The Barsoom Project dp-2 Read online

  Max shook himself out of the reverie. Stop being so clever. Don’t even try to guess.

  Frankish Oliver was chuckling under his beard. “Isn’t he good? Robin Bowles, under all that hair!”

  “Last time I saw him, he was balding.”

  “Actor’s ego. He’s on camera now. He was Nero Wolfe in Fer-de-Lance and The Mother Hunt. They couldn’t be paying him enough for this.”

  “He must want to lose weight for a movie.”

  Oliver looked at him, scanned him up and down. “So you’re Mr. Mountain, eh? You look bigger on holovid.”

  “Elevator tights,” Max said quietly. Dammit, he’d hoped no one would recognize him… ”Listen-you’re the only one who knows. Don’t spread it around, all right?”

  Oliver chuckled. “Well, all right, but I wouldn’t worry about it. We’re all playing roles here.” And he turned back to his dossier.

  Odd comment. Was Oliver a Gamer or an Actor? Best to watch him, see what he did, maybe do the same. He hoped Oliver could keep a secret.

  Clouds were fragile veils that flashed past without leaving moisture on the windows. The land streaming below might have been a boneyard shrouded with cotton.

  “Seattle,” the stewardess said. “Totally dead except for scavengers. A few unfortunates who couldn’t get out. And the frozen, unburied dead.” The stewardess was talking into a tape recorder. She caught Max staring and her lips gave an embarrassed upward twitch. “I’ve been trying to make a record. It doesn’t matter now. Maybe it won’t ever matter. But I have to believe there is hope. Someone has to.”

  The mood in the room was grim. This was fun? This was supposed to be entertainment? It felt like a wake, a gathering to mourn the death of mankind beneath the marching glaciers. Suddenly Max felt so depressed that he couldn’t-

  There was a low rumbling in the engines, so low that he almost didn’t notice it. Now he caught it and recognized it. Subsonics. The rumble died, and he began to feel a little better. Damn it, he knew that Dream Park was manipulating him with sound, with subliminal visuals, and if rumor had it right, with smells that impacted below the threshold of conscious perception. It didn’t matter. As his mood lifted he suddenly felt buoyant, filled with hope and energy. He looked around himself in the plane, saw everyone sitting up straight, eyes tight with determination.

  Bowles nodded. “I knew that I could count on you. Now listen to me.” He spoke in an odd, measured cadence, suspiciously like a stage hypnotist Max had seen on holo once. “Sometimes we can do things for other people that we can’t do for ourselves. If that’s what it takes to get you through this, to help you survive, then that’s what I want you to do.” He scanned the room. Max felt a musical trilling sensation. It was similar to the thrill he’d experienced when he figured out the answer to the Time Travel Game: like someone using his bones for a piccolo. He felt like he could whip the world.

  “We’re going to survive. Each of us is going to go beyond his ordinary limits. Every one of us is going to make sacrifices. We’re going to give up things that we love, to make a healthier situation for our friends, our family.

  “I want you all to look into your hearts, and be sure that you have permission to survive. To win. Because if you don’t have that, then no matter how much food we have, how much shelter or heat, you won’t make it.” Bowles made very deliberate eye contact with each of them in turn.

  Max felt comfortable, drifting, warm. He sank into an ocean of comfort… and only when he bobbled up again did he realize that Bowles had been talking the whole time. “-help that is asked for, no matter what it is. Agreed!?”

  “Aye!” The Gamers answered raggedly. Max joined in late, too embarrassed to admit that he hadn’t the foggiest notion what he was agreeing to. But judging by the confused expressions around him, his lapse of attention had been more rule than aberration.

  Something was being passed forward from the back. He sniffed sharp cheese and beef, and his mouth watered. Lunchlike substances! Waiting, he suddenly realized that the plane was shuddering, humming with stress.

  “This is your captain speaking. We are running low on fuel, but there is nothing to worry about. The charts indicate a refueling depot just south of Bethel, within glide distance. We will land there. Please strap yourselves in.”

