Death Dream by Ben Bova Read Free Book Online Page B

stood facing each other. Then Jace burst into a huge smile and flung his skinny arms around Dan's neck.
    "You're here! You're here!" he sang, prancing around in the narrow control booth as if he were dancing with Dan.
    "I'm here," Dan said, grinning at his partner. "It's really me, not a simulation."
    "It's great! Why the hell didn't you call me out earlier? You said you've been waiting a friggin' hour?"
    "Well, you were busy and the technicians—"
    "They should've called me out of the sim. You coulda come in with me. Those fart-brains!"
    Jace brushed past Dan and leaned over one consoles, pecking at its keyboard.
    "We're gonna do great things here, Danno. Terrific things. These dumb games are just the beginning."
    "That's what I'm here for," said Dan.
    "We got a lotta work to do, though," Jace muttered, typing with two lean fingers. "Nothing around here works right. Got the best friggin' equipment money can buy but still it's not doing the job."
    His words had an edge to them that Dan did not recall from earlier days. Jace's voice had always been rasping, almost hoarse. He could be nasty, biting. But never with Dan. Now he seemed wired, clanked up.
    "What's wrong?" Dan asked.
    "Every frigging thing. That's why I told Muncrief I had to have you here. Just like at Dayton: I dream up the programs and you make 'em work. Right? Right!"
    Dan shrugged resignedly. Jace's attitude had not changed much in the year since he had last seen him. He was a precocious brat who had never grown up. Working with Jace was like trying to work with Mozart: frustrating, exasperating, and—every now and then—exalting beyond words.
    "Come on in," Jace said, jerking a thumb toward the chamber door. "Lemme show you what I've been doing."
    "Not now . . ."
    "Come on, come on, come on!" Jace tugged at Dan's shirtsleeve like a little boy urging his daddy to buy him candy. "Only a coupla minutes. You gotta see this you gotta!"
    "I just spent half an hour playing space pilot."
    "Charlie Chan's game? Kid stuff! What'll you see what fun doing here!"
    With a mixture of reluctance and anticipation Dan draped his blazer on the back of a chair and took off his tie altogether while Jace paged his technicians over the phone on the console desk top. The two techs showed up. Chan did not. Within minutes Dan was outfitted with a helmet and gloves. He followed Jace through the metal hatch into the simulation chamber.
    "I haven't even sat down in my own office yet," he complained.
    "We'll just play one inning. You pitch, I'll bat."
    "We play against one another?"
    "Yep." Jace's grin was smug. "I call 'em conflict games. Nothing like it anywhere. You'll see."
    Jace walked over to the far corner of the chamber in long-legged strides. Dan closed the heavy metal door firmly, then started connecting his helmet and gloves to the color coded hair-thin optical fibers that plugged into the electronics. He saw that Jace had already finished his connections and was waiting impatiently for him, arms crossed over his narrow chest. Dan nodded an apology and pulled down the visor of his helmet. Utter darkness. Like being blind.
    "Okay you guys," he heard Jace's impatient voice in the helmet earphones. "We're waiting. Make it pronto, Tonto."
    Lights flickered before Dan's eyes and swiftly coalesced into a recognizable scene. Dan saw he was in a baseball stadium, three tiers packed with a restlessly murmuring crowd, bright blue sky above. The crowd was flat, lacking detail, but he could hear the bullfrog voice of a vendor hawking peanuts.
    He was standing on the pitching mound, wearing a regular baseball uniform, complete down to his spiked shoes. Jace stood in the batter's box, batting left-handed, grinning at him with those big yellow teeth of his from under the bill of an Oakland A's cap. The catcher was flashing signals, the umpire crouching behind him. Dan felt the baseball in his right hand. He looked down at it: real to the tiniest detail, even the signature of the league