Larry Niven - The Barsoom Project

The first small plants were twisting their way up through the permafrost, cracking their way through delicate rivulets of ice. Max plucked one up, rubbed a tiny leaf between two fingers, and chewed it as he walked along. The sun was warmer and brighter now, and he reveled in it. He had taken that golden disk for granted, as most people did, and as it blazed anew an indefinable depression lifted from his spirits.

He dropped back until he was shoulder to shoulder with Eviane. Her eyes were slitted, and she was watching everything around her like a nervous tiger. Something in her gaze resurrected unanswered questions. “Do you know anything about all of this that you’re not telling? Picked up on a clue or something? You’re so quiet that I can’t help but think that you’ve got a little hint for old Max.”

Her answering smile was quizzical. “Clue? I’m just trying to survive, like the rest of us.”

“I still get the feeling that I should stick with you. Does that make any sense?”

She moved a half-step away. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“Ah… no.”

“Great.”

He started to-

Something writhed against his back, as if a sizable snake had slipped down his shirt.

His shoulders arched, and he bellowed. He reached back, clawing for the alien thing attaching itself to his shoulder blades, hooked claws reaching for his heart, fangs gnashing for his spine…

Something hard and cool moved in his grip. He pulled it around in front, ready for the worst horror imaginable. Ready for anything but what he saw.

“My rifle?” It wiggled in his hands, moving as if it had become a living thing. He held it out from himself, watching with awed fascination. The rifle was barely recognizable and still stretching, narrowing, taking on a new configuration under his very hands.

The barrel elongated, sharpened. The front sight flattened and the bore closed, flattened into a triangular shape. The framework butt had closed into a tube.

The Remington had become a long, barbed harpoon.

Max suddenly noticed the growing sounds of dismay behind him. The entire group was chattering excitedly, watching each other’s rifles change into spears and clubs.

Hippogryph’s rifle was now an older gun, a flintlock! A brightly glowing object appeared on the ground in front of him. Hippogryph scooped it up, delighted. “Looks like a magical powder horn!”

In almost as magical a transformation, the group which had been somewhat subdued and quiet was suddenly in the air, whooping their approval.

“Do you believe in maaa-gic?” Kevin sang, and his skinny body pranced and twirled like a crazed scarecrow. Trianna caught one of his hands and swung him around once. When his feet brushed the ground she set him afoot and composed herself in improbable dignity.

Kevin’s ears were red, and he stared at her even after she turned away. Hmmm? To Max it looked like… well, young lust, at least.

Suddenly Max noticed Eviane’s expression and the Remington that she still held in her hands. Eviane’s weapon remained a rifle. For the moment before her face went quite neutral, she’d looked grief-stricken? Bereaved?

Several rifles remained unchanged. Why? The spirits must be preparing some, but not all, for situations where spears or clubs would be needed instead.

Shoot a seal with a rifle and it slips back into the water. A tethered harpoon might be more appropriate.

Then again… would some unnamed ghastly rather face a primitive spear than a rifle? If so, then their fighting efficiency had just been cut almost in half…

That thought having crossed his mind, Max sobered up and kept his eyes open.

They kept moving. The National Guardsman was watching, running back and forth along the line, almost like a Rottweiler on extreme alert. His rifle had transformed, and he looked so absurd carrying a war club at port arms that it was all Max could do to keep from laughing out loud.

Maybe because of the increased warmth, or perhaps because of the pace of their trek, Max was beginning to feel out of breath. He would have been embarrassed to ask for a halt… and in all his life he had never needed to. He simply waited.

“Snow Goose!” Orson gasped, very predictably. “Anyone! For God’s sake… take a break!”

Snow Goose ignored him for a while, her eyes on the horizon. Finally, she said, “Daddy said there’s a frozen lake up ahead. Warm as it is this side of Seelumkadchluk, it might not be frozen anymore, but that just makes it better for us.”

The snow was receding, and Max could see hills now, and splotches of brown and grass-green spreading. An arctic hare, its blotches of pale brown conspicuous against this new backdrop, poked its head at them curiously. Its ears twitched, and it sprinted across the hill.

Fatigue was a dull, leaden throbbing now, balanced by a growing awareness of hunger. He hadn’t really realized how starved he was. At the end of this trek there would be a break, with fresh water and food. He scanned the sled as it slid along, its wheels furrowing the icy ground. What was in those packages? Tinned meat? Tinned cake?

Hmmm. Army rations had been a joke since Hannibal, but Max loved the pound cake in army surplus survival kits. He hoped that there was an envelope of that in there. Was it likely, in this crowd?

Thin broth, a lettuce leaf, six spaghetti noodles with no sauce. Bet on it. They’d told him the Fat Ripper didn’t exactly starve the weight off. Run it off, that they might do. But no beer…

“No cake,” he murmured.

“And,” Trianna said, in tune with the flow of his thoughts, “no lasagna or steak Diane or noodles Romanoff, and as for the crepes Suzette, forget it.”

“My very thoughts.”

Her laugh was musical. Without projecting it, this woman had more sexual amperage than the other three combined. She was holding it leashed: Max was getting no direct signals.

“Playing menus in my head is an old game,” she sighed. “It’s more fun than thinking about how tired I am.”

She was too pretty not to give it a try. “Do you play any other games?”

She gave him a playful chuck with her elbow and dropped further back in line.

Birds called somewhere, although the horizon was still clear no, wait-there, at the edge of the sky he saw a few dark shapes, coming closer until for a glorious few seconds the entire sky was filled with birds, a gigantic flock that divided the sky with wing and call. The clouds were more golden and a wider gray, moving slowly across the sky. The sun was burning higher and brighter, hotter, almost as bright as a normal sun.

Nice. He was falling into Dream Park reality. It was becoming easy to distract himself with the teeming sky, the chunky poncho-wearing Adventurers, and rifles twisted into bizarre variants of spears and clubs… it was easy to slip into the dream, and believe that they were on their way to a great adventure. And ignore Orson’s whimpering. Would a real Adventure be this tiring?

Worse! Dream Park went easy on the Fat Rippers.

The path twisted up the low rise of a hill. His ankle turned on the gravel. He slipped and almost fell, but caught his balance and straightened up again with Eviane’s hand on his elbow. He looked at her and she looked away quickly, but the moment of contact was blistering.

There: another distraction from hunger. Amazing. He walked a little behind her and wondered when they were going to get a break. A nice, hour-long break, and a chance to sit with Eviane and schmooze.

He liked her, without knowing exactly why. Mystery woman? Nothing like curling up with a good mystery…

At the top of the hillock they looked down on a shallow valley and a lake. The air was so warm now that some of the Gamers were taking off their jackets. Red Bear seemed overjoyed that the sled was pulling itself now, and ran arfing toward the distant lake.