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

The printer on his desk began hissing immediately, and sheets of fanfold paper arced slowly up and
folded themselves into a neat pile. Griffin shook his head. How could Muffle be so cheerful every
morning? Ho ought to steal a cup of her coffee and send it to R&D to be analyzed...
He tore off the first set of pages.
The picture of a handsome, dark-skinned young man with a neatly trimmed beard looked somberly out
of the holo. Details were in the opposing corner. Name: Richard Lopez. Age: 26. Gaming position:
Game Master.
Oh, well, then this once-over of the file was purely perfunctory. Lopez would have been put
through a complete security and tech checkout. Anyone who walked into Gaming Central was cleaner
than boiled soap. And sharp, too. Evans, the girl who had guided the recent Salvage Game, had had
three years at MIT on top of the Masters degree she picked up in Air Force electronics school. And
that was only Gaming Area B. Area A was twice as large, and the Gaming Central was three times as
complex. Lopez would be very good indeed. Griffin would make a point to be there when Lopez and
his assistant entered the control complex tomorrow morning.
His assistant? A tallish oriental girl with short black hair and shining white teeth smiled shyly
from the page. Mitsuko "Chichi" Lopez. Twenty-five, and a quick skim of the dossier confirmed that
she was superbly qualified to copilot the four-day jaunt ahead.
Birds of a feather, Alex guessed. Probaby met in Dream Park; might even have been married in one
of the Dream Park wedding chapels. Those could be interesting ceremonies; the wedding guests might
include anyone from Glenda the Good Witch to Bluebeard to Gandalf to a Motie Mediator. Angels were
popular.
Who else? Ahh . . . the Lore Master. The Lore Master, the Chester Henderson. Henderson ran parties
through Dream Park about three times a year, and would come out from Texas even for a relatively
small outing. Generally his way was paid by the players or the Game Masters or their backers.
Hadn't there been some trouble with Henderson about a year ago? Alex skimmed down the sheet.
Chester Henderson. Thirty-two years old (though he seemed younger in the picture. His deadly-
serious look was almost daunting). Had been to Dream Park thirty-four times, and was considered a
valuable customer.
Here it was. A year ago, Chester had taken an expedition into "the mountains of Tibet," hopefully
to bring back a mammoth. The party had met disaster, three out of thirteen surviving, and no
mammoth. Chester had dropped several hundred Gaining Points, threatening his standing in the
International Fantasy Gaining Society. And who had been Game Master on that ill-fated expedition?


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Aha! Richard Lopez. Chester had yelled Foul to the I.F.G.S., and they had passed down the decision
that although something called "snow vipers" were unusually lethal, all of the nasty tricks used
against the expedition were within the rules. Lopez was given a warning, but Henderson had lost
three hundred and sixty-eight Gaming Points. Even more interesting: until this year, Lopez had
operated anonymously, as a "mystery Game Master," carrying out gaming negotiations through his
wife Mitsuko. Henderson had demanded a face-to-face meeting for this year's Game, and the I.F.G.S.
agreed.
This, then, would be the first time two legends had actually met. Alex leaned back in his chair
and considered the ceiling. This sounded like a grudge match, it did. And grudge matches were
always interesting.


Chapter Two