Oliver had several red streaks on his body, but none of them were in vital areas. Vigor points undiminished... Teeth clenched in a fighting grimace, he stood back to back with Margie, who couldn't quite keep the smile off her face as she warded off blows and dealt death. She gave up trying, and seemed to become a demon, her fluffy gray hair billowing behind her as she whirled and slew.

It seemed to go on forever. Alex stopped seeing opponents. They came like waves on the sea; faces formed and faded, grin­ning and bellowing their hate in choruses of laughter. And always his arm rose and fell, rose and fell.

He bore red slashes in half a dozen places, and he waited for the shock to his throat that would announce his death. When the shock came he could lie down... but it didn't come, wouldn't come, though the stench of death rose in his nostrils strong and thick enough to choke. Not when he tripped over the body of a fallen Undead and saw that it was Alan Leigh, who winked at him insolently. Not when only Acacia's sharp eye and piercing voice

saved him from a zombie attack from the rear. Exhaustion had turned his arms to dead things. The laughter of the Undead women was driving him crazy. The sweat rolled down his forehead, ob­scuring his vison and burning his eyes.

And in Alex Griffin's mind something gave way. It didn't matter that he could see the blades passing harmlessly through each other, that the red slashes were dye or glowing light and not ooz­ing wounds. It didn't matter that the sounds of steel on steel, and steel on rigor-stiffened flesh, were coming from the necklace on his chest. None of that mattered. He was fighting for his life in an alien place, against legions of the damned, and people he cared about were wounded and dying and slaying around him.

He bobbed and weaved among the shadow blades without con­scious thought, spinning and capering with a fighting-smile twist­ing his mouth, and the machete wove a path of destruction. When a red slash appeared on his shoulder he gasped in pain; when a savage thrust brought an enemy down to the dirt, he howled in glee, slashing again and again and again.

And suddenly only Garners still stood. At least twenty bodies were strewn grotesquely about, limbs tangled in death. Kibugonai, the small man whose mother had been bitten by a pig, was dead. He sat propped against a tree, hands to his stomach, eyes wide and surprised at the cascade of crimson in his lap. Dark Star was face down in the dirt.

And Margie Braddon knelt over the corpse of Owen, stroking his hair and whispering in his ear. She looked up at Chester, her face like thunder. "What now, Chester?"

"I've been counting. We're down to nine, and no Clerics. If we're wounded we stay wounded."

"Ten," said Lady Janet, lifting a machete. The projected blade was bloody.

"Nine," Chester repeated coldly. "We can't trust you." He touched Margie sympathetically on the shoulder. "Whatever it is we're after, it can't be far." Alex could see the fatigue and worry in his eyes, but his voice showed none of it. "Come on. We've got to keep moving."

Margie kissed Owen on the back of the neck. Of all the Garners, perhaps only Alex saw Owen's hand fumble back to find hers, and give it a reassuring squeeze. Chester rolled the Cleric over and secured the padded bag, and checked to be sure that

Kasan Maibang's skull was intact. A few teeth had come loose, and some flakes of black char.

Three pale tindalos were coming through the trees. The Gamers didn't wait.

Nine Gamers and Lady Janet moved out of the woods and into the great dunes. Waves boomed ahead of them. Weapons ready, they traced a weaving path. Abruptly Mary-em threw down her pack, flopped against a sandy slope, and gasped, "Rest break, Chester?"

Chester shook his head. "We've used them all up."

He lent her an arm and she shook it off irritably, standing on her own. "I'm not that old."

Griffin rubbed his eyes and said, "I am." He felt as if he had been awake for days. Last night's rest hadn't touched him. Did "neutral scent" disrupt sleep, or was it just the Game? Or Acacia? His vision blurred, and a chill ran through his body. He wanted to curl up in the warm sand. From the look of the other Gamers, the feeling was shared.

But they marched on. Now the sea showed a white-frothed tri­angle between the dunes.

Alex watched Acacia try for the hundredth time to strike up conversation with Tony. McWhirter's dark-rimmed eyes flashed from her to Griffin, and Griffin felt murder in the air. Acacia gave up and trudged back to Alex, head low.

"Whew. I guess I give up." Her eyes met his, and the self-pity vanished from her face. She tugged at his arm. "Come on, hand­some. Let's go get killed."

"Let's."

Griffin watched her as they marched, and saw her rub her eyes three times in three minutes. "Eye trouble?"

"Yeah. Damn, I don't know what's wrong. I don't need to change my contacts for two more weeks."

"I don't think it's the lenses. Listen-" They had reached the top of a dune, the sand sliding beneath their feet and making every step a calf-aching effort. As they crested, Griffin gathered his thoughts, gazing out at the expanse of blue-green water. What met his eyes froze the words fast in his throat.

Chapter Twenty- Seven

CARGO CRAFT

Chester ran up the dune, slid down a step and finished the scramble with the assistance of his hands. He stood, dusting off his pants, and Alex was gratified to note that the Lore Master was as shocked as he was. Awe, surprise, disbelief, a growing hint of laughter-"He's kidding! There never was anything like that!"

Less than a hundred yards out from shore floated a tremendous seaplane. It looked as big as any flying thing had ever been, short of a dirigible or a spacecraft. There were four lean-looking pro­peller-tipped motors on each huge wing. The hull was a nearly blank wall with a tiny afterthought of a windscreen on top, a pair of tiny portholes just ahead of the wing, and a tiny door open in the flank, with lines trailing out into the water.

Margie was sitting spraddle-legged, helpless with laughter. "There was. There was," she giggled.

Chester turned. "Margie?"

"It's the Spruce Goose!" And she was off again.

Big airplane. Alex covertly studied the other Gamers. McWhirter and Holly Frost and Gina Perkins, all staring across the water. McWhirter and Gina looked thoughtful, speculative; Holly laughed with her head thrown back. The rest of the Garners were looking at Margie, waiting.

"Oh my Lord. Let me get my breath. Oh, I hope Owen's watch­ing this." Margie swallowed. "Well. I saw it once, the real thing, long ago."

"Come on, Margie." Chester dropped onto the sand, completely relaxed. "This is it. It's got to be. Whatever it is. So what is it?"

"It's the Spruce Goose. Oh, dear. Where shall I start? World War Two? Before my time, dear, but I read about it. There was an industrialist, Howard Hughes; you've heard of Howard Hughes?" Some of them had. "Howard Hughes designed an airplane made mostly of wood because the Allies were running short of metal. It was the biggest airplane ever built, then. Maybe it still is. It would have carried seven hundred and fifty troops."

"So it really was supposed to help win the war."

"Yes. I expect it was too ambitious. The plane didn't even fly until 1947, at Long Beach. It wasn't supposed to fly then. Hughes had orders to run it across the water without taking off, just for a trial run. Afterward he told the Congressmen that he couldn't hold it down."