by Larry Niven
“It figures. We don’t have time for a picnic. Tear off chunks, and take them with us.”
They did that, as the mooncow nodded approval. Then that “reflected” eye light focused on a pile of stones twenty yards away. “And when you are finished, my new children, you may exit to the deeper levels here.”
Scotty and Ali ran over, arriving just as the light faded. They overturned the rocks, and revealed a hatch.
“I’m in love with a mooncow,” Wayne said. “Let’s get the hell out of here before I propose.”
“If I’d known you were that easy,” Darla said, “I would have fed you loooong ago.”
30
Payback
1430 hours
From the safety of Heinlein base, Kendra watched the gamers climb down through the hatch.
“So … we can watch,” she said, “but we can’t communicate with them.”
“No,” Xavier said. “I haven’t access to any of the lights. All are on automatic.”
“And the dancing bugs,” she said. “You had nothing to do with that.”
Xavier sighed, as if trying to project infinite patience. “No. All of that was programmed before the kidnappers damaged the circuits.”
Kendra glared at him. “And you are aware that their lives depend on their ability to navigate these passages?”
“Of course.”
“Pardon me,” Kendra said, “but it seems to me that you are enjoying all this just a little too much.”
He smiled at her placidly, and she left.
Wu Lin drummed her fingers on the table. “Xavier,” she said. “You have no control at all? The gamers had to perform that dance?”
“I wish I could say I had control,” he said.
Wu Lin smiled at him. “It was very entertaining.”
He interlaced his fingers behind his head, and leaned back in his command chair, drumming his feet like a happy child. “Wasn’t it, though?”
* * *
Kendra was in the main communications center within ninety seconds of leaving Xavier. “What do we have?”
Foxworthy ran his finger along a column of recent notes floating in the air. “We have reason to believe that Thomas Frost has been talking to allies on Earth. We have communication with Cowles Industries on the conference channel.”
“Mr. Walls?” Kendra said. A pleasant-looking, intense man appeared. There were several other heads floating in screens around him.
“Kendra,” Walls said. “Let me begin by saying how sorry I am, how sorry we all are.”
“I appreciate that.”
“And I want to say that so far, you seem to have done everything a person could reasonably expect.”
There was an anvil in that sentence, waiting to drop on an unwary head. “We have to do more,” she said. “I’ve made queries about Thomas and Douglas Frost, and communications that they have made to Earth.”
“I’m sorry that we were so long in getting this to you, but we have been backtracing their telemessages, and there is no doubt that they have been in touch with radical groups.”
“What kind of radicals?”
“Expatriate Kikayans.”
“Are you talking about people who might have wanted the Prince kidnapped?”
“Exactly. We located a snippet of a speech given by a Dr. Mubuto, speaking to the African community in America.”
A second screen opened in the air.
“When was this taken?” Kendra asked.
Walls looked down and made a rustling sound in his lap. Notes. “Ah … two years ago.”
Mubuto was a small, round-faced man who wore wire spectacles and shook his finger at the camera a lot. A line of translated text ran across the bottom of the screen. “And there is no disgrace like that visited upon those who forget. Forget that we had a tyrant who controlled our lands, and threw him off. Followed by dictators, and we threw them off, and gave the reins of power to the one man who we could all agree upon. Who then threw aside our democratic ideals and made his title not President, or even President for Life, but King, and then passed that title on to his son.”
The crowd cheered.
“It is hard enough to toil under the weight of tyranny. Many of us could not bear the burden, and left our homeland to seek better lives, hoping that perhaps one day our children would enjoy the free homeland that we could not have.” He paused. Kendra wished she could have understood the speech in its original Congolese.
“But now he wants to pass it to his child. And that child will doubtless wish to convey it to his own. And where will it end? When the rest of the world claws its way toward freedom, are we less? Will we stand by and let this injustice happen? We have friends! We have power! And one day we will find the way to end this travesty!”
The crowd cheered.
“I think we can assume,” Walls said, “that they found their way.”
Kendra sighed. “So the Frost twins have Kikayan sympathies. This Doctor Mubuto was the head of their parliament, and there was a powerful national movement to make him President and make the King a figurehead, but Kikaya fended it off. Some say illegally. Well, payback is a bitch.”
“Our bitch, now. Mubuto and Frost must have been working together somehow. This operation took money. Lots of it. One thing we have to ask, though…”
He paused long enough for Kendra to volunteer a response. “Who helped them here?”
“Yes.”
“Equipment. What equipment did the pirates have. What did they bring, how did they bring it, and how did they acquire anything difficult to smuggle.” She turned to her assistant. “I want you to get several of the NPCs who left the dome. I want them in here in five minutes. Room five.”
* * *
Kendra strode to the front of a conference room crowded with former NPCs. Xavier sat at her side, watching everything carefully before speaking. “I am so sorry for what you have experienced. Most of you know me. And I assume that the rest of you know Xavier.”
A few of them grumbled. “What’s going on in that dome?” a bald man asked. “What are you doing to get them out?”
