Larry Niven - The Moon Maze Game

She slid down the ladder, knocking Shotz back, furious at herself for losing focus. She fought to keep her head, vision swimming as she pulled herself up and into the bubble.

“Alexander!” she screamed. No one used Shotz’ given name, ever. She had barely used it even in their intimate moments. But some part of her, looking back through the hatch where he was six rungs below her, knew that there was a last time for everything.

She couldn’t breathe. She saw him struggling to lift himself, one agonizing rung at a time. She watched him stretch out his arm, hoping, and yet knowing hope was lost.

He grabbed the door, designed to close from inside so that air pressure would keep it sealed… and swung it closed on himself.

Celeste rolled over. She saw Thomas Frost reach the far door linking them to the next bubble, and turn the manual wheel to open it. When it opened, air from the next bubble blasted in like a bomb burst and sent him rolling.

The three of them flopped onto their backs, gasping like beached trout. She cursed her weakness, cursed the fear that coursed her veins like waves of lava. Cursed the shame she felt. Decades ago she had sworn that she would never allow herself to feel shame. She had been a child in war-torn Montreal, bereft of mother or father and forced to steal, and worse, just to survive. All gentleness had died within her then…

Until a man harder than the hate that sustained her had recruited her to a quixotic dream called Neutral Moresnot, a fantasy of creating their own nation. Somehow, this wild man had awakened a heart she had thought long dead.

She crawled up onto all fours, and staggered against the doorway, trying to peer down into the depths of the dome. Just machinery. She couldn’t see the ladder, but knew that Shotz’ strong hands no longer clutched at its rungs. Knew that somewhere far below them, he lay dead, blood foaming his nose and mouth. His hands, his loving hands would never again hold her. Touch her.

Celeste screamed, and screamed, until Fujita touched her shoulder, perhaps intending comfort. She wheeled, smashing him with a backhand. The sumo-sized Asian fell back, eyes wide, staring up at her as if viewing his own death.

She felt disconnected from herself, floating above her own head in some odd way. Shock, she recognized dimly, struggling for clarity. I am in shock.

She should have begun breathing deeply, slowing herself. Begun normalizing the systems now pumping overtime. But didn’t. She embraced this floating sensation, and dreaded its retreat. Dreaded what would happen when she plunged back down into grief.

She heard her own voice: “Can we… get his body?”

Fujita shook his head, eyes still focused on her face. “No. We have no pressure suits. We can’t open the door,” he said. “I think it’s over. The gamers could all be dead, Celeste. We need to-”

Shrieking, she lifted Fujita and slammed him into the wall. On Luna, the explosive uncoiling of her leashed rage and grief was almost enough to break bones.

She pushed her forearm against his neck, and Fujita struggled, barely able to breathe but afraid to fight back. He knew what would happen if he did.

“Shotz is dead,” he whispered in graveled tones. “Everything is blown to hell. We don’t know what to do-”

“Yes, he’s dead,” she said, the words ashes on her lips. “But I am alive. I am in charge now. This is all you need to know.”

His eyes locked with hers. The entire world achieved an eerie clarity: She saw every vein, every imperfection in his irises. She knew his mind, knew that he wondered if she was still entirely sane.

She didn’t know either. And frankly, she didn’t much care.

“Jeee-zus,” Scotty whispered. Darla’s eyes were wide as walls, arms folded tightly together. The other gamers were confused, startled, but none of them understood the enormity of what had just happened. No one who had spent time on Luna, or outside the protective envelope of Earth’s atmosphere, who had ever been near a pressure seal failure, let alone an explosive decompression, could feel anything but terror at the sound of that klaxon.

He had seen the fleshy results of mine accidents, construction failures and ignorant tourists. It wasn’t pretty: The human body is 60 percent water, and in vacuum, water boils.

“What happened?” Angelique asked.

“I’m not sure. Let’s make a guess: The pirates mined the doors, and our rescuers triggered a mine.” Scotty said.

“Damn,” Wayne said. “That means-”

“That people died out there. Probably our people. We need to move. The Pirates might be shaken enough to slow them down.”

“What if they aren’t?”

Scotty thought about that for a moment. “Then I really, seriously doubt that they’re in a good mood. We need to move. But only bubble to bubble now. No more moving in the in-betweens. There’s no air out there anymore.”

Fortunately, their path through the G-level bubbles down to H allowed them to move from one sealed environment to another. These were all unfurnished and unpainted Liquid Wall bubbles, none modified for gaming, most of them empty or crammed with crates. Every time Scotty opened a door, they tensed.

“Scotty?” Ali asked. “If the dome is breached, what then?”

“It depends on the size of the opening,” Scotty said. They stood on a sealed catwalk, a bubble used primarily to connect two other bubbles. Here there were no windows, and the walls dampened sound. “If it’s the size of your fist, the dome can heal itself. Some kind of threaded epoxy resin, I think. Larger than that, and if the mechs are operating, they will automatically try to fix it. Then there are work crews from Heinlein. I don’t know what’s going to happen here. We better assume we’re on our own, though.”

When they reached the next door, Scotty turned the manual wheel. It opened with a slight hisss that suggested the pressure level between bubbles wasn’t equalized. The sound made his skin creep, and he was happy when his crew was all in, and they could seal the door behind them.

“This is 100-G,” Darla said, dropping to her knees. “There should be an exit port to H level. From there… well, hold on to your butts, but Mama thinks we can take a shortcut to the end of the game.”

“What was supposed to happen?” Wayne asked.

She narrowed her eyes. “That would be telling…” Then the absurdity of her reply struck her, and she sighed. “Oh, fudge it. There was loads of running and jumping and fighting and climbing. And you would have rescued Professor Cavor from the caves, and then struggled to reach the sphere. You know, the spaceship. And from there… Game over.”

“So what do we face between here and the bottom?”

“I don’t know everything…” Her fingers scratched at the floor, and then she made an ah-hah sound, opened her multitool and pried harder. A popping sound, and the white tile slid up, exposing a steel-plated maintenance door. “But keep your eyes open,” she said. Her fingers found a ring and tugged, and the plate came up. Looking down she said: “Here we go!” and dropped down.

One at a time, they followed.

1623 hours

The very first thing Scotty noticed was the moist, cool air against his cheeks. He realized that he had missed that over the last hours: The atmosphere throughout most of the dome and its bubbles had been fairly dry. This was different, and his pulse raced: There was open water nearby, perhaps within a few hundred meters. As Maud brought up the rear Scotty closed the door behind him, glaring at its insufficient lock. The inner side had been retrofitted with a turn-wheel that might have seemed at home on Captain Nemo’s submarine. That, he thought, must have amused the engineers tremendously.