced the air and impacted the snake’s nose. The effect was remarkable. The viper recoiled with an echoing hiss and dove back into the water and disappeared.

  Tony cheered. “Great! Heroes one, monster zero!”

  Acacia gripped his arm. “Not so fast, Tony” She was watching Chester.

  The Lore Master lifted his arms. “Hear me, oh gods,” he said, his voice deep and resonant. The green glow appeared around him. He looked down into the murky green water. “I invoke Clear Vision. Reveal to me my foe.”

  With a ripple of glitter, the surface of the lake became like a warped sheet of green glass, a
nd beneath it writhed the outline of an enormous serpent. “Warriors! Be ready! It’s coming back up.”

  Acacia said, “Oh shit,” and dived for her gear she hurriedly unrolled an oblong oilskin package and lovingly touched the twenty-four-inch blade of her shortsword before buckling the scabbard round her waist. She slipped the blade out again and experimentally slashed at the air then checked the “ready” light in the hilt. She waited, crouched.

  The lake surged and the snake was on them, hissing with the liquid sound of a wind whipping through a stand of rain swept trees. Its head coiled back, then snapped forward with blinding speed. Acacia cut furiously across the beast’s mouth. It swerved around and tried to bite from the side, but the swordswoman pivoted neatly and met it again. This time the snake jerked back clear of the blade, hovered just out of range, glaring at her with blood drooling from its upper lip. Slowly, eyes fixed on her steadily, it sank beneath the water.

  “Good play, Panthesilea,” Tony McWhirter said, his face just a shade pale.

  S. J. piped up immediately. “Best damn holograms in the world. Most expensive, too. The sword sensor knows whether it intersects part of the projection, and signals the computer. The snake’s a computer-animated projection so—” He looked down at Acacia’s sword tip waving a inch from his nose.

  She said, “Listen, S. J., maybe you get your kicks from, analyzing dreams, but I want to play, and I want Tony to have the chance to play with me, okay?”

  S. J. grinned and said, “Snake’s behind you.” She whirled, sword ready, and he laughed.

  The water snake was menacing the raft that held Gwen and Ollie. They paddled madly. Their passenger, a Cleric named Garret, spread his arms and intoned loudly, “Hear me, oh gods!” His red false beard flapped mightily in the breeze. The familiar green halo surrounded him, and he yelled, “A ring of protection, Father!”

  A band of soft white light circled the raft. The snake drew up short and nosed around them in bewildered frustration. In the time that it spent deciding how to attack, Bowan the Black had maneuvered his boat up behind it. “Fireball!” he cried. An arc of flame leapt from his palm to strike the monster just behind the head It hissed in pain and spun around, diving for Bowan. Olle’s voice rang out across the water.

  “Cut the ring!” he yelled, and the circle of light disappeared. Ollie stood stripped to the waist, gut sucked in heroically. His eyes burned fiercely. He clutched a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. He yodeled his war-cry and struck.

  The snake jerked away from the kiss of steel, and Ollie’s second slash cut thin air. Ollie tried to make up the extra distance with a lunge. The raft shifted in the opposite direction, and Ollie went over the edge.

  He came up sputtering and thrashing with his left hand for balance. The dagger was a hindrance; he stuffed it in his sheath and struck out towards the snake. Its body rose from the water and encircled him. Ollie screamed defiantly and laid about with the sword. The snake was covered in wounds now, and Bowan the Black was hurling tongues of fire with both hands.

  The snake’s upper body was awrithe with flame, and it uncoiled from Ollie and tried to dive. As it did, Ollie torqued his body all the way round in the water, and caught it dead center between the eyes. Mortally wounded, it rolled its eightball eyes piteously and expired, sinking beneath the water with only a slick of blood to mark it passing.

  Without knowing how he got there, Tony found himself on his feet and cheering like an idiot. With great clumsy strokes Ollie swam back to the raft. Gwen helped him aboard, kissing him soundly. Acacia nudged Tony. “Think they’ll celebrate tonight, or what?”

  He was still open-mouthed, watching the slowly dissipating bloodstain. “Just wow, Cas. I don’t believe it.”

  “You’d better believe it when it happens to you, you’ll be out of the Game while you’re still trying to shut your mouth.” She brushed the back of her hand along his jawline, closing it, and said, “Come on, lover. Let’s get to shore before Lopez hits us with something new.”

  “Oh, he wouldn’t . . .” He paused, chewing his words. “Right. Let’s get off the lake.”

  Chapter Seven

  THE ROAD OF THE CARGO

  The DC-3 was disappearing beneath the waters as the last raft pulled ashore. Tony shouldered his knapsack and adjusted the nylon straps. “Rest in peace, Captain Stimac,” he said. “Is that one for Lopez?”

  Acacia shook her head. “The pilot was a freebie. He wasn’t a member of our party. He was outside Chester’s influence. Help me get my bedroll adjusted, will you? Then let’s go talk to Chester.”

