Larry Niven - The Barsoom Project

Eviane was breathing hard. One thing about being Mr. Mountain: for all of his bulk, he was actually in decent condition.

“I didn’t know you were such a fighter,” Eviane said.

“Yeah, well, neither did I.”

She smiled shyly.

“Does that make a big difference?” he asked hesitantly.

“Always,” she said. She stared at that bank of fog as if it concealed answers to every important question. “Oh, girls say that they want strong sensitive men. When we can’t find both, we settle for strong.”

Some part of him resented that. “Evolution in action?”

She nodded. “Sure. Deep down inside, we all know that something like this could happen. That the civilization we’d spent so much time and money building up could all come toppling down. And if it did, what would get us through is strength.”

“Not just physical strength, though.” He was trying to get into her mind-set.

He expected this to be more entertaining than easy. She was too deep into the Game. He believed she was nice-crazy, harmless crazy. Maybe just lost in the fantasy a little more than most. Somehow the fight with Hippogryph had changed him in her eyes. Her admiration turned him on. Hell, he’d always wanted to be someone’s knight in shining armor.

Out on the horizon, distant winds shaped the fog, picked it up, and curled it like a gray, storm-tossed ocean. Eviane shuddered, and leaned almost imperceptibly closer.

“I’m afraid.” Her whisper was so soft it could almost have been a trick of the wind.

“Are you?”

He felt, rather than saw, her answering nod. “I don’t know what we’re going to face tomorrow. I know it’s important. I know that everyone is counting on me.” She paused, fumbling for correct phrasing. “Michelle is counting on me.”

“Michelle?”

No answer, just: “I’m afraid.”

Crazier than he’d realized? Yet it felt good to have her lean against him, and even better to slip his arm around her shoulder. At first he thought she would let it remain there, but she stood. “I think we should be heading back,” she said, as if there was something, spoken or unspoken, that had ruined the moment for both of them.

Max got to his feet. It was not love, but lack of love, that caused madness… and Max could not have told where he got that notion. In his mind other notions were equally powerful. Love cannot be forced. And We’re all in this to find help.

“I think I know what you mean, about being afraid,” he said. “I always get the jitters just before I go out to fight, even though it’s only scripted.”

She looked at him uncomprehendingly.

“You haven’t figured it out?”

“Figured what out?” They had begun walking slowly back to the ice cave. The ground had a snow-cone feel to it, crunching under every step.

“I’m Mr. Mountain. For the past four years I’ve been a professional wrestler.”

“Is that good?”

Bless you, child. “I don’t know. It’s honest farce, I guess. I guess there are maybe seven people who still believe it’s real. Even the grannies are in on the joke. We honestly work hard, and do the best show that we can. I guess it’s as good as I let it be.”

“So you make a living fake-fighting?”

“Yup. Three or four nights a week. It was fun at first, but lately

… ”

She stopped, leaning against the outer, crystalline wall of the cave. He could hear the others inside, hooting and calling to each other as they played games. “And now you’re tired of playing a role? Tired of playing that game?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I don’t want to be the clown anymore. I want to be the hero. I want the crowds to cheer me, not laugh at me. I just want… ” He groped for the words. “Respect.”

“How does it feel?”

“That’s what I can’t handle. Every time I go out there in those goddamned purple tights, I feel like I’ve betrayed myself.”

“You want to be a hero.” Her eyes shone at him. “You are a hero. I saw what you did in there. I saw the way you faced those monsters. I’ve never seen anything more heroic than that. How can you say you’re not a hero?”

But it’s not real! How crazy…?

It’s as real as you let it be.

He closed his eyes, and let her words sink in. He was a hero. Underneath all of the flab, beneath the memories of jeering crowds.. “So I don’t have to be all muscle?”

“Silly.” She slapped his hand lightly, held it to her cheek.

Then she dropped it. Their eyes locked. The contact became entirely too intense. Max saw something, someone else behind those eyes. “Who are you?” he whispered.

She broke the gaze and turned away. “Eviane.”

“Who is Michelle?”

“Michelle?” Her expression became vague again, questioning. “Michelle is… someone who needs me. Someone I let down.”

Max touched her cheek. It was warm, and firm. The tip of his finger painted a little heart there with melted snow.

It was just the two of them in the little overhang. Max saw some of the others (was that Trianna?) running and playing, absorbed in their break time, running out sore muscles, sharing their fantasies.

And here he was, with this fragile, powerful girl. She burned with such energy and seemed so terribly weary. She pushed her cheek against his hand, and made a sound in her throat very like a muffled sob. He took her chin in his other hand, and tilted it up, until their faces were only a bare inch apart, just a fraction, just a breath of frosty air separating them. They were sharing the same breath of air now, and then her eyelashes, moist with melted snow and eyes shiny with repressed tears, closed slowly. She tilted her face forward.

Kissing her was like kissing an artless child.

Their eyes met, and then hers lowered. “I’m sorry. I’m really please forgive me.”

“For what? There’s nothing to forgive.” He could feel her contracting into herself like a hermit crab. It disturbed him.

“I’m so ashamed. If you knew me. If you really knew me.” She looked up at him, trembling. She kept trying to be strong. To be Eviane. Untouchable, unflappable. A woman who could stare down monsters and fight demons from Thunderbird-back.

He tried to smooth her hair. “We’re all here to heal,” he said, as softly as he could.

“It’s so hard. I feel so guilty.”

“I heard something once that helped me through a lot of bad times. It was written by a man named Neal Birt. He said, ‘The only way we can be perfect is to be perfectly willing.’ You’re willing, Eviane, or you wouldn’t be here. If you let Michelle down, or if Michelle let you down, you have to be willing to forgive each other, and get on with life. Things don’t always turn out the way you want them to.”

“Just like that?” Her voice was wondering. “You can forgive yourself just that easily?”

“Hahaha! No. Sorry. But I sure love it when someone holds me and reminds me that it can be that easy.”

“And how often is that?”

“Not often enough,” he admitted.

Not nearly often enough.

She looked up at him. “Max,” she said shyly. “Could we… try that kiss again?”

“Hey, it was fine the first time-”

“Oh, well, then.”

“Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.”

She must have missed the lessons on banter. She only kissed him. But this time there was both child and woman in her kiss, and her arms tightened around him…

Outside in Dream Park’s winter wonderland, the light was fading, but here, in their ice cave, amid small, tremulous gaspings and the rustle of unneeded, unwelcome clothing, a special kind of light was coming up.

And it was just exactly as warm as they needed it to be.