Larry Niven - The Moon Maze Game

Would not.

A foot at a time, he clawed his way up. Gasping and panting, he found hand holds, pulled himself to safety even as the flying machine tumbled down and out of sight. And when he was secure, Ali rolled onto his back, face split by an absurdly silly grin. He had never imagined that air could smell so sweet. On the other side of the canyon, the gamers howled in joy.

Ali forced himself up and began to search, finally finding an anchor point for the rope vine. It wasn’t hard. One of the stalagmites was tinged slightly silver, just enough to catch his attention. It was concrete, and anchored into rock. Strong enough. He fastened it, chanting his mnemonic to himself. “ Right over left, left over right, makes a reef knot both tidy and tight. ” His hands were shaking so hard that he tucked them into his armpits to calm them.

Tested the line again, and was satisfied. He walked back to the edge of the chasm, and waved.

“Well, all right!” Scotty said.

Wayne rigged a safety line around his waist, attached the loop to the rope, and grinned at Darla. “Give us a kiss, love.”

She did so, pressing her hips against him as she did. Then Wayne winked at Angelique, jumped up and began to climb hand-over-hand across the divide.

Angelique smiled wanly, and the shorter, rounder woman winked at her.

Mickey came running up, wide-eyed. “Scotty. I heard something from the other side. I think the pirates are rattling the door.”

“Not surprising,” Scotty said. “They wouldn’t flounder around forever. This rope is graded for a thousand kilograms. It’ll hold us all at the same time. Get your asses up there.”

Darla jumped up and began to shimmy across. Scotty, Mickey and Maud were last. “All right, beautiful. It’s you and me now,” Scotty said.

Maud shrank away. “I can’t. I just can’t.”

“I’ll go with you. We can do this. I swear.”

“Maud,” Mickey said. “You have to. I won’t leave you here.”

She could not be consoled. “I can’t! I thought I could, but… it’s just too much. There’s just nothing left. I’m tired,” she protested. “Let me stay here. They won’t hurt me.” She paused. “I’m just an old woman.”

“Scotty,” Mickey said. “Thank you for your offer. I think this is something I have to do myself.”

“Are you absolutely sure?” Scotty asked.

“I’m absolutely sure.”

“All right.” Scotty left them to their devices, and stomped on the second machine’s wings. The fabric would not tear, the glue did not give way, but finally the struts themselves bent until the device was useless. “Just in case,” he said.

Scotty jumped up on the line, and began to haul himself across, hand-over-hand, a safety line on the rope. In lunar gravity, it was relatively easy. A moment of panic as his feet slipped on the far edge, and then he was across.

He looked back. Mickey and Maud were fastening themselves onto the line. “I can’t look down!” Maud screamed.

“Then don’t,” Mickey said. Mickey roped himself together with Maud, and a safety line over the top. “Up we go, moppet.”

Maud managed a smile. “Moppet,” she whispered. “You haven’t called me that in years.”

“We’re not done yet, love,” he said, and kissed her. Maud threw her arms around his neck, and he began to hoist them both across. One pull at a time, grunting and groaning with every heroic effort.

Behind them: A sudden chuffing sound, followed by a dull thung as the barricaded door flew open and slammed back into the rock wall.

Maud screamed and lost her grip. Suddenly she dangled from Mickey supported only by her safety rope. He strained to cross as three men and a tall, broad blond woman burst through the door-the pirates arrived.

“Kill them!” Celeste’s severe face distorted with rage.

Lying on his stomach, Scotty aimed back through gusts of lava stench, firing a bolt back across at the pirates. Some ineffective firing back and forth followed as Mickey and Maud struggled to cross the remaining distance.

Screaming, Maud climbed up the rope, holding on to Mickey’s pants, which slid down so that he had to crook his knees to keep her from falling off.

Finally they made it to the far side, and climbed up, to the applause of gamers who pulled them behind fiberglass stalactites, and away.

Scotty pulled the line free of its mount as Frost began to climb across. A moment later, and the pirate might have plummeted into the crevasse. Instead, Frost thumped howling down onto rock. Damn, he thought, hoping that the traitor had at least separated a shoulder. Celeste watched him, radiating hatred. He just couldn’t help it: Scotty gave her a little bow, then turned and fled.

Celeste balanced at the lip of the gorge, her eyes blazing, fists clenched.

“How do we get across?” Frost asked, rubbing his wounded shoulder.

With a palpable effort of will she tore her eyes from the far side, investigating the walls, the ceiling, the gap. “Was this part of the game?” she asked. “How much of this is real?”

“Look at the weird equipment,” he said. “The big insects. Yes, I’d say game. Most of it.”

“Have you seen flowing lava?” She snarled it, tense as an angry mandrill.

“No, but…” He finally understood her body language, the tone of her voice and her expression.

“Yes,” she said. “‘Oh.’ Get me a rope. I’m going down there.”

Fujita and Miller glanced at each other. The huge man scratched his bald head, nervously. “With all the illusions,” Fujita said, “we must be careful. Once we begin to disregard what we see and hear… we become vulnerable to ambush.”

If there had been real lava in the chasm, her expression would have frozen it. “If you have no use for your balls,” she said, “I’ll just take them now.”

The big man broke eye contact, muttered something inaudible and stepped aside.

1646 hours

Mickey crouched, hugging his knee, moaning and muttering as he rocked. Scotty said, “You don’t kick a door down on the Moon. We build ’em strong.”

“I felt it give, just a little.” Mickey looked up, suddenly hopeful. “Maybe both of us?”

What the hell. But there was only room for two. “Rest the knee. I’ve got this.” Scotty motioned to Wayne. The two men braced themselves and charged the portal, and rammed through, spilling onto their bellies in close-mown grass that didn’t smell like grass, or anything else.

A shadowed mansion loomed above them, edged by blue sky. Rows of meticulously manicured hedges, enhanced by life-sized statues of animals, nymphs and men in heroic poses. An English countryside estate?

Angelique caught herself mugging astonishment, audience always in mind. The others were more sensible, or quicker. They fanned out and took cover behind solid-looking concrete sculptures. Scotty’s hand whacked a Chinese dolphin experimentally: foam plastic. “Not good cover,” he barked. “We need to get inside. I’ll lead.”

Nobody said, “It could be a trap.” Scotty bent low and ran for the huge front door-which stood open, very trap-like. He slid in on his belly, rolled right, and looked.

High ceiling, high enough to make him feel like a child. Floor made of… cork? No clear targets.

Light glowed only in this nearer region. They had entered a vast playroom, dotted with chairs and card tables and bureaus pulled against the walls under a facing pair of big, ornately framed mirrors. Wooden blocks had been shaped into miniature castles, public buildings, row houses. Dowels for chimneys. Cardboard had become walls and bridges. A waterfall drawn in blue chalk plunged down one wall and became a river, growing wide, until it was a rapids running in blue-and-white stream lines around pale rocks. Clumps of leaves and twigs were arrayed into a miniature forest. Nothing moved.