November 13, 2085
Considering everything that happened, and what the events of the Moon Maze Game came to symbolize, it is surprising that more lies aren’t told about how and when it all began.
In one sense, it all began on November 12, 2085, when the first load of gamers and tourists appeared at Heinlein pad number 8, on the shuttle from Lagrange Two.
The popular lie would be that it arrived with no fanfare, that nonessential tasks from Clavius to Mount Bullwinkle had not ground to a halt as Lunatics paused to watch the shuttle sink into a bloom of moondust.
The lie would be that the gamers and Non-Player Characters were not completely awed by their reception, reduced to appreciative murmurs even after transit in the shuttle. And chiefest among those attempting to remain nonchalant was Wayne Gibson.
Gibson had been unable to sleep at all for the last thirty-six hours, even knowing how desperately valuable dream time would be over the coming days.
He should have cocooned himself in his cabin. He should have wired himself into a d-web and let the ship computer coax him down into healing slumber. But then he couldn’t have watched the screens and haunted the shuttle’s narrow corridors and annoyed the pilots.
If he’d slept, he couldn’t have hung out with the other gamers and NPCs in the undersized lounge-and protocol be damned! There would be plenty of time to play prima donna once they touched down.
And what a group they were! The midsized Spider-class shuttle was snug, but up at the L2 point, they’d had a little time to just party and relax together.
As soon as the juddering had stopped, the captain’s voice sounded over the ship intercom, and his face appeared floating in the air above their webbed cots.
“And that little pull you’re feeling is all the gravity we’ve got in this neck of the woods. I want to welcome you all to Luna, Heinlein base, named for the twentieth-century science fiction author. If this is your final destination, I invite you to pick up your luggage at the immigration station. Hey! That kinda rhymes.”
Wayne grinned to himself, wondering how many times the captain had retreaded that lame little joke. It didn’t matter. All he wanted was a chance to get up and actually put his feet on… well, if not lunar soil, at least lunar concrete.
“And if you’re continuing on to one of the other bases… well, you still need to go through immigration. Your luggage will be examined separately, and taken to your transportation, whatever that may be. Welcome to Luna!”
The Fasten Your Web sign dimmed. All over the shuttle air seals audibly popped. The walls vibrated with cheers, his own louder than most.
You’re on the friggin’ Moon! The voice in his head boomed, still amazed.
Even after the invitation, after grueling weeks of training, after liftoff from Earth in the orbiter craft and the intervening stay at the L2 Hilton… some part of him still couldn’t believe it, had been holding his emotions in check.
You’re on the Moon.
He was almost afraid to stand up, so powerful was the unexpected wave of emotion. Why? Why did he feel so gut-slammed by all of this?
Angelique Chan, his beautiful room-if-not-bunkmate peered down over the edge of the upper berth and grinned at him. “Because you’ve looked at it all your life, silly.”
“How do you do that?” he asked, shaking his head.
Her smile became even more mysterious. Even upside down, her lustrous hair had taken its own sweet time descending to fringe her face. “Trade secrets. I tell you, and you tell two friends, and pretty soon no one needs me anymore.”
She performed a flipping roll-over only a Cirque du Soleil contortionist could ever have managed on Earth. She landed bouncing on her heels, taking a moment to catch her balance.
“Whoa!” She crouched, settled and then spun to face him. “Are we ready for this?”
“We’ve come an awful long way if we’re not,” he said.
“No… you don’t understand. You really don’t.”
“Then teach me,” he said.
“Everything until this moment? Just preparation.” She came near enough that he could feel her breath on his face, and smell its sweetness. “Everything we say, everything we do is about to be judged. Everyone is watching for advantage. The training is over-”
“But the game doesn’t start until tomorrow-”
“No!” she said fiercely, and grabbed his shoulders. “The game starts now, do you understand? Everything you see and hear that comes from another gamer, or a bribed NPC-”
“What?”
She scrunched up her face. “You’ve got to be kidding me. An NPC who takes a ‘suggestion’ from an associate of this gamer or that Game Master might be fined, or blackballed, but the game’s still lost. There is only one first lunar game, and I wouldn’t put anything past any of them.”
