by Larry Niven
"And you Gamed with Hap the Barbarian?"
Her thick white hair bobbed when she nodded. "His real name was Willie Hertz. He was superb. He was a Lore Master for eighteen years. Owen and I had an open marriage, and he wasn't interested in Games-"
"Wrong-oh!" said Owen Braddon. He was white-haired too, and bald on top, with a tanned and freckled scalp. His long body was all stringy muscle, but for a small, discrete pot belly. "The Games sounded too damned interesting," he said. "I could see how it got to Margie. It would've wrecked my career if I'd let myself get that hooked. So I'd go skiing with someone, and Margie would become Shariett the Sorceress and go off with Hap the Barbarian."
"Then Willie died," said Margie, "and Owen retired, and now he is hooked. Aren't you, dear?"
The older man grinned. "I'm getting good, too. The Startrader Game last year was the first time I haven't been killed out."
"He tries to research the Games," Margie said. "This time he was right."
"The lizard was a Merseian. Never trust a Merseian. I think I'm right about the South Seas Treasure, too."
Acacia waited, but Owen didn't go on. Margie said, "He won't even tell me."
Ollie ran up to Gwen, breathing heavily. "I trounced the infidel, my lady!" Gwen squeezed his hand.
The white-haired couple took their leave, headed toward the Gravity Whip, by God. Tony McWhirter, moving to join Acadia, stopped and looked past her shoulder. A trio of weary-looking, dusty tourists had come stumbling into the Hot Spot carrying backpacks.
Tony said, "I wonder what did that to them?"
"Let's ask." Acacia smiled brightly and called, "Hey, we've got some empty seats!" The trio, two young men and a woman who looked to be in her late twenties, waved gratefully and ambled over, weaving to avoid other customers. They propped backpacks against the low wall, then staggered to the service window to order. Presently they were back with sandwiches and Swiss Treats.
"Whew. Thanks, people. This place is a madhouse," said a tall, lanky fellow with long yellow hair plaited in braids. He reached over to shake hands. "I'm Emory, and these are Della and Chris."
Talk paused while Emory and his group made a ritual of tasting civilized food.
Chris looked well rested except for his eyes, which were bright and glassy. Della had a bad complexion and ears that stuck out a little too far, but her voice was sheer magic, a husky growl that was pure female animal. "Hi," she said. "You guys just coming in?"
McWhirter tore his eyes away from her mouth with a visible tug. "How did you know?"
"You look too rested. In a few days you too will join the ranks of the walking dead."
Della looked at Gwen for a second and asked, "Didn't we do a Game together about two years ago?"
Gwen looked uncertain. Tony said, "You're a Gamer, Della?"
"How else would I get so tired? We just went through a two-day Game in ‘B'."
Tony's eyes widened. Two days? But they looked like they'd fought the Vietnam War!
Ollie perked up. "How was it? I mean, was it good? How many points did you win? Who ran it?"
The drawn look left Chris's face. "It was Evans's Game. Heard of her? Mean broad. It was hotter than Hell, and never a second to relax. Between the three of us we got three hundred twenty-seven points."
Tony looked sheepish. "Is that a lot?"
Everyone laughed, and he took it without flinching. Acacia said,
"The average player earns about thirty points a day on an extended Game." She turned to the three Gamers. "You people really did a job." And they all beamed proudly.
"What kind of Game was it?" Tony asked.
Della said, "Salvage. We were following the trail of a lost archeological expedition somewhere in Persia. We ended up in a subterranean lake, fighting off a tribe of cannibal troglodites for the right to lug back a golden idol that came to life on us anyway."
"Lose many of your party?"
"About half. Chris got killed. But we figured out how to make the idol-"
"Ssss!"
"Sorry. Emory's right, you might want to play it yourself one day."
McWhirter looked at Chris, who was looking wrung out again. "What's it like to die?"
"Cold"
"Cold?"
"Persian hell is cold," said Chris.
Ollie piped up. "That would be Zoroastrian. Early Persian."
