Larry Niven - The Moon Maze Game

“Fatalities?” the miner asked, his narrow face pinched.

“One that we know of.”

Chambers scowled. “Who?”

“One of theirs, thank God. We think his name was Victor Sinjin. British expat, mercenary, career criminal. In a few minutes, we hope that the gamers inside the Beehive will be able to blind the pirates, keep them from seeing what is happening outside the dome long enough for us to get there, get in, and take them out. There may be explosives planted in the dome, so our rescue team has to wear pressure suits in case of… accidents. The use of lethal force is authorized.”

He paused, scanning their faces in challenge. If there was anyone who might object to killing, this was the time to speak. No one did. “Any questions?”

“Yes,” asked Hazel, the short, round woman from Communications. “What are we facing in terms of weaponry, honey? And what exactly are our own resources?”

“Damned good question,” Piering replied. “We believe that the opposition is armed with makeshift weapons. These include air guns and possibly crossbows of advanced design.” He paused significantly. “Made here on Luna.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Are you saying that somebody here helped?”

Concerned faces twisted into ugly masks. In an instant, the rescue party had transformed into a lynch mob. Piering raised his hand for silence. “We aren’t sure what we’re dealing with, and shouldn’t leap to any conclusions. The point is not who might have turned against us. The point is that we have good people in bad hands, and need to do something about that-now.”

He waved his thick hands above one of the workbenches, crowded with a hastily assembled array of weaponry. “Nail guns are lethal, but only at short range. No more than five meters. We’ve reworked a half dozen handheld welding lasers, but they aren’t lethal at more than a dozen meters-but can blind up to a hundred. The most promising possibility?” He raised a bulky pistol-like device. “Used by engineering. Piton device. If it can throw a steel arrowhead into rock at fifty meters, it can kill a man.”

He braced his meaty arms on the bench. “Here’s what I ask. Everyone here has fired a weapon. I’m not asking you to stand down if you haven’t fired a piton. But find the weapon that is closest to something you’ve already used. We have maybe an hour before we get the green light. Practice. And keep practicing. And then we’ll take it from there.”

“What’s the entry plan?” Hazel asked.

“Two teams,” Piering said. “One will enter at ground level, G. I’ll take a team up the side to level C. That’s where Asako Tabata’s body is. I think the pirates might be a little spooked by that, and give us a clear shot.”

Beneath the golden dome of Xavier’s gaming complex, the mood was just as serious.

“Are you ready?” Kendra asked.

“Almost,” Xavier said. He waved his little hands over a projection table, and a display of Heinlein base and its associated domes blossomed. “This image is ten hours old-just before the game began. It’s been shadow-adjusted to be identical with what the pirates would expect to see right now. Unless I’m very mistaken, they should suffice.”

“Good,” Kendra said. She peered down more closely. A hundred-meter perimeter around the dome had been established, but there were holographic gawkers just beyond that limit. Controlling Lunies was like herding cats.

“Kendra,” Xavier began, and then paused. “I assume I have permission to call you by your first name?”

“Knock yourself out.”

“Once we’ve regained control of communications-”

“I wouldn’t call it control. But we can get more than we have now.”

“Fine,” Xavier said. “Once we have more control, there are things we can do.”

“What kind of things?”

“Let’s just say that it isn’t a good idea to attack a mad scientist in his own workshop,” Xavier said.

“I like the sound of that.” Kendra said. “What exactly did you have in mind?”

The flame of Darla’s adrenaline had burnt down to a dim and dismal coal. Her stomach felt sore, her mouth tasted as if she’d drunk a cup of sour milk.

She had led the eight gamers to bubble 100-G. This was a small, partially furnished sphere strewn with communications and electronics gear. She thumped her palms against a foamed plastic plate and popped out a section of wall. In they crawled on all fours.

“Wish they’d make the access panels a little easier to access, dammit,” the former mermaid said. “Come on, hurry up.”

“This is a communications substation?” Scotty asked.

“Yes. And if I can change the protocols we should be able to communicate with the outside a bit. Enough, anyway. The voice and image feeds may be scrambled, but we’ve got some emergency hard lines in place. Just vanilla stuff, but I can get to them.”

Darla walked around the dome, holding her wrist out in front of her as if she were dowsing for water. Reading the wiggles on the monitor imprinted on her cuff. An anxious pause and then she smiled. “We have a signal. Xavier is sending files.”

“What kind of files?” Angelique asked.

“Visual files.” Her smile broadened. “Kendra added a note: ‘Sow confusion among the ungodly.’” Her expression grew sober again. “But I can’t do it from here. Someone has to go out into the interstices and find a hard-line video input.” She made a face. “I hate to say it, but I’m the only somebody who can do that.”

“And?” Wayne said. “If the gaps are full of pirates?”

She patted his cheek. “Oh, sweetie. You’re worried about me. I’ll just have to figure something out.”

Darla tapped at the floor until she found a section that thumped hollowly. She used her multitool’s flat-headed wedge to pry up an edge, and slid down into darkness, up to her shoulders. “Seal this behind me,” she said.

“Darla?” Sharmela asked. “How safe are these bubbles? What I mean to ask is, what would happen if the pirates depressurized the dome?”

Darla sighed. “Tell the truth, I’m not certain. By the time the Beehive was opened to the public in a couple months, everything would have been tested. The materials are up to standard… that’s not the problem. The problem is that we’re in kind of a transitional phase right now. May have been some shortcuts to speed things up for the game. I can tell you this: All of the doors are flanged so that air pressure will keep them sealed in the case of a pressure drop. You should be safe.”

“Not you, though.”

“I’ll be right back. Scotty? Seal this door after me, would you?”

“You’ve got it,” Scotty said.

Darla climbed downward. All around her was darkness and vague, hollow echoes.

She wiggled through tight spaces, breathing hard. She climbed up the side of one bubble, and stopped. Listened. Machine sounds. Fluid in pipes. Humming of wires. And distant human voices, fractured into echoes like water trickling over rocks.

She continued to climb, until she reached a stenciled number: 103-G. She pressed the side of her head hard against the wall, and held her breath. From within, a steady, thrumming sound… but no footsteps, and no human voices.

“Easy. Easy…”

She crawled up the side, lost her grip, and started to slide around the bubble’s curved roof. She looked down. It seemed to Darla that the bubble structure went down forever, dissolving in shadows somewhere below in moonrock. She gripped at the walls with fingernail-shredding strength.

“Shit fire!” Pain shot down her fingers, and as soon as she stopped her slide, she sucked at her fingers, disgusted at the tears drooling from the corners of her eyes.

At a spot where the rim of one bubble’s roof neared the floor of one just above, several cables ran out of the bubble’s side, meeting in a knot before branching off again. She used her multitool to tap into a little juncture box, and attached her PDA. If the pirates had scrambled the com field, then they probably had the capacity to un scramble it to scan for intruders. With just a drop of luck, this might fool them.