by Larry Niven
“Had a good run with you there, and actually took honors.” So … he might have come through the low-level game there, and won a few points.
“Good man,” Wayne said. He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I came when called, of course. But it was all so hush-hush. Do you know what the boffins are up to? They certainly have enough to work with, after … well, you know. The unpleasantness.”
Foxworthy wagged his head solemnly. “Sorry old boy. Not for me to say.”
A string quartet seated in the room’s corner began a Straus waltz and four pairs of NPCs danced with clockwork precision.
This was all just lovely. Clearly, they were already on camera. Performing a waltz in one-sixth gravity while pretending to be under Earth Normal was quite a trick. Not all of them succeeded, despite obvious practice. Sharmela Tamil had grabbed a female partner and joined the fun, but a too-enthusiastic spin launched them both into the air, to drift like autumn leaves. They looked just wonderful, as if they were floating.
He was certain that the broadcast and the inevitable edited video streams would be great hits.
An oddness presented itself: In the last five years he’d grown accustomed to the pop his knee made when he stood. Here, it didn’t. Less weight stress perhaps? He damned near pushed himself off the floor when he straightened, and noted that several of the others had the same tendency to bounce up when they moved.
“Have you met everyone?” Wayne asked, and steered Foxworthy over to Mickey and Maud Abernathy. Like Asako Tabata they were fiftyish now, and the last time he’d seen them before today had been in their Pushmi-Pullyu costume at a Dream Park New Year’s soiree. There was something different about them now, more than just the Middle Eastern costuming, and he couldn’t put his finger on it.
“Mickey? Maud?” Mickey raised a haughty eyebrow. Right. Too much informality for nineteenth-century Britain. “Pardon. Mr. and Mrs. Abernathy? I would like to present Mr. Christopher Foxworthy—”
“Pleased to meet you,” Maud said.
“Charmed,” Mickey said. His accent was Cambridge layered over Cockney. Wayne suspected he’d been a scholarship kid. Maud, on the other hand, seemed veddy upper class.
“I suspect we’ll be seeing more of each other in the future,” Foxworthy said. In other words, despite his present costume, the guy was almost certainly an NPC who would be making their lives miserable in the coming days.
As they started their chitchat, he looked around the room, wondering where Angelique had gone. He became aware of a disturbance on the other side of the room, people cheering. He saw two tall, superbly vital women, one Asian, one quite Nordic. And a full foot shorter, but walking as if he were riding an elephant, a tiny man with a gleaming, shaven scalp.
Oh, God, he thought. Here it comes.
Like a miniature icebreaker carving its way through a glacier field, Xavier plowed toward the middle of the room. He nodded here, shook a hand there, as he stopped to hear a joke, question or compliment, laughing politely in turn. His every word or nod of a shaven head an act of noblesse oblige.
Then his forward progress stopped, and he mounted a small stage at the back of the room. “Your attention please!” he called, voice booming from hidden speakers. Instantly, all conversation ceased.
“I, Lord Xavier, am honored to welcome you to the Adventurer’s Club.” A hot current rippled through the room. Whatever he said next would shape the next seventy-two hours of their lives.
“Many of you have no doubt read the sensational newspaper accounts of the disappearance of Professor Cavor, and his adventures upon the Moon. Perhaps you have even read the fictionalized accounts of this fantastic journey as written by Herbert George Wells, which ended in a disrupted radio call, with no further communications to come. We all believed that this was the end of this great man. Then just two months ago our dear American friend Nicola Tesla received an almost unbelievable radio message. Cavor was alive, and after years in captivity, had somehow created a radio powerful enough to send a signal to Earth. He not only gave us details of his captivity, but sent the formula for the amazing Cavorite, which allowed him to break gravity’s shackles and fly to the Moon. The Queen’s top scientists have been able to re-create his invention, and with it build a device capable of taking ten stout souls on a mission of rescue.
“I warn you: Not all are expected to survive. You have accepted our commission without fanfare or promise of reward … except for that of serving our gracious Queen, and the ability to proclaim, now and for all time, that they are the very best and bravest. That, and the right to plant the Union Jack on the Moon itself. Who is with me?”
