by Larry Niven
“Can they cover all of them? They don’t have enough people.”
“Not all. But maybe enough.”
“What can we do? Isn’t there some way we can help?” Wayne asked.
“Stay out of their way,” Scotty said, his voice brimming with a confidence he did not feel. “And let the professionals work.”
* * *
We’re the professionals, Shotz snarled to himself, ducking back as a bolt from some kind of air gun splattered against the wall next to him. It was off target, and even if it had hit, the wall was barely chipped by the impact. While it was certainly true that the pressure suits acted as elementary armor, his opponents weren’t in a much better position.
There was a potential upside to the situation, which even now could hardly be considered a standoff. The positive possibility was that the gamers, in a misguided attempt to aid their rescuers or even escape, would reveal themselves. If the assaulting team were in contact with their prey (and he had a very real instinct that they were), then they might have entered the dome at their quarry’s level, or above. Below? Perhaps, but Shotz and his people had searched levels A through F thoroughly, and found nothing. He was going to make a bet: their quarry was somewhere on G, planning to make their way down to the pool for an exit. Well, there was no exit there, and so long as he kept these incompetent fools bottled up, or sent them packing, all was well.
“Shotz!” a voice barked in his ear. It was Carlyle, covering the dome’s northeast side. “We have action here. The ladder is down, but they managed to hit Bai Long with a laser, I think. Half-blinded him, dammit!”
“Pull him back. Don’t expose yourself if you don’t have to, and—”
And then, there was another explosion. Deeper this time, shaking the very flooring below him, followed by the frenzied shriek of an alarm. He had heard that alarm before, but this time, he didn’t think it was a bluff.
* * *
“Piering?” Klaus Gruber whispered. Gruber was in Food Handling, but in a former life had been a sergeant in the European Union. Piering knew him a little. Once, Gruber and Lee had gotten into a friendly karaoke duel about “49th,” the notorious ballad about the Second Canadian War. The thing about “49th” wasn’t that it was particularly obscene. No worse than “Eskimo Nell,” in all probability. But there were two entirely different sets of lyrics, one from each side of the border. And it was always dicey whether such duels would stay friendly or end with someone getting peeled off the ceiling.
That night there had been children at the club, and Gruber had held to the family-friendly lyrics, even in the part about Americans retreating in disgrace:
We kicked their butts in Montreal
It really was a sight
To see the G.I. Joes and Janes
Run naked through the night—
The referenced original incident had been a successful assault of what should have been a secured American base. The Canadians had been too busy laughing to bother rounding up the dozen soldiers who’d been showering when they attacked. Lee had been out-sung, but let Klaus buy her a beer after they were done.
“We’ve got the southeast door disarmed.”
“I told you,” Piering said. “If the door is mined, don’t mess with it.”
“Yes,” Gruber whispered. “I know, I know. But we’ve really got a chance to get behind them, I think. I figured it out. They expect us to avoid the traps, and go through the open door. If we let them—”
“Klaus, this isn’t a game!”
“We’re so close,” Klaus said. “I’ve almost got—”
And then there was a blast of static, so loud that Piering winced, staggered back against the wall in shock. The entire structure hummed with that blast. Then the alarm began to ring.
“Inner wall breach,” the automated voice screamed. “Alert. Inner wall breach. Immediately seek shelter. The outer door of lock Northeast-G has been damaged. The seals will erode in approximately thirty seconds. Alert. Seek shelter immediately—”
“Good God,” Max Piering whispered, stunned. “We’re screwed.”
* * *
“What the hell?” Angelique said. Panic tightened her voice.
Scotty and Darla glanced at each other. “Alarm,” she said. “And I’m betting that’s the real thing.”
“All right,” Wayne said. “But what does it mean?”
“That there’s been a breach,” Scotty said. “And that the sensors are detecting an outer hull damage as well.” He paused. “And that,” he said, “is very bad news.” He slapped his hand against the bubble wall, not at all comforted by the solid thump. “They say these things will hold a full atmosphere against vacuum. We’re about to find out.”
