Dream Park

by Larry Niven;Steven Barnes

  “A corker.” Acacia’s eyes were half-lidded, and there was an umber flush to her cheeks. Alex could almost smell the sulphur bubbling in her words. “All right, ‘Yali’, try this one.

  Whilst I was engaged in sitting

  I spied the dead carrying the living.”

  She tossed her dark hair back with a flip of her head. “What did I see?”

  Yali closed his eyes and hummed. He drummed his heels gently against the white floor. He scratched his ear.

  “Mr. Yali,” Acacia said curtly, “I’m afraid I must insist upon an answer.”

  He glared at her. “Quite right, Miss Garcia. Could it be a stretcher? A stretched hide carrying a wounded man?”

  “What an ingenious fellow you are. And so quick with your reply. A pity to disappoint you. I’m afraid that the proper answer is a ship. A vessel made of dead wood, carrying living men.” She curtsied in her seat, and Yali smiled wanly.

  “Well, that helps your side a bit, but you’re going to need more. Who’s next?”

  Gina, who had been lost in thought, perked up. For the first time, Griffin found no trace of a dreamy cloud in her expression. Even the fire in her hair seemed to blaze brighter. “I’ll take it.”

  “So. Try this: ‘I know a word of letters three. Add two, and fewer there will be.’ ”

  Gina buried her head in her hands and moaned. At first Alex was worried, then he listened more carefully to the sighs and realised that they were phony.

  “Oh my,” she said finally, wiping her eye clear of a nonexistent tear. “The answer wouldn’t be ‘few’, would it?” Her bright red eyebrows arched, and her face screwed up in an expression of mock-concern. Yali nodded unhappily. Gina hitched her chair closer, teeth showing whitely in her smile. She resembled nothing so much as a cat on the hunt, and Alex found himself silently cheering her on.

  Her voice was warm honey. “I have a little old question for you, dear. I give you a group of three. One is sitting down, and will never get up. The second eats as much as is given to him, yet is always hungry. The third goes away and never returns.” Her smile became beatific. “Who are they?”

  Yali seemed very displeased. He rose from his chair and click-heeled across the room, blank-eyed, mumbling to himself. Ultimately he turned on his heel to face them. “Yes, yes, I know, time is against me. I admit I have no answer.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. The correct answers are Stove, Fire, and Smoke. We’re even again,” Gina said sweetly.

  “So you are, and you have one player left to go. Mr. Tegner. Or do you prefer Griffin?” There was a peculiar gleam in Yali’s eye, and Alex knew that Lopez was having his little joke.

  “In this context I prefer Griffin,” he said.

  “Very well, Griffin. There is a saying you may have heard in your business:

  Whoever makes it, tells it not.

  Whoever takes it, knows it not.

  And whoever knows it wants it not.

  Can you tell me what I speak of?”

  Alex brooded. In your business. What did he mean by that? As the Griffin, the Thief? As Gary Tegner, restauranteur? Previous riddles had referred to food . . . Or as Alex Griffin, Dream Park Security head? Nice wide range of choices, there.

  Whoever makes it, tells it not. Why? Something illegal or immoral? That would fit the Thief and the Security Chief. Good. Whoever takes it . . . whoever knows it. If you know what it is, you don’t want it. A restaurant owner might take black market meat if he didn’t know what it was. Do you “make” black market meat? Or bad meat, meat that wouldn’t pass honest inspection. Pass?

  “Excuse me, Griffin, but I’m afraid I need an answer now. “

  Get a hunch, bet a bunch. “Counterfeit money.”

  Yali’s expression went dull. Acacia reached out a warm hand for Griffin’s and squeezed affectionately.

  “Well. Right you are. And do you have a riddle for me?”

  Alex had finally remembered a riddle. “Do as I say, don’t do as I do. Say boots without shoes.”

  Yali’s eyes unfocussed. His lips moved, silently repeating Alex’s words, while Alex sweated it out. Presently he said, “Boots.”

  “Drown !”

  Yali’s teeth flashed like sudden lightning. No, he hadn’t been sure. “Well. We’re exactly even. Five for you, five for me. Unfortunately, that leaves you where you started, with Mr. Henderson’s life dangling by the proverbial thread

  Oliver folded his hands neatly in his lap, and squared his shoulders, but the way that he chewed his upper lip before answering betrayed his nervousness. “What happens, now?”

