The Barsoom Project

Chapter Twenty-One

Dwight Welles watched, waiting, his fingers splayed over the keyboard like a concert pianist’s, bare feet gently touching the pedals.

He watched the four screens. Occasionally his eyes flicked to the bob stage where the entire Judgment scene was displayed in miniature.

Truth be told, he preferred the two-dee screen-it flattened and simplified the images, and thereby sped his responses. This was vital. Even though he had time-delays built into the program, he needed every split second to focus the massive power of Dream Park’s computer banks on the job at hand.

In play, and at his best, Dream Park’s chief computer wizard was a blur of motion, fingers and feet moving so swiftly that they dazzled the eye. But unlike a concert virtuoso, Welles was engaged in a piano duel in which the theme alone had been preselected. Melody, tempo, harmonies, and phrasing were all variable. It was the ultimate challenge, and only a Game as complex as Fimbulwinter could have lured Welles from his dry theorizing for three days of extemporaneous madness.

He felt drunk with power. Even the Lopezes would have flinched from running the next scene.

He flexed his fingers, wiped moisture on the pale T-shirt which read Nice computers don’t go down.

Hell. Sex couldn’t even come close.

Four composite creatures stood at the four corners of the clearing. Max Sands found it easy to guess which figures represented what.

One, positioned to what he assumed was the north, had stereotypical Eskimo features. The figure was short and pudgy and nut-brown.

The shape to his right was Oriental, colored comic-book yellow, like a jaundice victim.

Further around the clockface, to the south, stood an ebony figure made of crawling black shells. And to the west, as white as a sheet, was the figure representing European man.

The Sins of Mankind.

“You came to destroy us,” the Eskimo-shape said, grinning like a happy-face button. “But we knew of your coming, and have captured you. Now we decide your fates.”

Kevin Titus spoke up. “You mean your buddies the Cabal?”

“They are not our friends. They seek to use us.”

Eviane surged against her bonds, then relaxed, watching the creatures with eyes that were cold and hard. “The Cabal will free Sedna when they choose, and then inherit the world.”

“Their power will destroy them. They will be corrupted by their own sins.” The Eskimo inspected each of them as it spoke. Its eyes were hard to meet. Its grin was wide and white; its teeth were miniature bald heads.

The Eskimo spoke in a chorus of tiny voices, thousands upon thousands of them, each chanting in the same rhythm. “Let me tell you,” it said. Its voice buzzed maddeningly. “Since the time of the Great Raven, the world has been in balance. The Raven creates, Sedna sustains. The shamans and witches, those who functioned in the realms between worlds, helped to keep the balance.

“But the Sins of Mankind always weighed heavily on Sedna. When the Eskimos break taboos and forget the laws of their fathers, then we break free-”

“Sort of like zits,” Max whispered.

The Eskimo smiled vastly. “In the year 1920 a man named Robert J. Flaherty came to us, came to the people of the ice, and he made a movie, Nanook of the North. And when it was released in 1922, the entire structure of the world was thrown out of balance.”

Hebert squinted, confused. “Why?”

“Because the white world, the outside world, became a part of the community under Sedna’s protection. Every culture has its Gods and deities, and some are powerful, and some are powerless. Sedna is powerful, as she must be to protect her children, who live in the most rugged region of the world.”

In his peripheral vision Max watched the other three composites. They were almost immobile. From time to time they nodded, or the shells that made their expressions shifted slightly.

There seemed little chance of starting an argument among them. They were too close. They were four lobes of a single brain, Max guessed, and the sins were its cells…

Orson spoke. “Why wouldn’t Sedna’s discovery by the outside world give her greater strength?”

“Because there is nothing in your culture which adds to the spiritual strength of the Inuit people. In truth, we owe you much,” the Eskimo said. “It is through you that we, the sins of man, came into our true power. Ever have we been a secondary force, mere symbols of your misdeeds. Verbs a-crawl on Sedna’s scalp! Now we thrive as never before. Now we may cripple your world.”

Kevin was the first to speak. “If we’ve done you so much good, why don’t you turn us loose to do more?”

“Because we can use you,” the black/south/Africa shape said. “We, your sins, can use you against the Cabal. If Man and Cabal can both be neutralized, then we may rule. Ever we have been both effect and cause. We are the corruptors and the product of corruption. The beginning and the end, alpha and omega. We wish to take our true position as masters of the universe.”

