The Barsoom Project

“We can’t even be sure he did it,” Millicent said grimly. “Or if he did, for how much he’s actually culpable. The term ‘plausible deniability’ was invented to cover situations like this. He may easily have made a bad call on which underlings to trust. He may have already dealt Out justice to them. We don’t know. And right now, he’s helped to put together the Barsoom Project. In a very real way, we have to consider him an ally.”

She paused for a moment. “On the other hand, four years ago, there was a major industrial accident at Colorado Steel, during a safety inspection, for Christ’s sake. Fekesh picked up a controlling interest at a bargain.”

“Hardly conclusive…” Harmony offered.

“ Aw, Thadeus!”

“But it does suggest a methodology. Alex, in this room he’s innocent until we prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Okay? We’re prejudiced. We know it. It doesn’t mean we can’t protect ourselves.”

Griffin brooded, staring at his fingers. He picked up a pencil and rolled it slowly, feeling its textures of wood and thin paint.

“Then,” he said slowly, “the way I see it, what we have to do is, first, protect Tony McWhirter. Get him into protective custody now. Reopen his case. Anything. I won’t have him killed. Second, find ‘Madeleine,’ if it is at all possible. She’s the link. Third, keep an eye on the Barsoom Project. Get Welles on it as soon as this chubby-Eskimo game is over. Something is going to happen there.” The pencil broke in his hand. “I can feel it.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, maybe there’s another link.” Griffin touched a button, and the tape Vail had made in Gaming B went on display. It carried a sidebar of physiological data.

Millicent looked sick.

Griffin cleared his throat. “Dr. Vail has already been reprimanded for this violation of privacy. It won’t alter his behavior much, I’d guess. And however distastefully this tape may have been obtained, we cannot ignore its implications. Any disagreement?”

There was no sound from around the table, except for the moment when Harmony softly muttered, “So. I did right.”

Griffin looked at Izumi. “Are all of the effects ready? Are you sure that you can pull this off?”

Izumi nodded cautiously. “The prosthetics are excellent. You’re risking her sanity, you know.”

“We’ll take every precaution. There’s just something I have to know. And after I do-” The half of a pencil splintered, leaving nothing but fragments.

“After I do, maybe we’ll have a few more options.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

SACRED WEAPONS

The first of the Wolfalcons swooped out of the sky. The human face in its breast gibbered obscenity. Max whirled and swung. The composite-bird wheeled back out of range. Max’s usik cut a whistling haymaker; he danced to keep his balance on the sea-ice.

The air was warming, wavering.

The island behind them was shimmering with power. The satellite’s manna, its magical energy, had been short-circuited by the backpacks. It was disappearing into random improbabilities. The aurora had come out of the sky and settled over the island. The light danced and crackled and cast a bizarre, shifting radiance over the impossible angles.

An army of Amartoqs and spider-things were behind them, dots on the ice now, but catching up too quickly. The Wolfalcons acted as flying eyes for the monstrous horde, keeping the Adventurers in sight and urging their pursuers onward.

Orson was panting in Max’s ear. “Those damned griffin-things are the leaders. They’re the Cabal. Transformed. That’s why they’re going

… to let the other beasties… do their dirty work.”

“What in the hell do we do?”

Eviane looked across the ice field. Far in the distance there was a shimmering, a roiling as of a snowstorm. She pointed.

“That way,” she said. “Seelumkadchluk!”

“And if we get across, will we be safe?”

“No,” she said, “but we’ll be on home turf.”

All of them were dead tired by now, and more than a little frightened. It didn’t help to know that the deaths of the others were only simulated. It hurt to watch, it hurt to think that it could happen to Max himself. The point was to avoid dying.

“What can we do?” Johnny Welsh was leaning on his spear, panting. “My legs feel like fifty pounds of dead blubber.”

Snow Goose looked back across the ice. Like a pack of hounds hunting runaway slaves, the monsters were gaining implacably.

There was a cracking sound under their feet.

“ Now what?”

“Shit if I know-” Max adjusted his furs. It was getting warm.

Orson slapped his shoulder. “We’re dummies! It’s getting hotter. The ice pack is melting. The pressure shifts, and the whole thing is cracking up.”

“I think you’re right.”

The sound of the approaching monsters was just audible now.

The ice in front of them burst open with a roar like lightning striking too close. A tremendous blue and white torpedo surged into the air, dropped onto the ice, and slid. A nastily familiar shape, a killer whale blessed with stunted-looking tree-trunk arms, slowed and turned and pushed itself toward them across the ice. Its mighty forepaws gouged furrows.