Larry Niven - The Barsoom Project

In fact He screamed. It was pumping air out of the room.

Air. Air.

He tore off his jacket and held it against the vent. Air hissed through the cloth.

He aimed his briefcase at the picture window, at the San Diego skyline, but he didn’t fire. There was a reason… what was it? A bullet fired into this glass would ricochet. He’d shoot himself. He dropped the briefcase. He heaved a chair up from beside the desk, and hammered once, gaping like a fish now, twice against the shatterproof glass, spots before his eyes, and again And it cracked. He swung again and it spiderwebbed, and the crack ran all along the glass-

And down across the floor. The floor was turning crystalline even as he watched, and then everything around him turned transparent, all of the chairs, the tables, the desks turned to broken glass and vanished, and on hands and knees he was suspended above San Diego. Then Then!

His clothing dissolved, his skin, his organs and flesh, and then his bones. He was gone. He began to understand that there was no more Kareem Fekesh.

There was time for him to say goodby to himself, a discorporate awareness suspended above San Diego. Then San Diego dropped away. Kareem Fekesh rose with the speed of a rocket. The Earth dwindled to the size of a tennis ball, and there was no air, no air. Something passed across the black starscape, flapping vast golden wings.

“Griffin… ” he whispered. Or thought of whispering.

His vision went black and red, black…

And then, nothing.

“A tragic accident’ is what the papers call it.”

Seated gingerly on a table near the window, Griffin turned to face Millicent. His back was still terribly sore, and his left elbow was bandaged. “How’s Fekesh?”

It was a quarter to nine in the morning. As if sensing his black mood, Millicent had appeared at his doorway ten minutes earlier with a pot of the best damned decaffeinated coffee he had ever tasted. She was seated at his desk now, scanning his computer screen. Like the friend and helper she had always been, she noted his discomfort, but chose to distract him rather than call his attention to it.

“Well,” she said slowly, “there was considerable organic brain dysfunction due to oxygen deprivation.”

“In medical terms, then, he’s a vegetable.”

“Not quite. Massive motor dysfunction, recurring nightmares. Memory impairment. Mental level of a ten-year-old, maybe.”

Alex tsk’d. “And the final notes, on his computer at the time?”

“How did you know to ask that?” Millicent said suspiciously, scanning the newsfax. “It was a call to arms, asking his followers to stand one hundred percent behind the Barsoom Project.”

“Isn’t that interesting.”

“Fascinating. There’s no suggestion here that it might be fake if that’s what you were wondering. Even more interesting is the fact that he’s too sick to leave the country right now. This clinic in La Mesa-doesn’t Vail work out of there?”

“A few hours a month.” Alex smiled warmly. The nagging pain had him feeling vicious. “I’m certain that Fekesh will get the very best of care.”

“Cowles owns a share of the clinic.”

“I’m not surprised at all.”

“And recently acquired an interest in Fekesh’s elevator repair company. Jesus, Alex, I don’t know who scares me more: you or Vail!”

“No need to see conspiracy in every little coincidence. Diversification is the wave of the future.”

Millicent joined Griffin by the window, sat so close that their knees were touching. “Griff, how much did you have to do with this?”

“Absolutely nothing.” His face was all innocence… until something slipped. “I only opened the box. And all these things flew out.” He looked inside him for the guilt, and found none. Even so- “I don’t imagine I’ll ever open that box again.”

He wondered if she’d pursue it. He was being judged. Alex wondered what verdict he would have rendered. He’d been on painkillers, but he’d been lucid enough when he went to the magicians… when he turned Izumi and Khresla and Welles and, God help him, Vail loose.

She said, “And what were you doing on the night of June seventeenth?”

The lobster dinner? “The same thing I was doing on the night of June twenty-fifth.”

She smiled. “That’s tonight.”

“Hope springs eternal.”

He could see her shoulders relaxing. “What hope was that?”

“Finishing dinner with my beautiful ex-secretary.”

“Who was much too good for you.”

“Correction. Was much too good to be my secretary.”

“Ah-ha.”

Her fingers touched a file folder on his desk, and a fingernail flicked it open. In it was a picture of Marty. “Poor Marty.”

Alex’s attempt at good humor faded. “Nobody intended it. Vail swears he had nothing to do with it. I swear it, Millie.”

“Not a bite?”

“Hasn’t eaten for almost two weeks. If they force-feed him, he vomits. County put him on IVs, and Marty kept tearing them out of his arm. Legally, we can’t force him to eat.”

She shook her head. “Try the Dream Park diet,” she said. “Lose a pound a day, and never be hungry again.”

“Jesus,” Griffin said. “You’ve got a morbid streak, don’t you?”

Millicent shuddered. “Listen, maybe if one of the other Gamers talked to him-”

The outer office door opened, and a tall, slender man entered. He looked a little pale and wan, but the smile was genuine.

“Griffin,” he said, cautiously extending his hand. “You kept your promise.”

“Tony McWhirter, you kept yours,” Alex said. “You’re on work furlough, loaned to the municipality of Dream Park. Ah-as the duly elected Sheriff of Dream Park, I tell you that you are restricted to within two kilometers of this office-” Alex’s voice softened. “The only other restriction is that you make up for lost time, Tony.”

The two men faced each other, looking uncomfortable. Tony looked around the room. And through the external windows, around the Park.

The Barsoom Project was gone. Dream Park was alight again, ready for the public. It wore its public face. Dream Park was bright and beautiful and flashy.

“I feel… so strange,” Tony said. “I can’t believe that you’re giving me a chance like this.”

“You’ve panned out,” Griffin said. “Let’s start over again. I want you here, in Security. Meantime, until we know exactly what the situation is, you’ll stay in CMC, with full protection. Just in case.”

“Appreciate that.”

McWhirter nodded to Millicent. His eyes lingered on her until he suddenly flushed with embarrassment. He left the office hurriedly.

Millicent watched him go. “Could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

“Yeah,” Alex sighed. “Based on honesty and trust.”

“Based on fantasy,” she said.

“Not the worst place to start,” he said.

His arm stole around her.

It wasn’t his fault. None of the death, the deception, the injury surrounding the Barsoom Project, and the past of Cowles Industries, had been his fault. But his aching back and bruised ribs, and the sight of Tony’s hollow face, had reminded him that it was all his responsibility. He had done the best he could. And he had to believe Vail.

Vail just couldn’t have reached into Marty’s head somehow, and twisted…

He thought of Kareem Fekesh in La Mesa, and of Vail’s loving ministrations, and shivered.

He had to let it go. If he could just manage to live with himself for another week or so, maybe he could go on, and do his job.

He felt heavy, and old, and tired.

Millicent kissed him gently on the cheek. “You know what let’s do?” she said softly.