“You brought me here to distract the Man,” he said. “But you’re going to take my advice, too. I’ve come too far to shut my mouth.”
Her jaw worked, then tightened. She was listening.
“Too much emotion. Too much old history. Xavier will want to know that he beat us clean. Above board. I’d bet my socks on it.”
They’d had this conversation before. And until or unless there was definite evidence either way, they’d have it again. “Maybe,” she finally conceded. “Perhaps. We’ll see.”
During the last sleep cycle, a bundled parcel had been left before every door. Wayne unwrapped his. A tall black hat, with a golden cluster and feathered top. A red cloak with two vertical rows of silver buttons, gold chevrons and tasseled shoulders. An officer’s uniform. British, he reckoned.
It took him only three minutes to strip off his clothes and fit into the new garb, which was, despite its appearance, of some light and stretchy material that conformed to his body like spray paint.
Angelique had stripped her package open as well, but her costume was a well-tailored tan explorer’s costume, like something some proper Englishman might have worn on an expedition up the Congo. He doubted Dr. Livingstone had ever looked so edible. The fabric accentuated her form without exaggerating it.
She slipped on her pith helmet and gave it a jaunty slant. “What in the world is that little bastard up to?” she wondered, but he heard the excitement in her voice, in a way he had not in years. Just like the old days.
Hell. Win, lose or draw, this was going to be fun.
It only took Angelique and Wayne a combined total of twelve minutes to pack up their cabin possessions and stuff them into the scan-bags for pickup. Clothing was bundled to be scanned, and everyone wore similarly lightweight pseudo-period clothing. Most seemed British, or referenced some part of the British Empire. India. China. And… Africa? The sun never set, so they said.
When the next bell rang and their room door opened, Wayne and Angelique joined a line of thirty passengers in the hall outside.
Wayne fought excitement and a newly blossoming sense of claustrophobia. He’d bottled it up just fine for the past week, but now, so close to disembarking…
The explosion of relief and anticipation was almost overwhelming.
Angelique’s bound club of lustrous dark hair bounced and settled beneath her helmet’s rim with every step.
He became aware that the man behind him was chanting “The Moon, the Moon, the Moon…” in little breathless exhalations.
Wayne looked back. The guy’s name was Roger something. An NPC, he thought, wearing a white sailor uniform that would have seemed in place on a British frigate.
Roger stood about four inches shorter than Wayne, and had the kind of loose skin around his neck that suggested recent weight loss. The guy was bright-eyed and carrot-topped, radiated “gaming” from every pore. He sighed in exasperated joy as they locked eyes.
“Can you believe this? Everything automated and slick for the last two weeks, but the last two minutes just goes all to hell.”
“Way of the world, old boy.” Wayne grinned at himself. Unbidden, a creaky British accent had crept into his voice.
British Empire. Nineteenth century. Pay attention to the clues.
To his credit, Roger adjusted almost as quickly. “Never better,” he said.
The corridor was lined with costumed well-wishers. Some played their roles impeccably, but others seemed vaguely uncomfortable. He suspected this last group had little gaming experience. They’d be Lunies recruited as extras, playing their parts as best they could for unseen cameras.
Angelique was keeping her smile bright, but she whispered out of the side of her mouth. “Damn. I’d hoped we’d have a little time before the”-a swift shift in tones as a brightly lipsticked woman of middle years materialized-“Junie Bug! How are you?”
The two women exchanged bobble-headed air kisses. Even Wayne recognized June Simmons, the publisher and head reporter for the Web’s largest gaming zine, Fan-Tasm. So Earth was sending up the A-team, not just leaving it to the local stringers to file workable stories.
Oddly, that thought pepped Wayne up. He found himself strutting through the doorway into the main hall, where they were hustled into elevators as guides chattered greeting.
