Gunslinger Moon

by Holly Lisle

  He points out targets. “I know some of them are going to come out of that big dome. Once we have a little light, we’ll be able to see better, but I have to figure some of them are already out and moving around the camp.”

  “Sentries.”

  “Yes. And the sentries have big toothy beasts that could smell us, and will run at us if they do. Which is the big half of the first reason we’re here.”

  “The other being having the light behind us.”

  He nods.

  The sun rises. We wait, and the long shadow drops down the far cliff. I realize I’m holding my breath. I force myself to inhale. Exhale. The first glimmers touch the camp, and I hesitate.

  He doesn’t, and I see a giant-headed bug-eyed monster’s head spout green blood. It hits the dirt.

  I identify one, aim down my sights, pull the trigger, watch him drop. We shoot, pump, shoot, pump, shoot …

  And suddenly growling beasts are on top of us, ripping into us, and behind us are BEMs with big guns shooting what their beasts aren’t biting, and we die.

  We respawn back in the dark, already settled on our blankets, weapons ready.

  “Hand cannons loaded and at your side,” he tells me. “Now we know the four guards from the ledge leading into the camp have a quick way up here that I didn’t know about, and their beasts can get here even quicker than they can. Any chance you saw where they came from?”

  “None,”

  “Remember how many beasts they had?”

  “About a million.”

  “Yeah,” he says ruefully. “It did seem like that. We’re probably going to die again, but we have to count the time from the first shot I take until the first beast appears. And we have to know where it comes from. You want to shoot, or you want to count and watch?”

  “You’re a better shot than I am. So I’ll count and watch.”

  “All right. Have your hand cannons ready, and first beast you see, you shoot. Right in the mouth if it’s open. They’re heavily armored, so that’s pretty much the only tender spots they have.” He sighs. “I wish you’d spent a few more points leveling up your dual wielding, but you’re not too bad. I’m going to need to lay down fire down in the camp to keep them from coming at us, so you’re going to have to take the beasts and the four BEMs alone.”

  “I’ve got it,” I say.

  And I think I do.

  But I don’t. We die again because while the first beast comes over the ridge alone, two come right after him, and three come right after those two, and I’m not a good enough shot with two hand cannons to shoot three beasts in the mouth before they can hit us, and I panic, and… well. Yeah.

  We get ‘et.

  We respawn back in the dark, already settled on our blankets, weapons ready.

  “This is a mean game,” I say.

  He nods. “My dual wielding is better than yours. You want to switch sides?”

  I do.

  “All right. Show me what’s going to come at me, and where it’s going to come from.”

  I tell him, “From the time the sun hits the antenna at the top of their camping dome and I take the first shot, you have fifteen seconds until the first beast comes over the ridge between those two rocks.” I point them out. “You shoot him, and then you have five seconds until the next two pop up in the same place, moving fast. I ran into trouble because I didn’t hit the second one in the mouth the first time, and it took me three shots to kill him. And by the time he was down, the other three were already over the ridge and coming at us.”

  “Got it,” Ted says.

  But he doesn’t, and we die again.

  We respawn back in the dark, already settled on our blankets, weapons ready.

  “This is a mean game,” Ted says. “The three beasts that pop up third come at us from in front of the two rocks, so they’re closer when you have to shoot them, and the first of the four sentries comes up between those two rocks at the same time. So that’s four enemies simultaneously, three armored and requiring fast one-shot kills.

  “Unless you come off of shooting BEMs down in the canyon long enough to take the two closest beasts, we’re not going to get past this part. I’m going to say first enemy when the first beast comes up. Then, second enemies when the second set arrives. When you hear me say second enemies, switch to your hand cannons, sit up, and aim in front of the two rocks. You take the two beasts closest to us, and I’ll take the one behind and the first of the sentries. If that works and we don’t get eaten, you go back to shooting the BEMs down in the camp, and I’ll join you as soon as I’ve killed off the other three sentries.”

  The timing is tricky, and it takes us two more tries before we get it down, but we finally manage to beat the mission. Kill off the beasts, kill off the BEMs, ride down into the camp and rescue Miss Lizzie and the young’uns, who are each tied to a spit over kindling and rocks, ready to be cooked alive and eaten by the BEMs. All scared, all crying, all very happy to see us.

  We cut them down, put them in Miss Lizzie’s horse-drawn wagon and we ride back into town big damn heroes. Return the children to their parents. Return Miss Lizzie to the town, where they throw a parade in our honor.

  And I remember that once before, Ted played that mission alone. Beat it alone.

  And I wonder how many times he died fighting to save that woman and those kids.

  And I know the answer is as many as it took to get the job done.

  He died in real life because he was trying to save real women, real kids, real men from horrors just as real.

  I think of my life back in the PHTF settlement, where it is the duty of the people at the bottom to obey silently, to die silently, to submit to every indignity and every brutality without question or complaint.