33
Love Lost
1527 hours
The air pressure at Earth sea level is approximately 14.7 pounds of pressure per square inch. The air in the gaming dome was held at a pressure closer to 10 pounds per square inch, still dense enough for easy breathing, close to the cabin pressure of a jetliner. The dome, roughly the diameter of a football field, held a volume of about 175,000 cubic meters of oxygen, imported nitrogen and helium left over from He3 mining.
When members of Piering’s A team tried to avoid the ambush by exiting and reentering the dome through another lock, the air pressure had been stable. When Gruber’s unfortunate mistake with the explosive device shattered the inner door and damaged the outer, it was as if the air was a living thing, seeking a path of exit, testing and pushing against the outer door as emergency blasts of Liquid Wall sought to heal the breaches before they became fatal.
But (and there is no way to put this delicately) there had been human beings in that airlock. When the inner door exploded, what remained of Gruber and Enroy was spread around the lock like a layer of lumpy raspberry jam and shredded pressure suit fabric. Nozzles that should have spread Liquid Wall evenly and swiftly were twisted by the blast, and jammed with human debris. Damage to the outer door became the weak point attracting every pressurized molecule of the oxygen-nitrogen-helium mix.
The crack deepened, and split, and the outer wall breached. Instantly, the airflow pushed against the opening, deepening, widening, and then ripping the door from the inside out.
The gaming dome became a screaming hell.
* * *
The warning klaxon was drowned out by the howl of air, and for the first time in her memory, Celeste panicked. Their men scrambled toward the open bubble above them, and Celeste screamed, her hands slipping on the ladder as she tried to climb in. Already, in mere seconds, the air was so thin that her lungs felt as if they were going to explode. Within moments, even if they made it into the bubble, it too would contain an atmosphere so thin that their lungs would hemorrhage no matter what they did.
She slid down the ladder, knocking Shotz back, furious at herself for losing focus. She fought to keep her head, vision swimming as she pulled herself up and into the bubble.
“Alexander!” she screamed. No one used Shotz’ given name, ever. She had barely used it even in their intimate moments. But some part of her, looking back through the hatch where he was six rungs below her, knew that there was a last time for everything.
She couldn’t breathe. She saw him struggling to lift himself, one agonizing rung at a time. She watched him stretch out his arm, hoping, and yet knowing hope was lost.
He grabbed the door, designed to close from inside so that air pressure would keep it sealed … and swung it closed on himself.
Celeste rolled over. She saw Thomas Frost reach the far door linking them to the next bubble, and turn the manual wheel to open it. When it opened, air from the next bubble blasted in like a bomb burst and sent him rolling.
The three of them flopped onto their backs, gasping like beached trout. She cursed her weakness, cursed the fear that coursed her veins like waves of lava. Cursed the shame she felt. Decades ago she had sworn that she would never allow herself to feel shame. She had been a child in war-torn Montreal,
bereft of mother or father and forced to steal, and worse, just to survive. All gentleness had died within her then …
Until a man harder than the hate that sustained her had recruited her to a quixotic dream called Neutral Moresnot, a fantasy of creating their own nation. Somehow, this wild man had awakened a heart she had thought long dead.
She crawled up onto all fours, and staggered against the doorway, trying to peer down into the depths of the dome. Just machinery. She couldn’t see the ladder, but knew that Shotz’ strong hands no longer clutched at its rungs. Knew that somewhere far below them, he lay dead, blood foaming his nose and mouth. His hands, his loving hands would never again hold her. Touch her.
Celeste screamed, and screamed, until Fujita touched her shoulder, perhaps intending comfort. She wheeled, smashing him with a backhand. The sumo-sized Asian fell back, eyes wide, staring up at her as if viewing his own death.
She felt disconnected from herself, floating above her own head in some odd way. Shock, she recognized dimly, struggling for clarity. I am in shock.
She should have begun breathing deeply, slowing herself. Begun normalizing the systems now pumping overtime. But didn’t. She embraced this floating sensation, and dreaded its retreat. Dreaded what would happen when she plunged back down into grief.