“The first thing we have to do is understand the game we’re playing,” Kendra said. “And the players.”
The man shifted so that light reflected from his gleaming head. “It’s easy. There are bad guys with guns, and they took over the dome. What’s so complicated?”
“Complicated,” Kendra said, considering. “You think that we should just sneak up on them?”
“Why the hell not?”
Kendra tried to keep the frustration from her voice. “And if someone tells them we’re coming?”
“We can keep it secret…”
“We have no military,” Kendra said. “No paramilitary, or SWAT. Barely any police or security. We’re not set up for this.”
“So you’re doing nada?”
“Of course not. But I think we can keep this in the family. I need to ask you some questions: How were these men equipped? Did you really see guns?”
The gamers conferred with each other for a few moments, and then one smallish man raised his hand. “I saw a crossbow.”
“Underwater breathing gear. I saw that, and air guns.”
“What else? And please let me ask you a question: Unauthorized pistols or rifles aren’t allowed down here. All luggage is scanned thoroughly.”
The bald man squinted. “So … someone helped them beat a scan?”
“Is that what you think? Is that what you would do if you had the fix in?”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Well,” she said. “If you could smuggle any weapon past the screeners on Earth. And then the L5. And then here on the Moon. Would you choose an air gun?”
They stared at each other.
“The weapons were makeshift?”
“That seems the most reasonable conclusion. Yes,” she said. “They were constructed here on the Moon. How many weapons? What resources would have been necessary? I’m going to
go down that road. I would like everyone in this room to write down every resource they saw that would not have been allowed on the shuttle. Then…”
“Then what?” the bald man said.
Kendra felt herself snarling.
31
Rumors of War
1430 hours
Within the gaming dome, the gamers were making their way through a tunnel into bubble 61-E. Scotty was in the lead. He held up a hand. “Where are we? Darla: How’s the map in your head?”
“One level up from bedrock. We can get down into the foundation layer if we make it through here.”
They cautiously opened a door leading into the next bubble, and stepped in. It was a cavern filled with flowers with metallic petals. Their wristlamps stabbed into deep pockets of shadow.
“Look here,” Sharmela said. “Somebody’s home.”
They gathered around to see a row of robotic Selenites lined up against the wall.
“My guess is that these were supposed to come to life. Some kind of display or attack. No power, no attack.”
“Look,” Wayne called. “Finally! An emergency communications node!” The glowing green triangle was obvious once you focused your eyes properly.
“Thank God!” Angelique said, and tapped at the flower indicated. “Xavier? Can you hear me?” She drew an earpiece from the middle of the flower. Scotty stood close, listening.
A pause, and then a thin ghost of Xavier’s voice floated to them, from nowhere, from everywhere. “I’ve been screaming at you, but I guess only the earpieces are working. No loudspeaker. Listen to me: We detect heat signatures moving in your direction.”
“What can you tell us about the search patterns?”
“There are two down on the pool level. They didn’t even try to follow you, just assumed that they could cut you off if they got there first.”
“Good thinking,” Scotty said.
“Aside from that, they’re doing a standard grid search, one level at a time. But the good news is that it looks as if they have one team searching from the top down, while another searches from the bottom up.”
“Why is that … oh, I see. If they miss us, they’ll go up. If we can fool them, we still have to get past the two at the pool.”
“Yes, that’s true. And we might be able to help. We’re trying to route auxillary power, but they scrambled us pretty damned well. You’ve got about three minutes. Find a place to hide.”
“Where?”
“Here’s a hint: You see stalagmites, but not stalactites? Nothing projects from the roof?”
“… Funny,” Wayne said.
“The stalagmites are hollow. We were going to ambush you.”
Angelique stiffened. “What?”
“Well,” Xavier said, “if you look closely, those stalagmites aren’t rock. They are actually piles of mooncow dung, calcified.”
“What? And what was going to attack us?”
Xavier chuckled. “Let’s just say that mooncows have worms. With teeth. I’d suggest that you hide.”
As he finished speaking, Scotty pulled another earpiece out of the flower. “What are these?”
“Just a local network. Probably only works inside this room. There are what, three sets in there?”
“Then let’s use ’em,” he said.
* * *
There had been no sound in the cavern that had proven to be a gigantic lavatory. The door on the far side vibrated, then fountained sparks from a fist-sized hole. The door clanged open and several members of Neutral Moresnot entered, fanning the room with their flashlight beams.
“Attention!” the first one screamed into the silence. “If you are in this room, we will find you. If you give yourselves up now, there will be no repercussions. Any act of aggression against us will be met with aggressive force.”
There was no response, and Scotty wondered what they felt. Anger? Anxiety? He could imagine that things had not been going their way, but the small brown lens in the plaster dung heap didn’t give him much of a view.
“All right.” A woman’s voice. “All right. Bai Long—go left. Miller—right. Fan out. Report back in ten minutes.” Celeste left the chamber.
The men followed her orders, moving with care but no apparent wariness, like men hunting for rabbits.
