Larry Niven: The Barsoom Project

“I only love you for your pass,” Max said, and kissed her heartily.

“Just know,” Vail said, “that if there’s anything we can do-”

“I’ll call. I promise.”

Vail moved around to Charlene. “How are we feeling?”

She was sprawled on the couch, her feet up in Hebert’s lap. He was rubbing the tension out with strong, practiced thumbs. She said, “A little confused, I guess. Nobody will tell me what really happened to Marty. I think that Michelle knows-”

Michelle’s eyes were woeful as they met Charlene’s. It was Charlene who looked away.

“It was a security matter,” Vail said.

“That’s what Mr. Griffin says. And Gwen and Ollie say. And Michelle has this funny look in her eye.” Charlene sighed and leaned back into her cushions. “Oh, darn. My legs are so sore I’m considering amputation. I guess I won’t worry about Marty. Still.” A wistful, hurt look flitted across her, then disappeared.

With Vail, Gwen toured the room. At his urging they made notes here, compared opinions there… “Only a quick prelim survey, of course. We’ll spot-check them for the next few months,” Vail said. “What we really want to know is, do we affect the Actors more than the Gamers?”

“Why would you?” Gwen asked.

“Well, in principle it could work like Alcoholics Anonymous.

Get ‘em to teach what you want them to learn. Harmony tells me we can put the Actor option in the home Game cassette, but maybe it costs more than it’s worth.”

They’d made a complete circuit of the room. Vail sighed. “I think that’s about it.”

Trianna was dancing with Johnny Welsh. Even with her excess weight, she was a woman of such sensuality that half the heads in the room turned to watch. The weight would go when she visited the moon; and then some of the mass would go too. One’s appetite decreased in low gravity. Maybe even Johnny would lose some weight.

Eight probable successes.

One cipher: Marty Bobbick. “Hippogryph” had dropped out of the Game most spectacularly. Where he was, and what the conclusion of his story might be, Gwen wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

If there were dungeons down below Dream Park, what would the jailers look like?

And the rats?

It had been a good Game. Some of the Gamers had been outrageous enough that she would like them along on a real adventure. Others remained mysteries to her, had never really revealed themselves to her.

That was the name of the game, the war that it always was. All things considered, their success-failure ratio had been pretty good.

Orson and Johnny: failures. (But if Orson joined a real game, he’d have to train. Hmm?)

Robin Bowles, Francis Hebert, Charlene, Yarnall-time would tell, but both she and Vail were confident that progress had been made.

Max, Kevin Titus, Trianna: breakthrough city. And of course Michelle: success beyond their dreams.

Lastly… Gwen and Ollie?

She’d had fresh fruit for dessert, and loved it. And salad for a main course, and loved it. And a plain baked potato, and strips of freshly wokked chicken. And no fat or sugar at all. She hadn’t felt much of an urge to snack. She had all the catch-phrases memorized, she could persuade herself of anything for minutes at a time… but only time could measure how she would use what she’d learned.

She didn’t want to lose weight. She didn’t need to lose weight..

But what would Ollie think of her in that Y-band monokini at the Blue Lagoon Shop, the scandalous one three sizes too small for her?

She could guess how he would react. And if it didn’t work out perfectly, she had every confidence that she could gain the weight back.

Yep, she thought, feeling the contentment expand within her like a warm tide, it had been a very good Game.

Scratchy-eyed and exhausted, Alex Griffin stood in the security room overlooking the main floor of Gaming A, scanning, watching for..

For what?

For three days after Marty’s confession, he had wrestled with the problem, and it just wouldn’t resolve. They had scoured Gaming B, had double-checked all of the identifications, had increased security scanning at all checkpoints. It was supposed to make him feel better. It didn’t.

He knew that something was terribly wrong.

His knuckles were white where his hands gripped the safety rail around the balcony. He was hungry, he was bone-achingly tired, and he continued to watch the crowd.

Ambassador Arbenz and his niece Charlene were in the-front row enjoying the closing ceremonies. Everyone around them looked like dwarves. Somebody needed a swift kick for putting Falling Angels between the Japan and China contingents. As many security men as he had walking the floor, surely Arbenz was as safe as a man could be..

Alex continued to scan, verifying for the fourth time what a single glance at the computer printout could have told him.

Fekesh wasn’t here.

Some of his representatives were there, but “pressing business” had prevented Kareem Fekesh from personally attending the ceremonies. Extreme regrets, all best wishes, et cetera.

Everything was going fine, everyone was perfectly happy, and Alex Griffin was terrified. He forced his breathing to calm, and his mind back to the job at hand.

Cary McGivvon stood next to him, sipping a cup of coffee. “Sure you won’t have some? Caterers just brought it down. Good stuff.”

“No. Thank you.” He said it through gritted teeth. The aroma was driving him crazy. He had to escape. “I’m going down on the floor. I can’t just stand still.”

“Okay, Chief. I’ll stay on the holovision.”

“And treat Dwight Welles like one of the team. We’re looking for something very subtle here, and he’s got a good overview.”

Alex walked down the spiral staircase of the two-story security building erected behind the rows of chairs, the stages, the demonstration areas which crowded the huge dome. Today was the finale, and over twelve thousand guests were watching the final recap of the entire project.

“ All of you have children,” the narrator said. “ Many of you have grandchildren… ”

Within the dome’s illusory black sky a pair of immense, ungainly Phoenix Fl rockets rotated nose to nose around six hundred meters of tether, for the coasting period between Earth orbit and Mars. Two truncated cones with rings of rocket nozzles around the bases. “Aerospike configuration,” he had heard someone say. Whatever that meant.

Now the sky was filled with rockets, lightsail vehicles, orbital tethers made of Falling Angel cable, and more. It was a carousel of possibilities, a panoply of mankind’s future greatness, served up with soul-stirring music and the finest effects Cowles could create.

Alex moved down one of the side rows, walking lightly, scanning faces, examining badges, nerves afire but still uncertain of the play.

What was Fekesh up to?

“- and as always, men will be needed. To supervise the machines, test the environment, and reap the rewards-”

The sky exploded as a comet impacted on the surface of Mars, bringing new life and possibilities. Red and blue light washed over Alex’s face, over the room, painting it luridly, and the audience applauded the holographic display, flinched from the stereophonic thunder.

Alex barely noticed it. His ears were deaf to the sound. He scanned the faces.

In time-lapse fantasy, greenhouses and bubble cities sprang up across the surface.

“- atmosphere by now, enough for airplanes, bubble cities. The question is, and must always be, how can we make money from this at every turn?-”

As Alex finally reached the front of the room, the narrator was deep into his pitch. At every step of the way, it seemed, there was a fortune to be made. From the mining of comets and the Martian surface, to the manufacture of fusion plants and lightsails; from the design of life systems for the surface of Phobos to the new fashion crazes it would all trigger on Earth. Gaming spin-offs. Edible delicacies for the insanely rich. It went on and on, and they touched enough fiscal nerves to set the room sizzling.