A moment of stunned silence, as Wayne’s mind whirled. They were on the Moon, pretending to be on the Earth, about to travel to the Moon. But not the real Moon, but the fantasy Moon envisioned by H. G. Wells.
The sheer poetic madness of it all fairly took his breath away.
That sentiment seemed shared, because there was a long, incredulous pause, then Angelique stepped forward, fetching in her tan jungle explorer regalia.
“I, Angelique Chan, accept your commission. My compatriots have come from the four corners of the Empire not merely to rescue the great Professor Cavor, but to claim the Moon itself for our beloved Queen.”
Choruses of “Hear, Hear!” arose from around the room, and Xavier nodded in satisfaction, his shaven head shining.
“Then I ask only that you enjoy the hospitality of the Adventurer’s Club, that you may carry our respect and admiration with you across the cold stellar void. That you enjoy libations aplenty, that they may stimulate your courage, that you not quail regardless of the challenge ahead. That you live this night, and every day from now on, as if it is not your last, but your very first.”
As the room exploded with applause, Xavier hopped down from the stage.
Xavier passed through the crowd, flanked by his Valkyries, smiling and nodding and shaking hands as he went.
Then his forward progress stopped, and he was talking to … Angelique. He nodded politely, then turned and looked directly at Wayne. And headed his way, the crowd parting before him, Angelique close behind. As they approached, Wayne could almost hear dramatic showdown music blaring, maybe some of that classic Ennio Morricone wail from The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Many of the crowd had the threadlike flexcams woven into their costumes. These images all flowed into a central bank and synchronized so that distant viewers would ultimately be able to swoop, dart and hover like hummingbirds through a virtual party.
This was the beginning of the game, and Xavier knew it. The munchkin had been here for a week. If there were any psychological or physical adjustments needed by lunar tourists, Wayne and his companions would be right in the middle of those changes, while Xavier had already adapted.
“Well played,” Wayne said as Xavier reached him, and they shook hands. My, my, aren’t we all polite when the cameras are on?
“To what exactly are you referring, Sir Wayne?”
Oh? He was a knight now? Damn, this was more fun all the time!
“Well, if I’m not mistaken, our day begins in just over ten hours. Should we really partake of libation until the early hours?” Wayne winced at his faux Britishisms.
“The journey is long, Sir Wayne. You will have time to recover, I promise you.”
Wayne could see it in Xavier’s icy blue eyes. His first guess had been correct: Xavier hadn’t forgotten or forgiven, but he wasn’t going to cheat. When he crushed Angelique, it would be completely aboveboard, leaving her no grounds for appeal.
Xavier smiled. “You look well. The desert air must agree with you.”
There it was, the poisoned needle hidden in the haystack, a coded reference to his current status in Vegas. Couldn’t let it alone, could you? “I take the billet assigned,” he said. “For Queen and country.”
For a moment, the tension between the three of them dropped, and they just looked at the disk-shaped room, the hundreds of fans dressed as ni
neteenth-century Englishmen and -women. This was it, the greatest entertainment event in human history. Perhaps, just perhaps, that was enough to temper the antagonism.
A waiter passed, carrying a tray of brandy snifters filled with champagne. Angelique plucked one from the tray, and they did the same. She raised her glass. “To a fine adventure.”
Xavier raised his glass. “To old friends, old memories, and a fine adventure,” he said. Then Xavier and his coterie glided away.
“Not … quite what I would have expected from Lord Xavier,” Angelique said thoughtfully. “One wonders if he has fully revealed his intent.”
Well, it was probably safer to be too cautious than too trusting.
“Ah well. If we knew everything, would it really be as much of an adventure, Sir Wayne?”
“Nicely observed, Lady Angelique,” he said, and they raised their glasses in toast.
* * *
Kendra had seen Scotty at the other side of the room, and knew that he would make his way over to see her in his own time. Every broken marriage is broken in its own way.
In the meantime, she watched the crowd. The gamers, the tourists, the Heinlein staff and those who had come in from around Luna and the L2 to be a part of this … everyone who had been given costumes and instructions on playing their parts.