“Then what’s stopping you?” Orson said testily. “Why can’t you just take what you want?”

“You must welcome us into your lives,” white/west/Europe said solicitously. “Actions performed by coercion are not sins. We know that among you are hearts eager to touch and be touched by our ultimate pleasures. You will come to us voluntarily.”

Orson wasn’t buying it. “If you can’t make us do it, if you have to have our cooperation, then you aren’t the ultimate forces that you imagine. There’s gotta be law and order, even in a Game… even here. Who are you afraid of?”

Max glowed. Come on, little brother!

“None-”

“Bullshit!” Eviane said suddenly. Everyone turned to hear her. “if we created you, then we have power. You’re joined in a big dance with us. What is in our hearts determines our fates. Isn’t that right?”

The Oriental snarled at her. Its neck stretched out toward her, shells taking new alignments, until it resembled a cobra standing in a basket. The yellow/east/Asia composite glared down into her

Welles jerked his mind back on track. It was too damned easy to get lost playing what-if games, and there was work to do.

“This,” the image of Africa said, “this and more can we give you. And it is only the beginning.”

“Wait,” Robin Bowles said, shaking his head. “You’re talking about the death of mankind. If mankind dies, our sins die with us.,’

“Yesss…” the Eskimo nodded. “We are hoping to recruit you. Powerful, virile. Breeders. You will stay here with us, eating, reveling in pleasure, a nonstop orgy, mounting each other, breeding sins for all eternity! Our two worlds will truly coexist, as they were meant to from the beginning of time.”

All four voices joined together, and spoke thunderously. “Let the trial begin!”

The walls flowed. The cityscape closed in. Abruptly the walls had become solid, and waist-high barriers had risen before each of the composite figures. White-shelled sins spilled across their heads to form periwigs.

Sin City had become a courtroom. Their four judges surrounded them at the four cardinal directions.

“Hear ye, hear ye,” the Eskimo image began. Between the shells that formed the walls, individual sins popped up, made rude faces, and disappeared. Little eight-inch abominations stood on each other’s backs and shoulders, cheered and hissed and laughed, and wriggled their glistening bare behinds at the Gamers. “This Court is now in session.”

Robin Bowles said, but not as if he believed it, “I insist on the right to legal counsel.”

The white judge leaned over, grinning. “Ah, yes. And if you cannot afford one, one will be appointed for you. Let me see-”

Out of the reeking pool of sin, a ghastly caricature of the figure of blind Justice rose up grinning at them, clattering her teetering scales.

“To hell with that,” Max shouted. “I vote that Robin Bowles represent us!”

Bowles turned, a little shocked. “Are you sure?”

Welles was just as startled. Granted that Bowles was prepped to handle the defense. So were Ollie and Gwen, with prompting from Welles, of course. Welles had expected to have to push a little, argue a little. But the Adventurers seemed to have made their decision, and in Bowles’s favor.

Welles hit the Stall button, and a prerecorded loop played, buying him five seconds to think.

“Whoa!” Hippogryph yelped. Max glanced over, and saw a troop of six sins dragging a roast beef across the courtroom floor, tumbling and fumbling like circus clowns with their load. They were almost to the far side of the room when three sin-sheriffs, complete with badges and riding sea horses, scampered in pursuit.

The entire tableau took about five seconds. Then Kevin remembered himself. “You do want the job, don’t you, Mr. Bowles? I saw you in The Judge Crater Story.”

“You and six other people,” Bowles said ruefully.

“But you can handle it!”

Snow Goose cried, “All in favor!”

A thunderous chorus of ayes filled the air.

“Opposed?”

Not a single nay.

“The ayes have it.”

The black judge looked at them impatiently. “We are here today to try mankind, represented by these sorry assholes, for its sins. In the court we use the Code Napoleon. Your guilt is presumed until you can prove yourselves… ah… what’s that word?”

A skeletal bailiff goose-stepped over to them, its joints and bones constructed of tittering sins standing on one another’s grotesque shoulders. It stage-whispered, “Innocent!”