  The shudder eased: the plane had dropped back through sonic speed. Through the window he could see the ground looming close, a vast expanse of white dotted with a few rectangular dwellings. The wing had moved smoothly forward; flaps were sliding out to extend the trailing edges. His stomach crawled up into his throat, looking for a place to hide. There was a clutch of buildings ahead. The land humped to the left, a sharp black ridge, and beyond that were more oblongs on the white blanket. An Eskimo village?

  The plane shifted about, outspread wings feeling the air. The craft tilted and dropped, gripped by a freak wind. Gamers gripped their seats with white-knuckled fingers.

  Max glanced across the aisle. Eviane’s bright emerald eyes were as wide as saucers, blinking rapidly as she peered out under the wing. The craft straightened and surged and touched down in a snow bed. Plumes of white spewed to either side. They slowed, sliding toward a pair of snow-shrouded refueling pumps.

  Then it was as if a malicious hand clutched the wheels on the right. The plane lurched and slewed drunkenly, heaving Max against his seatbelt. It smashed straight into the pumps and ripped them away.

  Half of the service station shell went next. A thick splinter of metal gouged into the hull of the plane, breaching the cabin. Max heard the clang and saw something ripping through the wall, slicing toward him at knee level. He pulled his knees to his belly as the jagged steel wedge slicked past.

  The intoxicating stench of spilled fuel filled the air. The stewardess screamed at them. “Move! The emergency exits are middle and front. Take the left side exits only, but hurry!”

  The passenger cabin dissolved into chaos. Everyone grabbed gear or friends or both. The copilot and pilot burst from the cockpit and reached the door ahead of the stewardess. They pulled handles; the side doors of the plane popped open, completing the cabin temperature’s descent to zero. A chute hissed as it expanded.

  The copilot jumped into the chute and disappeared from view. His voice came back: “Okay. Move!”

  The pilot stayed to help Robin Bowles into the chute. Bowles let out a boisterous “yaah-hoo!” as he hit the plastic. He skidded to the ground and spun dizzily on the snow.

  Max was next. He slid all of the way down on his butt, hollering every inch of the way. What a trip!

  Passengers followed at four-second intervals. The inflated chute bounced and flopped behind him.

  He counted heads. All out, except the pilot, the stewardess, and the Guardsman. They were throwing things from the open door. Half a dozen bulky items fell in a cloud: backpacks, then crates. What about damage? But they were in haste.

  “I bought good stuff!” Bowles bellowed. “Falling Angels stuff. Antibiotics made in orbit. Lines that’ll hold six elephants. Foam-steel backpack struts. Hey, use the chute for that!” He caught a crate as it slid down the chute. “We may need those medicines.”

  The copilot was jogging around to the tail of the plane. His feet thrashed in the air as he pulled the tail ramp down. He yelled something undecipherable in the wind and excitement-

  And then disappeared in a deceptively soft puff of fire. Yellow flame rolled up from the back of the plane like a flapping carpet, darkening to a roll of oily smoke.

  Max was chilled. The man had been cremated in an instant. Killed out. One redundant guide, gone. It’s only a Game, come on- Eviane was running toward the flame. The stew had her by the arm, was shouting at her above the howling wind. Eviane desisted.

  The exit had become a rush, and he thought: We’ll get clear, but what about the supplies? The food? Max made himself move.

  Luggage was being thrown out of the forward door, and they scrambled for it, catching it as it fell, in a bizarre game of- what wa
s it called? He vaguely remembered an ancient comedy routine entitled “Catch It and You Keep It!” (Announcer: “We’re here atop the twenty-story CBS building, and our contestants are below us in the parking lot for the first round of Catch It and You Keep It. Johnny, what’s our first prize? A Tappan gas range…?“)

  Something soft slammed into his chest and sent him stumbling backward. He couldn’t hold the belly laugh in even as he tried to catch his balance. They were stranded! Their food was going up in smoke! The copilot, fried! This was disastrous! This was tragic!

  This was getting really interesting.

  Chapter Six

  SUPPLIES

  Eviane watched Francis Hebert roll clumsily down the chute. He managed to right himself, and hit the ground running. The stewardess helped Trianna Stith-Wood through the doorway. For all her size Trianna managed somehow to express panic in a dainty, ladylike manner.

  Eviane decided that she definitely didn’t like the woman.

