The Barsoom Project

From around the corner surged a horde of people in tattered clothing, bundled in rags. They grabbed the wounded Guardsman and dragged him away. His screaming grew acute, then stopped.

The second soldier bellowed at them. “Get that boat off the ground!”

The cannibals were bearing down on him when the soldier took a silver cylinder from his belt, pulled the pin and Finally Charlene seemed to understand. She eeled through the doorway. It was the curved thick doorway of an airplane, wedged half-open. Max feared he would tear skin pushing through after her. Hippogryph had similar trouble following him.

The soldier tucked and rolled as the corridor erupted into flame. The plastic structure ruptured from floor to ceiling, and what poured through was Snow?

A blizzard of powder and white flakes gushed through the cracks. Frigid air slapped his face like a giant frozen hand, sent him reeling back from the door.

The soldier scrambled into the plane, snow and sweat streaking his dark face. He turned and pulled the door shut. The floor lurched under his feet.

Max caught one last glimpse through the window. The entire tunnel was collapsing. Screaming, the raggedy man-eaters tumbled through the ruptured floor and disappeared.

“Strap yourselves in. We’re taking off now!”

Max looked around, heaving for breath. He could hear a good deal of panting around him. Francis Hebert had had to pull Johnny Welsh inside. The comedian was red-faced and heaving, but recovering fast. Good lungs: a stand-up comic would need that.

Seats were four across, the fuselage constricted halfway back, where overhead wings showed through big curved windows. Max wasn’t familiar with aircraft, but this plane seemed old: one of the smaller supersonic jets. Seats at the back had been ripped out and cargo was stacked nearly to the ceiling. The seats were already crowded. Nobody knew what was going on any more than he did, but they were moving. He settled into a seat next to Frankish Oliver, across the aisle from Charlene and Eviane.

Charlene’s height forced her to sit knees to chest, and Eviane was helping her settle in. Charlene’s voice was a frantic squeal. “Eviane, what’s happening?”

Eviane smiled uneasily. “Seems to be the end of the world.”

Charlene gripped her seat, silent, lips pressed thin.

Max admired the way Eviane helped her friend. In the midst of a whirlwind of panic and murder, she seemed to be maintaining control. Something had changed in the silent, withdrawn Eviane of the Time Travel Game.

There was a rumbling purr as the plane backed away from what Max could now see was a ruined airline terminal. The roof buckled under a crushing mantle of snow.

“We’re very fortunate that the storm is dying,” the stewardess said. She looked exhausted. “We’re the last plane out of San Francisco Airport. I don’t know what happened to the rest of them. I can only hope… ”

Her voice trailed off, and she rubbed her eyes. They were red-rimmed and dark-circled, as if she hadn’t slept in days.

As she buckled herself against the wall the plane lurched, bounded across the icy ground. The windows smeared with snow flumes. The plane tilted and went up at a steep angle. Snow-locked buildings and cars swiftly became toylike.

Max craned over Frankish Oliver to peer out of the window at the city below.

The plane rose, turning right. The long overhead wing swung back. Max saw the ruin that had once been the showpiece of the west coast. The rebuilt Bay Bridge lay broken and buckled, and snow partially covered a string of cars that stretched from Mann to Oakland. Ships were frozen in the bay, and the entire city lay under a blue-white mantle of ice. The light was dim; the sky beyond the folded-back wing was slate-gray.

Study Eskimos, Dream Park’s instruction packet had read. He was beginning to understand why.

The passengers had grown quiet. A hush followed the wump as they eased through the sound bather.

The stewardess switched her throat mike on. Her voice was a near parody of the countless airplane safety recitations Max had heard over the years. “The weather has continued to worsen,” she said. “We can’t go south. The airports in Los Angeles and San Diego are swamped. Texas and New Mexico are sealed; they’re shooting unauthorized planes out of the sky. The Southwest just isn’t prepared for this kind of weather. New York has done better. Its people and social structures have survived, while California is disintegrating. Since Canada commandeered the oil pipeline, that’s no place for Americans. Alaska is our best bet.”

The plane slid through gray clouds, and out.

Eviane hissed. Charlene frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“The sun!”

Only fools look straight at the sun. Charlene caught it in her peripheral vision, glaring above an unbroken white cloud deck. “It looks fine.”

Eviane stared at her, then looked out the window. “It looks that way from Ceres?”

“I… Oh! If it’s right for Ceres, then… too small for Earth. Not enough light. What could cause that?”