“Why, yes. That is the word I was looking for.” He harumphed, cleared his throat, and spat out a sin. It landed at Charlene’s feet. It wore a black robber’s mask across its face and a three-digit number across its chest. Chittering, it ran up to her and dug under her trouser cuff. She squeaked and pulled away. The sin hugged a big gold coin to its chest, smiled evilly, and sprinted fol.

Robin Bowles sighed, and then spoke in a voice like rolling thunder. “We are willing to go on trial, but only if we know that we will be tried fairly. If this is a mockery of a trial where you can bend law and logic to fit your own dictates, then we might as well be silent, and keep our dignity while you do with us as you will.”

Orson hissed at Bowles, who bent over, listening and whispering.

The Oriental hadn’t waited. “We will play fair with you. There is no need. Lying is a sin, but sins do not lie.”

Robin Bowles straightened his back, and smiled unpleasantly. “You had better not. My colleague has reminded me of something.”

Max’s little brother stood, cracking his knuckles with glee. “All right. The Raven and Sedna are out of operation. But Sedna has a mate. And Eviane is a tornrait-”

Kevin hastily consulted his pocket computer. “Torngarsoak! Lord of the land animals!”

“Thaaat’s the one. Eviane gives us a direct connection to the spirit world. Torngarsoak is out there, listening and watching. If we are guilty, then he will punish mankind for harming his sweetheart. if we’re innocent-” He smiled charmingly. “Then Torngarsoak will be upset with you.”

He turned, bowed sweepingly from the waist to the wild applause of the Gamers. Charlene Dula seemed beside herself with enthusiasm.

“Thank you, colleague Orson.”

“It was nothing, colleague Robin.”

Bowles spoke in his most professorial tones. “All right,” he said. “That having been said, I move for a dismissal of all charges.”

“On what grounds?”

“On the grounds that we, representing the Western world, were ignorant of Eskimo law, and therefore must be held blameless.”

The four judges conferred for a moment, then shook their heads. “No. Your motion is disallowed for two reasons. First, even if we discounted sins which are exclusive to the Eskimo world, there are enough overlapping sins-murder, for instance-to condemn you.”

“And the second?”

“Ignorance of the law is no excuse. This is well known in your Western law.”

Robin nodded his head, and paced back and forth. Suddenly he stopped. “What are the sins of which we stand accused?”

“Murder. Abortion of children in times of plenty. Men who have no hunting skills. Women who disgrace their communities by dressing poorly. Destruction of the family units.”

“I submit to you,” Bowles said, “that these sins have been with mankind since time immemorial, and that the universe was created in balance despite them. There has been no increase in sin-it merely looks that way because of the increase in communications.”

The four man-shapes laughed in a thousand voices. “We have heard that argument before. ‘if you hadn’t caught me, it wouldn’t be a crime.’ And it is disallowed.”

“But you must admit,” Bowles continued, “that more than the human race is on trial here. What must also be weighed is whether you have overstepped the bounds of your power. if you are wrong, and there has been no vast upsurge of sin, then you yourselves have acted to throw the universe out of balance. Torngarsoak’s vengeance would be terrible. The question is… have you sinned?”

Robin asked it in powerfully insinuating tones. The judges recoiled for a moment, then answered: “We cannot sin. We are sin!”

Breathing harshly, Bowles mopped his forehead. Sweating underwater?

“I propose,” Bowles continued, “that we simplify the issues. Choose the one sin of which we are most demonstrably guilty, and let us defend ourselves against that. Choose the one-we can only be hung once as a species, as a culture. If modern man is so wicked, has fallen so far from the path, then choose one.”

Max was thunderstruck. Bowles projected more power, more sheer emotional force than the screen had ever conveyed. To be this close to a master actor at the height of his craft was awe-inspiring.

“Murder,” the white/Europe judge suggested.

“I think not,” Bowles replied. “We punish our murderers. They often repent. The Gods have always granted the right of repentance, and loved a people who police their own. The Gods made man, flaws and all. They have also made it possible for men to repent.”

“Abortion.”

Bowles thought. “Your concept of abortion-”

“-includes yours,” the Eskimo finished.

Trianna Stith-Wood was on her feet. Bowles noticed and deferred to her in body language. She didn’t notice at all; she was already talking.