  Where violence belongs to those at the top as a right and an amusement, and where the slaves, for that is what we were, are weaponless because men and women with weapons will not allow themselves to be made slaves.

  This game, I think, is a tool the philosopher was using to draw analogies between the game scenarios and the real world. To test strategies.

  Shoot on Sight.

  In my head, I run through the mission we just finished, and realize there are situations where the enemy will offer to parley, offer peace, offer a lie, and use the offer to destroy the person who is negotiating in good faith.

  I turn to him as we walk down that dusty street to meet the mayor who’s waiting for the two of us at the end. And I say, “When you said we had to shoot on sight, it was because you knew the enemy had proven repeatedly to be without integrity, and our only option if we were going to save the hostages was to shoot that enemy before it could shoot us.”

  He nods. “I had a hard time figuring that out. I wanted to believe that there was always a peaceful way to resolve things — that there was no problem diplomacy and integrity could not resolve.” He sighs. “The game taught me that if the enemy’s sole objective is to see you dead, your only option is to shoot first.”

  “How do you know that’s his objective? Because he’s not going to say that.”

  “Oh, sometimes he will. Sometimes its written, published policy. But even when he doesn’t say it to your face, you’ll know it by his actions. He’ll promise peace, but bring war. He’ll demand good treatment for his people who are your hostages, but torture and kill your people who are his. He’ll smile to your face, and stab you in the back. And a trail of dead innocents will lie behind him. His excuse, if you point to that trail, will be that the deaths were necessary to make a better world, or that murder does not matter because the dead will be sorted by God.”

  “And if you don’t believe in a god? Or don’t see how slaughter could make the world better?”

  Ted laughs. “I can only say that deities and the good of the many at the expense of the individual have been the two biggest justifications for every evil thing that has ever been done by human beings. If there is a God, I’ll bet he’s pissed. As for individuals whose lives and thoughts
and individual good or evil prove the lie of the collective, I know they have a right to be.”

  I nod. “Ted,” I say, and reach out and shake his hand, the gesture the game says is the one we use to indicate we appreciate the skill of our fellow players, “it has been an honor and a privilege to play with you. And I hope we get to play many more missions in the future.”

  “You’re one of the best players I’ve ever played with,” he tells me, shaking my hand back. “You’re not just trying to figure out the easiest way to beat the game. You’re looking for the way that leaves you a better human being than you started.” He leans in and whispers in my ear, “That’s the secret. You have to act out of self-interest to make yourself the best human you can be. Because the only person you ever have the right to improve is yourself.”

  And he steps back. “You’re a good man, Hunter Studly. I’ll go into battle with you any time.”

  I blink back tears because I will not let him see me cry, and swallow hard around the lump in my throat.

  I close the game, and as I leave, hear Retha say, Thank you for helping him add to his memories. To his self.

  I discover that in the real world, the tears are working their way down my cheeks.

  I don’t know why the philosopher died, though it was probably because he was the most dangerous sort of man in the universe — one who sees things as they really are, and says what he sees, and will not keep quiet about the actions of those in power who want to present lies as truth.

  I wipe my face on the sleeve of my shipsuit, and step back into reality.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jex

  I discover that suddenly I’m a crewman with an empty stomach and a full bladder, and I’m bone tired, sore and with no sense of what time it is.

  “Back with us,” Hirrin says.

  “Not quite yet.”

  I run to take care of physical necessities.

  When I return, I grab ReconStew from the dispenser, and get a huge glass of water filled with ice, which the game made me love, and which I have to request special from the dispenser.

  And I sit at the table and start shoveling food into my mouth.

  “Find anything?” Hirrin asks.

  I nod while I swallow, take a big gulp of water, chase the food down with that. “I found what he meant by Shoot First. And it’s important. How about you?”

  Tarn comes over to the table and sits opposite me. “He made notes in a journal that he’d coded ‘moon and sun.’ I couldn’t find the original source material, but his notes said that the moon and sun dilemma was that until people understood that their own lives had to matter to them, they would constantly seek behaviors that would lead to their destruction.”

  “What does that have to do with Moon & Sun?” I ask.

  “What do better horses or bigger guns have to do with setting people free?”

  I shrug. “Actually, I found that out too. You choose the bigger guns first, because a bullet can outrun the fastest horse.”

  “What’s a horse?” Tarn asks.

  “It’s a big animal. But the horse isn’t the point. It’s an analogy. What he means with the analogy is what matters. If you want to survive, you first have to invest in the means to defend yourself. After that, you can spend money on comfort and luxury and things that are pretty.”

  “That doesn’t seem like such a big deal.” Hirrin sits, too.

  I say, “He thought it was. Big enough to put in his diagram of how to free Settled Space. How about you? You find anything?”

