1350 hours
Clusters of mushroom shapes shadowed bubble 60-E. As they watched, lights glowed to life. The air crackled, and suddenly the walls and ceiling seemed to fly back, expand by a factor of three. The bubble expanded into a gigantic cavern, complete with staggered rows of stalagmites, and a hundred varieties of fungus.
Angelique was the first to speak. “Wow,” was all she could manage.
In Heinlein, something new had happened in gaming central as a light popped up on the gaming map.
Wu Lin turned. “Xavier? We have a blip in the fungus farm. Someone has entered.”
He spun heel-toe. “Have we got visual?”
“No. But I’m still trying.”
“Auditory?”
Wu Lin shook her head. “Not yet.”
“But you will continue to try, yes?”
“Yes,” she said.
Scotty walked through the fungus farm slowly, his sense of disoriented wonderment growing with every new step. As he walked, it seemed to spring to life: Little caterpillar critters swarmed at his feet. Miniature mooncalves crawled hither and thither, munching at the fungus and ignoring the humans.
“What the hell?” he said, genuinely confused.
Darla sighed. “More battery backup. The IFGS insisted. Must be on a proximity trigger. It wasn’t alive until we appeared.”
“The world doesn’t exist if we’re not here,” Maud sighed.
“Your solipsism is showing,” Mickey said.
“There you go, spouting your methodological nonsense.”
A mooncalf ran right up to them, squeaked, and ran away again.
“Metaphysical solipsism, not epistemological or method-”
“Oh!” Maud stamped her little foot. “You drive me crazy.”
To Scotty’s surprise, Angelique didn’t just tell Maud to shut the hell up. “What’s the difference?”
“Please,” Maud said. “Don’t get him started.”
“Too late,” Mickey said. “Metaphysical solipsism is a type of idealism. It says that the perceiver is the only real thing… and everyone else is just a part of that self, with no external reality.”
“And in English?” Scotty asked.
“Like she said: Before I turned on the lights, the room wasn’t there.”
“Ah-hah.”
Darla shushed them. “You go on like two chickens fightin’ over half a worm. Squabble later. Help me find the exit hatch.”
“Did they tell you where it is?” Scotty asked.
“I haven’t the slightest clue… but I expect it will make itself known.”
Without warning the air filled with a whirring sound, and an enormous section of ground began to shake. The gamers sprang back, as a mooncow the size of a city bus rose up from the ground, gazing at them with hugely faceted eyes.
There was a mechanism of some kind around its neck, like a gigantic golden pendant. The device clicked and popped at them. Then it made a whining sound, and then a sound that resembled whale song.
“Hello?” Angelique said. “We’re human.”
Scotty frowned. “You’re talking to a machine. Or a hologram, or something.”
She radiated scorn. “It doesn’t know that. Hello?”
“Hello,” the mooncow said in English. “Who are you?”
It paused, and Scotty watched it cock its head as if waiting for outside guidance.
Angelique nudged him. “This is the fail-safe loop. In case of major power or communication outage, there is a small amount of on-site programming to keep things moving forward.”
“Voice recognition?” Sharmela asked.
“Welcome, Earthlings. You are friends of Dr. Cavor?”
Wayne yelped with pleasure. “Yes! We’re friends.”
“That is good. It is good to have friends, and he is a nice human.”
The mooncow emitted a lowing sound, and little calves the size of legless Great Danes wriggled in and out of the mushrooms. The cow’s side fluttered, exposing a row of a thousand teats. Dozens of calves streaked in to suckle.
The mooncow seemed to smile. “Would you care for a snack?”
“Not now, thank you.”
The creature’s mouth seemed to pull down at the edges. Sadness?
“I think you hurt her feelings,” Scotty said.
“Would you like to play a game?” The mooncow asked.
“What kind of game?” Wayne asked.
“Do you like riddles?”
Darla leaned toward Wayne, touching his arm intimately. “Say ‘yes.’ Whatever the next move is, the animatronics will have the information.”
“Yes,” Angelique said before Wayne could even begin to answer. “I love riddles.”
“Oh, good,” the mooncow said. “Professor Cavor taught me riddles. He was a nice man. Are you nice men?”
“Every one of us,” Angelique said.
“That is so good. Because if you are nice, and I am nice, then we can be friends, and perhaps I can help you.”
“We’d like that, too,” Wayne said.
Again, a slight smile. “I’m sure you would. All right.” The voice became slightly sing-song. “What’s round, but not always around? It’s light sometimes is dark sometimes. Everyone wants to walk all over me. What am I?”
Without hesitation, Sharmela snapped out an answer. “The Moon.”
