Larry Niven - The Moon Maze Game

The mechanism went through some kind of clanking shift, and Scotty peered up the escaladder well, watching Asako maneuver her pod into position for the mechanism to take hold and lower her capsule to the floor.

When she had fully descended, the gamers all applauded. They followed their guide-Darla, Wayne noted, entering the game early-as she led them twenty meters away under a curved ceiling, to a ramp in the flooring. They descended again, and found themselves in a mock-up of the original Cavorite sphere, complete with plush seats and pewter-colored “Cavorite” scrolls, a few rolled up to make square windows. They buckled themselves in, Asako purred down and anchored her capsule. The ramp folded into the ceiling, and they were ready to go.

A countdown clock appeared on the screen, showing that they had ninety seconds until the game began once again. Wayne strapped himself in, and gave a hard exhalation. This was starting at a rush.

“Her name was Darla,” he murmured.

Angelique didn’t look around. “Did Xavier send her?”

“She didn’t say. I didn’t ask. But that’s her.” Wayne pointed with his nose. “The guide.”

“Dr. Darla McGuinness. Her backstory is she’s an astronomer. Studied the Moon. Xavier will kill her out as soon as he thinks we’re depending on her.”

“Right.”

“What did he think you’d do when you saw her in the game? Flinch?”

“Yeah. Or kill her. Or you’re supposed to kill her.” Or he was supposed to hesitate and let her kill him. Or be preoccupied with the possibility of some mid-game nookie, and miss a clue…

“Or he’s just messing with our heads.” Angelique scowled. “We wait.”

Only the lack of weightlessness told Scotty that what he saw was not completely real.

When the last of them were seated in the mock-up sphere, the light suddenly vanished from the room, plunging them into darkness. Scotty heard a soft clunk that might be Asako’s wheel grips locking against the floor.

Light came in patches: Screens rolled up one at a time to reveal a curved glass surface, and a glare like yellow-white bone cratered with acne. It was the Moon, and it was growing, hurtling toward them at reckless speed.

He looked for Ali first. His charge was seated and belted in. Then Asako: Her bubble chair locked against the floor. The gamers all seemed to be belted down and waiting. Then the blocky shape of a big man rolling up metallic-looking screens, exposing more of the Moon and a terrifying glare of stars. “Landing might be rough.” A marked Scottish accent burred his words. The big man’s naval uniform gleamed in the reflected lunar light. Their Captain.

The big man straightened like a soldier standing at parade rest. Moonglare lit a bristly haircut and a luxurious handlebar mustache. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are approaching the lunar surface. You-”

“Excuse me, Captain,” Maud and Mickey said.

“A poor time to disturb me, madam. Best remain seated and wait.” The big man began manipulating the blinds again.

Despite the knowledge that it was all illusion, Scotty’s fingers crushed the armrests as the dappled surface approached. And then… he was confused. Xavier had made clear references to H. G. Wells’ Moon. Scotty hadn’t ever read the book, but had a vague memory of the CliffsNotes version. Wasn’t Wells’ Moon a living planet? He saw nothing but rock and shadow.

Wait… there were dapplings of pale green below, visible only as they approached more closely. That wasn’t right. At least, it wasn’t the Moon he knew.

He heard the intake of amazed breath around him, and Ali whispered: “Wells’ Moon.”

Then the last thousand meters passed in a blink, they were plummeting, and their Captain was frantically pulling levers. The click of opening and closing Cavorite shutters rattled through the room, and at the very last instant, their descent slowed.

With a mammoth crunch they slammed into the surface. The air outside clouded with dust. Their vehicle yawed side to side crazily, flipping almost upside down at one point, so that he felt dizzy and sick, as if he had swallowed a dozen raw eggs.

Then a smooth skid, dirt piling up against the outside of the sphere, and then stillness.

“Is everyone all right?” the Captain asked.

“All parts seem in working order,” Angelique said, and then checked with her crew. All seemed to agree that they had survived.

“I will wait here with the ship,” the Captain said. “I wish you Godspeed in your rescue attempt.”

The gamers gathered their gear, and, unable to conceal their eagerness, crowded against the curved transparent hull.

Scotty peered out. They were in a vast circular plain, on the floor of a giant crater. High walls closed them in on every side. Sunlight was just cresting above a jagged gray cliff.

Pale summits and rocky protuberances were pretty much what he would have expected. But there was more. Much more.

The entire plain was covered with a curling, coiled profusion of plants and vines and grasses.

The other gamers and NPCs had gathered around the windows, gazing out on the display.

So far, he saw nothing that looked like a tree, or the beginnings of one. But there were cactus-like plants, and young bushes, and the infancy of a grassland.

The ship’s Captain had completed a series of movements near the door. Scotty now saw a rectangular gate in the middle of their inner door, because the Captain had screwed it open. Into the rectangle he inserted a cage containing two white mice, extending them by means of some apparatus a foot or two beyond the door, into the central air chamber.

The Captain closed his eyes, seemed to offer a prayer, and pulled a lever. With a series of clanks and groans, the outer door opened (poof!) and lunar sunlight flooded into the airlock.

The window was wide enough for four gamers to peer down into the chamber, and Scotty made sure he was one of them. The mice were eating seeds at the bottom of their cage, completely unaware of the fact that they were the first Earth creatures in many years to breathe lunar air.

After a minute, the Captain closed the external door. Then gingerly, he opened the internal one.

The air had a sterile, grassy smell, like the first spring after a cleansing frost, and just a whiff of spent gunpowder. “Volunteers?” he asked, and a forest of hands sprang up.

Mickey and Maud Abernathy, Angelique Chan, Wayne and Ali hustled themselves to the front of the line, and the others applauded their courage. Scotty thought about it for a moment, decided that Xavier wouldn’t dare pull a lethal Gotcha! at the beginning of the game, and went to stand beside his charge. The six of them were ushered into the airlock. The Captain handed Angelique a furled Union Jack. “Do us proud!” he said. And the door closed behind him.

This isn’t real… this isn’t real…, he licked his lips, and found both tongue and lips to be dry. He had spent too long on the Moon to be able to take anything that looked and sounded like an airlock with anything save complete sobriety.

The outer door slid open.

Wayne took a deep sniff and said: “Good, there’s air here.” Angelique rammed a discreet elbow into his ribs, and stepped past him down the ramp. Scotty’s feet touched “lunar” soil for the first time.

And now the confusion was total. Scotty knew his eyes could be fooled, but not his proprioception. And every muscle in his body, and all of his joints, said that he was under one-sixth gravity. He was on the Moon. The general contour of the ground was lunar. He had seen it for himself. But plants? Grass? A whorl of leaves and blossoms, covering the slopes as far as his eyes could see?

Impossible.

His eyes said it couldn’t be the Moon. His body said differently. He fought to keep his equilibrium. He looked up. The sky was pale, filled with clouds. Thank God. If there had been a night sky up above him, blackness and stars, he might have dropped down a deep, dizzy hole.