A woman who looked as if she might have been Samoan, with beautiful strong curves and a good smile, greeted them in the foyer. “My name is Kendra Griffin, Chief of Operations of Heinlein base,” she said. “It is my honor to welcome you to our home.” She wore a lovely lace-frilled gown that reminded him of a water lily. It offset her golden skin beautifully, and would have been right in place on the lady accompanying a British officer to a regimental ball. “You are on the surface level, only one of seven floors, each disk-shaped and sunk into the lunar regolith to a total depth of four hundred feet. We’re going down to the third level. Your gear is going down to level five, and you’ll rejoin it later. Right now, we want to invite you to look at the chart right here-”
As they proceeded down the corridor, wisps of chamber music rose up to meet them.
The folks lining the hall seemed more… comfortable in their roles, and he suspected that more of these were genuine actors, Non-Player Characters, a few of them even imported up from Earth itself for the event.
Mickey and Maud Abernathy wore vaguely Middle Eastern garb. Did the British Empire have holdings in the Arabian peninsula in the nineteenth century? Their Aladdin-esque pantaloons and flaring blouses certainly suggested as much.
“Excuse me,” he asked. “I’m not certain we’ve been introduced.”
Mickey smiled graciously. “The Abernathys,” she said. “We’ve just returned from a research expedition in Egypt, uncovering the lost temple of Solomon.”
Ah. Backstory right there. So, Xavier was letting them keep their names, but changing their histories. The Abernathys were an academic couple from Brighton (Mickey taught history, and Maud was a published fantasy novelist) who usually played as paired psychic sensitives. Saying they were recently returned from Egypt on a dig suggested that their IFGS points would manifest as a combination of human psi-ability and Oriental mysticism.
Marching at Wayne’s side was a plump woman in… what was that? The female version of a nineteenth-century British Raj military uniform? The actual insignias had been removed, but the style was right. He guessed a female soldier of fortune. The woman’s name was Sharmela Tamil, a Gold Ticket winner from Sri Lanka. Not an IFGS kingpin, but a loyal fan who had dropped her hundred bucks-or the local equivilent-in the lottery.
They entered a bank of elevators (oops! lifts) in which he was polite enough not to notice the anachronisms. There was a limit to what the IFGS could modify on the moon without infringing upon safety or utility.
The door slid shut. The elevator fell with a recorded rattle.
The most interesting personage packed in the little room with him traveled not on her feet, but in a capsule with twin five-inch treads. This would be Asako Tabata, the TechWitch herself, the girl who was probably the best pure gamer in the world. Five years ago she would have dominated the entire proceedings. In the intervening time, muscular dystrophy had finally caught up with Asako. It was a miracle she was there at all.
She couldn’t walk. Most certainly she could no longer climb, and that was a real pity, because Asako had been one of the IFGS’ finest wall crawlers. But by fan request and special dispensation, she was attending the first lunar game as an actual player, not merely an NPC. He wondered at the negotiations for that, and guessed that many of them had been commercial in nature. But how in the world did they justify such technology in a nineteenth-century game?
Time to find out.
“Excuse me,” he asked. “Do I know you?”
Her answering voice was partially synthesized, but you would have to listen very carefully to detect it. She played behind the shield of her isolation bubble. No longer able to breathe without mechanical assistance, she had invested over a million dollars of her lifetime winnings into the damnedest gaming costume imaginable. It was her life support unit, but the gleaming silver and gold capsule had both arms and wheels.
“Asako Tabata,” the speaker said. Behind her shield, she smiled as her lips moved. He had never met her, but had seen her in interviews and gaming vids, and the computer voice matched her own very closely. “Step-niece to the esteemed Prince Dakkar Nemo,” she said. “He himself fashioned my capsule, that I might join him exploring beneath the waves, despite my physical infirmities.”
Captain Nemo. Of course. A man of sufficient genius to develop an electrical submarine by the time of America’s civil war. Who could doubt that, if he had survived, he might not create something along the line of Asako’s life-support bubble? In all likelihood, she had only been given a bare outline. It would be her job to improvise in the days ahead, creating all the backstory she wished.
Asako was in her late fifties now, her face sharp-edged and pale. The wrinkles of time and woe had stolen much of her appealing waifishness, but when she smiled, he felt an almost absurd urge to bow.
And did so. “M’lady Tabata,” he said.
