Gardner, Craig Shaw - Cineverse 1 - Slaves of the Volcano God

VIP免费

2024-12-23 0 0 435.95KB 252 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

This book is an Ace original edition, and has never been previously

published.

SLAVES OF THE VOLCANO GOD

by Craig Shaw Gardner

Reel One of the Cineverse Cycle

An Ace Book/published by arrangement with the author

PRINTING HISTORY

Ace edition/October 1989

Cover art by Walter Velez.

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part,

by mimeograph or any other means, without permission.

For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.

ISBN: 0-441-76977-2

Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016.

The name "ACE" and the "A" logo are trademarks

belonging to Charter Communications, Inc.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

THIS BOOK IS FOR THE TWO TOMS;

COUNT VON EINS BIS ZWEI

AND

THE OTHER BAD MOVIE COMMANDO.

CHAPTER

^^ 1 ^^

Roger thought he should be able to deal with anything. He worked in

public relations, after all. He prided himself on facing crises.

"I told you not to move," the man in the trench coat reiterated. The

man's voice was almost theatrically gruff. Roger might have found this

whole thing funny if the man had not been waving such a large gun in

Roger's direction. And he had been waving that gun for an awfully long

time. Some crises, Roger reflected, were worse than others.

Perhaps if he worked in public relations out in the business world,

rather than in a cloistered university setting, he might be better able to

cope with a gun. Still, he didn't think guns showed up in the world of

business public relations either. At least, not very often.

The whole thing had, of course, begun with Delores. Ah, Delores! Just

thinking of her slim form and long, blond hair, her full lips, her eyes as

blue as the Caribbean, Roger wanted to swoon.

He stopped himself immediately. Swooning, as far as Roger knew, was

a form of moving. The man with the gun was not too keen on moving.

He had mentioned this to Roger, many times. Could something go on

this long and still be considered a crisis?

"Oh, Roger," Delores had said in her husky voice, as distinctive in its

way as the voice of the man with the trench coat. Then Delores had

kissed him-the kind of kiss that starts on the lips but somehow manages

to work its way down to the toes. "My Roger," she had said as she

tousled his sandy brown hair, and with those words, he had known his

fate was sealed. He was "her Roger," and he knew what happened

when Delores really wanted something. After all, if she hadn't attacked

that vending machine, he never would have met her in the first place.

What really surprised Roger, however, was the equal certainty that he

considered this woman "his Delores." After what had happened to him

with Susan, he had never thought he could feel this way about a woman

again. Heaven knows, he never felt the same way when he walked into

a supermarket. But somehow, supermarkets no longer seemed

important. They were "her Roger" and "his Delores"; that was what was

important. And that was it, no matter what.

"No moving," the man in the trench coat said again. He paused. "Well, I

suppose you can smile. I mean, we all have to move some, don't we?

You can't help but blink your eyes. That sort of thing. But no big

movements. I think that's what the guys meant. I wonder what's taking

them so long?"

"Guys?" Roger asked. Somehow, this was all beginning to seem like

some particularly bad film noir.

"No talking now!" The man in the trench coat waved the gun even more

in Roger's direction than he had before. "Smiling's okay, but talking's

definitely out. Talking is moving, and then some! I know my orders.

You tell Big Louie to do something, he does it!"

Big Louie? The guy with the gun wasn't any more than five foot four,

and one time when the floor-length trench coat swung open, Roger

could have sworn he glimpsed elevator shoes. Just what was going on

here?

"Just what's going on here?" the little man in the trench coat whined as if

he had read Roger's mind. "Those guys should be here by now. I mean,

this is where Delores lives, isn't it?"

Roger cleared his throat. "Well-" he began.

Roger found the gun pressed against his nose.

"What did I say about talking?" Big Louie hissed. He frowned and

removed the gun from Roger's nostril. "Well, I suppose you can talk if

you're answering a question. That's only fair, isn't it?" The gunman

shrugged. "I'm a little new at this. I hope it isn't too obvious."

The gunman lapsed into silence, and Roger once again thought about

Delores. So beautiful, so witty, so full of life. There had to be a catch.

That's one thing Roger had learned in his thirty-two years upon this

Earth. There was always a catch.

"There's always a catch," Big Louie mumbled, more to himself than to

Roger. "Hey, they say to me, you want a chance at the big time? Sure,

I says. Okay, they say, we got a job for you, a piece of cake. I'll do it,

I says, but I have to have a gang-type name. What's wrong with

Seymour? they ask. Hey, I says, if I'm gonna do gang things, I gotta fit

the part. What's wrong with Seymour? they ask. Seymour, they

continue, is a perfectly good name. You know the type. They never

understand the important things!" Louie came out of his slouch to stand

as tall as he was able. Yes, he was definitely wearing elevator shoes. "I

want to be called Big Something, I says. Like Big Seymour? they ask."