Chris nodded. "It wasn't cold enough to be really uncomfortable. Sort of a maze filled with spirits of the dead. Took me about an hour to find my way out, then I cashed in my stuff, got my points registered and went back to the Shogunate Fortress- that's my hotel-to watch the rest of the Game."
Tony asked, "Didn't it bother you, getting killed?"
He shrugged. "Part of the Game." It bothered him.
Gwen asked, "You're taking off today?"
"We've still got to check out of the hotel. We shuttle out to New Frisco in about an hour. Are you guys in South Seas Treasure?"
All four nodded. Tony said, "Any idea how many of us there'll be?"
Acacia nudged him. "Won't know till this evening. You and I are reserved, and I guess Gwen and Ollie are, and there must have been six more people on the tram with us... I'd guess better than twenty of us, about half of them invited. Della, how many were there in your group?"
Della did some quick figuring. "Fourteen? Fifteen. I waited a year to get in, too. You?"
"Eighteen months."
Tony was really interested now. "What if Dream Park doesn't like the Game enough to buy rights to it? No movie money, no book... what happens then?"
Everyone shrugged, but Ollie spoke, willing to take a guess. "The Game Master'd be in trouble if he was running on a big deficit. Unless Dream Park took up the slack. But a good Game Master has got maybe two-three movies behind him, and maybe half a dozen books, and if he's really good he's got a Game running here four months out of the year, and there are royalties on that."
Gwen turned to look at him. "Ollie... ?"
"Well?" He shrugged again. "Heck, I've thought about trying to get a Game together. Heck, why not?"
Gwen opened her mouth to answer him, but Acacia cut her off. "Announcing that it is five minutes after five. We've just got time to finish our sandwiches before Chester's preliminary briefing."
Acacia and Tony were the last to join the conclave. There must have been thirty people jammed into the small mezzanine conference room. The Dream Park Sheraton was decorated in Twenty-First Century Mundane; it had no fantasy motif at all. Acadia was tickled to find Chester staying here. Still, it fit. Starting a few hours from now, the Lore Master was going to get all the fantasy he could handle.
The Gamers were all shapes and sizes and ages, in all forms of dress from western modern to PseudNude to medieval and neolithic. Some were barely adolescent and some had detectable face lifts, and they were all paying respectful attention to the musings-aloud of a tall, almost birdlike young man.
He was sprawled across a couch, taking three men's elbow room. A quite lovely redhead leaned into the curve of one arm. As he spoke he gestured lazily with his free hand. "I wish I knew more about the Game Lopez has set up. I do know that he said I won't need a parka, and a little bird tells me that the gaming area was used by the military to simulate an assault on Brazil. And of course we've got the title: South Seas Treasure. If I'm right…well, I did some research."
Gwen Ryder raised her hand as if in a classroom. "What do you think it means, Chester?"
"Magic of a kind we're not used to. We'll have to watch that.
Light clothing... good boots... bug spray. With anyone else the bugs would be holograms, but Lopez-"
Tony whispered, "That's your Lore Master? With the gorgeous redhead?"
"A little respect, please," Acacia murmured, jabbing him with an elbow. "Chester Henderson is king at this Game. You listen, or you'll get killed early."
The blond girl had the jitters, Tony thought. It didn't seem Gwen was going to Dream Park for the fun of
it.
Tony himself was feeling decidedly twitchy. The rules, the players, Dream Park itself, it was all more complex than anything he had anticipated. The players were all too serious. Even Acacia was behaving as if death in a Game were real. Tony wondered if he had made a mistake, letting himself be talked into this.
"The thing to remember," the potentate was saying, "is that Lopez will do about the maximum damage to a party that he can without someone yelling foul. He's got to think about the next Game. If it gets out that he hit us with an eighty-percenter blizzard or a flock of plague bats, he won't be able to sell it. So it'll be nasty, but fair."
Tony asked, "What exactly is fair?"
