by Larry Niven
“Can they get out from there?”
“Perhaps,” Xavier said. “Perhaps. If you look at these earlier vids, you can see this woman—”
“I know her. Wu Lin? Face rec.”
“Darla Kowsnofski, structural engineer.”
“Thank you, Wu Lin. That’s a very good thing. She seems to know her way around the dome. She might be able to get them out. I wish we could talk to them.”
“It’s a miracle we can—”
“Xavier?” Wu Lin said. “We’ve been watching the gamers, and I think something is going on. They’re trying to make contact.”
Kendra was at her side in an instant. “Have we got sound?”
“We can,” Xavier said. “Pipe gaming auditory auxillary ‘A’ into the main channel.”
There was a moment of silent anxiety, and then Angelique appeared in the air, waving her hands at the camera. Her hands gestured: palm-palm-palm, fist-fist-fist, palm-palm-palm.
“What is she doing?” Xavier asked.
“Morse code,” Kendra said. “Scotty and I met through an aviation club, and we both loved the twentieth-century stuff. Pilots used Morse for their VHF omnidirectional range navigation systems. Let me have the switch.”
In response to Kendra’s urging, the light in the gaming dome began to pulse.
* * *
In the crèche bubble, lights flashed on and off in what first seemed a random sequence, and then settled into a recognizable pattern of dots and dashes.
Scotty grinned. “That’s Kendra’s fist. Great. We’ve got contact.”
* * *
In the bubble where Ali was being held, the Kikayan heir watched Gallop and a thin man named Miller wedge explosives charges against the wall. “I hope your people know what they’re doing,” he said.
Celeste smiled at him mildly. “We knew the doors would stop working. And your Security teams might be stupid enough to try something. We’re changing the map.”
“Fire in the hole!” Miller yelled, and the wall exploded. Light streamed in from the next room.
Celeste looked through the hole, and her expression was unreadable. “What the hell. Wow. It seems you people prefer very strange entertainment. Well, shall we?”
With one arm she lifted Ali until his feet dangled from the ground. He squinted at her. “That would be impressive if we weren’t on the Moon.”
“Funny man,” she said. “I like funny little men. They make me laugh. Especially when they scream. Move.”
The next room was piled with dead Selenites. Their staring, faceted eyes gazed out at eternity.
In another life, at another time, Ali would have been delighted. “Some kind of alien morgue, perhaps. I don’t know how the game was planned.” The woman and her partners were so curious about their surroundings that for the first time they seemed to have forgotten about Ali. “There are two tunnels in, so one might be the entrance, and the other the exit. Look—” He pointed at an alien who had been half shucked out of his shell.
“They’re using the shells for something,” Miller said.
“Some kind of sculpture, perhaps,” Ali said. “All I can tell you is that it’s a puzzle.”
“Puzzle?” Miller asked. “This whole thing is a game, yes?”
“A game,” Ali said. “I came all the way to the Moon to play a game. All the way to the Moon to avoid the politics of my father.”
“That’s the thing about politics,” the man said. “It follows us everywhere.”
Ali grabbed a handful of fake alien guts and smashed the goop into Miller’s face. He sprinted for the open tunnel. Before he could reach it, Celeste stepped out of the hallway directly in front of him, her open palm smashing him in the face. Ali’s head snapped back, his feet flying out in front of him, and he hit the floor. Celeste thumped her foot down on his chest.
She smiled down at him. “Little man, we were told to protect you. Not to hurt you. But make no mistake: If you try to escape again, I will blind one of your friends.”
“No. Please.”
“Very good,” she said. And then to the others: “Barricade that door. We have to settle in for a while.”
“Are my friends … all right?”
“Should be. Perhaps they have to urinate. I assume that there are restrooms in this dome?”
“Yes. They’ll be marked with the usual crescent moons. I’m sure everyone would appreciate some relief.”
“I’ll organize that,” Celeste said. “We’re almost finished here. But remember that if you try anything else, you won’t pay for it alone.”