  “I am going to ask one more riddle, a tie breaker. if your team’s selected representative can answer it, Mr. Henderson lives. If not, he dies.”

  Oliver was indignant. “But that’s not fair! You can make the answer as ridiculous as you like, and if we don’t get it, that’s the end!”

  “Quite so. I recognise the intrinsic uncertainty in such a contest, so I will offer you a side-wager. If any of you will put your own lives up as a stake, I will accept it. In other words, if you win, everyone lives. If you lose, Mr. Henderson lives but one of you dies.” The five were silent. “Well?”

  Griffin was thinking, I can’t! I’m not a self-centered coward, I’m a detective. I can’t!

  Leigh stood, drew in a deep breath and exhaled noisily. “I got us into this. If I hadn’t blown both points we’d have won. It’s only fair that I be the one.”

  “Bravo, Mr. Leigh. Such bravery. Such sacrifice!”

  “Such bullshit. Let’s get on with it.”

  “Quite. For your life, then:

  Who makes it, has no need of it.

  Who buys it, has no use for it.

  Who uses it can neither see nor feel it.”

  “Repeat that, please.”

  “You should listen more carefully, especially since the answer has special significance for you—” and Yali repeated the riddle. Griffin found himself holding his breath. Leigh was stalling, his puffy cheeks drawn with tension.

  Coffin, Griffin realised suddenly. Coffin. Coffin, you idiot!

  Desperately, Leigh blurted, “A prosthetic leg for a blind child?”

  Yali shook with silent mirth. “What an imagination. You will certainly be welcome here in Heaven. No, it’s a coffin, Mr. Leigh. Don’t you find that dreadfully appropriate?” Yali stretched his arms hugely, happy to have claimed at least one victim. “Well, unless you’d like to play more games, the rest of you may return to Earth. Mr. Leigh and I have business.”

  Gina stood and took one of Alan’s hands in hers. “Thank you,” she said sincerely. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  His mouth twitched, trying to form a smile. “Yeah, well, I might have done it better.”

  There was moisture glistening in his tear ducts, and Gina kissed him softly on the mouth. “I’m proud of you anyway,” she said.

  Acacia hugged him from the side. “Ditto, Alan. Don’t worry. We’re going to win this for you, kid.”

  “Yeah,” said Leigh, staring into the wall, his face doughy and lifeless.

  Gengai appeared at the door. “We’re ready to leave now,” he chirped.

  “Wait a minute!” Griffin found his voice ragged. He took Leigh by the shoulder. “Thank you, Alan.”

  The Magic-user managed to nod his head in acknowledgement. “It’s all right. Go on, get out of here. And win it!”

  “We hear and obey, O mighty mage.” Gina kissed him again, on the cheek. “Watch us. It’ll be worth it.”

  The helicopter drifted away from Yali’s cloud. Looking, out, Griffin could see a string of white factories on adjoining clouds, white puffettes rising from their smokestacks as they busily churned out Cargo. Angels with multi-hued parakeet wings fluttered here and there carrying loads, and a heavenly choir performed Handel’s Messiah in fullbodied SphericSound.

  But all that Griffin could really see or hear was Leigh’s face, red with the effort to hold back tears, and a cracking voice that
said, “And win it!”

  Suddenly, unaccountably, that was all Alex wanted do.

  Chapter Twenty

  THE SEA OF LOST SHIPS

  It was 1350 hours by the watch imprinted on the cuff of Griffin’s denim shirt. The group had been back on the march for an hour and a half.

  The line wasn’t jolly. A grim singularity of purpose could be seen in every face, heard in every terse word. Mary-em had tried to get songs going, but the efforts had died stillborn. Finally she gave up, her tanned and wrinkled face puckered with discontent.

  Their trail wound them steadily deeper into the mountains, and this, in part, may have contributed to the sense of sobriety and unease. Griffin found himself gazing up into the crags with a chilling and undeniable feeling of approaching doom. Unbidden, images of death and decay sprang into his mind, and he shook his head, irritated and upset.

  Subsonics and subliminal imagery? he wondered. Lopez psyching us out? Maybe. Griffin had known it from the first: this was a blood duel.

