1623 hours
The very first thing Scotty noticed was the moist, cool air against his cheeks. He realized that he had missed that over the last hours: The atmosphere throughout most of the dome and its bubbles had been fairly dry. This was different, and his pulse raced: There was open water nearby, perhaps within a few hundred meters. As Maud brought up the rear Scotty closed the door behind him, glaring at its insufficient lock. The inner side had been retrofitted with a turn-wheel that might have seemed at home on Captain Nemo’s submarine. That, he thought, must have amused the engineers tremendously.
He twisted it back and forth, testing the mechanical works. Yes: The wheel was fully operative. Turning it engaged both bolts and bars. Fantastic, but he wanted more. He looked around for something to brace it with. The door opened onto a grilled metal pathway suspended across a suspiciously vast cavern. Most of the cavern was the sort of fused-wall lava bubble he’d seen and explored so often during his lunar tenure. But a hundred meters farther out the smooth surfaces were disrupted with jagged cone-shaped stalactites and stalagmites. More Dream Park magic, no doubt.
Discarded bits of equipment and material were strewn about. This chamber was meant to be some kind of a workshop. Scotty clawed through the conveniently tumbled debris until his fingers curled around a slender steel bar. He slid the bar into the wheel and tried to bend it. Failed.
Wayne, Angelique and Mickey stepped up to help. Angelique wrapped some of her shirt’s beige fabric around her slender fingers to protect them. The others just grabbed and began to heave. With a slow groan, the bar bent until it was jammed in the spokes. When he tried to revolve the wheel, the bar thumped against part of the rock wall. And there it stuck.
Scotty rubbed his hands together, immensely satisfied. “Great.” He turned to Mickey. “Find something heavy to prop against the door. In fact, just pile up everything you can drag. Should slow the pirates down.”
Maud looked skeptical. “They’ll just blow it open.”
Scotty’s answering laugh was ugly. “Considering their recent experience with vacuum, I’m hoping they might be a bit more… mindful.”
Leaving Mickey to work on the door, Wayne and Angelique led the gamers across a narrow steel bridge through a labyrinth of unweathered rock, into a glittering cavern. The walls curled away into mist. A low fog hugged the ground and wreathed the walls.
Wayne looked up at the ceiling, whistled. “What is this? Stalactites? This looks strange.” He squinted. “Why does this look strange?”
“That’s because there aren’t any stalactites or stalagmites on the Moon,” Scotty said.
“Why?” Sharmela asked. “There are caves…”
“Beside the point, darlin’,” Darla said. “Scotty’s right. The caves are mostly volcanic. Sure as sugar weren’t made by flowin’ water.”
Scotty nodded. “In all likelihood, there never wa s liquid water on the Moon. Ice crystals, yes. But this kind of natural formation is only caused by mineral-rich water dripping from the ceiling.”
“Which means,” Angelique agreed, “that this is more of Xavier’s con. This is Wells’ world. Everything operating as if the Moon had an atmosphere and flowing water. Living creatures.”
The chamber glittered in the mist like a field of diamonds. They wandered through a forest of mushrooms, and a few caterpillar creatures that sat, unanimated, observing. Their faceted eyes witnessed without judgment or reaction. What would this chamber have been if the power was running, if all control lights were green? Would it have swarmed with life? Here and there a few critters shuffled in slow circles, trapped in an endless loop.
The pathway ended in a chasm at least thirty meters across. Scotty peeked down. A glowing river of red and black liquid rock oozed below, wafting sulfurous steam. Heat prickled his face. He laughed uncomfortably. “Are we sure that’s just an effect?”
“Your lips to God’s ears,” Angelique said.
Maud peered down, her shoulders slumped. “And here… it ends. We end. We’re finished.” Shaking her head, she knelt down. “What are we supposed to do? Climb down? And then climb up again? I can’t do that. How can they expect me to do this? Did they expect poor Asako to do that?” Scotty was sorry to see her this way: Maud seemed like a confused old woman. He preferred the old Maud, acid tongue and all.
“I’m not sure,” Sharmela put as much comfort into her voice as possible. “But we’ll work something out.”
“There’s alway s a way,” Wayne said, and pointed across the divide. “Look: Notice that the far edge is lower than this one. I think that’s a clue.”
“Clues are good,” Angelique said.
“I think that we need to pay attention to this.”
Scotty knelt down, compared the levels. “It does raise some possibilities. If we could get a line across…”
“Look!” Ali screamed. “Over here!”
The boy was crouched over at the right side, near another collection of alien tools. At a flat area to the side, they found the carcasses of winged beetles, husks curled on their sides, the size of small children. Scotty looked more closely: Their membranous brown “wings” seemed suspiciously well preserved.
Next to the wings were strewn additional heaps of tools and materials. This misty cave was a workshop of some kind, a place where busy (alien?) hands had constructed a pair of rickety-looking, skeletal man-shaped pallets with foot pedals and space for a prone human rider.
