The Barsoom Project

Chapter Twenty-Six

Alex Griffin snapped awake, totally alert and sweating. He had to have been dreaming… those were the only times when he awoke wondering, confused, eyes focused and staring, lips pursed to whistle for the ceiling light, then pausing.

He had to have been dreaming, but he couldn’t remember the dream. Since childhood, Alex had had trouble remembering his dreams. It rarely deviled him. Alex supposed he was one of those rare and fortunate people for whom reality was enough.

But when he woke up slimed with sweat, gelatinous night-images sliding away like corpses sinking in oily water, then he knew that he was lying to himself. Of course he dreamed. He’d never stopped. He just didn’t really want to know what was down there in the depths.

He lay there for a few moments, breathing shallowly, then rolled out of bed. He felt around for his slippers and slipped them on. He turned the clock to face him.

One-thirty. In five hours he would be expected to be up and about, attending to the business of the day. He might as well get to it now.

Alex lifted his body out of bed. He felt heavy, and didn’t quite understand why-he was in perfect physical condition. Disconcerting. A diet, maybe?

How about the Fat Ripper Special?

There was something intrinsically absurd in that idea, but he didn’t laugh. He was too tired. One part of his mind kept digging for that last elusive dream-image, and it kept wiggling away from him.

Musing, he headed for the shower. If there was really something important lurking in his subconscious, it would eventually come out and say “Hi.”

The midnight streets of Dream Park were deserted facades once again, but in Alex Griffin’s mind, they were full.

He nodded occasionally to a roving security or maintenance man. Ordinarily, he loved walking these streets. At moments like this it seemed that the Park existed for him alone.

Oh, there were the times that the Park, or a section of it, was closed to all but employees and their families. At those times the entertainers put on their very best performances. It was rawer and bawdier. Outsiders had paid hefty bribes to get into those parties. That back-stage feel was Dream Park at its best: celebration for its own sake, and an opportunity for them all to take a breath and relax, and see what they had accomplished, and smile to each other.

We are the magicians! they could say, did say at those times. We bring the dream to life, and we’re the only ones who can. And around the world, people put hours and sweat into jobs that often have little meaning to them, saving up to come to Dream Park, to buy the most perfectly packaged Dreams in the world…

And now Alex wandered along Glory Road by dead of night. (The Starship Trooper Game, always a big hit, was being refurbished again. There was often damage in that one. The adrenaline really started rushing when the bug-eyed monsters came charging at you.)

Tonight, there were no couples from Kansas and Calcutta, tow-headed or olive-skinned children tagging along in a state of shock. The deserted streets offered his imagination a panoply of clowns and capering performers. There was so much here, so many exhibits, that he rarely roamed the streets without discovering something new and precious. He smiled fleetingly up as the faintly glowing shape of the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man swaggered past.

Tonight he had no real sense of wonder. Tonight he searched the faces of the employees, looked at the buildings, remembered the illusions, contemplated his tomorrow.

Because something was happening in Dream Park. It was going on right under his nose, in the middle of the Barsoom Project, in the middle of the Fimbulwinter Game. It deviled him, because instinct, or some subrational thought system, had identified a world of true problems, potentials for hideous disruption, and they wouldn’t let him sleep.

Or was his nightmare only a memory of failed skyhooks smashing across Mars and Earth?

For a time, Alex Griffin had looked upon this magical place as a job, cushier and more interesting than most other jobs, to be sure. But the South Seas Treasure Game had taught him things about himself, and his ability to slip into fantasy, that he never would have believed. He had learned something about Dream Park that he never could have learned from the outside looking in.

At the next board meeting Alex had formally proposed that every employee be required to attend a Game as a condition for promotion.

Alex Griffin’s lesson had come late and hit hard. In the South Seas Treasure Game, reality had intruded lethally upon fantasy. There were zombies and monsters and wizards and thieves, a hidden murderer, and a wonderful, magical interlude with a beautiful girl named Acacia; and all of his conceptions of Dream Park were jarred to the core.

