Dream Park

smell of sweating bodies toiling in the afternoon sun.

The villagers were small people, most of them darker than Kasan and showing the physical impact of a primitive life style. Adults seemed to be made of leather and woven gut, faces etched but not scarred by endless labor in the fields, bodies scarred but not broken by the rigors of the hunt. Their attire, g-strings and animal-hide flaps, made her feel she was sweltering, and she toyed

with the idea of adapting that style for the rest of the trip. Poor Tony would have a fit.

The Garners were attracting attention from the field workers now, and many stopped their work to point and stare. Warriors carrying bamboo spears had emerged from the cluster of thatched buildings on the other side of the fields. The Garners had gathered around Chester while he quizzed Maibang.

'You're sure that your chief knows we're coming? And wants us here?'

'I am sure of all that,' Maibang answered gravely.

A nasty suspicion lit Chester's face. 'The Daribi are cannibals, aren't they?'

Maibang looked wounded. 'Upon special occasions, of course. You are not our enemies, you have come to help us. It would be ingracious in the extreme to do such a thing.' He paused for a moment, thinking. 'Just to be on the safe side, though, you might be careful of the phrasing if anyone invites you to dinner.' He leaned close enough to whisper, jerking a thumb at Gina, 'A few yams and a sliced banana or two would do wondrous things for your lovely friend there.'

'Be careful about telling her that,' Chester said absently. 'She's been known to kiss on the first date, but...' He turned quiet as the first quartet of stocky spearmen drew near. Two were carrying bulky rifles. None of them left footprints in the dirt. The foremost of them raised his spear in greeting. They wore colorful necklaces of woven vine and leather, and ceremonial headdresses of short, brilliantly colored feathers. Chester kept his expression neutral as he raised a hand and waited. The field workers were gathered about them now. Small dark children, protuberant bellies bouncing with their scampering, hid behind the skirtlets of their bare-breasted mothers.

The lead warrior spoke, his words rapid and melodic. Kasan lis­tened carefully, then turned to Chester. 'His name is Kagoiano, and he has come to escort you to the Council of Men, at the request of our council chief Pigibidi, who extends greetings and hopes that you will join his company immediately.'

'Pigibidi?' Chester asked in amusement.

'There is great power in his name. It means ‘Gun-Person,' and when he was at the height of his power, he was a great man in­deed. Shall we proceed?'

Chester relaxed noticeably. 'All right, let's go talk to Gun-Person.'

The Council hut was a little longer and broader than the rest of the wood-and-woven-straw huts. Several sleeping mats were rolled and stored neatly aside near the door flap. Chester assumed Gun-Person liked to keep his warriors close at hand. The walls were hung with skins, and furless and headless bodies of marsupials hung from the rafters.

Acacia, Mary-em and the other women were stopped at the door. Kagoiano spoke a few words to Kasan, and he interpreted for them. 'I am sorry, but the women cannot be admitted to this council. They will be escorted to the Council for Women, for a reading of the omens.'

'What's this reading of the omens business?' Mary-em de­manded. 'Try to shuck me, Junior, and you'll be eating soft foods for a month.'

'Only men can be admitted to this hall,' Kasan explained pa­tiently, 'just as only women may enter the Council of Women. They do not make policy, but provide us with a valuable source of information on the plans and movements of our enemies.'

Chester laid a hand on Mary-em's shoulder. 'We'll split up for now. I don't think we're in any danger. We can trade information as soon as we're through here.'

The women departed, reluctantly. The nine male adventurers, escorted by Kasan and Kagoiano, walked to the rear of the coun­cil hut.

Tony sniffed the air. There was old smoke, and smoked meat, and what smelled like cheap tobacco.

The air toward the rear of the hut was cooler. Better cross-ventilation, deeper shadow. The floor was wood covered with straw mats, some of them decorated with stain. He looked in vain for the hidden holo projector. Kagoiano was a projection; Tony had contrived to brush against him. But he couldn't figure how the continuity was handled. Surely Lopez had had to switch projectors at least once, when Kagoiano entered the hut, but the transition was carried off so smoothly that it was unnoticeable. Which raised another disturbing possibility: that a hologram could be substi­tuted for a real person, even a Gamer. Tony was learning respect for Henderson. Hell of a Game you've got here, friend.

In the rear of the hut was an alcove partitioned off with a hang-

ing mat. Kasan lifted it aside, and the Garners entered the new room.

In a few seconds Tony's eyes adjusted to the darkness. The first things to emerge from the gloom were ten small points of light. At length he could see that they were eyes: unblinking, glar­ing, not-quite-focused eyes that seemed to stare through them all and off to distant and unknowable reaches beyond. A withered and trembling voice said, 'Come.'

He could see more clearly now. Five old men were seated in a semicircle around a dish of what looked like dried fruit. Chester squatted in cross-legged position directly in front of them. Tony saw that their eyes didn't 'track' as he moved, and concluded that he had found an easy way to differentiate between holograms and human actors.

'I am Chester Henderson, and these are my followers,' the Lore Master said. 'We come to assist your people in any way we can.'

Kasan reeled off a string of gibberish, and one of the men an­swered with his own unintelligible words. The man who spoke was very old, the skin hanging on his body like a coat on a rack, time-ravaged lines eaten into his neck and face until he resembled noth­ing so much as a sun-dried fig. His features were very African, his skin darker than Kasan's, darker than almost any 21st century American black. Tony caught the name Pigibidi.

'Gun-Person welcomes you to the Council, Chester. He says that he knows you are a mighty sorcerer, and hopes that with your help the threat to the souls of all people can be averted.'

Chester was interested now. His gaze shifted equally between Kasan and the elderly Pigibidi. The old chieftain pulled a piece of fruit from the bowl and chewed it thoughtfully, then spoke again. When he ceased, Maibang interpreted.

'Gun-Person says that for years the people of the islands en­dured and cooperated with the invading Europeans in the hope that your people would share with them the secret of your enor­mous wealth. When it became clear that you did not wish us to make contact with the spirits who had made such wealth possible, we knew that you had much to lose if we ever discovered your se­cret. We knew that whatever the origin of your cars, your planes and gasoline engines, you had gained some part of them by thiev­ery and lies. The people of the islands began a campaign to dis­cover your secrets, the secret to the rot bilong kako, the path the

cargo travels from God to men.' Kasan paused, and Gun-Person talked in his native language for another minute or two. Kasan sank down into a squat as he listened. Kagoiano and the rest of the Gamers followed suit.

Kasan Maibang spoke. 'We joined your churches, learned of God and Jesus, your names for our deities Manup and Kilibob. We prayed to Jesus-Kilibob for cargo, and received nothing. We worked as slave labor on your plantations, and learned the Pidgin English that you taught us to speak. We built roads, changed many of our native customs, and many ceased to own as many wives as they could feed, all that we might at last be given the secret of Cargo. All was useless, and in the process many of our old gods turned against us, thinking that we had abandoned them. We were a people without a culture, abandoned by our gods, and denied the secrets of yours.'

Kasan paused, his dark face screwed up in concentration as he apparently hung on Pigibidi's every word. 'At last we determined how the foul imbalance had happened. God-Manup had always intended for us to receive the Cargo, but the Europeans had, with sacrifice and prayer, won over to their cause some of the minor gods who were in charge of addressing and distributing the Cargo. They changed the labels on the packages to the names of white men. We knew what was happening now, but how could we bring it to a halt?

'The great battle that you called World War II provided us with the opportunity that we needed. Many of our