* * *
In the crèche, Scotty was impressed, but disappointed. “Xavier can’t help us?”
“Not here,” Angelique said. “Independent power for the game. He can’t open the door, but we can.”
“And the door leads…?”
“Straight to bubble 38-C,” Angelique said. “And Asako is in … 35-C.”
“Then we have to move fast. What are our clues here?”
Wayne, Angelique, Sharmela and Scotty got down on all fours to look at the floor. Sharmela spoke first. “It looks as if the floor is divided into panels and pressure switches.”
Angelique next. “Must be recalibrated for one-sixth gravity. What do you think?”
“A drop,” Wayne said. “Maybe an alarm.”
“The alarm on the same circuit?” Angelique said.
“Good thought,” Wayne said. “It might not be working.”
Scotty frowned. “Do you really want to risk that?”
“Not in the slightest,” Angelique said. “I’ll go.” She stripped off her gear. She was built like a dancer. Without glancing at them, she began posing for invisible cameras. The floor was divided into hexagons, like the walls. When she stepped on one, a soft light glowed in the crèche wall, and a larva was momentarily highlighted. A sound like a sigh before it settled back down.
Another step, followed by a higher-pitched sound. A larva squealed, and Angelique backed down.
“Auditory-based,” Wayne said. “I think this thing is some kind of lullaby machine. We need to make a song that keeps them asleep, or they’ll wake up. That’s the alarm. We need to work this together. We need balance and sensitivity for this. Who’s had dance training? Gymnastics? We can’t be sure the main computer is compensating for gaming points.”
“Eighteen years of jujitsu,” Scotty said. “No dance.”
“Twelve years of kathak. Indian dance,” Sharmela said, and wiggled her ample hips.
Wayne nodded. “That’ll just have to do.”
Scotty, Sharmela and Angelique walked carefully across the floor, the grubs singing in their sleep, now more responsive, now less. A discordant note, and Wayne backed up, trying another hexagon. Then the grubs all glowed in sequence, and hummed, blended and harmonized … and the door opened.
“That answers that question,” Scotty said. “Main power, down. Localized power, reverted to backups. How long will the backup batteries last?”
“Maybe four hours,” Darla said.
“Let’s not waste them.”
They entered bubble 38-C, stacked to the ceiling with pale ovoids. An egg chamber?
Angelique whistled. “I have no idea what we were supposed to do here.”
“I don’t think it matters,” Scotty said
Together, they ran across the dome to the far side.
“There’s another security hatch built in here,” Darla said. “Lift it up, and we’ll be in the superstructure again, next to the dome where Ali should be hiding.” She fiddled with the hatch, slid the door out. Poked her head out. The dim light revealed a welter of support struts, darkness. It looked like a long way down.
One by one they moved out, weaving their way through the struts carefully, until they reached the next bubble.
“Now what?” Scotty asked.
“Now we hope that Xavier is punctual,” Angelique glanced at her watch. “And that our Morse is up to snuff.”
* * *
Sitting and waiting, miserable, Ali felt something. His feet sensed a slight rumble, so low it was at the very edge of his awareness.
Celeste’s eyes shifted back and forth. Beside her, the man said, “I sure hope this structure will tolerate the explosives.”
For the first time the blond woman seemed a little uneasy. “Shotz has the specifications. He knows.”
“He knows,” Miller said, picking the last of the Selenite guts out of his hair. Ali didn’t quite believe him.
* * *
In the gaming center, Xavier was gesturing into a three-dimensional map of the gaming dome. “We have simulated charges designed to fake explosions here and here.” He pointed at spots on the B and D levels. “We can pump up the subsonics, maybe even play with the environmentals a little.”
“Heat?” Kendra asked.
“We’ve been raising the heat over the last ten minutes. In a few seconds, a blast of cold air will have an interesting effect.” His smile was vicious.