Big Louie sighed. "You know the type. They never understand." The

gunman slouched again, lapsing into gloomy silence.

Roger wondered if he could risk saying something. He had given up

trying to overcome the short gunman-heck, he had even given up

thinking about it-approximately ten seconds after Big Louie had

arrived. The short fellow was too quick, and, even worse, too nervous.

Plus, this gangster had caught Roger in his jogging suit.

There was something about wearing a set of navy blue sweats, even the

fancy kind with the white stripes down the pants. Whether it was that

he was caught without a belt, or that-he had to admit it-his stomach

wasn't quite as flat as it should be, being in a jogging suit made Roger

feel somehow-how should he put it?-particularly vulnerable. Especially

when he was looking into the barrel of a gun. Roger had to face it: He

was a runner, not a fighter.

He paused for a long moment, waiting for the man in the trench coat to

make a move, but Big Louie did nothing but sigh and stare moodily at

his gun.

"Did you want me to answer a question?" Roger asked at last.

"What?" Big Louie started, gun at the ready. "What did I tell you-oh,

that's right-I did. Yeah. I guess so. I mean, with the guys not showing

up and all, I guess we have to change the rules a little." He lowered his

weapon. "So, let me ask you. Just where is Delores?"

Roger told him she had left half an hour before.

"What?" The little guy shook his gun in disbelief. "You mean she's

already gone? That would be just like those guys. A piece of cake, they

say." The small man shook with fury. He pointed his revolver straight at

Roger's stomach. His knuckles were white where he held his gun.

"There's only one thing I want to know," Big Louie whispered between

clenched teeth. "What am I waiting around here for?"

The gunman vanished in a puff of blue smoke.

Roger blinked.

Did this mean the crisis was over?

?????

The first thing Roger was aware of was lips. And what lips! Only one

woman in the world kissed like that.

"Delores!" Roger gasped when she let him come up for air. At least she

was safe! He had been so worried about her after the short gunman

had shown up. It was only natural, after all, especially since that

incident between Roger and Dierdre-although in that case it had been a

rifle, not a revolver. And there had been that overripe avocado, too.

But he had promised himself he wasn't going to think about Dierdre

anymore, or Susan, or Wanda, or-well, he especially wasn't going to

think about Phyllis! All that sort of thing was over, now that he'd met

Delores.

But Delores hadn't told him where she was going. She was like that.

Roger really thought she enjoyed being mysterious. This time, though,

her sense of mystery might have been fatal. Even if he had known

whether or not he should warn her about Big Louie, there was no way

he could have gotten in touch with her.

So eventually he had exchanged his jogging suit for a pair of striped

pajama pants and crawled into bed. Even more eventually, he had

fallen asleep. None of his real dreams had come close to Big Louie.

That had worried him even more. Just what was Delores mixed up in?

She put a finger to her lips. His dreams had gone away, replaced by

Delores' magnificent reality.

"Have they been here?" she whispered. Roger always had to be careful

not to shiver when she whispered.

He nodded.

"I was afraid of that." Delores frowned. "I really didn't want to get you

mixed up in this, Roger." She sighed wistfully. Roger loved it when she

sighed wistfully. "It's a little late for that now, though."

She stroked his bare shoulder tentatively. "I think I should tell you

everything. But I will have to hurry. I don't think we have much time."

She looked around the room, as if she expected someone to pop out of

nowhere at any second. Roger remembered Big Louie and the blue

smoke. Satisfied that they were alone for the moment, Delores reached

into the pocket of her black vinyl jump suit and took out a small, shiny

object. She pressed the object into Roger's hand.

"This is what they were after," she said.

Roger studied the strangely familiar object in the bedroom's dim light.

He held a hollow silver-colored oval, made of some lightweight plastic,

with an insignia attached to one end. It looked like nothing so much as

a Captain Crusader Decoder Ring.

Roger remembered Captain Crusader Decoder Rings from his

childhood. You got one whenever you bought a box of Nut Crunchies.

You needed them to understand the messages written in Captain

Crusader's secret codes that always appeared on the back of the box.

He could still remember decoding those messages on his breakfast

napkins: "Civic Responsibility is everybody's business." "Every day

starts better with a smile." "Always look both ways before you cross

the street." Roger had always wondered what was so special about

those messages that they had to be written in code. Still, anything that

came for free in a box of Nut Crunchies was worth saving, and Roger

would always keep the rings. At one time, he had had seven.

