Larry Niven - The Moon Maze Game

“Taking off the gloves,” the little man said.

The Moresnot pirates combed the Martian graveyard as best they could, when not gaping and gawking at the expanse of machines.

McCartney shone his flashlight up at the ceiling. “This dome…,” He shook his head. “Looks larger than it can possibly be.”

Shotz made a harsh humorless sound. “That has to be the illusions.”

“I thought we cut the power,” Celeste said.

“Backup,” Shotz said. “We cut main power, but some of the environmental systems have backup in case of emergency. I think the Dream Park have people tapped into those lines.”

The shadows of the Martian machines loomed large above them.

“This is creepy. What are these things?”

“Some sort of robot,” Shotz offered.

“It’s hard to believe that people pay to… what? Be frightened? Have adventures?”

Shotz smiled, as if it required physical effort to hoist his cheeks into position. “You don’t understand, because you are the kind of woman who makes her own adventures. People like this must have others make their adventures for them.”

“How much does all of this cost?” Fujita asked. Despite his impressive mass, Fujita walked with great, almost incongruous delicacy and quiet.

“I think,” McCartney said, “that I’m in the wrong bleedin’ business.”

“Quiet,” Celeste said. “And split up. I say that they’re in here, and frightened to death.”

Shotz motioned two of his men this-away, two that-away.

Scotty and Wayne were hiding behind a tremendous tripod with a tiny dome on top. One outsized flat foot concealed them.

“What are they doing?” Wayne asked.

Scotty peeked out and then ducked back. “Splitting up. Trying to pincer us.”

“Is that a problem?”

“Only if you want to stay alive. No, really… we have an advantage. There are only two of us, and they probably won’t have time to search the entire room.”

“Unless they have sensors.”

Scotty made a clucking sound. “Now where would they get something like that?”

Almost as if she had been reading Scotty’s mind, Celeste was operating a sensor pad covered with glowing green wireframes of everything in the room. Their nine men were marked in glowing orange. There were faint four-limbed orange glows marked on the far side of the room. “I think I might have something. I’m getting a signal.”

“Good,” Shotz said. He peered at her screen, and then motioned to his men.

Wayne snuck a peek, ducked back. “Listen. That looks like a rescue sensor the woman’s holding. Used in the mines, but someone could modify it for other uses.”

“You might be right,” Scotty said, peeking out through the misshapen alien shadows.

“Then… why are they going in the wrong direction?”

Suddenly, and without any warning, the Martian war machines rose up, impossibly tall in the cramped space, their domes actually ghosting through the ceilings.

They roared, they lurched, and the Moresnot pirates fired at them with air guns and crossbows.

“Hold your fire!” Shotz said. “It’s just a show. They can’t-”

McCartney, the man next to him screamed as an arrow pierced his side. “Shit!” He crumpled over, clutching his side. “I’m hit!”

Shotz whipped around. “They’re here, dammit!”

“Where?” Fujita’s head snapped around.

A second arrow bolt flew through the air, hit a prop next to Shotz’ head. “Down!”

The pirates hit the deck as the Martian war machines continued to rage, their heat rays sweeping across the floor. A brilliant ruby ray touched one of the Moresnot people, and his bones gleamed through his skin as if he were a cartoon ghost. He screamed.

“I have a visual!” Celeste screamed.

Shotz looked up and across the room, seeing a woman crouching behind a war machine.

“We don’t need her-” Shotz said. “Kill her.”

But when he fired, it was a male scream that answered.

“What the hell-” Shotz growled.

Scotty and Wayne had managed to stay out of the line of fire. “What the hell?” Scotty whispered. “What was that? They’re shooting at each other-”

Wayne whispered in his ear. “Listen, Scotty-visual field manipulation isn’t perfect from every angle. Doesn’t need to be, as long as it’s perfect from the angle of the target.”

“What are you saying?”

“I think Xavier is helping us. He’s creating illusions. Over there-Moresnot men. Over there, too.”

Scotty blinked and looked more carefully. The ghost of an illusion around the Moresnot men, firing at each other and being lashed and confused by the illusion. One Asian woman had a handgun “Illusion,” Wayne said. “That woman they’re shooting at is Asako, before she got sick. Xavier at play.”

“Let’s get closer.”

The two carefully crept from one lurching war machine to another. The machines targeted them with beams, but the pirates did not notice.

When Scotty and Wayne got close enough, they loosed bolts.

Fujita took a bolt in the fleshy left side of his back. Hardly fatal in a sumo-sized man, but he screamed. “I’m hit! I’m hit! They’re behind us?”

Shotz wheeled around, scanning without result. “Dammit! Where-”

Celeste grabbed his arm. “I think we’re making a mistake. They only took two weapons, but they’re attacking as if they have more. I think we’re fighting our own people.”

Next to them Bai Ling screamed: “Look out!”

A crimson beam of light seared across the ground, smoke and fire gushing up from the ground as it did. The air was filled with alien cries, screams, cries of dismay, curses.

And one very human “Dammit!” Rodriquez said that as the heat beam crawled across his body. He screamed… and then looked at himself in disbelief. “I’m alive!”

Then-an air gun bolt hit him in the throat. The Spaniard tumbled with the impact, dying as he fell.

Shotz bent to check the body-and perhaps to get out of the line of fire.

“Dammit. We have to knock out the power system in here. Celeste?”

She was too busy manipulating controls on her portable monitor. “Just a second. I’ll have to take out the air system. I’ll-there.”

The upper sections of the war machines vanished. The din diminished. The Moresnot pirates got unsteadily to their feet.

“They’re picking us off,” she said. “That’s one dead. Four wounded.”

“Four,” he breathed heavily. “All right: Playtime is over. From now on, shoot to kill.”

The man pushing himself up off the ground was shaking, either with fear or rage. “There wasn’t anything to shoot at! Where did they go, Shotz? Where did they go?”

“Celeste?” Shotz asked.

“There are three ground-level exits listed on the map. But there may be unmapped exits.”

“We have to assume that they are heading to the caverns. Kill all the power, even basic life support. No more confusion. No more mistakes.”

Scotty and Wayne had retreated to the spaces beneath the bubble. The tunnel was vertical, and they had to climb down a ladder until they reached a sealed door at the bottom.

“I hope the others had time,” Scotty said.

Wayne seemed rattled. “Scotty. I think I might have killed that man. Have you ever… killed someone?”

“No,” Scotty said. “But today sounds like a great time to start.”

Wayne stopped to steady his breathing. “You aren’t bad with that crossbow. If this was a game, I’m starting to think you’d be okay.”

“Another time,” Scotty said. “Another life.” Scotty grinned. “And besides, this is just a game, remember?”

Scotty unscrewed the hatch. Below, another bubble. There was a ladder across the ceiling and down the inner curve of the dome, and they had to go hand-over-hand, brachiating in a way no one would try in Earth gravity. Their companions were down below, watching them.