Her heart was starting to trip-hammer. She’d wondered how she would feel, seeing Scotty again after three years. Now she knew.
“Well, Ms. Griffin, don’t start counting your chickens before they cross the road.”
She turned to look up at Toby McCauley, well over six feet of broad shoulders and narrow hips, dashing in his vermilion tailcoat with double vertical rows of silver buttons. His gut had spread a bit, but the Fabrication shop steward she’d dated for a month three years ago was still imposing, a fact he was putting to good use in his campaign against her. He was quite good at smiling while he slipped the knife in, and was perfectly aware that he was responsible for the nickname “Sheila Monster.” Unfortunately, the moniker had stuck. And the “Ms. Griffin” part. She’d kept the name because it was easier for people to pronounce than Tuinukuafe had ever been. And she still liked the way it sounded. The way it felt to say it.
“I’ll find other entertainment, then,” she said.
He grinned at her lazily, and she wondered what odd and perhaps embarrassing memories he was hauling out of mental storage. Dammit, she didn’t know why she reacted that way, but she didn’t like it.
“Well,” when McCauley was making a point, and wanted to seem all folksy, his Outback accent tended to rise to the top. You’d hardly know he’d taught engineering at Monash University, before winning his berth at New Melbourne. “Are we having fun yet?” He smiled, but she detected a certain tautness there.
“Isn’t fun a good thing?”
“Everyone has a lot at stake here. Especially you.”
“You, too.”
“I know. This whole game thing … could make us look silly, you know. It better run as smooth as glass.”
His eyes flickered away from her for a moment. That was interesting. She’d played poker with Toby, and seen that twitch and glance when he didn’t like the cards he’d been dealt. Maybe he wasn’t quite as confident about election as he wanted her to believe.
Or maybe something else. Jealous that Scotty was coming, perhaps? His smile brightened, and the odd expression was gone. “I just don’t want us looking like clowns, love. I’m not the only one worried about this gaming rubbish. And worries equal votes.”
Three weeks until the election, and there was little doubt that Mac’s polling was pulling even with her own. She still had a margin … but he’d cut it in half in the last week. But the Moon Maze Game could work in her favor.
“Hope you haven’t made a blue, love,” he whispered, circling behind her like a shark nosing an unguarded limb. Made a mistake. Aussie slang. “Then there’s always hubby dear.”
“What about my Scotty?” she said, already knowing the answer.
“Here comes drongo ex as we speak,” Mac said, and smiling politely, wove his way away. Modern Australian slang didn’t quite mesh with nineteenth-century Britain, but she doubted their conversation would make any of the game-vids. There were limits to the amount of fantasy she was willing to tolerate.
Counting to ten controlled her temper, forced a smile back to her face as Scotty and his partner arrived at her table.
Kendra stood for a chaste hug, and a small, dry kiss. “You look good, Scotty.”
“Back at you.” His hug was warm but unpresumptuous, his arms as strong as a flyer’s. He said, “Kendra. I would like to present my friend Ali. Ali, my ex-wife, Kendra Tuinukuafe.”
“I usually use Griffin,” she said, smiling her warmest welcome. She shook hands with the little man.
His palms were moist and warm, but pleasant. Ali was quite dark, and lithe in a wispy way. He wore golden pantaloons and a buccaneer shirt that felt more Arabian Nights than nineteenth-century sub-Saharan, but he seemed entirely unconcerned. Ali bowed deeply. “As-Salamu Alaykum”
“Alaykum As-Salaam,” she replied.
“Even in my far and humble land, I have heard of Kendra Griffin,” he said. “I believe you keep an eye on some of my father’s treasures.”
“I do my level best,” she said. “But be not so humble. Your name has traveled far, as well.” She refrained from speaking further details aloud: Doubtless many in the room already knew of Ali, but she had no intention of broadcasting his identity to anyone who hadn’t made the connection. Privacy is a precious commodity. A prince masquerading as a prince was a delicious conceit.