He looked back at the object in his hand. "What is it?" he asked, afraid

in his heart she would tell him it was a Captain Crusader Decoder Ring.

"This," Delores intoned solemnly, "is the key to the universe."

"Oh," Roger replied. Actually, he didn't like that answer much more

than the one he had anticipated. This tiny, cheap, plastic thing was the

key to the universe? He turned on his overhead reading light to better

study the small, silver-colored band. It still looked just like a Captain

Crusader Decoder Ring.

"Actually," Delores confessed, "it's a Captain Crusader Decoder Ring."

She smiled one of her dazzling Delores smiles. "But the people at Nut

Crunchies never realized what they had wrought with the invention of

this little marvel." She winked at Roger. "You see, you can use this little

ring to go anywhere you want in the Cineverse, to any one of those

uncounted million worlds-"

"Hold it!" Roger cried. This was all too complicated. After that mess he

had gotten in with Vicki, Roger had sworn off complicated relationships

once and for all. At least he thought he had.

"Whatever is going on here," Roger continued, "you have to start your

explanation from the beginning." He pointed at the piece of plastic in his

other hand. "I do not believe a Captain Crusader Decoder Ring

qualifies as a beginning."

Delores pouted. "Well, it is." Lord, Roger thought, Delores was

beautiful when she pouted! "At least," she continued, "it is in a way.

Well, actually, it's a very complicated beginning. Maybe there's some

other way I can explain."

Her frown only lasted a few seconds. She snapped her fingers and

smiled.

"Roger," she said, "you really like to go to the movies, don't you?"

Roger looked at her in astonishment. That was like asking him if he

liked to breathe. Just the night before, he had taken Delores to see a

triple feature of jungle action pictures at the local revival house: Zabana,

Prince of the Jungle, Zabana Versus the Nazi Death Ray, and

Zabana Goes to Hollywood. And she asked him if he liked movies!

"Well, yes," he answered after a moment's pause.

With that, Delores once again showed her fabulous smile. "I know you

do, darling. Your love of movies is a big part of why we're involved.

That surprises you, doesn't it? I suppose I should have told you about

all this sooner. Still, our romance was so perfect." Her cool fingers ran

across his knuckles. She chuckled ruefully. "It was almost like a movie."

Her touch sent waves of chill excitement down Roger's spine. Maybe

he was being too hard on Delores. After all, complications had a way

of sneaking up on you, especially in relationships. There was nothing

Delores and he couldn't work out somehow. Especially when they

were alone together. Somehow, as Delores spoke, she seemed closer

and closer to him, and Big Louie and the blue smoke seemed farther

and farther in the distance.

"Not now, Roger!" Delores gently pushed him away. "Oh, I want to,

too, but we don't have time when the fate of the universe is at stake!"

Her frown deepened as she continued to speak: "You know quite a bit

about movies, films made thirty, forty, even fifty years ago." She paused

again, and bit her lip. "Well, what if I were to tell you that those movies

were more than just movies?"

"What?" Roger asked. Somehow, the more Delores explained, the

more confusing this became.

Delores took a deep breath. "Let me tell you the whole thing. I think

that would be best. Please don't interrupt. You can ask me questions

when I'm done."

She sat down next to him on the bed. "There are many other worlds,

Roger, worlds not so different from the one that contains this room, this

bed, and the two of us. Actually, Roger, you would find these other

worlds strangely familiar. For you have seen these worlds in the

movies!"

"In the movies?" Roger whispered.

"Roger," Delores reprimanded, "your interjections are not helping. Just

listen." She nodded her head emphatically. "That's right. For a time,

Hollywood, U.S.A. had managed to tap into the universal

subconscious, and was showing this world-your world, Roger, not

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

ThisbookisanAceoriginaledition,andhasneverbeenpreviouslypublished.SLAVESOFTHEVOLCANOGODbyCraigShawGardnerReelOneoftheCineverseCycleAnAceBook/publishedbyarrangementwiththeauthorPRINTINGHISTORYAceedition/October1989Allrightsreserved.Copyright©1989byCraigShawGardner.CoverartbyWalterVelez.Thisbookmaynot...

展开>> 收起<<

Gardner, Craig Shaw - Cineverse 1 - Slaves of the Volcano God.pdf

共252页,预览51页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

Gardner, Craig Shaw - Cineverse 1 - Slaves of the Volcano God

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: