"Larry Niven & Steve Barnes - Dreampark" - читать интересную книгу автора (Niven Larry)

floors, hidden passages with heavy footfalls echoing within.
But the waiting room was lined with stainless steel and glass, as foreboding as a hospital
sterilizer. There was no sound but for their own breathing and the shifting of feet.
A woman spoke at her elbow. "Excuse me, but didn't I see you in the subway? With the Garners?"
Gwen turned, with some relief. The waiting room was getting to her. "Yes, that's right. We're for
the South Seas Treasure Game."
The woman was in her mid-twenties, in fine shape, darkly handsome verging on lovely. "So're we.
I'm Acacia Garcia. This is Tony McWhirter."
Tony nodded and smiled, and shook hands with Ollie when Gwen introduced him; yet he had a lost
look. Gwen pegged him as a novice, a possible liability in the Game to come. Novices sometimes
expected a Game to be as simple as daydreaming. . . until they found themselves in someone else's
expertly shaped nightmare.
He looked hard, though. Not burly, but very fit. Gymnastics muscles, maybe. At least he wouldn't
poop out in the first battle. In contrast, Acacia's attitude seemed almost proprietary. "Is this
getting to you too? The last time I was here I didn't get any higher than 'Mature'."


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Ollie asked, "What was that like? Was it fun?"
"Fun? No! They gave us a legend of the Louisiana Bayou-a girl who married into a swamp family to
settle her father's debt."
A small, Mediterranean-looking man standing next to them showed interest now. "Did the story end
with her fleeing through the swamp with her sisters-in-law in pursuit?"
Acacia nodded.
Ollie shook his head. "What's so bad about that? Everybody's got in-law problems."
There was a ripple of laughter, in which the small man joined. He waited until it died down to
comment: "The problem becomes worse if you've married into a family of ghouls."
Ollie swallowed. "That seems so reasonable."
A low, mellow tone reverberated from no visible speaker, and the circular door slid open. A voice
said, "Welcome to the Chamber of Horrors. We are sorry to have kept you waiting, but there was a
little cleaning up to do." The group filed into the room, and Tony McWhirter sniffed the air.
"Disinfectant," he said, certain. "Are they trying to imply that someone ahead of us-?"
"They're trying to fake us out," Acacia said hopefully.
"Well, it's working."
A speaker hissed static and coughed out a voice. The voice was electronically androgynous, and as
soft as the belly of a tarantula. "It's too late to leave now," it said. "Yes, you had your
chance. Yes, you'll wish you had taken it. After all, this isn't the children's show, is it?" The
voice lost its neuter quality for a moment; the laughing implication in the word children was
feminine and somehow disturbing. "So we won't be giving you the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. No,
you're the brave ones. You'll go back to your friends and tell them that you've had the best that
we can offer and, why, it wasn't so bad after all . . ." There was a pause, and someone tittered
nervously.
The voice changed suddenly, all friendliness gone from it. "Well, it's not going to be like that.
One thing you people forget is that we are allowed a certain number of. . . accidents per year.
No, don't bother, the door is locked. Did you know that it is possible to die of fright? That your
heart can freeze with terror, your brain burst with the sheer awful knowledge that there is no
escape, that death, or worse, is reaching out to touch you and there is nowhere to hide? Well, I
am a machine, and I know these things. I know many things. I know that I am confined to this room,