  Acacia walked next to him, her hand occasionally finding his for a few moments, squeezing then releasing. As if she too needed the reassurance of physical contact. He took comfort in knowing that his strange mood was shared.

  Although the path was broad, Alex found himself wandering over to the edge to look into the gorges below, now mostly shrouded with mists. There was no wind, and it didn’t feel any colder; but it looked cold. Alex gave in and put on his windbreaker.

  Acacia was mumbling under her breath.

  “What did you say, Cas?” He tried to force warmth into his voice and it came out sounding just that way: forced.

  Reflexively, she moved closer to him and took his arm. “Nothing meant for human consumption, that’s for sure.” She shivered. “I really am getting uptight, and I don’t know why. We haven’t taken really heavy losses . . . yet.”

  “Yet?”

  “The replacement period ends tonight. Tomorrow and the day after we’ll get hit with heavy artillery. I know it.”

  Alex thought about that. “Is there any way to minimize the impact?”

  “Yeah. Don’t make mistakes. You can see how easy that is. There are just too many ways to die in this Game. Think about it: how have we lost people? Riddles, monsters, natural hazards, gunshot . . .”

  “You know, that doesn’t sound like you, Cas. Where’s the get up and go?”

  “It got up and went. I know I’m acting strange, dammit, and I don’t really understand it, either.” She kicked a pebble out of the way, dark eyes following it as it skipped across the road and vanished over the edge. not falling, but suddenly gone, kicked beyond the hologram illusion of a misty chasm at their feet.

  “Listen. What if I told you that if you keep your chin up you’ll get a surprise tonight”

  “Gary—I told you that we shouldn’t take things any further. There’s been enough trouble.”

  “I’m not talking about trouble. Just a little harmless fun.”

  “Harmless, huh? Fun? Just what do You have in mind?”

  “Everything but.”

  “But what?”

  “But taking things any further. We can go as far as we went, can’t we?”

  She squinted an eye at him. “And what about Tony? If we’re off alone together somewhere not taking things any further, we might as well be screwing.”

  That word was a jolt. Alex thought it over. “you’re right either way. Okay, either we don’t go off alone at all or we take things wherever they go. How’s that sound?”

  “Indecisive. Gary—”

  There was a sudden jolt as the line came to a halt. On a ledge seven feet above the trail, there stood a slender dark figure. At first Alex was reminded of Millicent: the short-curled hair, the delicious figure and the skin tones were all similar. But this woman was nearly a foot taller than little Millie, and Millie would never have been found in that bold, challenging stance. She wore buckskin boots and beige leather pants with a copper-buckled belt. She wore a red vest over a beige blouse, and carried a businesslike dagger in a fast-draw sheath high on her left side. The knapsack on her back rode as if weightless. She stood fists on hips, legs spread apart and braced firmly. Alex found her beautiful. His lips pursed into an automatic whistling position.

  “Who is she?” he asked Acacia.

  “I think I saw her at the Gamer selection proceedings but I don’t know the name or the rank.”

  The tall woman jumped down from the ledge. A miniscule wobble spoiled the illusion of a perfect landing. Chester greeted her. “Holly Frost, I presume?”

  “You’ve got it, lover. Second-level Thief, first-level Magic User, and generally excellent lady.” She dusted off her buckskins by knocking them against each other. “And it looks like I arrived just in time. What have we here, a zombie march? I don’t see a bright face in the bunch. What the hell, maybe I should join the other team—” She turned as if to walk away, then turned over her shoulder and smiled slyly.

  “On the other hand, since I obviously have no competition here, maybe I should stick around, accrue a few points, steal somebody’s old man . . .”

  There wasn’t a sound from the other Gamers, although a few mouths hung open in shock. Then Mary-em pushed Bowan out of the way and waddled over to Holly, gazing up at her like a demolition man examining a condemned skyscraper.

  “Think you’re pretty hot, do you, treetop?”

  “I know it, grandma.”

  Mary-em drummed her fingers on her waist for a few moments, then her crinkled face split with a grin. “It’s high time we had some new blood. These lackards are slacking off already. Think you can roust things up a bit?”

  “Or know the reason why.”

