Larry Niven, Steven Barnes
Dream Park
CAST OF CHARACTERS. DRAMATIS PERSONNAE
The Creators
RICHARD LOPEZ:
MITSUKO (Chi-chi) LOPEZ:
The Players
ACACIA (Panthesilea) GARCIA:
TONY (Fortunato) MCWHIRTER:
CHESTER HENDERSON:
GINA (Semiramis) PERKINS:
ADOLPH (Ollie, or Frankish Oliver) NORLISS:
GWEN (Guinevere) RYDER:
MARY-MARTHA (Mary-em) CORBETT:
FELICIA (Dark Star) MADDOX:
BOWAN THE BLACK:
ALAN LEIGH:
S.J.WATERS:
OWEN BRADDON:
MARGIE BRADDON:
HOLLY FROST:
GEORGE EAMES:
LARRY GARRET:
RUDY DREAGER:
HARVEY (Kasan Maibang) WAYLAND:
NIGORAI:
KAGOIANO:
KIBUGONAI:
PIGIBIDI:
LADY JANET:
GARY (the Griffin) TEGNER:
The Dream Park Personnel
ALEX GRIFFIN:
HARMONY:
MILLICENT SUMMERS:
MARTY BOBBICK:
ALBERT RICE:
SKIP O'BRIEN:
MELINDA O'BRIEN:
MS. GAIL METESKY:
ARLAN MYERS:
DWIGHT WELLES:
LARRY CHICON:
NOVOTNEY:
MELONE:
PART ONE
Chapter One
ARRIVALS
The train sat rigid as a steel bar, poised in midair above its magnetic monorail track, disgorging passengers into Dallas Station. Its fifteen cars had borne their passengers in quiet efficiency from New York to Dallas in just over half an hour, cradled in magnetic fields, travelling through vacuum at close to orbital velocity, deep underground.
Chester had cut it close. He shifted his heavy backpack and strode back along the train, walking like a king, projecting confidence. There would be Garners aboard, and some would recognize him. Lore Master Chester Henderson was conscious of his unseen audience.
'Chester!'
He stopped, dismayed. He knew that voice—There she was, a vision in leopard tights that drew stares from all but the most jaded. Her long red hair, plaited into a thick rope, dangled down her back to the top of her belt line. She wore heavy makeup that almost hid the fact that she was, indeed, a very lovely woman. But the leotards hid nothing.
'Hello, Gina,' Chester sighed with a tone somewhere south of resignation. 'I should have guessed you'd be along.'
'I wouldn't miss it for anything. Remember last time, when you saved me from the mammoth?'
'Cost me three points for frostbite. I remember.'
'Don't complain, it's mean. Anyway, I was
She had been, he remembered,
'Would you