She couldn’t raise a hand-the disease had progressed too far for that. With a barely audible hum, the machine nodded her head for her. As the lecture progressed he scanned her treaded cocoon.
“You may not know me, but I know you,” she said.
“Do you?”
“Yes.” Her lips moved, but her voice sounded a bit augmented. “You are Lieutenant Wayne Gibson.” A pause for breath. “They say that in India, you saved an entire regiment during the late unpleasantness.”
She was feeding him. Late unpleasantness. He wondered what that referred to? So… he was British, and a war hero? “People exaggerate,” he murmured.
The elevator doors opened, and his claustrophobia vanished in a single sigh.
The room yawned, surely the most cavernous on the Moon. Its domed ceiling stretched high above them.
The walls were draped with gigantic red-white-and-blue Union Jack starbursts. A standing-room only crowd burst into applause as they entered. If he’d been nonplussed by the NPC-lined halls up top, what happened next was an absolute assault.
A banner stretching from one side of the room to another read: The Adventurer’s Club Welcomes Our Daring Crew!
Only then did Wayne look down. The floor was composed of some transparent material, plastic or glass or something else, set over a swimming pool or reservoir. The water was clear enough to see golden coral growing thirty feet beneath them… and even as he watched, a squadron of merfolk swam into view, a wedge of bronzed skin, emerald flippers and for the females, discretely positioned chest shells. He estimated about fifteen of them, but it was difficult to be certain because other guests obscured his view. The pyramid of swimmers fractured into smaller groups, then pairs. They scooted and somersaulted through the water, then reformed into a wedge and swam out of view.
All but one. One mermaid remained behind, a pug nose with blazing red hair and a fleshy, muscular body. Fit/Fat again. Looked good on her. She gazed up at him, and winked one emerald eye. Bubbles gushed from her lips as she mouthed the word: Later.
She swam away.
“Quite amazing,” a rotund fellow in Beefeater garb said. His handlebar mustache was slightly askew. “I believe Professor Challenger brought them back from Fiji.”
The room was filled with bejeweled and gowned celebrants, perhaps two hundred of them in a room that had probably never held more than a hundred and fifty. They displayed an array of costumes that must have occupied every amateur or freelance seamstress and tailor on the Moon for months. What a show!
“Hallo.” A tall, broad man in another red Beefeater uniform approached. His British accent was phony-thick, but dammit, at least he was trying. He looked like a fleshy John Wayne, with a receding hairline and strong laugh lines. The Duke approached with his hand extended, and Wayne automatically reached out in return. The very vaguest of recollections danced at the edge of memory.
“Good seeing you, sir!” the guy said. “Name’s Chris Foxworthy. Met you two years ago in the desert.” Ah. Vegas?
“Had a good run with you there, and actually took honors.” So… he might have come through the low-level game there, and won a few points.
“Good man,” Wayne said. He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I came when called, of course. But it was all so hush-hush. Do you know what the boffins are up to? They certainly have enough to work with, after… well, you know. The unpleasantness.”
Foxworthy wagged his head solemnly. “Sorry old boy. Not for me to say.”
A string quartet seated in the room’s corner began a Straus waltz and four pairs of NPCs danced with clockwork precision.
This was all just lovely. Clearly, they were already on camera. Performing a waltz in one-sixth gravity while pretending to be under Earth Normal was quite a trick. Not all of them succeeded, despite obvious practice. Sharmela Tamil had grabbed a female partner and joined the fun, but a too-enthusiastic spin launched them both into the air, to drift like autumn leaves. They looked just wonderful, as if they were floating.
He was certain that the broadcast and the inevitable edited video streams would be great hits.
An oddness presented itself: In the last five years he’d grown accustomed to the pop his knee made when he stood. Here, it didn’t. Less weight stress perhaps? He damned near pushed himself off the floor when he straightened, and noted that several of the others had the same tendency to bounce up when they moved.
“Have you met everyone?” Wayne asked, and steered Foxworthy over to Mickey and Maud Abernathy. Like Asako Tabata they were fiftyish now, and the last time he’d seen them before today had been in their Pushmi-Pullyu costume at a Dream Park New Year’s soiree. There was something different about them now, more than just the Middle Eastern costuming, and he couldn’t put his finger on it.
