Dream Park

by Larry Niven;Steven Barnes

  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 Foré’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 Foré tried to stop Ollie’s sword with his bare hand, and failed. While the other Gamers 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 Foré 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 stem 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 boat, onto the knees of the other Gamers.

  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 Foré 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, O—” 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. “Here me O 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 Foré in the throat.

  The Foré 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 pushed 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 . . . Griffin, 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 takeoff. 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.

  The pouch had a velcro seal, easily thumbed open. Alex lifted out four sheets of photocopy paper, then a fold of foam cushioning, and from that a tiny vial of thin, colorless fluid. It was only half filled.

  “Neutral scent?” Tony nodded. “All right, Tony. If you’ve played straight with me, I’ll do what I can. Which may not be much.”

  “Griffin! Fortunato!”

  They pounded up the ladder, into the cockpit, and found that they had reached the Sea of Lost Cargo. The mighty Spruce Goose was a terror to navigate here, but Margie accomplished it with élan, and only onc
e did a grinding crash indicate a collision with a smaller, half sunken craft. “Shit-oh-dear!” Margie said. “Chester, I can’t slow down. We’d sink deeper. We might hit something else.”

  “Then don’t.”

  Margie scrutinized the docking area carefully. “I can get us a little closer, but we’ll still have to use the boat, I think, and—” her words died in her throat.

  The Undead were waiting for them. At least a hundred strong, they formed an arc before the fuel dump. A few had marched to the edge of the water and were waving their blades, stiffly.

  Chester looked sick. “They’ll butcher us when we come ashore. If we ran the Goose aground . . . no, we’d never get enough momentum to crash that line.”

  One of the motors coughed. Margie shut down engine #1, outboard on the left wing. The Goose tried to turn, and she pulled it back into line. “Chester, shall I shut down? Or beach the beast?”

  “Shut down.”

  Margie killed the motors. The Goose settled. She said, “We may not have the fuel to start up again.”

  Chester was grinding his teeth. “So near. And now we’re trapped.”

  “We’ve got to try, Chester. What else can we do?” Acacia scanned the line of Undead, and shuddered.

  “What time is it?”

  Alex looked at his sleeve. “Stopped.”

  “Eleven-forty,” Tony said, without turning from the window.

  “Uh huh. The Game ends at one. We’ve got to beat the Undead, move enough fuel to fly us out, get it into the tanks . . . Hell, we don’t even know where the tanks are. Prime the motors and fly home. Not enough time. It can’t be enough, not even if we could whip that many Undead.

  “That airplane’s egg really cost us,” Acacia said.

  “Yeah. Even so . . . there has to be a way out of this mess. I know Lopez.”

  “Well, I don’t see it.” The dark haired girl stomped her foot and swore. “Look—if we’re going to lose, let’s not just sit it out trapped like rats. Let’s get out there and kick some behind!”

  Margie shook her head. “Chester, there is another way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Spruce Goose never flew from Long Beach to New Guinea. It’s just too far. The tanks would have been dry long before they got there, even if they were full to start with, and they probably weren’t. Remember, it was just a practice run.”

  “Magic.” Gears were turning in Chester’s head. “But we don’t know the ceremony—”

  Lady Janet raised her hand. “I do.”

  “What?”

  She smiled, pushing forward until she was almost against his chest. “When those people were holding me captive, I saw them perform their ceremony several times. The spells were in good English. I memorized them.”

  “Lady Janet, I don’t trust you.”

  Margie swiveled around in her chair. “Chester, she has to be a clue. Why else would she have survived so long in the Game?”

  Chester held his head, trying to think.

  “They’re going to come out, Chester,” Tony said flatly. Alien-looking Foré priests had appeared among the Undead, oiled bodies gleaming in the sun. They were directing the launching of boats.

  Griffin ignored the boats. Easy to drive through them, if they chose to go that route. “Equipment,” he said. “If we’ve got the ceremony, we’ve got the equipment too. There’s a full Cargo Cult workshop in that Quonset hut. It’s a good thing we didn’t burn it down.” He looked out. “The zombies are blocking the fuel, but not the Quonset hut. We can ram right through those boats. The rest . . . well, by the time we got to the Headquarters building they’d be there too, unless . . . unless we run the Goose up on the beach. We might never get it loose. Yeah. But it’s a chance!”

  “No.”

  “We may have to—”

  “No “ Chester was smiling, but it was not a nice smile. “I kept looking for the flaw, but I didn’t see it till Lady Janet spoke, It’s another mousetrap. Lady Janet, have you forgotten the copyright violation rule?”

  “By Jiminy, I believe I did,” she laughed, and Chester laughed with her.

  Alex slapped his forehead, hard enough to hurt. “Some detective. The Enemy’s spells are the Enemy’s property. We can’t use them, can we?”

  Tony spun from the window. “Wait a minute!” He shook Chester’s shoulder. “It wasn’t the Enemy who stole the Goose. They stole it from the Daribi. So we could use Daribi spells if—”

  “Yes. Who has Maibang’s skull?” Chester searched desperately from face to face as there was no answer. Then Margie raised her hand.

  “I got it from Owen, I think.” She opened her pack and rummaged swiftly. The guide’s charred skull was a pitiful relic, all personality gone; but Chester siezed it like a priceless jewel.