“That’s right,” the cow said. Then cocked her head quizzically. “But… are we really round? How odd. Well, another: The Moon is my father, the sea is my mother; I have a million brothers; I die when I reach land. What am I?” It blinked, then added, “I have to admit that I’ve never seen one of these, but they certainly sound interesting.”
Wayne raised his hand. “Is there a penalty for an incorrect answer?”
“Oh no! In fact there is a reward! You get to stay here with me.”
“I am just so delighted by that prospect. Waves?”
The mooncow reared up and clapped several of its tiny legs together. “Yes, waves! Congratulations.”
“Can you tell us where the door is?” Sharmela asked.
“Soon. Now, listen very closely. It took me a long time to learn this one:
“Down below the shining moon
Around the trees, a sacred gloom
Running with the midnight sky
Knowing the thing that makes you cry
Night is full with my essence
Eternal light betrays my presence
Soaring through my endless task
Shadows are my faithful mask.”
The mooncow paused. “What am I?”
The gamers frowned and hemmed and hawed a bit. Then Angelique said to Mickey, “You’ve got a good ear.”
“Not sure,” he said. “Maud’s been bending it of late.”
“Hush.”
Angelique frowned. “Did you notice anything odd about the inflection?”
Mickey closed his eyes for a moment. “Very careful. As if it was important for us to understand something beyond the words.”
Angelique turned back to their inquisitor. “Would you please repeat what you said… ah, what’s your name?”
“Dr. Cavor called me Maggie.”
“Maggie the Mooncow,” Wayne said. “Of course. Maggie, would you please repeat what you initially said?”
“Of course,” she said, and did so.
“Down below the shining moon
Around the trees, a sacred gloom
Running with the midnight sky
Knowing the thing that makes you cry
Night is full with my essence
Eternal light betrays my presence
Soaring through my endless task
Shadows are my faithful mask.”
Angelique was trembling a little now, like a hunting hound straining at the leash. “Did you hear it?”
“I did,” Scotty said. “The stress on the first syllables.” As he counted off on his fingers, Maud’s eyes widened.
“Darkness!” she said. “The answer is darkness. It’s the first letter of every line.”
A pale holographic ghost of Maggie the Mooncow rose up, and began to dance.
“Dance with me!” Maggie said.
Angelique frowned. “Ah… do we have to?”
“Look at this,” Wayne said. “There’s some kind of an imitation loop running. Reasonable to assume that we have to imitate or respond to these motions, and that it is set up to trigger if we get it right.”
“Like a dance instruction program?” Scotty asked.
Wayne nodded approval. “Just like that.”
The mooncalves began to dance around the mother. The gamers, frustrated, began to dance.
Ali danced, but seemed none too happy about it. “Are we crazy? We are being hunted by assassins.”
“Got a better idea?” Wayne asked.
A little mooncalf in front of Wayne rose up on its hind legs and turned in a circle. When Wayne responded, the larva glowed red.
“I’ve got it!” Wayne howled. “I’ve got it! Imitate the caterpillar until it glows!”
Sharmela first, then the rest of the gamers jumped, twirled, spiraled and capered in response to the little mooncalves. One at a time, the calves glowed red in their innards, until they all looked as if they’d swallowed emergency beacons.
The mommy rose up, her vast faceted eyes facing them.
“You honor my children. Here.” The mooncow rolled over onto her left side, exposing a glistening length of pale flesh stippled with brown nipples.
Scotty stared, and then shrugged. “Ah… are we supposed to do something?”
“Please,” Maggie said.
“I think,” Wayne said, “that we’re being welcomed to supper.”
Angelique groaned. “Oh, jeez. That would make sense.”
They crept up to the side of the mooncow. Its teats glistened. Wayne was the first to put his mouth on one of the nipples, and began to draw.
“Whoa,” Wayne said. “Whoa. Tastes like… beer.”
This announcement triggered a roar of pleasure, and the gamers rushed in. “I have milk here!” Maud said.
“I have… some kind of citrus juice.”
“Beef broth.”
The mooncow’s eyes sparkled, and lights seemed to reflect from them, onto a nearby stand of mushrooms. Maud and Sharmela examined these more carefully.
Sharmela sniffed, and then smiled. “I think we have located lunch!”
“It figures. We don’t have time for a picnic. Tear off chunks, and take them with us.”
They did that, as the mooncow nodded approval. Then that “reflected” eye light focused on a pile of stones twenty yards away. “And when you are finished, my new children, you may exit to the deeper levels here.”
Scotty and Ali ran over, arriving just as the light faded. They overturned the rocks, and revealed a hatch.
“I’m in love with a mooncow,” Wayne said. “Let’s get the hell out of here before I propose.”
“If I’d known you were that easy,” Darla said, “I would have fed you loooong ago.”