—
Moving with a grace that seemed incongruous in so large a craft, the Sirrachat ship flew at mountaintop-height over the lunar surface, seeking the source of the subspace emanations which had attracted his attention. Nestled in the shadows at the base of a short ridge, he found another starcraft, one even larger than the Sirrachat's but of a totally different design. It was showing no lights.
The Sirrachat settled to the surface a few hundred meters away; and as he did so a laser beam flashed out from the other ship. Not an attack, but an invitation to communicate. In a moment they had contact.
"I am called Sirrachat."
"I greet you, Sirrachat," the other replied. "I am Drymnu." "I greet you." The Sirrachat had heard of the Drymnu—a fairly young hive race from this region of space, in only its first millennium of star travel. "Are you in need?"
The Drymnu seemed to hesitate. "First I must ask, are you one?"
The collective intelligence that was the Sirrachat smiled tolerantly. "Certainly. All starfaring races are as you and I. Did you not know?"
"I knew that that is said, but I fear it may not be so for long. I am in great need of your counsel, Sirrachat."
"Speak on."
The Drymnu paused, as if collecting his thoughts. "It is said by all those we have encountered that fragmented races cannot attain the stars. The argument is that the self-destructive competition common to these races will destroy them before they reach the necessary technological level. But I have now been studying the fragmented race on the planet below for twenty-nine of its years, and I see no evidence of imminent destruction. Indeed, it is already taking its first steps into space. Five permanent bases exist on this satellite, an orbiting space colony has been built, and expeditions to the second and fourth planets have been carried out."
"An interesting situation," the Sirrachat agreed. "Most fragmented races never get that far. However, I doubt that there is any cause for alarm."
"But it is a violent race, each member putting his own desires above all else. If it should escape its system it would bring ruin on us all—"
"Please—before you become overly worried," the Sirrachat interrupted. "I don't doubt the race's violent nature, but you are overlooking several basic forces which are likely to exist here. May I have access to your stored information on this race?"
"Certainly," the Drymnu said, already sounding more at ease.
—
Elliot strode through the door of his apartment and tossed his coat at the hook, turning toward the kitchen before it hit and slid to the floor. Another boring and frustrating workday, topped off by his biweekly run-in with Mr. Franklin over the possibilities of Elliot's advancement to Design and Development. Franklin's argument—that with only a B.S. in electrical engineering Elliot couldn't be promoted to D and D—made an unfortunate kind of sense, considering the glut of Ph.D.'s on the market. On the other hand, Elliot knew he could do the job, and spending his days checking other people's schematics for errors was driving him crazy.
For tonight, though, Franklin could go jump. Elliot's troubles vanished like leaves in a hurricane in the face of his excitement. Tonight he had a chance to do something no one else had ever done: to beat Doomheim IV.
By seven o'clock he was ready. Seating himself before the TV screen, the keyboard before him on an ancient typing table, he called up the proper channel. The Deathworld logo appeared on the screen. He typed his "game name"—Orion Nomad—and his secret code word. Then he named his destination: Doomheim IV. Somewhere in North America, the computers that handled the gaming functions of the vast Bell Info/Comm Net pulled the Orion Nomads personal data file from storage and prepared the program that was Doomheim IV. The software that would handle the simulation of Elliot's journey was among the most sophisticated in the free world, and with good reason: the revenues from the multitude of games was the major financial base for the whole Net.
Elliot's screen began filling up with words—the basic information and rules for Doomheim. The planet, he was informed, had an Earth-like atmosphere and a temperate climate. Gravity was one point two gee and a wide variety of flora and fauna were present. A shuttle-bubble would land him at any point ten kilometers or more from the lifter that was his goal. None of this was new—Elliot had read it several times as he watched other gamers try their luck on Doomheim—so he skimmed it quickly and then moved on to choose his equipment. As he did so a line of words began to appear at the bottom of his screen:
Good luck, Orion Nomad. I'll be rooting for you. — The Adrian
Elliot grinned. The Adrian was one of his most loyal fans; only a so-so gamer himself, but an avid spectator of most of the SF games. Elliot had had several long conversations with him via the Net and had been astonished by the lists of players, scores, and standings he could reel off. It was apparently a family tradition; the Adrian's grandfather had done the same thing with football and baseball statistics. Or so he said.
But Elliot had no time for chitchat now. Turning his attention back to the equipment list, he began to type out his selections: medium-thickness body armor with respirator; extra heavy leatherite-steelmesh boots and gauntlets; two thermite torches; one laser armgun—more powerful than a pistol but still a one-handed weapon; three knives—one hunting, two throwing; fifteen grenades—seven blast, six concussion, two fragmentation; binoculars; compass; radio direction finder; and finally, a balloon lifter pack. The latter was a simple backpack with inflatable balloons and two small tanks of compressed helium, plus steering jets. It was lighter and less bulky than a full jet pack and, while not nearly as easy to maneuver with, it also did not attract predators as often. Its main disadvantage was that it was slow, taking up to thirty seconds to inflate completely.
Thoughtfully, Elliot scanned the list. A little light, perhaps. On the other hand, the Orion Nomad was quite fast and agile, and Elliot had often been able to outrun the creatures he would otherwise have had to fight. And several heavily armed, solidly armored adventurers had already gone to their deaths on Doomheim
IV. Elliot would try it this way.
And it was time to go. From here on it was just the Orion Nomad against Doomheim—with maybe a thousand spectators electronically watching over his shoulder. Well, they wouldn't be disappointed; Elliot would make sure of that. Taking a last deep breath, he pressed the "start" key.
The TV screen split into nine sections. Five of them were full-color views of Doomheim's lower atmosphere as the Orion Nomad, descending in the shuttle- bubble, could see it; front view, left, right, above, and beneath, arranged in a convenient plus-shaped pattern. The four corner sections held data that he would normally have on a real planet, but which the TV's sight and sound alone couldn't provide.
As he had expected, nothing he could see was doing him any good. Below his bubble, the landscape was obscured by low-lying stratus clouds, a trick that Thorndyke almost always used on the worlds he created. Elliot took just a moment to confirm there were no breaks in the clouds and then checked his compass and direction finder, displayed on one of the screen sections. The needles were nearly in line; Elliot was coming down almost due south of the lifter. He changed the bubble's course slightly—
LAND BUBBLE R = 10KM, 180 DEG
—so that he would be exactly south of his goal. Now, if anything happened to his direction finder, he could use the compass to find his way.
The bubble passed through the clouds, and for a brief minute Elliot could see the surface of Doomheim. Between himself and the lifter he could see bluish plains, at least one range of rocky-looking hills, and a patch of darker blue that he tentatively labeled a lake. And then he was down, a few hundred meters south of the hills, in a vast plain.