Larry Niven - The California Voodoo Game

Alex Griffin had all three. Poule lunged in, his left hand high to deflect. Griffin sliced Poule's left wrist, and in a single fluid, swerving stroke brought the blade down and across the attacking arm.

Red and black light spilled from the wound. Poule groaned and dropped his knife.

Griffin grabbed Poule's right wrist with his left hand. He stepped in, driving an elbow to the jaw and a knee to the groin.

(The man played fair, and had great reflexes! Griffin thought. Poule knew he was beaten, and responded to Griffin's mimed blows like a professional stuntman.)

With Poule doubled over in pain, Alex raised his knife high, ready to plunge into the nape of his unprotected neck But instead let Poule fall to the ground. "Bind this man's wounds," he said. "He is a brave enemy. I would not have him die."

He looked over at Bishop and saw his secretive, meaningless smile.

Griffin tore strips from his own shirt and began to bind Poule's wounds. Top Nun completed the binding and knelt beside the general, threw her hands into the air, and said, "Abracadabra. So I'm making a book already. If you're not too busy, heal 'im up. We might need him. Maybe not now, maybe Tuesday, but why take chances?"

Griffin took stock of the survivors, and it didn't take long. That last ambush had been bloody. Only eleven players remained: Mouser, Mary-em, Al the Barbarian, Acacia, Top Nun, Twan, Tammi, Major Clavell, Captain Cipher, Bishop, and General Poule. The Game had become a slaughter.

Finally there was time to examine his surroundings.

It might have been the biggest indoor spa in the world. It had a makeshift look: no one had planned to put a pool here. But someone had diverted water flow into a vast sunken region of the tenth floor. The resulting pool dwarfed an

Olympic standard. The inhabitants had carted in tanning machines, and sets of gleaming chrome weights, and steam cabinets. Stand-alone Jacuzzis bubbled along the rim of the pool like yeast clusters; rowing machines, stationary bicycles, and massage tables grew like weeds.

But along the ceiling, and all along the walls, tiny gleaming creatures scampered about. They seemed part machine and part animal and were busying themselves with repair and rebuilding. The entire level had an organic honeycomb look, crinkled and textured and pocketed. Shifting, multicolored waves of slow lightning crawled behind the walls, painting everything in the vast room in ethereal, electric hues of red and blue and yellow.

The air was as humid as a sauna, with wisps of steam curling from the water itself.

One of the muscular poolside loungers uncoiled himself lazily and sauntered over. He was well over six feet tall. On his face was written bland, unconcerned amusement.

"Name's Biff," he said. "Gettin' into serious hassles, dudes. Just hang loose, huh? Keep those bad vibes rolling in, the Nommo won't like it. Like, kick back, and we'll get some tasty waves up for you."

For once, Bishop seemed to be a little off balance. "Make a wave?"

"Totally tubular, dude."

Even as they watched, the pool's surface rippled, swelled, and reached up for the ceiling. It crested, boiling with froth.

One golden surfer had been balancing on his board in the middle of the pool, waiting patiently for a wave to happen by. As it expanded he rode the crest up and took the stance: right leg forward, left back and slightly bent, arms spread for balance. Fifteen feet of water ridge rolled him along a thousand feet of indoor lagoon, and then The wave turned itself inside out, flowed through itself, turned back, and headed the other way. The surfer pulled off a maneuver that Griffin was quite certain no other had ever managed. He leaned into the board like a skateboard artist doing a wheelie, his weight sinking back to the rear. The board stood up on end, pivoted, and he sailed back the way he'd come.

Griffin gathered his jaw back off the floor and followed their host to a cluster of chairs and tables. Biff snapped his finger, and a bevy of giggling, bikini-clad bunnies scampered forward to do his bidding. Twan, Tainmi, and especially Acacia bristled at the performance.

The girls disappeared, then reappeared with platters of sushi and carrot juice.

Griffin tried the taste combination and decided he could gag it down. Something beneath the water glistened for a moment, but when he turned his head, it vanished.

Twan leaned toward Biff. "You're only two levels above the Mayombreros," she said pointedly. "How can you be so…"

"Laid back?" He laughed heartily. "This is Nommo country. Everybody's pretty mellow here."

Something that looked like a meter-tall mollusk cruised up to Alex, serving drinks from a nipple on its side. Griffin sampled it. Delicious and martini-like. Did it eat grain and sugar, ferment them in a second stomach, and then regurgitate alcohol?

Acacia tasted her California roll gingerly, then bit in. "We'd like to see the Nommo. Would you call them for us?"

"No can do," Biff answered regretfully. "The Nommo don't like coming out all that much. Maybe if you wait around for a day or two…"

"No can do."

"Well, then I guess you better go in after them. I hope you can swim."

Twan punched Bishop's arm lightly. "You know, right about now I'm glad we brought you."

Seated, Bishop managed to bow gallantly.

Alphonse, still seething with anger, noted the booty bags that Bishop and others had brought to the tables. A gleaming regulator poked out of the top.

Scuba gear.

The first self-contained underwater breathing apparatuses had, of course, used compressed air. The development of cheap nuclear batteries had made those obsolete: a rebreather driven by a really powerful pump could last for twenty hours on a charge, far beyond the capacity of air bottles.

At first he wondered if these would be the classic, older devices, lost in MIMIC since 1995…

Biff had the same question. He examined one of the rebreathers and raised an ironic eyebrow. "Not what I expected," he said. "I was going to tell you about some scuba gear guarded by a local fire demon."

"Not interested." Bishop grinned.

"Can't say I blame you."

Bishop checked over the apparatus. "We've got three sets of gear here."

Major Clavell, who had been miserable, took an interest again. "Does the word anachronism mean anything to you?"

Bishop beamed. "Not a thing. Working fine," he announced. "Who's coming?"

Twan inspected the gear, hesitantly at first, then with a growing excitement. "I want in," she said.

Bishop nodded. "And we need a guide. Coral having departed this vale of tears, I believe that Bobo is our only choice."

Griffin smiled coldly and began to strip.

The poolside surfers gathered around to watch them, with the sounds of old Beach Boys and a little Jan and Dean still playing over the loudspeakers.

They were down to underwear, with the exception of Twan, who had borrowed a swimsuit. Her body was petite but taut, a swimmer's body, in fact the body of a swimmer who might have done weights and running merely to keep in shape for more swimming.

The rebreather gear looked slightly oversized on her. Of course, on Mary-em it would have been absurd.

Alex slipped himself into harness, balanced the gear in place, and checked to make sure that everything was operating smoothly. Acacia handed him a hand lamp, and he splashed its yellow beam across to the far wall.

He noticed that Bishop was treating him with just a hair more respect. Was that the result of the little episode with General Poule? Or was it something else? He took this opportunity to examine Bishop more closely. In the swim trunks he was a very dark black man without an ounce of useless tissue on his body. Probably a high-metabolism type, seething with testosterone. Any level of exercise would make his body bulge with muscle. Perfect coordination. A precise mind driven by a monstrous ego. He probably weighed twenty pounds less than Griffin and was possibly as strong.