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.
35
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.
Beyond the play area blackness loomed.
“It’s some kind of kid’s game. I don’t see a threat,” Scotty called.
Angelique eeled in and rolled left. Then Ali, Wayne, Sharmela, Darla. Maud followed, leaning on Mickey. Wayne was trying to work a “detect danger,” but there weren’t any signals from the Game Master’s control suite. “We’re on our own,” he said, “but there’s power-”
“Look at this,” Ali said. He was on the floor some distance in, playing with a toy cannon a foot long. He triggered something. A light foam projectile flew from the cannon to impact a foot-high toy soldier, which rolled away.
No. Crawled away. In the shadows, Scotty had assumed the soldier shapes were carved wood, or ivory. Now he saw that they were grubs, infant versions of the mooncows, balanced absurdly on their tails and waiting for instruction. Their tiny limbs twitched. Their eyes rolled in endless loops.
“What in the world is this?” Angelique asked.
“At first I thought it was lawn chess, with living pawns and pieces,” Ali replied. “But now I don’t think so. This is part of Wells’ world. It’s from a pair of pamphlets called ‘Little Wars’ and ‘Floor Games.’” He lined up another target. The projectiles were little wooden cylinders; the gun was spring-loaded. There were several scattered about the floor, clustered like opposing artillery. He fired into a rank of frozen grubs and when the soft projectile struck they skittered away in different directions, then regrouped and looked at the gamers, their faceted eyes somehow… hopeful.
Alien children playing toy soldiers.
“‘Floor Games’?” Wayne asked. “What in the world is that?”
“H. G. Wells,” Maud gasped. “Tracts on gaming. Little-known, but legitimate canon.”
Ali rolled over and spoke rapidly. “I’m sorry to admit this may be more of my father’s doing. I have played a version of ‘Little Wars’ on many occasions.” He sighed.
“Regrets later,” Scotty said. “Right now, Daddy’s perfidy might save our butts. Give it up.”
“H. G. Wells invented tabletop war gaming with tin soldiers and spring cannons. He laid out systems of rules that were used for a good century. Blocks to make toy buildings. Coin flips, at first, to win hand to hand conflicts-”
“Ali! Lose the history lesson and tell us how we use this.”
“Well…” The grubs were lined up in three armies, like three different sides of a triangle. While all were the infantile insectoid forms they had seen previously, those directly in front of them were gussied up in little British uniforms. Those across the way were relatively uncostumed, and those to the right, amid toy tripod Martian walkers, had a vaguely Lovecraftian appearance.
The Selenite soldiers carried slender insects with wasplike hindquarters. In place of artillery stood rows of potato bug-looking critters, their butts turned up in the air. Coils of glowing intestines within transparent bodies, they resembled fancy little Christmas tree ornaments. Living energy weapons, perhaps? Surely, in the game Xavier had planned for them, all this would have been explained by now.
How to make it all go? The grubs mewled and crawled in little circles, then returned to their original positions. Awaiting instruction.
Wayne’s eyes lit up. “All right. This is the same biological tech we’ve seen all over the hive. Living chess pieces, and a nice plush chair here. I’m thinking Cavor sat here. ”
“And how did he control the game?”
Wayne shrugged. “Charisma. Language skills. I don’t know. And it doesn’t matter. We have psychics. If this game module is programmed for independent action, I would bet that…” He turned and looked Maud dead in the eye. “We have someone just about perfect for this adventure.”
“M-me?” Maud asked. She struggled not to stutter. “Maybe Mickey-” She grasped at his arm as if holding on for dear life.
Politely but firmly, he peeled her hands away. “I don’t know ‘Little Wars,’ love,” he said. “I think you really are the expert this time.”
“I don’t have time to learn,” she said, eyes gleaming with fear… but something else, too. Eagerness? “We’d have to play it first,” Maud said. “Think there is an instructional program built into this?”