Larry Niven - The Barsoom Project

The castle ringed them, twice as tall as a human being, with walls several feet thick.

How many sins? How many ten-inch sins did it take to make a structure of that size? He searched his mind, the confusion drowning out the equations before he could come up with an answer… but the net was relaxing. He could move.

Max shucked the net smoothly, the way he would wiggle out of a full nelson. Sedna’s scalp was resilient, bouncy. Max crawled on hands and knees, found Eviane and helped her out of her net. This time she didn’t fight him, and her fingers stayed, warm on his wrist, for a lingering second.

Cityscape stretched around and above them, a megalopolis for rats. Sins were still swarming forth like denuded rats, writhing and fluxing in vile pools, in a moat of living tissue. The corners of Sin City were four parabolic arches, and the flat wall beneath each arch was bulging, sculpting itself…

Until four human figures faced them, standing in the corners of the miniature city like dark brothers of the four cardinal directions. The shells that shaped them were still occupied. Crawling sins even shaped a suggestion of faces; but the features moved restlessly, semi-independently.

European, African, Asian, Eskimo. The nightmare figures examined the Adventurers, reaching out of the architecture to poke and then drawing back as if the prospect of touching a human being was distasteful. They retreated back into their directional corners, and sighed heavily.

The European figure spoke, and Max could see a hundred mouths moving. Its voice was a buzzing composite. “We have… ” It wanted “s” sounds where there were none. The sibilance was disturbingly reptilian. It adjusted slightly. “Yesss. We have waited for you, long, long time. And now you are here. Yesss.” It turned to its brothers, lifted its arms jubilantly, and screamed: “Let the trial begin!”

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?”