  Crates of equipment lay scattered in the snow as Bowles and the pilot struggled to haul luggage from the cargo hold. The Guardsman left the chute three feet above the ground, hit the ground rolling, and took off with rifle held at the ready.

  The stewardess took a last look into the plane, seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, and stepped out into the chute.

  The plane shuddered against the ground, and an instant later the windows exploded, gouting fire. For an instant the stewardess was outlined in flame, her body a blackened silhouette against a yellow corona. Then she was gone.

  The plane’s death-cry flattened the hapless Gamers. Chunks of burning metal rained from the sky.

  Eviane lay facedown in the snow. The snow just a few feet from her head flickered with gasoline flames, and glistened as it melted. A fragment of twisted steel lay just out of reach. It was hot. It would burn her if she touched it… wouldn’t it?

  It was all real. The mists were clearing…

  She stood, and looked down and out at the survivors. Thirteen in all, passengers and crew. They moved toward Bowles, gathering into a tight clump to hear each other over a hammering, frigid wind.

  The pilot yelled above the storm. “I’m sorry, Mr. Bowles. Made a right cock-up of that one. I think there must have been a bullet in the fuel tank. Where’s Greg? Where’s…?“

  The pilot gasped, eyes fixed on a smoldering, human-shaped mass lying crumpled in the snow at least thirty feet from the plane. Ashen-faced, he ran toward it, legs plowing unsteadily through the snow, and at last stood silently above what was left of the stewardess. He removed his outer jacket and draped it over her smoldering corpse. His breath puffed little clouds into the air. He shivered, and wrapped his arms around himself, rubbing his shoulders.

  After a few seconds, he rather guiltily took his jacket back.

  Bowles threw a blanket over the stew’s body. He said, “Grant, we’ve got to reach the lodge. Apologize then.” He glanced up at the shrunken sun, which was a third above the horizon. “I figure we have a month of daylight left. It will just have to be enough.”

  “Then three or four months of night,” the pilot said, “and after that…”

  “Fimbulwinter,” Bowles said. “Carbon dioxide freezing out of the atmosphere, maybe. Ah, well. Sufficient unto the day.”

  The wind was whipping the fire to death. Snow ran in blinding flurries. Eviane shielded her face as her cheeks began to numb. The Guardsman ran up to them, carrying his rifle at port arms.

  “Supply store!” Bowles’s scream competed with the storm’s growing wail. He pointed into a white wall of driving snow. “Can’t see it, but it’s out there.”

  “Eskimo village, half a mile that way,” the soldier shouted back. “They must have seen us come down. Probably on. their way now.”

  Eviane picked up a box marked with a red cross. It was heavy. She trudged toward the cluster of buildings. The other Gamers followed her, carrying gear, leaving tracks like a colony of snow snails. The sky began to clear, the wall of white slowing to a flurry.

  Charlene caught up with her. “Whew. Off to a start, aren’t we?” Charlene lowered her voice. “You’ve Gamed before. What is happening?”

  Game? This isn’t a Game. It’s…

  It’s…

  Eviane shook her head, clearing the smoky strands that wove themselves tighter and thicker by the moment. A flicker of prescience made her say, “I don’t know. Let’s just play it by ear.”

  “Ear?”

  The door of the supply store was open a crack. Grant pushed against it cautiously with his fingertips. The pilot had just lost a plane, a copilot, and a stewardess. He might not be overwhelmingly eager to lose a half-dozen passengers.

  The door creaked open, throwing a wedge of light into an abandoned store. As soon as Grant nodded, the Gamers crowded in, out of the freezing wind. Oh, it was stocked. Well stocked, in fact, with all manner of food, and suddenly Eviane remembered that the alarm Klaxon had sounded in the middle of breakfast. A line of portable stoves, several canisters of fuel: they could cook, too.

  Orson Sands spread massive fingers, grabbing three foil packets of pork and beans. “Real men don’t need Sterno,” he proclaimed. “I’ll suck ‘em cold.”

  Kevin, the skinny kid, called from elsewhere in the store. “Clothing. Coats! Hats! It’s cold out there, troops.”

  “Wait just a minute.” Bowles seemed uneasy. He ran thick fingers through his beard, brushing out snow. “Why isn’t there anybody here? Where in the devil are they?”

