Читаем The Barsoom Project полностью

She smiled at him, then ran. Prototypical woman-reaction, and he loved it.

The storm swallowed them both.

She ran, not quite fast enough to stay ahead of him. At the end of those short, sturdy legs, her feet kicked up brief blizzards of Dream Park snow, tossed them back at him. The sound of her giggle was intoxicating.

She winded, he didn’t. Max caught her by the wrist and she laughed, grabbed his wrist, and turned her back into him, clumsily trying to throw him over her shoulder. Failing, she broke away again, finally plopping down into the snow beneath a small overhang on the outer wall of the ice cave.

He sat next to her. The ridge overlooked a frozen sea. It didn’t stretch out indefinitely, though. Fog clouded it up at the far end, an endlessly breaking wave of fog that rolled and hovered and seemed to want to stay just exactly where it was.

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?”