“Sixty seconds … fifty-nine.” Xavier said. “Wu Lin—bring up the rumble, please.”
* * *
Ali’s heartbeat was starting to soar. The floor trembled. Around him, the kidnappers were confused, sweating. “Subsonics,” he whispered, unaware that he had spoken aloud.
“What?” Celeste said.
“I said that these cuffs are hurting my wrists. Can you—”
“Not on your life. Damn!” She wiped at a film of sweat on her forehead. “Is there no way to—” Celeste began.
Suddenly, the dome rocked with dull, thudding explosions, followed by a sharp crack.
The kidnappers lurched, even though the floor hadn’t really moved that much.
“What the hell?” Celeste said.
“The dome!” the kidnapper said. “We must have damaged it when we blew the wall.”
The kidnappers shouted orders back and forth, panicked, Ali momentarily forgotten. Wind howled, and the lights died. Within moments, their flashlight beams probed the darkness.
“Damn! That air’s cold.” Gallop’s growling voice. “Is that a vacuum breech? Is that what it feels like?”
Ali’s eyes shifted to the side as a disguised security hatch popped open. Tiny gaming safety lights gave just enough illumination to see a shape crawling across the floor.
Then Scotty’s voice: “Shhhh.”
“I don’t know what this is.” Shotz’ voice now. “But there is no pressure drop. Repeat: no pressure drop—”
“Screw this!” A panicked opinion, shrill in the darkness.
Scotty dragged Ali back through the hatch, across the struts.
“Let’s go,” Scotty whispered.
Hands bound before him, Ali crawled down through the floor, into the spaces between the bubbles, then into the crèche. As he arrived, Mickey and Maud were helping Asako in.
“We’ve got about sixty seconds,” Mickey said. Darla torched Ali’s cuffs until the plastic was soft enough for him to pull them apart.
“We have to move,” Angelique said. “And we have to move now.”
“You shouldn’t have come for me,” Asako said. “Now you’ll be limited to moving through the gaming areas. You could have remained in the gaps.”
“No man left behind,” Wayne said.
“Asako,” Scotty said. “It wasn’t just the kindness of our hearts. You have equipment in your pod that might help us.”
“How?”
“We don’t know. We’re making this up as we go along. Let’s get going.”
27
Outside
The mood in Kendra’s nerve center had plummeted from bad to worse, but when Max Piering entered, she found herself feeling optimistic even before he gave her his news.
“We’re pretty much shut out,” he said. “I only see one real possibility.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask.”
“Well,” the big man said, “all of the primary power was cut. They pretty much ran a perfect game there. But they missed something.”
Was there actually some good news? “What?”
“Well…,” Piering said, and leaned toward her.
* * *
A precious hour had passed since Kendra Griffin had begun her spiel. In the interim, the mood in gaming control had shifted from glum to almost celebratory. Merry enough, in fact, that Kendra was not amused in the slightest.
Kendra watched Xavier prance between one workstation and another, improvising a happy little dance as he did.
Finally, she could restrain herself no longer. “Mr. Xavier, are you certain you understand the seriousness of this situation? You seem entirely too … entertained.”
Xavier stopped his little leprechaun jig and peered up at her shrewdly. “Am I? I apologize. Sometimes I do forget where reality ends and fantasy begins. Do you think perhaps that’s why I’m so damned good at what I do?”
Then he laughed, and turned back to his assistants.
Kendra turned to her own. “He knows more than he’s telling us,” she said.
“I do hope so. We have to let him do things his way,” Max Piering said. “What choice do we really have?”
“Dammit!” She wanted to punch Xavier’s lights out. “No time for someone else to learn the system. You’re right.”
* * *
The Asteroid Belt was its own society, so far from the rest of humankind that they coveted every Earth contact as if it would help them retain their humanity.
In one of the many small living modules, four men played cards, watching the lunar feed on a visual field that filled an entire wall. “Mitch—have you seen this? Is this for real or what?”