“In times of hardship, Eskimo babies were sometimes left in the snow, given back to the elements. There are places where a baby doesn’t even get a name until it can name itself! I don’t say that’s a good idea. We don’t like it-we never have. The fact that some people have abortions just because they’re”-she paused for a moment, and her voice went a little tight-”too lazy to get implants is, is bad. We don’t like it any better than you do. But you can’t make abortions illegal-you’d just drive poor women to back-alley clinics, while their rich cousins go to nice clean family doctors. That’s murder too. At least the children who are born are really wanted. Don’t condemn us because the Gods gave us love, and reproduction, but limited the available food and space.”

When she finished her outburst and sat down, she was crying. Hippogryph seemed embarrassed, but Charlene reached forward and held her shoulder.

Welles paused. What had brought that on?

A few taps of the finger, and Trianna Stith-Wood’s personal file was on the screen. He could only devote a tiny fraction of his attention to it. His quick scan found no reference to abortion, or trauma, or specific incidents which might have triggered it. Not surprising-the dossiers were voluntary, and easy enough to leave discreetly incomplete.

Ah, well, he thought. Not his concern. He might mention it to Vail.

The judges began to confer. They were yards apart, but they buzzed at each other in a torrent of tiny incomprehensible voices. It was all buzzing now, rising in vehemence and falling back, while the judges blurred with internal motion.

The water seemed a little thicker. A few more fish wafted by.

The judged turned back. “We have come to a decision. We believe that it is possible to select a single sin, one unrepented in your culture. We are willing to condenm you for this one sin.”

The Eskimo leaned forward, and gave a conspiratorial wink, a thin translucent eyelid covering a tiny screaming head. “I believe that this is called ‘plea bargaining’ among your people.”

Robin Bowles nodded.

“We choose your meat-packing industry.”

Orson blinked in confusion. “Excuse me?”

“Every year, billions of animals are raised in captivity in disgraceful, barbaric circumstances, and then shunted down assembly lines-”

The air above the sins wavered, and they were in a meat-packing plant, and the smell of blood and animal fear was in the air. An endless line of steers streamed toward an iron-walled factory building.

A fluid camera movement took them into the slaughterhouse itself.

A castrated bull waited, its head in the killing-slot, a milky foam bubbling from its mouth. A robot arm pivoted, braced an automatic gun against the head of the hapless bovine. There came a brief, explosive hiss, and the cracking sound of a shot. The steer collapsed.

“This is the way that your people slaughter cows-and chickens-”

There was an immediate, accompanying image of an endless conveyer belt of chickens, each hapless fowl in its own metal collar, heading toward the decapitation machine. A nauseating, blood-spurting close-up. The chicken’s legs twitched spastically as the conveyer belt rolled on and another bird took its place.

It was a Treblinka, an Auschwitz, an infinite chorus line locked in a mechanized dance of death.

There were images of seafaring boats catching countless millions of tuna, and then those fish dumped through automatic sizing and gutting machines. The sequence culminated in a mountain of fishy refuse, guts and heads stinking in the sun. They could see it, and smell it. To Max’s right, Trianna Stith-Wood was turning green.

“To us, this is the ultimate sin. To us and to Sedna, this is abortion, and on a scale almost beyond imagination. Compare this practice with the old ways, the traditional ways,” the judges said. Suddenly there was a crisp, calm Alaskan vista. Men tracked caribou across the tundra; furred hunters crouched beside ice holes for the momentary appearance of a walrus, and then the sudden thrust of a spear-

Max could feel the howl of the wind, the adrenaline burn as the Inuit hunted in the manner of his ancestors. Something told him that yes, this was the way that these things were supposed to be, the way it should have been done, should always have been done…

They were pitching on a high sea, seized in the black grip of an angry ocean. A boat rode the water, a whalebone framework with a sealskin envelope, carrying four men. They were tough men, hardened to the elements, inured to suffering. They were staking their lives against an unpitying wasteland in hope of bringing home precious food.

They pitched and yawed, and then a flash! Just a momentary flash, and a seal broke the surface. The lead hunter made his cast, and A modern supermarket. Bovine, doughy shoppers pushed baskets down gleaming, Muzak-gentled aisles, choosing between packages of prewrapped, precleaned, prekilled meat.