  The Lore Master was helping Gina get herself together. Besides a bedroll and backpack, the lovely redhead sported a wicked looking dagger and the wizard’s staff, her major magical tool. Henderson himself carried only a bedroll and backpack, plus a small black box fastened to his belt on the left side.

  He turned to Maibang. “You have a lot of those snakes around here?”

  Maibang raised his palms in supplication. “Who knows what evil has been wrought here since my departure. The guide wiped a drop of water from his broad nose and stared into the distance. “I believe that we head . . . yes that way, north, toward the mountains.”

  “Are you sure?” Chester sounded a touch irritated.

  “Almost absolutely. I understand that your people have mystical ways to reach out and seek such information for yourselves. Perhaps you would care to try?”

  “Too much energy expenditure, too soon. The snake drained a lot of energy from two of my players . . .” Chester gazed toward the mountain peaks shimmering the distance, and the dense forest growth between. The guide could plead ignorance, but he couldn’t lie . . .

  Chester raised his voice to be audible to the entire group. “We’re heading north. Eames, you and Leigh front with me. Mary-em and Acacia, take the rear guard. Don’t spread too thin, people.”

  The fifteen Gamers and Maibang formed into a line, Eames leading as they chopped their way into the brush. The big man’s arm rose and fell tirelessly as his sword served machete duty, filling the air with shredded green chaff. “We must follow these mountains,” Maibang assured them. “There should be a trail up ahead just a little way, and then the going will be much easier.”

  Chester grunted a reply and kept watching the terrain carefully.

  Tony hung back with Acacia in the rear of the column She cut brush for the first few minutes, but as initial progress was slow she soon tired and slipped her sword back into its sheath. They found a trail and the going got easier. Maibang kept them heading toward the “mountains” . . . which, Acacia suspected, were slowly shifting position to keep them traveling in an expanding spiral. She couldn’t come close to naming all the varieties of plant and animal life. Birds of all kinds, their plumes ablaze with color; parrots with purple and bright orange feathers, birds of paradise with impossible combinations of gold and red and electric white swirling on their wings and tails. Acacia recognized coconuts and what looked like rubber trees, but beyond that the underbrush was a tangle of greens and dark purples and the yellow of dying shrubs; of vines and trees, leaves flat and shiny, invisible against the forest growth or exploding with flowers. Small snakes slept on branches or wriggled from underfoot. Creatures leapt through the branches just out of sight.

  One parrot, gorgeous in its purple plumage, kept pace with her for what seemed a kilometer, always just out of reach. She watched it, watched it land for an instant on a branch to nuzzle beneath its wings for a fat mite, watched it cock its head at her curiously, and found herself wondering if it was real. It looked real; it sounded real, its untutored voice croaking tunelessly except for sharp whistles; and she wondered.

  The air was hot and sticky and smelled oppressively green. They had tried holding hands, but contact with another human body only made the heat worse, and they gave it up. Sweat rolled from Tony’s face in grimy drops, and under his cotton shirt dark damp spots were forming under his armpits and on his chest.

 
He pointed off to the side and asked, “Is that . . . ?”

  A small clearing surrounded by one species of bush, outlining a crescent moon. “That’s it. Shall I stop the others?”

  “I’ll only be a second.” Tony stepped off the trail and into the clearing and faded out. Acacia kept moving. Presently he was behind her again, pushing his pace until he caught up.

  “I feel as if we’ve been walking for hours,” he said to her, panting sincerely. Some of the bounce was gone from his walk, and frustrated fatigue showed in his face. “Come on . . . where’s another beastie? Anything’s better than this.”

  Acacia moaned sympathetically. “Poor baby. Just try to remember that your discomfort, like everything else here, is only make-believe.” She patted his cheek. “There, now. Don’t you feel better now?”

  “Yes, Mommy,” he said absently, and quickened his step to catch up with Gwen and Ollie. Sheen of sweat or not, the blond Cleric hadn’t released her hero’s arm for an instant. Tony clapped Ollie on the shoulder. “Good going with the water snake, Ollie.”

  “Call me Oliver, would you, Tony?” His hand rested easily on the grip of his sword.

  Tony tried to laugh, but suddenly there was nothing soft about Ollie, not his eyes nor his carriage, and certainly not the way his palm caressed his sword. Gwen had changed too. She was still attached to Ollie. But instead of his leaning on her, she seemed to be drawing strength from him. Tony sensed that he was out of his depth.

  Gwen’s laugh was of quiet challenge. “Oliver is a noble name, Tony. Oliver was one of Charlemagne’s greatest warriors.”

  “All right . . . Oliver. I like the way you handled the water snake. It was a class act.

  Tension eased. “I almost got killed out there,” Oliver growled. “When I went off the side of the boat, I thought I was dead. I was just waiting for the jolt from my neck tab. If Lopez had really wanted me, he had me then. That thing could have crushed me before it took enough hit points to roll over and die.”