“Mickey? Maud?” Mickey raised a haughty eyebrow. Right. Too much informality for nineteenth-century Britain. “Pardon. Mr. and Mrs. Abernathy? I would like to present Mr. Christopher Foxworthy-”
“Pleased to meet you,” Maud said.
“Charmed,” Mickey said. His accent was Cambridge layered over Cockney. Wayne suspected he’d been a scholarship kid. Maud, on the other hand, seemed veddy upper class.
“I suspect we’ll be seeing more of each other in the future,” Foxworthy said. In other words, despite his present costume, the guy was almost certainly an NPC who would be making their lives miserable in the coming days.
As they started their chitchat, he looked around the room, wondering where Angelique had gone. He became aware of a disturbance on the other side of the room, people cheering. He saw two tall, superbly vital women, one Asian, one quite Nordic. And a full foot shorter, but walking as if he were riding an elephant, a tiny man with a gleaming, shaven scalp.
Oh, God, he thought. Here it comes.
Like a miniature icebreaker carving its way through a glacier field, Xavier plowed toward the middle of the room. He nodded here, shook a hand there, as he stopped to hear a joke, question or compliment, laughing politely in turn. His every word or nod of a shaven head an act of noblesse oblige.
Then his forward progress stopped, and he mounted a small stage at the back of the room. “Your attention please!” he called, voice booming from hidden speakers. Instantly, all conversation ceased.
“I, Lord Xavier, am honored to welcome you to the Adventurer’s Club.” A hot current rippled through the room. Whatever he said next would shape the next seventy-two hours of their lives.
“Many of you have no doubt read the sensational newspaper accounts of the disappearance of Professor Cavor, and his adventures upon the Moon. Perhaps you have even read the fictionalized accounts of this fantastic journey as written by Herbert George Wells, which ended in a disrupted radio call, with no further communications to come. We all believed that this was the end of this great man. Then just two months ago our dear American friend Nicola Tesla received an almost unbelievable radio message. Cavor was alive, and after years in captivity, had somehow created a radio powerful enough to send a signal to Earth. He not only gave us details of his captivity, but sent the formula for the amazing Cavorite, which allowed him to break gravity’s shackles and fly to the Moon. The Queen’s top scientists have been able to re-create his invention, and with it build a device capable of taking ten stout souls on a mission of rescue.
“I warn you: Not all are expected to survive. You have accepted our commission without fanfare or promise of reward… except for that of serving our gracious Queen, and the ability to proclaim, now and for all time, that they are the very best and bravest. That, and the right to plant the Union Jack on the Moon itself. Who is with me?”
A moment of stunned silence, as Wayne’s mind whirled. They were on the Moon, pretending to be on the Earth, about to travel to the Moon. But not the real Moon, but the fantasy Moon envisioned by H. G. Wells.
The sheer poetic madness of it all fairly took his breath away.
That sentiment seemed shared, because there was a long, incredulous pause, then Angelique stepped forward, fetching in her tan jungle explorer regalia.
“I, Angelique Chan, accept your commission. My compatriots have come from the four corners of the Empire not merely to rescue the great Professor Cavor, but to claim the Moon itself for our beloved Queen.”
Choruses of “Hear, Hear!” arose from around the room, and Xavier nodded in satisfaction, his shaven head shining.
“Then I ask only that you enjoy the hospitality of the Adventurer’s Club, that you may carry our respect and admiration with you across the cold stellar void. That you enjoy libations aplenty, that they may stimulate your courage, that you not quail regardless of the challenge ahead. That you live this night, and every day from now on, as if it is not your last, but your very first.”
As the room exploded with applause, Xavier hopped down from the stage.
Xavier passed through the crowd, flanked by his Valkyries, smiling and nodding and shaking hands as he went.