  “His journals are classified by what he calls Conceptual Conflicts, and they link back and forth to each other. Individuality Versus Collectivism, Values Versus Duties, Freedom Versus Safety—”

  I say, “You mean Freedom Versus Slavery.”

  “I thought that, too, but what he’s showing is that the majority of people will hand over their freedom a piece at a time to anyone who tells them they’re in danger and promises to keep them safe. Who promises to give them protection, food, medicine, housing. And it doesn’t matter if what they get for what they give up is terrible. Most people will accept terrible things if they don’t think they’re paying for them. And if everyone else has the same things, but nothing any better.”

  I consider that. “That’s exactly how PHTF worlds work.”

  Hirrin says, “That’s how the entire Pact Worlds Alliance works. All the worlds are just at different points of falling apart.”

  And then something clicks. “You said anyone who promises to give them things. Is that how he wrote it in the journal?”

  “Yes…?”

  “I mean did he use the word give?” I ask.

  “That’s important? The word give?”

  “Yeah. Because I remember the sign I first saw on the swinging doors of The Happy Madame. Hang on.”

  I race back to the Senso, step in, and ask Retha, “What exactly did the sign on the Happy Madame say?”

  Retha tells me, and I make note of it.

  I carry my note back to the table and put it in front of the other two.

  Darlin’, ‘round here

  you pay to play.

  Come back when you’ve got

  some money, honey.

  — Miss Dolly Boombah

  They both read it. Both look at me quizzically. “What does that even mean,” Tarn asks.

  “Nothing is free. Not in the game, not in real life. Everything costs someone something. You go into this scruffy little town and you have nothing but the clothes on your back and a horse you want to shoot and a gun so bad it wouldn’t kill that horse. You have to start doing jobs right away to earn money to buy things like food and ammunition.

  “You have to work to earn everything you get. Including the fun stuff at The Happy Madame. But it’s the sign on the door I think he was referring to. If you don’t work, you don’t play. If you don’t work, you don’t eat.”

  “What if you can’t work?”

  “People in the game help each other. You can’t give them your money, but you can give them food, or shelter, or rescue them from danger. You do it because you want to. Because those people matter to you, or because it’s the right thing to do. But your money is yours, and your actions are yours, and you have to decide what you want to do with them.”

  Hirrin says, “That fits exactly with some of what Nokyd had in his journals, but the pieces are all scattered around in there.”

  Tarn nods. “It fits the books he read, too. He marked things in them that either supported what you’re saying or pointed out where the books were wrong because they didn’t, and he added notes from his own experiences that proved or disproved the points those other writers were making.”

  “We have enough to call the owner,” I say.

  And they both look at me and shudder.

  I have just finished being eaten alive multiple times by vicious monsters with enormous teeth. I am tougher for the experience. Not really tough, because the owner is real, and the beasts and the BEMs were not, and I find that I am terrified to let him know we have answers for him.

  But I’m tougher than either Hirrin or Tarn. I make the call.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jex

  The owner does not come. His representative does, and I find myself very happy to be the one who gets to take credit for calling her.

  She is a creature of grace and beauty, her long coppery hair curling nearly to her waist, her eyes the green of cactus washed clean after a sudden rain.

  Yes, I saw one of those. It was really pretty.

  She introduces herself as Shay.

  Long story short, though, she is a vast improvement over the creepy old man in the masked, armored shipsuit.

  My mind goes places it shouldn’t, and I have to reel it back.

  Hirrin has the philosopher’s writings, Tarn has his collection of books written by others, while I have the big pieces of the puzzle I’ve managed to put together.

  Shay asks Hirrin to show her what
he’s discovered first.

  Hirrin gives her the brief rundown of Nokyd’s Conceptual Conflicts.

  Like me, she stops him at “Freedom versus Safety.”

  He nods, flips through the journal, and reads:

  Coercion is in almost all cases unnecessary to separate free people from their inalienable rights.

  All that is required is to inform the free that they are in danger, and to promise to keep them safe in exchange for taking away the rights of those who threaten them.

  Or to tell the poor that they should have everything the rich have, but that they should have it without working — and then promise to give them what the rich have worked to earn if they will simply demand the stripping of rights from the rich.

  Shay nods. Looks around at us. “That’s entirely true.”

  Hirrin says, “He also explains the means by which those who want power create the appearance of danger where no real danger exists.

  He reads aloud:

  “By use of the Principle of Division by Nonessentials, any corrupt government or power can break apart people who share common interests by using small, irrelevant differences as wedges. Issues such as presence or absence of wealth, place of birth, skin color or attractiveness, personal orientation, and other irrelevancies are the cause of great and devastating wars that inevitably reduce the freedoms of all individuals and transfer more power to governments.

  “All current governments registered within the Pact Worlds Alliance operate using Division by Nonessentials through use of the class system of Order A through Order E citizens, and all are on curves of varying speeds of decay to the same inevitable destruction.”