Henderson turned to face him. "Fair is anything that could be found naturally in the given environment, plus anything the internal logic could imply. Like... in my second Game. Medieval world. First person we met was a Round Table knight, obscure, but I knew the name. Well, I started watching for anything that might imply. Black plague, dragons, Inquisition... and I didn't try for the Grail at all, because I'd never be judged pure enough. You follow?"
"Vaguely."
"Look for the internal logic, always. And who are you? Are you with Acacia?"
"Tony McWhirter." He put his arm around her shoulders, drawing her close enough that her dark hair pillowed against his. "We're together, yes."
"Wonderful. You'll have a great time. Hey, Acacia, remember the ‘Frost Holocaust'?"
It sparked an elfin grin of remembrance. "Who could forget those dog packs? And you should see my pictures of the mutants. Some of them didn't come out too well on film, though."
"I hear the holos are hellaciously sharper this year. Shouldn't be a problem." He thought for a moment, then continued, "We can expect a forest or tropic region. I doubt Lopez would use any common or well-known myth-pattern, so we'll have to be on our toes. We may or may not be allowed modern weapons. I'll get all of that information tomorrow. Magic Users are probably Go, maybe some Swordspersons, an Engineer or two, a couple of Thieves..."
The doorman was appropriately cadaverous. He wore a tattered black hat, and a motheaten cloak that dragged loose threads on the ground. He opened the door for Gwen and Ollie, stepping out of their way with creaking torpidity. "This way, young masters," he rumbled.
"Will you look at this?" Ollie whispered to Gwen, goggle-eyed. The tram had unloaded them at the Haunted House, the theme hotel east of the main amusement area. They were still underground, in a depot decorated in Early Caligari. Cobwebs festooned the corners of the station, and crawling things with glowing red eyes stalked their strands. The path before them led into a hallway with a glass ceiling.
Gwen looked up. "Wow." It was their own reflection; but as they proceeded, the flesh began to melt off their bones. When they reached the end of the corridor their reflections were a pair of skeletons shambling back to the mausoleum after a hard night's haunt.
"I don't know if I really want to open the door," she said. Ollie edged it open with his fingertips. It creaked hideously.
The lobby was dim, and decorated in blacks and dark reds. Even the couches and chairs were somewhat foreboding. The red seat cushion on one dark chair gave it the unmistakable appearance of an open mouth. The ceiling was low. Flickering candelabra supplied the light.
A lovely hostess in a flowing, wraith-white gown greeted them. Her red lipstick was just bright enough to bring out the paleness of her cheeks. She brought one delicate hand up to her mouth and coughed politely, then favored them with a dazzling smile.
"Good morning, my name is Lenore and I'd like to welcome you to the Haunted House, one of the nine Dream Park hotels. This is a theme hotel, so be ready. Anything can happen."
The check-in terminal bore the guise of a great orchid plant; and the lovely flowers bowed toward them in entirely too friendly
a fashion. Ollie fished out his preregistration card and allowed a flower to take it. A quick display of words and numbers ran up the orchid-festooned screen; then the words "Adolph Norliss and S. 0. room 7024."
Ollie looked at Lenore curiously. "S. 0.? What's that?"
She laughed sweetly. "Significant Other. I assume that you and the lady aren't married?"
"Oh, yeah. We're engaged..."
"Then if she's not your wife or your sister, she's a Significant Other."
Gwen sniffed. "You could have just listed my name."
Ollie looked uncomfortable. "That's my fault, I guess. I wasn't absolutely sure we would be coming together." He retrieved his card.
Lenore led them off to a brace of elevators. Gwen walked with her head turned to look up into Ollie's face.
"And if I hadn't come, who would you have invited?"
He walked on, ignoring her question for a few steps, and she tugged at his sleeve. "Ollie? Who would you have invited?"
He was trying, without terrific success, to hide a smile. "Oh, I don't know. Anyone who could pay half the bill, I guess."
"You guess?"
They had reached the elevator. Lenore motioned them in. "Room seven-oh-two-four, on the seventh floor. And I hope you have a pleasant stay here at Dream Park." She gave the slightest of curtsies, and slowly turned transparent. Only her ringing laughter was still with them as the doors slid shut.