Then his forward progress stopped, and he was talking to… Angelique. He nodded politely, then turned and looked directly at Wayne. And headed his way, the crowd parting before him, Angelique close behind. As they approached, Wayne could almost hear dramatic showdown music blaring, maybe some of that classic Ennio Morricone wail from The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Many of the crowd had the threadlike flexcams woven into their costumes. These images all flowed into a central bank and synchronized so that distant viewers would ultimately be able to swoop, dart and hover like hummingbirds through a virtual party.
This was the beginning of the game, and Xavier knew it. The munchkin had been here for a week. If there were any psychological or physical adjustments needed by lunar tourists, Wayne and his companions would be right in the middle of those changes, while Xavier had already adapted.
“Well played,” Wayne said as Xavier reached him, and they shook hands. My, my, aren’t we all polite when the cameras are on?
“To what exactly are you referring, Sir Wayne?”
Oh? He was a knight now? Damn, this was more fun all the time!
“Well, if I’m not mistaken, our day begins in just over ten hours. Should we really partake of libation until the early hours?” Wayne winced at his faux Britishisms.
“The journey is long, Sir Wayne. You will have time to recover, I promise you.”
Wayne could see it in Xavier’s icy blue eyes. His first guess had been correct: Xavier hadn’t forgotten or forgiven, but he wasn’t going to cheat. When he crushed Angelique, it would be completely aboveboard, leaving her no grounds for appeal.
Xavier smiled. “You look well. The desert air must agree with you.”
There it was, the poisoned needle hidden in the haystack, a coded reference to his current status in Vegas. Couldn’t let it alone, could you? “I take the billet assigned,” he said. “For Queen and country.”
For a moment, the tension between the three of them dropped, and they just looked at the disk-shaped room, the hundreds of fans dressed as nineteenth-century Englishmen and — women. This was it, the greatest entertainment event in human history. Perhaps, just perhaps, that was enough to temper the antagonism.
A waiter passed, carrying a tray of brandy snifters filled with champagne. Angelique plucked one from the tray, and they did the same. She raised her glass. “To a fine adventure.”
Xavier raised his glass. “To old friends, old memories, and a fine adventure,” he said. Then Xavier and his coterie glided away.
“Not… quite what I would have expected from Lord Xavier,” Angelique said thoughtfully. “One wonders if he has fully revealed his intent.”
Well, it was probably safer to be too cautious than too trusting.
“Ah well. If we knew everything, would it really be as much of an adventure, Sir Wayne?”
“Nicely observed, Lady Angelique,” he said, and they raised their glasses in toast.
Kendra had seen Scotty at the other side of the room, and knew that he would make his way over to see her in his own time. Every broken marriage is broken in its own way.
In the meantime, she watched the crowd. The gamers, the tourists, the Heinlein staff and those who had come in from around Luna and the L2 to be a part of this… everyone who had been given costumes and instructions on playing their parts.
Her heart was starting to trip-hammer. She’d wondered how she would feel, seeing Scotty again after three years. Now she knew.
“Well, Ms. Griffin, don’t start counting your chickens before they cross the road.”
She turned to look up at Toby McCauley, well over six feet of broad shoulders and narrow hips, dashing in his vermilion tailcoat with double vertical rows of silver buttons. His gut had spread a bit, but the Fabrication shop steward she’d dated for a month three years ago was still imposing, a fact he was putting to good use in his campaign against her. He was quite good at smiling while he slipped the knife in, and was perfectly aware that he was responsible for the nickname “Sheila Monster.” Unfortunately, the moniker had stuck. And the “Ms. Griffin” part. She’d kept the name because it was easier for people to pronounce than Tuinukuafe had ever been. And she still liked the way it sounded. The way it felt to say it.
“I’ll find other entertainment, then,” she said.
He grinned at her lazily, and she wondered what odd and perhaps embarrassing memories he was hauling out of mental storage. Dammit, she didn’t know why she reacted that way, but she didn’t like it.
“Well,” when McCauley was making a point, and wanted to seem all folksy, his Outback accent tended to rise to the top. You’d hardly know he’d taught engineering at Monash University, before winning his berth at New Melbourne. “Are we having fun yet?” He smiled, but she detected a certain tautness there.
“Isn’t fun a good thing?”
“Everyone has a lot at stake here. Especially you.”
“You, too.”
