Larry Niven - The Moon Maze Game

Then the walls, as if they were actually in some kind of immense speaker system, began to vibrate with a tone similar to the one Mickey and Maud were broadcasting.

Pain!

An electric crackle crawled up her shocksuit, and she cursed. In game reality, that meant they were being hit with a pain or immobilization ray of some kind, and the shocksuit’s buzz would cause genuine discomfort if a gamer didn’t get the hint.

She dropped her sword, and clapped her hands over her ears, dropping to her knees. Around her, her team was collapsing, as the Selenites reflected the psychic wave right back at the intruders.

Angelique collapsed. Paralyzed.

They were caught.

They hadn’t long to wait. Within a minute, a hollow clanking in the walls presaged the sliding of doors, circular openings in the metal walls so cunningly designed that they had been neither seen nor suspected. A small horde of bulky Selenites emerged: not the skeletal soldiers, but more like fat beetles with six arms and legs.

These creatures were designed for work. Longshoremen Selenites, perhaps. Two of them addressed each of the downed gamers, lifting by hands and feet, hoisting them up and then hauling them toward one of the circular doors.

Angelique ground her teeth. For a moment she came closer to Griffin’s face, and almost laughed at his frustrated expression. Nice eyes, she decided.

No, IFGS had approved this paralysis. In her mind, that meant that this was just a transition. They were being taken somewhere that related to their game. There, the gamers would receive information, and begin to orient.

If they were lucky, they might even get lunch.

The tunnels were cold and dark, and echoed with distant, vaguely crawly sounds. She heard what she might have expected to hear in a beehive or ant nest: burrings, buzzings, chewing and crawling sounds. But there was something else she noted as the longshoremen carried their limp human burdens along.

Out there in the cloaking darkness, some of the insect sounds had a disturbingly human quality to them. What in the hell was that? An insect imitating the sound of a human voice? Humans trying to imitate insect sounds? She liked the first answer more, and wondered what Wayne thought. She couldn’t turn her head to try to find him. But without moving, she could see just behind her, to where two insect hulks were lugging Griffin down the narrow tunnel. She’d noticed the nice shoulders on the way down. That, and his soft, clear voice and warm hands. She giggled to herself. Was she getting a crush?

The game was getting more interesting every minute.

She estimated that they spent about four minutes being lugged about, until they went through a second door and out into a larger chamber. The translucent surfaces glowed with a pinkish bioluminescence. If she squinted, Angelique could just make out larval shapes curled in octagonal chambers on the far side. Breeding chamber?

The wall slid up a meter, and a delicate golden wormlike creature crawled forth, moving one segmented portion of its body at a time. It had what she was tempted to call a feminine face, with twin feathery antennae and two hose-like protrusions below at the corners of its mouth. The bulky stevedore creatures stepped aside for her, and she approached Angelique with grace that such a creature could never have equaled in full Earth gravity.

It was about six feet long, and half again as thick as a human body. The room’s pale glow actually illumined the insides of her body. She was filled with floating organelles, and sacks filled with some kind of orange fluid.

The creature canted her head sideways, coming very close to Angelique’s head. Her faceted eyes reflected the gamer’s face back a hundred times, and it seemed on the verge of speaking… then the twin nozzles at the sides of her mouth gushed a stream of pinkish froth, splashing up and down her frame in a silken web.

The web gullivered Angelique to the spongy rock floor from ankles to shoulders. The froth dried within moments, and as it did, the tingling paralysis promptly ended. Paralysis was no longer required-they were well and truly caught.

The golden worm turned around, doubling herself in a way impossible to any creature with a spine. Then it was through the door and gone.

Angelique turned her head to the side and saw Wayne tied there, straining against the bonds. Fine. If the shocksuit paralysis had ended, then it was fair for them to attempt escape. As she expected, his struggles (and hers) accomplished nothing. She had enough wiggle room to turn her head to the other side. Asako Tabata’s pod was anchored to the ground: They must have paralyzed her electronics. Mickey and Maud were trying to lean their foreheads against each other, boosting the psychic signal. Couldn’t quite reach. The redheaded guide was writhing without effect… probably wasn’t supposed to get loose at this point.

Ali was wiggling around, floundering. Seemed to her then he was a little green for this game, but a good Game Master went with the team she had. But now she saw that he had somehow kicked or cut his left foot free.

Griffin… again, she found herself engaged in pleasurable speculation. His broad shoulders were relaxed, but as she watched, he inhaled, flexed so that his uniform swelled… and then contracted. He didn’t look stressed out at all. In fact, he seemed admirably relaxed. She liked that.

The door opened again. Several things that resembled the golden slug emerged, carrying a bench made of some silvery bright metal. Seated on the bench was a creature thinner and probably more frail than anything she had seen so far.

It was perhaps five feet tall, and its fully fleshed limbs weren’t much thicker than the bones of a human adult. It reminded her of a mantis, again with the faceted eyes, and delicate insectile movement.

The carrier slugs brought her into the middle of the circle in which the gamers were arrayed. The bench settled, and then began to turn, as if the slugs were spinning like schoolchildren trying to get dizzy and throw up.

Slowly at first, then a complete revolution every two seconds, the greenish creature spun to survey its captives.

The chamber was awash with a dull, mourning buzz. A whispering voice filled her ear:

“Who are you? What do you want? Why have you come?”

The voice repeated once, twice, and then again.

The other gamers had begun to speak, but when they heard Angelique’s voice rise, they quieted. “We come to rescue Professor Cavor. Give him to us, and we leave in peace.”

“And if we do not?”

“Then our two great civilizations will be in conflict, a thing I dearly wish to prevent.”

“You will regret coming here. We know of your violent ways. Cavor told us, long ago.” Its glittering eyes shifted color from greenish to red. Anger? Fear?

“We dealt with him then. We will deal with you now. You will regret ever coming here.”

The shrill whine spiked again, and with it came a prompting tickle. Pain. The Earthlings were deep in torment, and were expected to act that way for the hidden cameras. Worse, they were confined, and obviously intended to just lie there and take it.

She hated this, hated the sense of powerlessness in being whiplashed by psychic or magical forces, unable to fight. Suddenly, a well of old emotions filled and brimmed over: anger and frustration and even a bit of fear. Suddenly, she was the nine-year-old girl who had crawled into Lewis Carroll and J. K. Rowling to find refuge from a house filled with screaming adults. A girl who had found the world of fantasy far more pleasant than Wait. Wait. Angelique realized that her breathing had shifted up into her chest, become rapid and shallow. Her blood felt like it was boiling, and the world tasted oddly sour.