Ollie's jaw hung slack. He said, "Heyyy..."
Gwen shook her head. "That was really good. I'm impressed." Her face sobered, and she squared her chunky body up to him. "Ollie, would you really have come with somebody else if we hadn't made up?"
Ollie looked stonily ahead, trying to pretend he was still thinking about Lenore.
"Ollie? I wouldn't have come without you. Really."
He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. Gwen started to speak, but the opening hiss of the door silenced her. Ollie stepped out, then stopped and turned. "I thought you said you were coming with Furburger or whatever his name is."
"Feinburger."
"Feinburger. Well?"
"Oh, you nut, I wasn't really gonna go with Gordon. All he ever wants... all he wanted was to get into my pants anyway. I just didn't want you to think you had to feel sorry for me." She brushed a strand of her short yellow hair into place. "Honest."
"Well..." Ollie hesitated, then turned and started down the ball. She had almost to run to catch up, to hear him say softly, "I made the reservation for two ‘cause I hoped you'd come with me, and I didn't put a name down because I was scared you wouldn't."
Gwen seemed about to speak; then she linked anus with him and matched him stride for stride down the hall. Finally, as if she couldn't stand it any longer, she swung him around and kissed him hard. With her hands locked behind his neck she looked dead into his eyes and said in all seriousness, "Adolph, I love you. I really do. But sometimes I could just break your kneecaps."
He smiled at her, and it stayed warm. "Hey, I think this is our room." He clicked his registration card into the slot in the door and it creaked open. From within the room there came a widening beam of dark purple light.
"Holy spit." Ollie pushed the door further open, then stepped in, Gwen close behind. The room was an Edward Gorey opium dream. Dark twisted plants grew meter-high from rudely-stitched planters made of some kind of animal skin. The canopy over the bed fluttered without a breeze. Rain blew against the panes with a sound of crackling bacon. Things moved out there in the dark, and even the shadows on the wall seemed to flux with a strange rhythm. When Gwen looked at the bed closely she could see that the spread was slowly rising to normal level, as if someone had gotten off it the instant before the door opened.
She said, "Wow. This is really..."
"Really what? Come on, don't keep me hanging."
"Hush, I'm being terrorized. This is too much! Ollie, I adore this room." She stood on tiptoe and bussed him. "I'm very glad to be your Significant Other. Let's get the luggage out of the lift and get to bed. Tomorrow starts early."
Chapter Four
THE MASTER DREAMERS
The
ballroom of the Dream Park Sheraton was completely filled. Bleachers had been set up on three sides of the room, overlooking a conference table set near the fourth wall.
Of the eighteen hundred people in the room, only about fifty occupied the cordoned-off section near the conference table. These were the finalists: those pre-chosen to participate in the Game, and those whose credentials had passed the preliminary screening test.
There was little noise in the room, and no talking at all. All eyes were on the conference table.
Chester Henderson drummed his fingers on the table. His light blue shirt had dark rings under the armpits from nervous perspiration, and his eyes darted from the wall clock to the room's main entrance, to the clock, to the entrance. .
He leaned toward the bald man with the roll-top sweater. "Listen, Myers, do I have to put up with this kind of crap? He's twenty minutes late!"
Myers was fortyish, with tobacco-stained teeth and a receding chin hidden behind a sparse beard. He smiled at Chester with the benignity of a suffering saint. "Mr. Henderson, this is Mr. Lopez's Game. While the I.F.G.S. may enter your complaints in the minutes of today's meeting, I'm afraid that there is no set procedure for censuring a tardy Game Master. If you would care to submit a resolution to that effect at the next meeting...
Chester waved a weary hand in the air and sighed his surrender. "We wait. Metesky, can we at least go over the basic points now?"
The other person at the table was a woman with a stripe of white dyed down the middle of a glorious wealth of gray hair. Age had been kind to her, mellowing the angular facial lines of her youth into softer curves. She moved her leather briefcase a protective inch closer to her chest and calmly said, "I'm afraid not, Mr. Henderson. Mr. Lopez was very specific about that."