The buzz was almost gone from the voice of their Eskimo judge. “Where is the threat here? Where is the life? You have lost all sense of the unity of man with his world, and of the price which is paid in blood and suffering by one creature to give life to another. And your sin is greater than this,” the Eskimo said, his voice rising.

He’s really getting into this, Max thought. Good! A demi-god should enjoy his work. Otherwise, what’s the point of demideity?

The supermarket fogged… and cleared to show a cartoon image. It was Ferdinand the Bull.

Oh yes, Max knew Ferdinand. Everyone in America and sixteen other countries knew Ferdinand, spokesbull for the Lazy Taco string of Mexican restaurants. Famous, infamous, having gone from mouthpiece for a fast-food emporium to a series of B-movie misadventures to an eventual holovision series. Ferdinand, the Lazy Bull who slyly coaxed cows into the clover and other bulls into the bullring or onto the dinner table, was instantly recognizable.

Ferdinand looked out at them and said: “Come on down to Lazy Taco. We serve the best Beeefs in the wooorld.” Suddenly he grinned stupidly and his eyes grew huge with mock surprise. “Oh! Beeef! Thass me, I theenk!”

Max was humiliated to remember the many times his sides had ached from Ferdinand’s routine.

It didn’t stop there. The parade of animals, real and cartoon, who had encouraged or begged customers to eat them over the years was long and disturbing. Foghorn Leghorn (“Ah say! This here is some mighty tasty chicken!”). Charlie the Tuna (“Sorry, Charlie”).

The parade was endless. Daffy Duck, Clarabelle Cow, Porky Pig, Chiquita Banana-Orson put his head down into his hands. “Oh, no. Even the plants. We’re screwwwwed.”

All were dancing and prancing, shaking their collective rear ends, happy happy happy to make that consummate sacrifice. Distracting consumers from the bloody reality of death.

Max felt shamed.

The four Judges of the Apocalypse looked out at them. The Eskimo figure said, “There can be no defense. You have dishonored the Inua of the creatures which give you life. Sin!”

“Sin!” said the black man.

“Sin!” agreed the white and the yellow men.

“It only remains to pronounce sentence-”

“Ah say! Now just a cotton-pickin’ minute there, boy!” The voice was Foghorn Leghorn’s, and every head snapped around

Johnny Welsh had spoken. A moment later he was hypersupercilious. “I believe this is my field of expertise-do you mind, Robin?”

“Not at all.” The distinguished actor looked both surprised and relieved. Bowles sat heavily.

Johnny paused, gathering himself. “You know-I don’t think the issue here is the killing of animals-the more people you have, the more food you need. Having babies is honored in your culture-in fact, anything that builds up the community. Am I right? Couples without children pray for babies. It’s expected that we be fruitful and multiply, right?”

The Eskimo judge nodded sagely.

“All right. The meat-packing industry is just trying to feed our babies. If we didn’t do that, that would be a sin. We want more of our babies to survive. So we have people who are doctors, and engineers, and teachers, and cops, and everything else that it takes for a society to survive. We’re like fishermen who stock the lakes, or the farms, or whatever. And we kill the animals as humanely as we can. Is there really anything more humane about dying with a spear through your guts at twenty below? A gut-shot reindeer-Trianna?”

Trianna had a plump arm up. She said, “The dietary rules in the Torah demand that kosher meat be slaughtered as humanely as possible. I’m sure that every culture has rules like that.”

Johnny beamed approval. Orson’s head was up; his eyes were unfocused.

The Oriental judge peered down at Trianna. “Not every culture. Japan differs. And where exactly does this line of reasoning lead you?”

Welsh mocked the Oriental’s tones. “It leads me to believe the issue is whether we have honored the spirits of the animals. You think that Charlie the Tuna, and Ferdinand the Bull, and Chicken Boy, and Tom Turkey and the rest are insults to their spirit.”

The judges nodded vigorously. “And so they are!”

Johnny shook his head; his cheeks jiggled. “No. You missed it. Where we come from, one of the highest forms of compliment is the joke. I know this stuff. I make my living with this stuff. Only after an actor or politician has become great do we bother to make jokes about him. if there is a disaster in our lives, the first thing we try to do is find the light side. That’s how we keep things in perspective. It’s how we survive.”

