Larry Niven: The Barsoom Project

“Out of the goodness of your heart?”

“No-” He was reddening now. “You don’t have to talk to me like that. I’m talking to you without a lawyer here. I know what I did, and what happened was wrong. Maybe I’ve waited eight years for it to come back and settle with me. Let me talk.”

“Go on.”

“So I got money, and… other considerations.”

“She was very pretty.”

Marty flushed.

“I suppose you thought that putting live ammunition into the Game was just a practical joke?”

“No no no, that came later. But they had me then, Griff, I was in too deep, and besides… What was supposed to happen was, the stock would go through the floor and then someone would snap it up. I’d be moved up to executive level. Meanwhile I’d get rich by selling Cowles short. Griff, it was a monstrous bribe, and if I didn’t take it, Madeleine said they’d publish my unauthorized biography!”

He lowered his eyes. “I did what I thought I had to do. To protect myself, to protect the company from itself.”

Alex saw the tension hit Izumi’s face, and reacted just a half-second too late. The chunky Japanese moved with startling speed, and his fist took Marty in the face.

Marty’s head snapped back, and Tom’s hand blurred, formed into the deadly shuto position to strike into the exposed throat. But by that time Alex had responded, snatched the smaller man by belt and elbow, pivoted, and threw him into the wall. Tom Izumi bounced, came down balanced on the balls of his feet, eyes blazing.

“No!” Alex said, voice crackling with authority.

“It was an accident,” Izumi said hoarsely, hungrily. “Marty and I were just sparring around. It got a little heated. I slipped. Training accidents happen all the time!”

“No,” Alex said, the single syllable hanging in the air between them like a shield.

Marty was pawing at the blood on his face, terrified. “I… I think my nose is broken.” The words were mushy.

“I think you’d better talk anyway,” Vail advised warmly. “Otherwise, Alex and I may have to leave the room for a few minutes.”

Marty swallowed hard. “I didn’t mean for anyone to be killed. I thought… I thought… ”

He buried his face in his hands, and moaned. “I don’t know what I thought. They had me. Griff?” Marty’s eyes peered over his fingertips. “They didn’t lose. I didn’t lose. I stuck with Dream Park, and I did get moved up, and I did make money by selling short. And Madeleine’s people, they didn’t get Dream Park, but they must have made money from the stock they bought. It went up heavy when Cowles got the vacuum subway contract.”

Alex was pitiless. He threw a woman’s picture on the table. “Does this look familiar?”

Marty examined it: a pretty olive-skinned woman with a sensuous mouth. “Huh! Yes, that’s Madeleine! I should have wondered how you knew she was pretty.”

“Turn it over.” He did. On the opposite side was a picture of the same woman, her throat slashed from ear to ear. “Her real name was Collia Aziz. She was found in Altadena, in a trash dumpster, two days ago. Fekesh doesn’t take chances.”

Harmony looked sick, but managed to find words. “How did you communicate with this woman?”

“A telephone number.” He gave it to them, and Griffin noted it quickly. “To be used only in case of emergency,” Marty said miserably. “ She got in touch with me. Always. I never heard the name ‘Fekesh’ until Harmony tracked him down a year later.”

“But all of this time, you’ve spied for her.”

He nodded his head. “And every month an extra thousand finds its way into my bank. I have no idea how it gets there. It’s just there.”

“What happened with Michelle?”

“Aw, hell, poor Michelle. Griff, I recognized her. Scared the liver out of me. I called the number. I got a voice that told me I’d be called back in an hour. In an hour Madeleine called. She listened to my story, and told me that she’d get back to me in twenty-four hours. The next day they gave me a virus program disguised as a routine watch report. It insinuated itself into the main computer matrix and found the right place to operate. It was almost automatic.”

Griffin turned to Welles. “Is that possible?”

“Absolutely. Not just possible, it’s one of my recurring nightmares. We’re not set up to defend ourselves from our own security personnel.”

“All right, Marty, what then?”

“Not much, really. You know all the rest of it. How was I to know you can’t kill someone out of a Fat Ripper?”

“Marty, what is Fekesh planning now?”

Marty blinked. “Now?”

“You’re small fish. Why would he protect you?”

“I… ”

Alex leaned close. “Shut up. I’ll tell you. He didn’t care about a mindless little rat turd like you. You’re a distraction. He’s got something in mind. It probably involves the Barsoom Project.”

Marty went paler. “I don’t know anything about that.”

“Why would you? All right.” He hit a button. Two guards entered. “Take him away.”

“Wait. She shot me. Griff? How could she have killed me and-Griff!”

“We switched your parka and vest. Get him out!”

Marty was carried out unceremoniously. Alex sighed hugely, and collapsed into a chair.

For over a minute he just sat there, silent, face dark and brooding.

Vail spoke first. “This is a mess. I better go and check out the Gamers. This whole thing has thrown the psychological balance off. Hope to God everyone’s all right.”

Griffin cleared his throat. “Dr. Vail. Might I have a word with you?”

Norman Vail’s bright blue eyes narrowed, and the leathery brown skin around them crinkled tight. “Yes?”

“You recognized her.”

‘‘Ah?’’

“You had to. You were here eight years ago, in it to your teeth. You must have recognized Michelle Sturgeon when you gave her the psychological tests.”

“As unlikely as it seems,” Vail said evenly, “no, I didn’t.”

Sandy Khresla snorted. “Of course you won’t admit it, Norman. You’re not the type.”

“Let me tell you what happened,” Griffin said.

“I’m fascinated.”

Griffin paused a moment. He gazed up at the ceiling, putting his mental filing cards in order. “Eight years ago, you were just as pissed as Harmony. There was no way to touch Fekesh. You must have tried to help Michelle, and the doctors at Brigham Young told you to butt out. Ancient history she was, and suddenly she’s back in the Fimbulwinter Game.

“You had two choices. Expose her, and have her removed, or let her go in and hope it would stir up a hornet’s nest. She was the lure. It worked better than you expected.” He met Vail’s eyes squarely. “How am I doing?”

“Alex, I’d no idea you were so imaginative.”

“That’s okay. I had no idea you’d risk your professional standing for Dream Park.”

“Alex, as long as we’re being the omniscient author, why don’t we say that she checked out? She was fine. Sane.”

“She was a loon. Vail, you’re as cold-blooded as anyone I’ve met. But as you said, where else but Dream Park would you find a home? And just like me, you were willing to risk Michelle’s sanity to expose Marty. Jesus, you must have been hiding a grin when I tried to talk you into putting her back in the Game. You couldn’t have dreamed it would turn out so well.”

“if you’re quite through?” Vail said politely. “I have business to attend to.”

Alex’s temper flared, and his voice thundered in the room. “The truth, dammit!”

But Vail was already at the door. Alex wanted to pick him up and hurl him back; his body was ready, poised… but Vail had paused in the doorway. “We all do what we can, Alex,” he said. At that moment, he looked every one of his sixty-four years. “You said it yourself. Where else? Where else but Dream Park?”