Ali surveyed a knot of gamers congregating around a glittering, meticulously detailed ice sculpture of Buckingham Palace. “I think I’ll join my new friends,” he said. Then to Scotty: “You can see me from here, yes?” The sarcasm was unmistakable.
Scotty pretended not to notice. “Sure. Go ahead.”
Kendra sipped at her drink for a few moments, and then sighed. “I won’t lie. I wondered how it would feel to see you.”
“And?”
“Feels good. But a tad worrisome.”
“What’s to worry?”
She took a long sip. “You remember McCauley?”
“Think so. Big Figjam? Heard you dated for a while.” “Figjam” was an Aussie acronym: Fuck, I’m Good. Just Ask Me.
Kendra chuckled, but wondered who’d had the big mouth. “That’s the one. Well, he’s the face on the anti-Independence movement.”
“How serious is that? I have to admit I’ve been all gaming and training, the last few months.”
“Very serious, Scotty. Luna needs a seat at the table. We’re the ones who’ve made the change.”
“What change is that?”
The string quartet had begun playing again, very stately. Out on the dance floor, a pale balding gentleman in top hat and tails was leading a dozen couples through a graceful series of twirls.
She paused. “Back at the end of the twentieth century, there was a guy named Frank White who wrote about something called the ‘Overview Effect.’ Hear of it?”
“Sort of a long view on Earth because you’re seeing it from space?”
Kendra nodded enthusiastically. “High marks. Look. On Earth, you can actually see only fifty miles or so, up to the curve of the horizon. Psychologically, it’s very easy for corporations, churches or governments to convince you that your little corner of the world is the best place, the only ‘real’ place, and that people off somewhere else are somehow less … human.”
“Wars work that way.”
“And pollution, and economic exploitation, and land grabs. The human race suffered through that for a long time.”
“So? What’s wrong now?”
“Complacency. Earth was headed for trouble—energy and raw materials—before we caught the Second Wave back in 2020.” Efficient fusion, and just in time, too. “And I think that people don’t realize the degree to which ever
y move, every dollar invested, every orchestration of every resource is still guided by our old way of looking at the world. But up here … looking at the Earth, it’s hard not to think of it as an egg, fragile, but destined to give birth to something … else. Something better.”
“Better than Homo sapiens?”
“Homo interstellar, perhaps.” She winced. Even to her own ears, she sounded a bit evangelical. “I know, I know. But whether I’m right about that or not, it serves Earth just fine for her colonies to stay colonies. To remain children, in effect. But what would have happened to Europe if America had never grown beyond a patchwork of colonies? The United States generated an entirely new vision of human potential, and changed the world. I think that Luna, and the L5s, and the Belt can do the same for Earth, but we have to speak with one voice.”
“Hear, hear,” Scotty said, and raised his glass.
“But things aren’t that simple.”
“They never are.”
“McCauley is backed by a half-dozen concerns—including Cowles Industries, as if you didn’t know. The tendency has been to keep all of the negotiations case-by-case, rather than leveraging everything into a single package. If we stand together, we can change the world. The solar system.” She leaned forward. “The galaxy.”
Scotty felt his right eyebrow tense. “The galaxy? Ain’t that a little grandiose?”
“You’ve read the SETI reports. We still have zero real evidence of nonhuman intelligent life anywhere in the universe. A few amino acids here and there, and something that might have been some kind of fungoid fossil. What if we’re all there is? What if it’s our job to take this green plague and spread it across the stars?”
“The Green Plague.” He laughed, but under the mirth was a touch of unease. “Most people mellow with age. You sound more like a true believer now than when I met you.”
She laughed, and then laid her warm hand on his. Love had never been the problem between them. There had been hurt, but not betrayal or accusation in their parting. “Scotty, the timing of your return either couldn’t have been better, or couldn’t have been worse. I’m really not sure which.” She laughed. “When Mac attacks me, I can deal with it. But these are highly independent, alpha-plus psychological types we’re dealing with. They’d have to be to survive up here. I’m asking them to pull together in ways many of them fled Earth to escape. And their self-image is pure testosterone, believe me. Figjam to say the least.”