Scotty spoke quietly, hoping that these guys weren’t capable of scanning multiple frequencies. “Darla. Are you there?”
“Here, Scotty. It should be safe to talk.”
He peeked out through the lens. A guy with a flashlight lashed to the underside of his crossbow walked past. As soon as he was a dozen feet away, Scotty spoke again. “These guys are good, but overconfident.”
“Meaning…?”
“Meaning that if the stalagmites were designed for ambush, I think it would be a shame not to put them to use.”
* * *
Scotty watched the two men Celeste had called Bai Long and Miller work their way through the room, scanning carefully. It was a nervous time: They seemed to be heading almost directly toward him.
“What is this stuff?” the shorter one said. “It isn’t rock.” Scotty labeled him Bai Long, engaging in a bit of racial stereotyping.
“Papier-mâché crap,” the taller man—Miller?—said. “I’ve seen better effects in Halloween spook houses. I don’t know how these guys got their reputation.” A knowing laugh.
“Where do you think they are?”
“Hiding in a corner. Wait—what’s that?”
The beam of light focused on a hollow Selenite head. Miller picked it up and examined it carefully.
“What’s this?” Bai Long asked. “Think that someone’s in here?”
“Might have been left behind.”
Scotty cupped his earpiece. “Did someone leave that? Crap.”
Darla’s voice answered him. “I think it might have been left by a prop team. We were supposed to have time to get everything in place. You guys wouldn’t have reached this level ’til tomorrow.”
They were heading right toward him. Had they heard him? Before sealing himself in, Scotty had tested the stalagmite’s quick-release catch. He hoped to hell it would work properly.
“Scotty—?” Darla sounded as nervous as he felt.
“It feels as if, if I flip the one catch here, this thing should just open up. Is that right?”
“Yes, but…”
“Then get ready.”
The men approached more closely, weapons at the ready. He held his breath as they paused … and then passed him. As soon as they passed Scotty, he flipped the release catch and leaped, smashing them both to the ground. A flurry of punches and kicks subdued Bai Long, but then Miller managed to scramble to his feet, swinging his weapon around.
Scotty looked up, directly into the pipe bore of an air gun, knowing that he was about to die.
Then … Sharmela broke out of her stalagmite, and hit Miller from behind. She was joined swiftly by the other gamers, bursting out of their petrified mooncow turds.
And after another flurry of blows and kicks, the two men were subdued.
As the others stood around panting and gasping for air, Scotty ripped off Miller’s headset and tried it on. Then hefted the air gun. It was the size of a sawed-off shotgun, with a tube of compressed gas as thick as his wrist beneath a length of small-bore pipe anchored to a shoulder stock. It was fairly well balanced, not at all a bad weapon. He felt grudging admiration for its fabricator.
“Well, all right,” Darla said, carefully hoisting an aluminum frame that must be a cocked crossbow. “So what do we do now?”
“Now, we talk.”
He knelt down in front of the taller man. “I assume your name is Miller.”
No response.
“Well, you look like a Miller. Miller, all we want to do is get out of here alive.”
“Then you just made a very bad move,” Miller said.
“Maybe,” Scotty said. “What’s your end game?”
The tall man’s mouth revealed n
o emotion. “We recapture you—and we will. We complete our contract.”
“Which is?”
Miller glared at Scotty as if he was a specimen on a slide. And remained silent.
Ali smacked his fist into his palm. “There are techniques. Palace children tell each other.”
Scotty sighed. “What? You want to torture them? You have the time and inclination? Go ahead. But I say we keep moving.”
Ali looked at him in disbelief. “They will tell others where we’ve gone! You want to fight them again?”
“Maybe,” Scotty shrugged. “What are they going to say that Moresnot doesn’t already know? Anyway, we can slow them down.”
His eyes went from Tall to Short and back to Tall again. “I don’t want to kill you, but I can’t just leave you behind us. Sorry,” he said, “but this is going to hurt.”
“What are you going to do?” Bai Long asked.
“I watched both of you. You’re both right-handed.”
“I don’t understand—”
And without further preamble, he broke first Miller’s right thumb, and then Bai Long’s.
Angelique looked pale. “I thought you said you didn’t torture.”
“Did I ask questions?” He hit Miller squarely on the point of the jaw. Then Bai Long on the base of the skull. Both folded to their sides, unconscious.
Darla chirped in excitement. “All right! Here’s the doorway to the next level!”
Scotty nodded. “Hoorah. Let’s move. And keep it quiet, if we can. And conceal the opening.”
* * *
Back at Heinlein, Kendra was growing aware that she hadn’t eaten in eight hours. She ordered in sandwiches. Coffee alone was going to burn a sour hole through her stomach.
She looked over the data for a few moments, and then addressed her crew. “We have a list now. This is everything that our NPCs saw that the members of Neutral Moresnot could not reasonably have expected to move through our security, or things that clearly were fabricated here.”
“Air guns, crossbows, aqualungs, communications apparatus … there is more,” her assistant said.
“The Frost brothers,” Kendra said. “We have tabs on Thomas right now—”