She heard her own voice: “Can we … get his body?”
Fujita shook his head, eyes still focused on her face. “No. We have no pressure suits. We can’t open the door,” he said. “I think it’s over. The gamers could all be dead, Celeste. We need to—”
Shrieking, she lifted Fujita and slammed him into the wall. On Luna, the explosive uncoiling of her leashed rage and grief was almost enough to break bones.
She pushed her forearm against his neck, and Fujita struggled, barely able to breathe but afraid to fight back. He knew what would happen if he did.
“Shotz is dead,” he whispered in graveled tones. “Everything is blown to hell. We don’t know what to do—”
“Yes, he’s dead,” she said, the words ashes on her lips. “But I am alive. I am in charge now. This is all you need to know.”
His eyes locked with hers. The entire world achieved an eerie clarity: She saw every vein, every imperfection in his irises. She knew his mind, knew that he wondered if she was still entirely sane.
She didn’t know either. And frankly, she didn’t much care.
* * *
“Jeee-zus,” Scotty whispered. Darla’s eyes were wide as walls, arms folded tightly together. The other gamers were confused, startled, but none of them understood the enormity of what had just happened. No one who had spent time on Luna, or outside the protective envelope of Earth’s atmosphere, who had ever been near a pressure seal failure, let alone an explosive decompression, could feel anything but terror at the sound of that klaxon.
He had seen the fleshy results of mine accidents, construction failures and ignorant tourists. It wasn’t pretty: The human body is 60 percent water, and in vacuum, water boils.
“What happened?” Angelique asked.
“I’m not sure. Let’s make a guess: The pirates mined the doors, and our rescuers triggered a mine.” Scotty said.
“Damn,” Wayne said. “That means—”
“That people died out there. Probably our people. We need to move. The Pirates might be shaken enough to slow them down.”
“What if they aren’t?”
Scotty thought about that for a moment. “Then I really, seriously doubt that they’re in a good mood. We need to move. But only bubble to bubble now. No more moving in the in-betweens. There’s no air out there anymore.”
* * *
Fortunately, their path through the G-level bubbles down to H allowed them to move from one sealed environment to another. These were all unfurnished and unpainted Liquid Wall bubbles, none modified for gaming, most of them empty or crammed with crates. Every time Scotty opened a door, they tensed.
“Scotty?” Ali asked. “If the dome is breached, what then?”
“It depends on the size of the opening,” Scotty said. They stood on a sealed catwalk, a bubble used primarily to connect two other bubbles. Here there were no windows, and the walls dampened sound. “If it’s the size of your fist, the dome can heal itself. Some kind of threaded epoxy resin, I think. Larger than that, and if the mechs are operating, they will automatically try to fix it. Then there are work crews from Heinlein. I don’t know what’s going to happen here. We better assume we’re on our own, though.”
When they reached the next door, Scotty turned the manual wheel. It opened with a slight hisss that suggested the pressure level between bubbles wasn’t equalized. The sound made his skin creep, and he was happy when his crew was all in, and they could seal the door behind them.
“This is 100-G,” Darla said, dropping to her knees. “There should be an exit port to H level. From there … well, hold on to your butts, but Mama thinks we can take a shortcut to the end of the game.”
“What was supposed to happen?” Wayne asked.
She narrowed her eyes. “That would be telling…” Then the absurdity of her reply struck her, and she sighed. “Oh, fudge it. There was loads of running and jumping and fighting and climbing. And you would have rescued Professor Cavor from the caves, and then struggled to reach the sphere. You know, the spaceship. And from there … Game over.”
“So what do we face between here and the bottom?”
“I don’t know everything…” Her fingers scratched at the floor, and then she made an ah-hah sound, opened her multitool and pried harder. A popping sound, and the white tile slid up, exposing a steel-plated maintenance door. “But keep your eyes open,” she said. Her fingers found a ring and tugged, and the plate came up. Looking down she said: “Here we go!” and dropped down.
One at a time, they followed.
