"Dream Park" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

"Next," he called again, and there was laughter in the line of applicants. A small strong fist banged on the table in front of him, and he jumped. The top of a head was showing above the edge. It rose until a pair of watery brown eyes was staring at him.
Chester cackled in delight. "Mary-Martha!" He jumped out of the chair and ran around the table and hugged the dwarfish woman. She was an inch above four feet high, and almost as wide as she was tall. Little of her bulk seemed to be fat, and when she hugged him back the creak of ribs was audible.
"Chester! Lord knows I couldn't let you run off and get yourself into a mess without old Mary-em to pull your worthless carcass out of it."
"No explanations needed. How's your hip?" He had read of her injury in the I.F.G.S. Monthly Bulletin.
She slapped her hip with the flat of a callused hand. "Fine, jus' fine. An' I'm going back to Yosemite this year too. It's gonna take more than little Mount Excelsior to keep me down."
"I'm betting on you, Mary-Martha. Are you up for this jaunt?" Her eyes narrowed to slits, and for a bare moment she wasn't a chunky, harmless woman at all, but a raging force of nature caught in the wrong era and the wrong body. "You can believe it, Chester."
"Good to have you aboard. I'd like you as a Primary." She nodded vigorous agreement, and waddled off. Absurdly, Chester sensed that that walk could only be balanced by a battleaxe carelessly toted on the right shoulder.
The next two wanted to compete as a team, which was unfortunate. Nobody had been able to prove anything, but the rumor mill had it that Felicia Maddox was a cheat. Very shrewd about it (she would have to be) but somehow she came out of Games with more than her fair share of points. However she did it, she would be found out eventually. Chester just didn't want to deal with that in one of his Games.
Problem. Her companion was the highest-ranking sorcerer who had yet applied. Could he perhaps manage to kill the woman off in the first couple of days. . . ?
Bowan the Black glared at him from behind massive brows. He had dense, curly blond hair and crystal blue eyes and the muscles of a distance runner. Chester tried to remember his real name, and couldn't. Garners were required to give their real names to Dream Park Security, but were under no obligation to give it to him.
"Thief and Sorcerer. Both high level. And you work together well as a team."
Bowan's words were heavy with exotic mystery. "We are no mere team. We are one. Together we represent a force greater than any challenge imaginable." He folded his arms and lowered his eyelids like a drowsy hawk.
Felicia slid a step forward and leaned over the table with only the barest flicker of acknowledgement for Gina's presence. "I've got what you need for this Game, Chester. I've got an eighty-two percent agility rating on level six."
"Wessler-Grahm?" Chester glanced down at her folder. It was there. Damn, but she could come in useful. He studied her face: short brown hair and fleshy lips, blunt nose, ears that stuck out from her head like flowers on a barrel cactus. Could he keep an eye on her?
Chester closed his eyes and relaxed into the sensation of Gina's fingers in his neck. An, well, as long as he could kill Felicia off if the occasion demanded. "Okay. You're both in the Game, starting. See you tomorrow morning.
"Three more Alternate positions are available," he called. A groan went up from the twenty-five people left in the room. These were low-ranked players, locals who hoped to squeeze into the Game more by luck than experience. A Lore Master was obliged to take one totally new player, but aside from that he picked only the strongest. Half the remaining supplicants left the room, and many of those still in line were grumbling, but one tall black woman was smiling. She had read up on Chester Henderson. He had a habit of losing dippy players in the first day or two of a Game.
She could wait. Alternate was fine. This was the Game where the I.F.G.S. would sit up and take notice of Holly Frost.

The ballroom of the Dream Park Sheraton was empty but for a forlorn maintenance 'bot sucking up dust and trash, and a pair of tired human beings at the big conference table.
Chester Henderson looked at the stack of seventeen dossiers sitting in front of him. It had taken hours of culling the pre-selected finalists to find these people. They would be an odd crew, but any expedition that included Mary-Martha and Ollie Norliss would be both exciting and profitable.
Gina sat at the table next to him, her lovely face drawn with fatigue. He reached up and took her hand, squeezed it appreciatively. "You know, hon? After everyone else is gone, you're still around." He was surprised to hear the sincerity in his voice. It was so easy to discount Gina. Just a beautiful Fantasy-Game groupie with a stunning body and a love for playing dumb.
She rubbed his head with a hand that smelled faintly of musk oil and clean sweat. "Oh, Chester. I just like to feel needed, that's all."
He started to tell her that he didn't need anybody, that three other girls had proposed sharing his bedroll for a position in the Game, that one was in Gina's league as regards beauty. But there was something.
"Well," he said, feeling sleep-demons tug at his eyelids. Tomorrow is a big day, they whispered. Surrender. "You're needed, Gina. You pull your weight. You always do."
"Nice to know the team needs me," she said softly, and behind the heavy makeup her face was warm and open. "What about you, Chester?"
"What about me?" He tried to smile up at her, but the muscles in his face were fast asleep.
"Don't you need me too?"
Again Chester was tempted to say something other than what was in his mind, but he was too tired for anything but the truth. He closed his eyes and said, "Gina, you are very much appreciated. Let's go to bed."
Gina kissed him wetly. "You say the sweetest things."
"It's why you love me as you do." He tucked the stack of dossiers under his left arm and slipped his right about Gina's waist.
The echoes of their footsteps followed them as they walked past
the empty bleachers. The lights in the ballroom dimmed to deep shadow. The only sound was the lonely bumming of the maintenance 'bot.

Gwen stepped out of the shower and into a drying screen, feeling her skin tingle as the water evaporated from it. She wrapped herself in a towel and looked at the effect in the mirror. She pulled the towel tight around her waist and let one leg protrude from the slit. Not bad, she thought. The leg was white and firm and smooth; only the ankle and upper thigh betrayed her chunkiness. If she pulled the towel a little tighter.
She tossed her head to the side, watching the bounce of her short blond hair. Good enough. Have at you, Oliver the Frank! A dab of perfume behind each ear and another in the rounded cleft of her bust, and she was ready for her entrance.
Stepping from the bathroom to the bedroom was like stepping into another world. Phantasms floated through the air, and shadows shifted menacingly on the walls. Something tapped at the window, and when she looked, a large black bird was squatting on the sill, pecking at the glass. It cocked its head at her and uttered the inevitable three-syllable word.
Wrong-o, she thought at it.
Ollie lay on the bed, naked, watching the raven. When Gwen emerged from the bathroom he flipped a switch at the bedside and the bird faded away, along with the other illusions. His eyes gleamed. "You know, I really like the way you look fresh out of a shower."
She curtsied low, then lay down on the bed and, still in her towel, snuggled next to him.
"What do you think, Gwen?"
"I wanna."
Ollie rolled to face her, and tried again. "What do you think about tomorrow's Game?"
"I think it's going to be hard. Harder than anything I've been in, that we've been in. That's why I don't want to think about it right now."
"South Seas Treasure. What would that mean?"
"It means I'm going to roll over and go to sleep if you don't pay some attention to me, that's what it means!"
Ollie snapped out of his reverie. "I'm sorry, hon. I'm just worried about my standing, that's all."
"Oh. Well, I think I can handle that," she said, and reached down.
Ollie wiggled delightedly. "Okay, all right, you win, monorail mind," and they kissed in a chorus of giggles. Some time later Ollie said, "You know something? I love the way you smell."
"I was hoping you'd notice."