  “Good enough.” The little woman stuck out a grimy hand, and they shook. “Name’s Mary-em, but you can call me Mary-em.”

  “Done.” Holly looked at Chester. “You’re the man. Let’s get this show back on the road!”

  In spite of himself, Henderson’s tired face lit up, and there seemed to be new bounce in his step. “All right, group, you heard the lady. Let’s do it!”

  “I want her with me,” Mary said. She glared at Bowan. “Why don’t you find yourself another perch, sonny?” She pulled Holly in next to her. “You better be able to sing, honey, or I’m going to intimidate you half to death.”

  Holly slapped her on the back. “Do you know ‘Friar Malone’?”

  Their mood was infectious. Soon the entire line was moving at a brisk pace, singing a tale of the unlucky persona of an unskillful Gamer of bygone days.

  “Through dungeon and city

  Both ugly and pretty

  Went the brave lawful Cleric named Friar Malone.

  He whirled his warhammer

  ’Gainst the vampire’s glamour

  Crying, ‘Down with the Demon Undead, Undead, oh!’ ”

  Alex noted that Acacia’s expression was no longer strained, and he was happy. It seemed that everything was right again, that the mission would be successful, that—

  How could he have forgotten Rice? None of this was real; not the mountains, nor the mists, nor the warm arm of the woman at his side, nor the happiness he had felt a moment ago. But Rice was real; Rice’s bound corpse was real.

  And the Gamers sang with no sign of grief:

  “But a Succubus found him

  And in her lair bound him

  And became the foul death of brave Friar Malone.

  Now his ghost stalks the barrow

  That he tried to harrow,

  Crying, “Down with the Demon Undead, Undead Oh!”

  But death had been real for Rice, and Griffin would not forget it again.

  The trail wound down out of the mountains, cramping them between masses of granite. Presently it rounded a tight turn, and Griffin and Acacia stepped out of shadow into a view of sand dunes and ocean.

  Acacia gave a low whistle, and Alex felt her hand tighten on his. The Gamers had stopped and spread out.

  Downslope
was a semicircle of bay. It must have been deeper once. The line of Quonset huts along the sandy shore had once been Navy docking facilities. The docks were high and dry now, and the buildings deteriorated, and the harbor must have been two to three meters deep.

  The water was littered with boats and pieces of boats, broken airplanes both military and commercial, ruined machinery of every description. Angular shapes halfway to the horizon might have been the bows of luxury liners sunk almost beneath the water. One of the military aircraft had the grinning jaws of a shark painted on its nose, others showed a fading red sunburst. There was even one boat—about ten meters in length, standing on its keel as it leaned against its rotting dock—with swastikas emblazoned on its flank.

  The killer had crept past a big airplane on his path to Rice and the neutral scent. Now, which Gamer was giving undue attention to the mired and broken airplanes? Trouble was, everyone was intently studying the harbor, except the Griffin, who was fruitlessly studying them.

  “Now what in the world is a Nazi patrol boat doing in the pacific?” Holly Frost murmured to Acacia.

  Chester was conferring with Maibang. Acacia called, “We want in on this, Ches.”

  Chester nodded agreement. “That sounds fair. Let’s gather round, people.” The Gamers crowded around the Lore Master, and he tapped Kasan on the head. “You’re on.

  Kasan Maibang was nodding to himself. “I have heard of this place, but never seen it. Have you, Lady Janet?”

  The small blond nodded her head, then shook it. “Not actually saw, but I think I was brought through here on the way to the Mission. You know, for the sacrifice?”

  The little man’s eyes were bright, and his grin managed to convey mystery and menace at the same time. “I think that the lady may be right. In truth, this place smells of evil, smells of our enemies. This is the Sea of Lost Cargo, where our enemy lures European transportation and robs them.”

  “I want a close look at those buildings,” Chester said. “Then . . . What’s the matter, Fortunato?”

  McWhirter had been shaking his head as he studied the harbor. “They don’t look quite . . .”

  “The ships and planes? Most of them are holograms. Why not? We can’t get to them anyway. There won’t be more than one or two solid mockups.” Chester pointed. “Like that Nazi ship. Stands out, doesn’t it? Almost whistles for our attention. I think we’ll search there next. Very carefully.”