Dream Park

you!' She stomped at it and stood, lurching toward the priest, who bared filed teeth and hissed vilely. Her aura was black­ening from the ankle upward. 'Hear me 0 Gods,' she cried, 'give me fire!'

The priest gestured defensively. The flames from Holly's finger­tips veered to either side. Holly's wakizashi stabbed through the flame and caught the Fore in the throat.

The Fore fell. Holly, her aura quite black, collapsed gracefully on top of him.

Chester was the last Gamer through the door. He shut it hard behind him. 'All right, let's see-' His eyes found the sprawled bodies, and he winced. 'Oliver, Mary-em, Holly... Christ, what a Game.' Then he saw further. 'She was right. This is it.'

The shadowed walls seemed to curve up and up forever, meet­ing at an indistinct ceiling. The hold was piled impossibly high with Cargo. Packages of all shapes and sizes filled the hold, in fact blocked it to the very roof.

'Margie. Is your rating good enough to fly this thing?'

She pursed her lips thoughtfully, but didn't answer directly. 'Let's find the cockpit.'

The cockpit was at the top of a stairway. Its door was slightly ajar, and Alex poked his sword ahead of himself cautiously, then entered.

Footing was unsteady in the relative darkness, but there was light ahead, streaming through the dusty windows. The cockpit was musty with disuse, but nothing seemed to be broken. There were panels filled with antique meters and dials.

Margie followed him in and pointed to the pilot's and copilot's chairs. 'That's what I need,' she said, and pushed gently past him, swinging around the pilot's seat.

She jumped back, stumbling, and steadied herself against Alex. He turned snarling, blade at the ready, then relaxed.

A mouldered skeleton slumped in the chair. Pieces of cloth stuck to the bones.

'Whew.' Margie edged closer to it and nudged it with her toe. 'All right. I don't think it's going to be moving around much, now that we've killed the priests.' She carefully turned to the other chair, and sighed as she found another skeleton. 'Gary...riffin, would you help me get this out of the pilot's seat, dear?'

He trundled it back out of the cabin and to the cargo sections. Bones fell loose; he went back for them.

'How are we doing?' Chester sounded exuberant, and fresh as a daisy. He climbed into the cockpit and stood behind Margie's shoulder. Her hands explored the controls; twisted something. The panel lit up.

She said, 'I think that's the fuel gauge. It reads empty.'

'It would. Damn!' He leaned against the wall, gazing out at the water. 'Ah. The fuel dump.' He gripped Margie's shoulder. 'Re­member? At the dockyard, near the headquarters building? Get this thing started up and we'll see if we can get that far.'

Margie's hands played over the controls. 'I've never flown this model,' she murmured, and twisted something. An engine coughed, then roared. The plane began to swing in a circle.

Margie hummed happily to herself. She got another engine started, a third, a fourth. By now all four Gamers plus Lady Janet were crowded into the cockpit, admiring her performance.

The plane finished a full circle. Margie took the joy stick. The plane's curve straightened out. The Goose rose on its step and picked up speed, enough for the vertical fin to bite air. Margie turned east along the shore.

'Motors one, four, six and seven now running, Admiral,' she told Chester. 'The rest are dead, I think, but I'll keep fiddling if you think-'

'Not just now. We don't want to take off. We don't have the fuel for it.'

Tony said, 'Griffin?'

Griffin glanced at him questioningly. Tony's long face grew seri­ous, and he nodded. Alex shrugged out of his pack and followed Tony into the cargo section. McWhirter went directly to a crate la­beled 'U.S. Army surplus' and levered it open. He pulled out a couple of handfuls of shredded wood, then lifted a blue cloth pouch. With lowered eyes, he handed it to Griffin.

The pouch had a velcro seal, easily thumbed open. Alex lifted out four sheets of photocopy paper, then a fold of foam cushion­ing, and from that a tiny vial of thin, colorless fluid. It was only half filled.

'Neutral scent?' Tony nodded. 'All right, Tony. If you've played straight with me, I'll do what I can. Which may not be much.'

'Griffin! Fortunato!'

They pounded up the ladder, into the cockpit, and found that they had reached the Sea of Lost Cargo. The mighty Spruce Goose was a terror to navigate here, but Margie accomplished it with elan, and only once did a grinding crash indicate a collision with a smaller, half-sunken craft. 'Shit-oh-dear!' Margie said. 'Chester, I can't slow down. We'd sink deeper. We might hit something else.'

'Then don't.'

Margie scrutinized the docking area carefully. 'I can get us a little closer, but we'll still have to use the boat, I think, and-' her words died in her throat.

The Undead were waiting for them. At least a hundred strong, they formed an arc before the fuel dump. A few had marched to the edge of the water and were waving their blades, stiffly.

Chester looked sick. 'They'll butcher us when we come ashore. If we ran the Goose aground... no, we'd never get enough momentum to crash that line.'

One of the motors coughed. Margie shut down engine #1, out­board on the left wing. The Goose tried to turn, and she pulled it back into line. 'Chester, shall I shut down? Or beach the beast?'

'Shut down.'

Margie killed the motors. The Goose settled. She said, 'We may not have the fuel to start up again.'

Chester was grinding his teeth. 'So near. And now we're trapped.'

'We've got to try, Chester. What else can we do?' Acacia scanned the line of Undead, and shuddered.

'What time is it?'

Alex looked at his sleeve. 'Stopped.'

'Eleven-forty,' Tony said, without turning from the window.

'Uh huh. The Game ends at one. We've got to beat the Un-dead, move enough fuel to fly us out, get it into the tanks . hell, we don't even know where the tanks are. Prime the motors and fly home. Not enough time. It can't be enough, not even if we could whip that many Undead.'

'That airplane's egg really cost us,' Acacia said.

'Yeah. Even so... there has to be a way out of this mess. I know Lopez.'

'Well, I don't see it.' The dark haired girl stomped her foot and swore. 'Look-if we're going to lose, let's not just sit it out trapped like rats. Let's get out there and kick some behind!'

Margie shook her head. 'Chester, there is another way.'

'What do you mean?'

'The Spruce Goose never flew from Long Beach to New Guinea. It's just too far. The tanks would have been dry long be­fore they got there, even if they were full to start with, and they probably weren't. Remember, it was just a practice run.'

'Magic.' Gears were turning in Chester's head. 'But we don't know the ceremony-'

Lady Janet raised her hand. 'I do.'

'What?'

She smiled, pushing forward until she was almost against his chest. 'When those people were holding me captive, I saw them perform their ceremony several times. The spells were in good English. I memorized them.'

'Lady Janet, I don't trust you.'

Margie swiveled around in her chair. 'Chester, she has to be a clue. Why else would she have survived so