He’d been voted down. But how else would his people learn the true nature of the Park? How easily could cynicism grow if one saw only the nuts and bolts, and rarely experienced the final product? How could you empathize with the customer unless you saw what the customer saw? Unless, at least once, you felt what he felt?

If you truly understood, then when you saw customers staggering around the Park in a general state of emotional overload, you could help them, or at the very least comfort them with a silent Yes, I know. And that made all the difference.

How would the public feel if they knew about the men in black who manipulated the puppets? The stage assistants who spirited the lady out of the box and put the tiger in? And other, darker, uglier magics. They shouldn’t know, didn’t want to know, and it was his job… their job… to protect the illusion. That was why it was necessary to understand, to experience that illusion deeply and intimately.

The streets were deserted now. Only a few of the neon, plastic, or holographic signs were functioning. A few forlorn sweeper ‘bots cruised the streets, and one of them cruised at him, then paused, humming at his feet. It beeped apologetically, and continued on its industrious way.

Alex Griffin understood how it felt.

Ambassador Arbenz had been surprised but polite and responsive to Alex’s request for a midmorning interview. “I haven’t time for a private breakfast, but I’ll take my morning constitutional on my way to the Beanstalk conference.”

So Alex tubed over to the Hotel Gulliver to meet the Ambassador at nine o’clock.

Hotel Gulliver was always a wild experience. The furniture was constructed as if by miniature hands for the pleasure of giants (in the Lilliput wing) or roughly hewn as if by giant hands for brownies (in the Brobdingnag wing). The desk clerks were helpful elf-sized figures who happily balanced atop one another in their eagerness to sign you into the books. Elevators were hauled up and down the elevator wells by giants who paced outside the windows, pulling enormous cables.

Ambassador Arbenz was in the Brobdingnag wing.

Alex took the outside elevator. Through the glass wall he could see a titanic man with a receding hairline pulling him upward by a thick hemp rope. The giant panted; he perspired. There was a conspicuous knot in the rope where it must have broken.

Beyond the great bald head Alex could see the Laputa tower floating unsupported. He couldn’t see his favorite, the tower of the Houyhnhnm, with its statues of Saint Francis and Saint Ed.

“Mr. Griffin,” the Ambassador said. He strode across the room, and clasped Alex’s hand firmly. Richard Arbenz wore a well-cut purple walking suit that flattered his ectomorphic profile. His hair was gray; he might be the oldest of the Falling Angel crowd; but he seemed perfectly comfortable in Earth’s gravity. Griffin guessed that Arbenz worked long and hard to keep his muscles, bones, and ligaments strong.

“I have a very full schedule today, please forgive me if we can only talk on the move. These are crucial times in the negotiations.”

“What I came for won’t take much time,” Alex assured him.

In the kitchenette the smell of fresh-brewed coffee was becoming obtrusive. “Coffee?” Arbenz asked. “The President of Colombia sends it personally. An appreciation for a hydroelectric project Falling Angel helped to plan and execute.”

Alex found he was edging backward with that wonderful scent in his nose and a memory of battery acid in his belly. “Sorry, no. Ulcer.” May Castro’s ghost raise revolution in Colombia!

“Oh. Pity.” Arbenz finished his own cup in one smooth gulp. “Well, then, let’s proceed.”

The Ambassador led Alex out and to the nearest elevator. He set a swift pace. Their elevator was lowered by the same perspiring bald giant. The city beyond him seemed composed of blocks the size of houses. Despite the size of the inhabitants (and the rather disquieting realization that the floor thrummed slightly each time one of them took a step) the view was really rather enchanting.

“Very well,” Arbenz said, looking down on the top of Alex’s head. “What is it that I can do for you?”

“Well…” Alex still felt a bit uncomfortable. Arbenz was seven inches taller than he, even though Earth’s gravity had stooped him by an inch or two. “There was an incident in one of our Games. It’s the Game your niece is in.”

Arbenz became very alert indeed. “An incident?”

The elevator thudded down, the door opened as if jarred, and Arbenz strode through the lobby at a brisk walking pace. At least, for Arbenz it was walking. Alex would have felt ridiculous breaking into a jog, but as he tried to match the Ambassador’s long-legged stride, for the first time in his life he understood why race-walking was an Olympic sport. The gray hair must be premature. No old man raised in low gravity could outrun Alex Griffin!