Johnny was beginning to roll, and Max finally understood where he was going. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Orson relax.

“When we take a chicken, or a cow, and make a cartoon out of it, we’re giving ‘em the same treatment we give our dogs and cats. And considering that dog and cat care is a multibilliondollar industry, you’d better not even suggest we don’t love the little fuzzballs. They end up running our homes, eating our food, and breaking our hearts. Oh yeah-we know damned well how much we depend on animals for our survival.”

Orson leapt up. “Snow Goose’s father showed us implements, utensils that had carved images of animals. Out of proportion, almost grotesque. What we would call ‘caricatures.’ I submit to you that these advertisements are our offerings to the Inua. They are our way of giving affectionate respect. And more than that, we don’t just make one or two little carved-bone items. We send these images out to billions of people. Every day we pay more honor to the Inua of the animals than the Inuit peoples did in a century. We are absolutely in the spirit of the Eskimos, and we say that you have lied, and stolen, and tricked your way into the balance of power. We ask the Gods, whatever they be, to look into our hearts. Every time we say grace, every time we make a joke, every time somebody works overtime to make a little more money so he can spend two hundred bucks on sushi for four, it’s a tribute. I call this whole damn thing a mistrial.”

The judges seemed frozen. Only their faces were in motion but their features were little lost sins randomly a-crawl. Then the judges began to come apart. One buzzing voice spoke, the voice of west/white/Europe. “No-you are lying… we have the right of inheritance! We have that right!”

The ocean above them swirled, the water beginning to boil, and the walls dissolving too. Piece by horrid piece, Sin City was falling apart. The water boiled more swiftly. They clung to the strands of hair, dug in their tiny claws; the current took them away.

Then all was hidden in a wash of bubbles.

It felt like Sedna’s scalp was sagging beneath Max. Then the bubbles cleared, and he saw. He was in a bubble and the bubble was rising. The other Gamers were rising around him, each in his own bubble.

Welles sat back and relaxed-the rest of it was programmed. He pushed himself away from the console and yawned, suddenly aware of the massive energy output of the past forty minutes.

He heard a patter of applause and turned to see Dr. Vail’s slender, sardonic figure at the door of the control room, a beer in each hand. “Thirsty?”

“Unbelievably.” Welles snatched one before Vail could blink, and downed half before coming up for air. “Ahhh. I pay belated honor to the Inua of the beer.”

“That was nicely done,” Vail said. “And we’ve almost completed our programming.”

Welles made puppy eyes. “Does that mean I can start killing them? Please, sir. Just a few of ‘em. For their own good.”

He drank in haste, then called up an image from the Tunnels, the subterranean world beneath the Gaming areas. A cluster of uniformed men and women were working hydraulic lifts, switching supports and props under the Gamers so that they could make their ascent.

“I still can’t believe how many Gamers don’t care how we do it.”

Vail sipped his brew, watched the screen, lips curled with gentle humor. “I’ll bet you read magic books when you were a kid, and told everybody how the lady turns into a tiger.”

“Better. There was an old magician in town. He put on shows in a magic shop, and on Saturday night, he’d get drunk. He’d screw up his timing, and you could see the rabbit peeking out of his coat. I loved it.”

“The fact that the old man had lost it?”

Welles took another drink. “Is that wrong? He’d lost it just enough so that I could see how the miracle was done. Maybe some of the other people laughed, but I thought: ‘He used to be great. Now he’s just good.”

He drained his beer and tossed it. “Hell. Anybody can be good. It only takes practice. But looking at that old man, for the first time in my life I thought that maybe I could be great…” He rubbed his eyes, then looked at Vail with sudden suspicion. “Are you working on my Psych evaluation?”

“Tut-tut,” Vail said innocently. “Just curious. Just curious.”

Max looked down through the water, and he saw Her.

Sedna. Eskimo, or Inuit, and beautiful. The encrustations around her face were cracking and chipping away, revealing smooth brown flesh beneath.

She was still burdened by her load of sins, but many of them were breaking free, unable to maintain their hold.

Sedna had a chance. The universe was coming back into balance. The Paija beaten, the angakoks could cleanse Sedna if the road remained clear…

Above them, far above them, light sparkled and shimmered on the surface of the water.