34
The Da Vinci Machines
1623 hours
The very first thing Scotty noticed was the moist, cool air against his cheeks. He realized that he had missed that over the last hours: The atmosphere throughout most of the dome and its bubbles had been fairly dry. This was different, and his pulse raced: There was open water nearby, perhaps within a few hundred meters. As Maud brought up the rear Scotty closed the door behind him, glaring at its insufficient lock. The inner side had been retrofitted with a turn-wheel that might have seemed at home on Captain Nemo’s submarine. That, he thought, must have amused the engineers tremendously.
He twisted it back and forth, testing the mechanical works. Yes: The wheel was fully operative. Turning it engaged both bolts and bars. Fantastic, but he wanted more. He looked around for something to brace it with. The door opened onto a grilled metal pathway suspended across a suspiciously vast cavern. Most of the cavern was the sort of fused-wall lava bubble he’d seen and explored so often during his lunar tenure. But a hundred meters farther out the smooth surfaces were disrupted with jagged cone-shaped stalactites and stalagmites. More Dream Park magic, no doubt.
Discarded bits of equipment and material were strewn about. This chamber was meant to be some kind of a workshop. Scotty clawed through the conveniently tumbled debris until his fingers curled around a slender steel bar. He slid the bar into the wheel and tried to bend it. Failed.
Wayne, Angelique and Mickey stepped up to help. Angelique wrapped some of her shirt’s beige fabric around her slender fingers to protect them. The others just grabbed and began to heave. With a slow groan, the bar bent until it was jammed in the spokes. When he tried to revolve the wheel, the bar thumped against part of the rock wall. And there it stuck.
Scotty rubbed his hands together, immensely satisfied. “Great.” He turned to Mickey. “Find something heavy to prop against the door. In fact, just pile up everything you can drag. Should slow the pirates down.”
Maud looked skeptical. “They’ll just blow it open.”
Scotty’s answering laugh was ugly. “Considering their recent experience with vacuum, I’m hoping they might be a bit
more … mindful.”
* * *
Leaving Mickey to work on the door, Wayne and Angelique led the gamers across a narrow steel bridge through a labyrinth of unweathered rock, into a glittering cavern. The walls curled away into mist. A low fog hugged the ground and wreathed the walls.
Wayne looked up at the ceiling, whistled. “What is this? Stalactites? This looks strange.” He squinted. “Why does this look strange?”
“That’s because there aren’t any stalactites or stalagmites on the Moon,” Scotty said.
“Why?” Sharmela asked. “There are caves…”
“Beside the point, darlin’,” Darla said. “Scotty’s right. The caves are mostly volcanic. Sure as sugar weren’t made by flowin’ water.”
Scotty nodded. “In all likelihood, there never was liquid water on the Moon. Ice crystals, yes. But this kind of natural formation is only caused by mineral-rich water dripping from the ceiling.”
“Which means,” Angelique agreed, “that this is more of Xavier’s con. This is Wells’ world. Everything operating as if the Moon had an atmosphere and flowing water. Living creatures.”
The chamber glittered in the mist like a field of diamonds. They wandered through a forest of mushrooms, and a few caterpillar creatures that sat, unanimated, observing. Their faceted eyes witnessed without judgment or reaction. What would this chamber have been if the power was running, if all control lights were green? Would it have swarmed with life? Here and there a few critters shuffled in slow circles, trapped in an endless loop.
The pathway ended in a chasm at least thirty meters across. Scotty peeked down. A glowing river of red and black liquid rock oozed below, wafting sulfurous steam. Heat prickled his face. He laughed uncomfortably. “Are we sure that’s just an effect?”
“Your lips to God’s ears,” Angelique said.
Maud peered down, her shoulders slumped. “And here … it ends. We end. We’re finished.” Shaking her head, she knelt down. “What are we supposed to do? Climb down? And then climb up again? I can’t do that. How can they expect me to do this? Did they expect poor Asako to do that?” Scotty was sorry to see her this way: Maud seemed like a confused old woman. He preferred the old Maud, acid tongue and all.