It took him a minute to make his pace both efficient and comfortable. That gave him his breath back. He said, “It could mean nothing. It’s one of those. A hologram monster attacked the wrong person, and the computer killed her out of the Game.” Alex spread his hands. “No real problem. No explanation either.”

Arbenz’s long face creased with concern. “Was it Charlene?”

Alex gulped air, felt the first flush of perspiration under his collar. Arbenz looked perfectly comfortable. “No, it was her friend Eviane.”

Arbenz passed through the VIP gate and headed for the Tower of Night, a slender silver projection glistening in the morning light.. Alex blinked. He’d passed the Tower yesterday evening; it had been tall. This morning it went up forever! What he knew to be the Tower’s roof continued without a break, tapering to a silver line, stretching into the blue zenith.

Three years ago he’d seen the plans. For two years Alex had been looking at the restaurant itself. He’d eaten here; he’d loved the way the elevator took him into the sky… and still he hadn’t known it for what it was. Now he remembered the Barsoom Project’s discussion of bridges to the planets. The Tower of Night had been a Beanstalk all along.

By now Dream Park’s special guests were used to the sight of the Ambassador, and barely noticed his passing. All things considered, he was one of Dream Park’s less startling sights. Even on the reduced schedule demanded by the Barsoom Project, there were still enough KaleidoKlowns, dancing ‘Toons, and multispecies street vendors to steal the thunder from a mere six-foot-five Lunarian.

“A strange girl,” Arbenz said finally. With savage satisfaction Alex noted that Arbenz had finally broken into a sweat. “I met her only briefly. Apparently she and Charlene are quite close. No one was hurt?”

“No one. What I want is to go back over the threats that were made against you.”

Arbenz hadn’t looked tired until Griffin said that. “The usual. They consider the Barsoom Project an abomination, the desecration of the heavens. Even the name ‘Falling Angel’ has been considered demonic. It is an absurd pseudo-fundamental Moslem view of the world. People are being exploited for personal gain.”

They had reached the Tower of Night. They entered the elevator. As the door closed, Dream Park vanished.

Outside the clear-plastic windows was burnt-umber sand and a pink sky shading to black. Dead, waterless, almost windless; a dust storm receded toward the too-close horizon.

“You said personal gain. Who stands to gain by scaring you off? Or killing you?”

“Considering the number of contracts that are at stake, I’d consider that question unanswerable. And I surely don’t understand why an imaginary monster should have attacked my niece, and missed!”

Alex nodded reluctantly. He didn’t either.

The elevator rose rapidly. The tiny Martian spaceport town dropped away at fantastic speed, and even without the accompanying sense of acceleration, his stomach flopped and gurgled. He gulped as Mons Olympus rose over the horizon with thin clouds streaming from its shallow flank at two levels, then shrank to become a bump on a shrinking sphere.

If Charlene Dula had been killed out, where would she go? Someplace unprotected?

If the terrorist had missed Charlene, he must be a fool. But fool enough to think that Marty would stay in the Game with Charlene out?

“Mr. Ambassador, has your niece ever been named directly in one of these threats?”

“No. But indirectly, yes, and a kidnap attempt was made on Mitch De Camp’s boy.”

“Dr Camp’s the President of Falling Angel.”

“Correct.”

Alex closed his eyes, reviewing the information. When he opened them again, Mars was a beach ball held at arm’s length, and the Beanstalk span stretched below them like a tightrope across the Abyss. “All right. Is there anything else you can tell me?”

“Not really,” Arbenz said. The elevator came to a halt. “And now I must ask you to excuse me. There are appointments waiting.”

The inner door opened. Beyond was conversation and sanity, the smell of food, and the feel of solid ground.

“Thank you for your time,” Alex said, and shook the long, broad hand that Arbenz extended to him. “Ah… I think I’ll come in for a moment. I need to check on some things.”

“By all means.”

The door hissed shut behind them.