His partner laughed. “I say it’s a hoax. A game within a game within a game, man.”
“Yeah, well, put me down for twenty.”
On Earth and around the solar system, the game was racking up unbelievable ratings, rapidly threatening to become the most watched event in human history.
* * *
All day Kendra had faced an office full of angry voices and floating faces, and by now she was near exhaustion. “I’m completely hamstrung!” She threw her hands into the air, frustrated. “There are so many overlapping jurisdictions that no one knows anything at all.”
Chris Foxworthy’s long face looked glum. “This is completely unprecedented.”
Piering was just as large and solid as he had been four years before, when he had helped dig Scotty out of a deep, dark premature grave. But he seemed more brittle now, and at the moment very close to his edge. “We’re paralyzed. Who in the hell has the authority to let me go forward? My men can’t act if we don’t know what to do.”
Then … the message-balloon blossomed. A priority executive message, available only for corporate accounts at a very high level. Kendra’s receptionist cleared her throat.
“Ms. Griffin? I have one here you might want to take.”
“Which is?”
“An Adriana Vokker. She has information about your husband.”
“Vokker? I don’t know the name.”
“She says she was one of your husband’s clients.”
Kendra shrugged and pushed the button. “This is Kendra Griffin. What can I do for you, Ms. Vokker?”
The woman appearing before her was very young, blond, pretty in a waifish way. She sat at a dark-stained wooden desk with still-life pencil sketches hanging on the wall behind her. She seemed very worried. “Do you know who I am?”
“I believe a few months ago you caused my husband considerable trouble.”
The girl inclined her head. “I thought he was your ex-husband.”
That took Kendra by surprise. Had she really been referring to Scotty as her husband all day? Fascinating. She wondered what a stress tech would make of that. “How can I help you?”
“The news is everywhere,” Adriana Vokker said. “No one’s talking about anything else.”
“Ms. Vokker, time is at a premium. I need you to tell me what’s on your mind.”
“Yes, yes, yes.” The girl folded her hands on the desktop. “When I heard what had happened, I thought that this might be a chance for me to make up for what happened in Switzerland.”
Kendra sighed. Charming. Scotty had a groupie. This was a waste of time. “And how exactly did you hope to help?”
“Mrs. Griffin, I have access to all of my father’s business interests. It’s part of my education and legacy. And this morning, there were alerts from our cocoa plantations in Central Africa.”
Kendra’s eyes widened. “Central Africa?” This conversation had suddenly become ten times more interesting.
“Yes. The Republic of Kikaya. We buy a million pounds of their cocoa every month, so any internal unrest is a matter of great interest.”
Kendra motioned to Piering to come join them. “And what exactly did you learn in this process?”
Adriana said, “There’s been a news blackout from Kikaya, but through some of our sources we see that the capital is under attack. At the same time, the heir of the throne has been…”
“Kidnapped.” Kendra turned to Foxworthy. “This is strong. If this is right, then we’re talking about a kidnap operation that had to be coordinated months in advance. There will be money, resources … Who on our rolls has connections to Kikaya?”
“On it.”
Kendra hunched forward toward Adriana’s floating image. “What else do you know?”
“I know that Mbuto airport is only one hundred miles from the plantation. Modifications are being made and workers hired. The rumor is that preparations are for the arrival of a space vehicle.”
And those words made Kendra’s stomach clench.
* * *
Kendra and her assistants sat in the center, surrounded by technicians who seemed too stunned to speak.
“I think that we can make some guesses about this now,” she said.
“We know their escape route,” Foxworthy said.
“Yes,” she replied. “There is a coup in Kikaya. The Prince is being kidnapped, and their plan is to get off the Moon—”
“Not as difficult as you might think. Nobody wants to touch this one.”
Kendra ticked off possibilities on her fingers. “What are you thinking? That we’ll be ordered to let them go. And they’ll have a safe place to land, from which they will simply disappear.”