“I know. This whole game thing… could make us look silly, you know. It better run as smooth as glass.”
His eyes flickered away from her for a moment. That was interesting. She’d played poker with Toby, and seen that twitch and glance when he didn’t like the cards he’d been dealt. Maybe he wasn’t quite as confident about election as he wanted her to believe.
Or maybe something else. Jealous that Scotty was coming, perhaps? His smile brightened, and the odd expression was gone. “I just don’t want us looking like clowns, love. I’m not the only one worried about this gaming rubbish. And worries equal votes.”
Three weeks until the election, and there was little doubt that Mac’s polling was pulling even with her own. She still had a margin… but he’d cut it in half in the last week. But the Moon Maze Game could work in her favor.
“Hope you haven’t made a blue, love,” he whispered, circling behind her like a shark nosing an unguarded limb. Made a mistake. Aussie slang. “Then there’s always hubby dear.”
“What about my Scotty?” she said, already knowing the answer.
“Here comes drongo ex as we speak,” Mac said, and smiling politely, wove his way away. Modern Australian slang didn’t quite mesh with nineteenth-century Britain, but she doubted their conversation would make any of the game-vids. There were limits to the amount of fantasy she was willing to tolerate.
Counting to ten controlled her temper, forced a smile back to her face as Scotty and his partner arrived at her table.
Kendra stood for a chaste hug, and a small, dry kiss. “You look good, Scotty.”
“Back at you.” His hug was warm but unpresumptuous, his arms as strong as a flyer’s. He said, “Kendra. I would like to present my friend Ali. Ali, my ex-wife, Kendra Tuinukuafe.”
“I usually use Griffin,” she said, smiling her warmest welcome. She shook hands with the little man.
His palms were moist and warm, but pleasant. Ali was quite dark, and lithe in a wispy way. He wore golden pantaloons and a buccaneer shirt that felt more Arabian Nights than nineteenth-century sub-Saharan, but he seemed entirely unconcerned. Ali bowed deeply. “As-Salamu Alaykum”
“Alaykum As-Salaam,” s he replied.
“Even in my far and humble land, I have heard of Kendra Griffin,” he said. “I believe you keep an eye on some of my father’s treasures.”
“I do my level best,” she said. “But be not so humble. Your name has traveled far, as well.” She refrained from speaking further details aloud: Doubtless many in the room already knew of Ali, but she had no intention of broadcasting his identity to anyone who hadn’t made the connection. Privacy is a precious commodity. A prince masquerading as a prince was a delicious conceit.
Ali surveyed a knot of gamers congregating around a glittering, meticulously detailed ice sculpture of Buckingham Palace. “I think I’ll join my new friends,” he said. Then to Scotty: “You can see me from here, yes?” The sarcasm was unmistakable.
Scotty pretended not to notice. “Sure. Go ahead.”
Kendra sipped at her drink for a few moments, and then sighed. “I won’t lie. I wondered how it would feel to see you.”
“And?”
“Feels good. But a tad worrisome.”
“What’s to worry?”
She took a long sip. “You remember McCauley?”
“Think so. Big Figjam? Heard you dated for a while.” “Figjam” was an Aussie acronym: Fuck, I’m Good. Just Ask Me.
Kendra chuckled, but wondered who’d had the big mouth. “That’s the one. Well, he’s the face on the anti-Independence movement.”
“How serious is that? I have to admit I’ve been all gaming and training, the last few months.”
“Very serious, Scotty. Luna needs a seat at the table. We’re the ones who’ve made the change.”
“What change is that?”
The string quartet had begun playing again, very stately. Out on the dance floor, a pale balding gentleman in top hat and tails was leading a dozen couples through a graceful series of twirls.
She paused. “Back at the end of the twentieth century, there was a guy named Frank White who wrote about something called the ‘Overview Effect.’ Hear of it?”
“Sort of a long view on Earth because you’re seeing it from space?”
Kendra nodded enthusiastically. “High marks. Look. On Earth, you can actually see only fifty miles or so, up to the curve of the horizon. Psychologically, it’s very easy for corporations, churches or governments to convince you that your little corner of the world is the best place, the only ‘real’ place, and that people off somewhere else are somehow less… human.”