  “Table ceremony. Tony, Griffin, rig me a table. The rest of you, I want any remaining rations. Chocolate bars? Salt tablets? Anything that might be accepted.”

  They set it up in the cargo hold. A warped chest served as a table; they raided a crate of bedsheets for a tablecloth. A few pieces of dried fruit and a lone stick of gum lay on the cloth next to the black skull. No flowers, no candle, but Chester was grimly pleased.

  “The bilasim tewol,” he murmured, then spread wide his arms. “Hear me, Kasan Maibang. Hear me, oh Gods. We destroy the last of our precious supplies that we may speak with him who was our guide. Hear us, Jesus-Manup—” The air above the table shimmered, and Chester gestured. “Fire,” he commanded, and bare sparks fell from his fingertips. “Fire,” he commanded again, and his aura tinged red. He ignored it. “Fire!” he screamed, and the table crackled in flame.

  The burn-scarred face of Kasan Maibang wavered in their vision. “I know why you call,” whispered the guide, “but I cannot help you. Only one greater than myself can save you.”

  “Who?”

  “Pigibidi, the greatest chief of my people.”

  “Summon him.”

  “It will cost you mana. What have you of power?”

  Chester was frantic, tearing at frizzled hair with long fingers. Then he barked laughter and dumped his pack out. Almost at the bottom was what looked like a set of black leather pajamas—the shed skin of a Foré spy. He placed it on the magical fire.

  “It is good. . .” Kasan said, and his face shifted outline and became the pitted and wrinkled visage of old Pigibidi.

  “Pigibidi, Great Chief,” Chester began. He licked his lips nervously. “We are desperate. We must move this tremendous airplane, and we have no fuel.”

  The old man’s lips moved, and his words echoed in the hold. “The woman offered you the spell of the Foré. Be glad you did not use it. One must have permission to use such magic, and to steal a spell from its owner carries a terrible price.”

  Chester glared at Lady Janet, who hid a smile. “Pigibidi . . . what shall we do?”

  “I will give you the spell you need. If our peoples ever contend again, beware of trying to use it against us.”

  “No! I swear—”

  “A European’s promise is worth little. If you have the magical power to lift so vast a machine, I will work the spell for you, that the Foré might be beaten.”

  “Power. We’re out. Pigibidi, there’s nothing left! You’ve got to—”

  “I am sorry. Then it is all for nothing.”

  Chester stomped and swore. “That Lopez! I’ll kill him! I swear to God—” He hoisted himself on a crate to look out one of a pair of tiny portholes. The boats of the Foré had reached the Goose. Soon it would be over.

  The fire burned without consuming, and Pigibidi’s translucent visage watched them with the dispassionate calm of the dead.

  Alex leaned against the wall of the hold, eyes hooded speculatively. Pigibidi hadn’t vanished. There must be more. A crate of Coca-Cola? The corpse of a Foré priest? Or—“Chester?”

  “What?” the Lore Master snarled. His entire body was shaking.

  “Didn’t Margie say that Hughes himself f
lew this thing?”

  “That’s right,” Margie agreed. “He was pilot on that one short flight off Long Beach.”

  “Well, if that was when they stole it, then it stands to reason that—”

  Tony was sprinting up the ladder to the cabin.

  “—that Hughes is one of the skeletons,” Griffin finished.

  “My God.” Chester’s body calmed down, the excitement flaring in his smile as he realised what Alex was saying. “It’s Cargo Cult mythology. And we’ve got access to the tindalo of one of the twentieth century’s greatest aeronautical industrialists!”

  Acacia retrieved the skull Alex had discarded earlier. “Is this the right one?”

  Hughes or the pilot? The bony face grinned sardonically, secure in its anonymity. Griffin said, “Hughes was a millionaire. His clothes would be in better shape—”

  Tony half-fell down the ladder, his arms full of bones. “What the hell, we’ll use them both! A test pilot makes a perfectly good tindalo.” He took the other skull from Acacia and set the two at opposite corners of the table, under Pigibidi’s hovering face. The flames sparked up.

  A Foré zombie had crawled up to the window. It leered at them, pounding with the flat of an ashy hand.

  Pigibidi’s translucent face nodded at them. It began to speak. “God-Dodo, Jesus-Manup, hear my—”

  And his words were drowned in the sound of leviathan engines turning over. All eight propellers ripped at the air. Margie gasped and ran for the cockpit, with the other Gamers in hot pursuit. The Spruce Goose shuddered and jerked and surged forward.

  Margie scrambled into a seat. A last zombie lay flat in front of the windshield, yelling, hugging the painted wood.

  The seaplane rose on its step and picked up speed, nudging aside smaller craft and heading for open water. Margie grinned fiercely as the Goose raced along the surface and finally skipped free. They bounced back down, once, with a massive, stomach-churning splash, and the zombie vanished. Then the plane truly found its power and rose from the water with a throaty roar.

  Shore and dock fell away beneath them. Jungles and mountains, monsters and dooms, and the gesticulating figures of the Foré were pinpoints to their eyes. As the Spruce Goose kissed the clouds the Gamers turned to each other, and there was a swollen moment of silence. Then Alex whooped, and Acacia hugged him, and Tony hugged Margie, and Chester kissed Lady Janet, and the cockpit was filled with laughter and screams of joy.