The Barsoom Project

Kevin brayed victoriously. “Switched! Mine talks about Pewitu, taboos. I can’t kill a seal until it’s on the land.” He pulled a hand-held computer from an inner pocket, started one-finger typing on it. “Sounds easy enough,” he said distractedly. “What about you, Trianna?”

There was a lot of energy in that glance. Trianna didn’t seem to notice. “My friendly-ghost assistant is named Kaspar. Clerk from Oregon, white, died in Nome in 1910. Shot. I mustn’t eat eggs, but I can eat the birds after they hatch. Yucko! If we follow these taboos, do you think we can win?”

She was looking at Johnny Welsh, but Kevin answered. “Why not? We kicked their butts first time we saw ‘em. We’ll do it again.” He tucked his computer away.

Max: “But did Eviane break a taboo or something? I don’t understand why it went after her like that.”

As he talked, Max cut into what looked like a swordfish steak, and it squealed on his plate. A face formed in the grain of the steak, and said, “Will you please pay attention to me? Try not to talk so much while you’re eating? Do you have any idea how irritating it is to be eaten by somebody who doesn’t pay any attention to you?”

Johnny Welsh cocked an eyebrow at Max’s plate. “I’ve had dates like you.”

Trianna hit him in the side of the head with a balled napkin.

Max glared at his swordfish. “Now listen. We had a fight. You lost.”

“That’s no excuse for rudeness. I died to keep you alive, and one day you will die to feed my ancestors. Think about it, mister.”

Alice, pudding! Pudding, Alice! Remove the Pudding!

The campfire conversation began to chill.

Vail chuckled maliciously. “A perfect example. It is unconscious and emotional ingestion of food, drugs, alcohol, whatever-for other than conscious motivations, that gets people most deeply in trouble. The more respectful attention you pay to your body and the things you put in it, the less likely you are to abuse it.”

“That’s really interesting, but not what I need.” Alex wished Vail would stop waving his coffee around. The smell was driving him nuts. Then again, Dream Park’s mad psychiatrist might be ghoulish enough to do it deliberately, studying Griffin’s conditioned responses.

Alex gritted his teeth and punched in Marty’s “silent” code, knowing that a steady vibratory trill would alert the security man.

Hippogryph waited a few seconds and then got up and moved away from the others. He walked toward where a line of scrubby bushes shaped a crescent moon; but he turned aside before he reached it. The curve of the hill hid him when he took out his communications kit.

“Marty. What happened out there with this Eviane woman?”

“She was stomped by a ghastly. Griff, we just lost somebody. It’s no big thing.”

“Marty, you don’t get it. No one is supposed to be killed out of a Fat Ripper!”

Beat. “What?”

“This isn’t a Game for points. You read the material. This is a Game to teach people lessons. Why should she get killed out? She didn’t make a mistake. Later on you’ll have opportunities to get killed out if you make a mistake, but not now. What point would there be?”

“I… all right, I see the logic. I suppose this is a secret?”

“You bet. We don’t want everybody knowing we have a problem.”

Marty must have heard the impatience in his voice. “I’m slow catching up, boss. They rap me half to death.”

In truth, Marty looked exhausted. It would not do to forget that others besides Alex Griffin might be having problems. “How are you, Marty? Are you going to get through this?”

“We warriors will carry out our duty, 0 Griffin. Besides, the worst part must be over. Have you been watching, Griff?”

He hadn’t, but Marty would surely expect him to. “A little.”

“That scene in the sauna, the smokehouse? Most of us are overweight, Griff, and we all look like it with our clothes off, and I looked just like them. I felt so… fat.”

“Any sign of trouble? Aside from terminal embarrassment, I mean..?“

“No. Nobody’s trying to off Ambassador Arbenz’s niece, far as I can tell. Gruff, it’s hard to tell what’s funny in this environment. I should have been told that we can’t be killed out.”

“I wasn’t told till this morning. I might have told you, and then you’d have been too relaxed. You’ll be too relaxed, unless you watch yourself.”

“So how did it happen to Eviane?”

“The one thing that I do know is that Eviane-her real name is Michelle Sturgeon-was in Dream Park before, and her file has been sealed.”

“Well, who sealed it?”

“Harmony. I’m going to have to take it up with him. I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Maybe Harmony kicked her out of the Game.”

“I don’t think so. He wouldn’t have interfered without talking to me. Even so it’s awfully queer… and clumsy.”

“Clumsy. So, what are you going to do with her?”

Griffin looked at the picture of Michelle Sturgeon, smiling and happy in the file, contrasted it with the pudgier, angrier woman who had challenged Vail and his nurse: “ Unless I get you first… ”

“I’d… better talk to Harmony,” he said finally. “I guess it’s time I did just exactly that.”

Chapter Eleven

HIGH FINANCE