“Wars work that way.”
“And pollution, and economic exploitation, and land grabs. The human race suffered through that for a long time.”
“So? What’s wrong now?”
“Complacency. Earth was headed for trouble-energy and raw materials-before we caught the Second Wave back in 2020.” Efficient fusion, and just in time, too. “And I think that people don’t realize the degree to which every move, every dollar invested, every orchestration of every resource is still guided by our old way of looking at the world. But up here… looking at the Earth, it’s hard not to think of it as an egg, fragile, but destined to give birth to something… else. Something better.”
“Better than Homo sapiens?”
“ Homo interstellar, perhaps.” She winced. Even to her own ears, she sounded a bit evangelical. “I know, I know. But whether I’m right about that or not, it serves Earth just fine for her colonies to stay colonies. To remain children, in effect. But what would have happened to Europe if America had never grown beyond a patchwork of colonies? The United States generated an entirely new vision of human potential, and changed the world. I think that Luna, and the L5s, and the Belt can do the same for Earth, but we have to speak with one voice.”
“Hear, hear,” Scotty said, and raised his glass.
“But things aren’t that simple.”
“They never are.”
“McCauley is backed by a half-dozen concerns-including Cowles Industries, as if you didn’t know. The tendency has been to keep all of the negotiations case-by-case, rather than leveraging everything into a single package. If we stand together, we can change the world. The solar system.” She leaned forward. “The galaxy.”
Scotty felt his right eyebrow tense. “The galaxy? Ain’t that a little grandiose?”
“You’ve read the SETI reports. We still have zero real evidence of nonhuman intelligent life anywhere in the universe. A few amino acids here and there, and something that might have been some kind of fungoid fossil. What if we’re all there is? What if it’s our job to take this green plague and spread it across the stars?”
“The Green Plague.” He laughed, but under the mirth was a touch of unease. “Most people mellow with age. You sound more like a true believer now than when I met you.”
She laughed, and then laid her warm hand on his. Love had never been the problem between them. There had been hurt, but not betrayal or accusation in their parting. “Scotty, the timing of your return either couldn’t have been better, or couldn’t have been worse. I’m really not sure which.” She laughed. “When Mac attacks me, I can deal with it. But these are highly independent, alpha-plus psychological types we’re dealing with. They’d have to be to survive up here. I’m asking them to pull together in ways many of them fled Earth to escape. And their self-image is pure testosterone, believe me. Figjam to say the least.”
“I remember.”
“Then remember how you left.”
He didn’t want to. Once upon a time, the fear and pain had lashed him on a daily basis. To this day he could not simply lie on his back and peer up at the stars as might any schoolboy. They threatened to suck him up into the blackness. And then he knew why Kendra’s eyes were both narrow and moist.
“They’re saying I’m a coward,” he said. “They’re using my accident against you.”
She nodded without speaking. He sighed. “And what do you think, Kendra?”
“I know how you make a living,” she said. “I know you put your life on the line every day that you work.”
He nodded. “But then, that’s not exactly what we’re talking about, is it?”
Her face didn’t move, but he saw reflected in her eyes all the answer he needed. There was a particular variety of nerve necessary to make it up here. And Kendra’s ex-husband, whose name she still carried, didn’t have it. And if the husband lacks courage, what of the wife? Why else would she want to bind us into some singular group, of one will and one word… “Freedom” from people a quarter-million miles distant means tyranny here at home.
Then again, the argument could have been made the other way: Does Kendra secretly want us to keep our apron strings? Does her husband’s cowardice infect her? Will she sell us out to Earth, once we give her power…?
McCauley could attack her two ways with a single premise.
“God.” He squinted, hard. “I hate politics.”
“Me, too,” she said. “But its all we’ve got. Listen, love. Play your game. There will be time for personal talk later. Right now, I’m just glad to see you.”
And it was to her credit, and the strength of the relationship they’d always had, that he actually believed her.
“I should win,” he decided.
“That would be good,” she said. Then grinned wickedly. “I’ll make it worth your while.”