  “I don’t know and don’t really care.” Orson’s teeth tore a foil packet’s serrated corner. He spat.

  “You had better start caring, if you want to stay alive very long,” his brother Max said cautiously. Eviane’s little pink heart leapt. Max was smart, and despite his girth looked like a fighter.

  She remembered him, too, from the Tar Pits mini-Game. He was well over six feet tall, inches shorter than Charlene but three times as wide. He looked a lot like his brother Orson, barring his neatly trimmed beard; but he looked and moved more like an athlete. His belly didn’t sag the same way. An ex-football player, maybe? His eyes were a luminous gray-black.

  He said, “Orson! Even up here, would people just walk away from a store and leave the door open? All right, maybe they would. But we have an exploding airplane out here, and nobody has even come to take a look.” His voice was patient. “It’s another puzzle, Orson.”

  Orson said, “Aw, Max… yeah.”

  Eviane noticed Charlene watching them. She whispered, “Brothers. Interested?”

  Charlene nodded judiciously.

  “Me too. His name’s Max.”

  The pilot was saying, “Vote! All in favor of checking to see what is happening around here, say aye.”

  “Aye!!“ Six hands and voices were raised. Three belonged to Charlene and Max and Hippogryph.

  “Opposed?”

  Seven no’s.

  “The no’s have it,” Grant said.

  The Gamers drifted among the shelves. Some were at the rear with Kevin and Hippogryph, choosing cold-weather gear. More were finding dinner.

  Trianna Stith-Wood called, “Veal paprika!”

  Johnny Welsh’s head rotated 150 degrees. “Veal?”

  Trianna rubbed the foil packet, winking. “I make a veal loaf to die for. Thyme, tarragon leaves, minced parsley, and tomato fondue sauce.”

  “Lady, you’re killing me.”

  “There are worse-”

  Bang.

  The clatter of canned goods stopped. Another distant gunshot, then a volley. Orson Sands dropped the bag of freeze-dried pork and beans, eyes sparkling. “Puzzle, right.” He and Max thundered through the door, the others crowding right behind.

  They clustered outside, looking out across the choppy permafrost of the valley floor into the blizzard-shrouded ridge to the north. Had the shots come from there? It was the only decent cover…

  “Come on, baby.” Max Sands spoke again, and Eviane found herself drifting closer
to him, craving an opportunity to watch more closely.

  He was handsome, in a massive sort of way, and she liked the sound of his voice. Voices had always been it, for her. The sound of an announcer’s voice on the stereo. Others seemed fascinated by the glow and depth of the video arcades, but she had always loved audio. Just the sound of a voice was enough…

  And he had the Voice. Something inside her melted.

  Captain Grant and Hebert struggled out carrying armfuls of bulky coats and hats with earmuffs, dropped them in the snow, and began sorting for something that would fit. Bowles emerged with a double armful of tennis rackets. Huh? Snowshoes. More of the Gamers were wearing coats now.

  It was cold. Eviane picked through coats, chose one, found a hat with fold-down ear flap, pulled on thermal galoshes, all while listening with her whole body.

  “Come on,” Max Sands said. “Where is it? Give me another shot.”

  And they got it. Crack! Crackcrackcrack, and a thin, wavering scream.

  They had their direction. The group straggled off across the snow, north toward the black ridge. A long way to walk, but the snow was packed hard; Eviane carried her snowshoes. She cast a glance at Charlene, saw the fatigue in her friend’s face. They linked arms and struggled up the grade.

  They were making good time.

  Bowles lifted a hand and brought them to a halt before they reached the top. They followed his lead: dropped onto their stomachs, scuttled over the ridge like a line of crabs, and peered down.

  It was night in the shadow of the ridge. Their eyes adjusted quickly.

  Four armed men lay in an arc, facing a house that lay in partial ruins. It was burning, smoke and ashes boiling from the roof. Attached to one end of the house, a smaller shed-perhaps a smokehouse-had been blown apart as if by an explosion. Around the main door two… no, three bodies stretched out on the snow, in positions that only the dead could assume.

  Eviane heard a whimper. After a long, startled moment she recognized her own voice.

  She had seen this before. Been here before. Prescience.