“Flying machines?” Scotty asked.
“Similar to Leonardo’s designs. Reasonable that Cavor would have been familiar with them, and tried to replicate them here.”
Scotty raised an eyebrow. “Here?”
Ali gave a wan smile. “Not real here. Game ‘here.’ You know.”
Scotty swatted his head, tickled, and glad to feel a trace of amusement. “And that answers that. We’re supposed to use these to cross the chasm.”
“Without practice?” Maud whined, incredulous. “This is absurd! How could Xavier expect us to do this?”
Wayne crouched down and ran his hands over the device, checking the lines and pedals. “I’m going with Maud on this one. This is insane. How the hell are we supposed to figure this out? How much time were we supposed to have?”
“More than we’ve got, that’s for sure.” Angelique raised her hands. “All right. All right. We have to figure the IFGS signed off on this. You’ve never used one of these?”
“No,” Wayne said. “I mean, the Da Vinci in Vegas has a tourist setup, virtual simulation of how unpowered human flight might feel.”
“And you tried it?”
“Yeah, a couple of times,” Wayne admitted. “But… naw, you’ve gotta be kidding me.”
“That’s all it might have taken for Xavier to get it past the board. Who else?”
Sharmela raised a plump brown hand. She looked uncomfortable. “I have glider experience. And have simulated flight hours.” Her expression, momentarily brightened, dimmed once again. “The 2080 World’s Fair in Ceylon had a winged gliding chamber, but I never went.”
“That answers it then,” Angelique said. “For what it’s worth, I suspect we would have been able to contest this… if it was a game.”
“Big if. I think we have bigger fish to fry,” Scotty said.
“I have.” A quiet, embarrassed voice. Ali’s voice.
“You what?” Angelique asked.
“I have flown. Ceylon in eighty. Simulators. Wingsuits. It was a hobby for a while.”
No one said a word until Wayne cleared his throat. “You again? You just happen to have another skill none of the rest of us possess?”
Ali’s protest was weak. “I and Sharmela.”
Angelique was having none of it. “Sharmela is a happenstance. You, on the other hand, are a pattern. I heard a line once: ‘Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time, it’s enemy action.’ I’ve overlooked this before, but you are leaning on my last nerve. What in the hell is going on?”
He stammered and stuttered. “I…”
Scotty took the boy’s shoulders. Hard. “Ali. I don’t know what other gamers’ houses or rooms are like, but yours I’ve seen. The walls were covered in images, gear, games… and some of those images popped up in this little adventure. Now why is that?”
Ali tried to rebut. “We are being pursued! The bad people will be here soon. We do not have time for this!”
“Yes,” Scotty said. “We have time.” And he meant it, too. When it came to ferreting out the truth, they had all the time in the world.
“Ali. Your father invested heavily in the Heinlein dome. It looks very much as if the game was modified to make it easier for you. If that’s true, if you were cheating… I don’t know quite how to put it, but if there is anything you can tell me…”
Tears sparkled in the boy’s eyes. “I should confess to cheating? It would end me!”
Scotty was incredulous. “End you? End us! This is real, Ali. People are dying. You’re afraid of the IFGS? Screw the IFGS! You’d better be afraid of those killers following us!”
Angelique looked as if she wanted to murder him. “To hell with them, too. You’d better be afraid of me.”
“Maybe it’s more than that,” Maud said. “ His life was never at risk. They don’t want to kill Ali, they want to ransom him. So to him, this whole thing is still just a game.”
“That’s not true!” he yelped.
Scotty shot him a warning glance. Let her finish.
“To us, it’s life and death. Can you understand that?”
Ali paused, looking at the faces around him, tried to bluster, and then folded with a sigh. “I… have no direct knowledge. But in the months leading up to the game, my father’s advisers took special notice of my hobbies. I noticed that they examined my drawings most carefully. Asked many questions about things that had previously held no interest to them.”
Maud seemed to have calmed down a bit, assuming an almost grandmotherly air. “And then what happened, Ali?”
“Then I arrived here, and when the game began I saw many things that felt… familiar.”
Angelique slapped his face, hard. “Just ‘familiar’?”
“All right! All right,” Ali said, collapsing into surrender. His eyes glittered, but more with tears than anger. “These Moon creatures, they’re derived from my artwork. I didn’t know what to do, what to think. I thought you would throw me out of the game.”
Sharmela shook her head, dark curls jiggling. “And you didn’t think to say anything once our lives were at risk?”
Moisture glittered at the corner of Ali’s eye. “I’ve had no time to think. And when I did, I did not think it would make a difference.”
They looked at him, skeptically.
“It is the truth!” Ali said. “I did not know, was not certain. You… you all came back for me. I trust you.”
“But can we trust you? How was it done?” Angelique asked. “Are we supposed to believe that Xavier was bribed? Because frankly, I don’t.”
“Tricked,” said Wayne. “Never mind, it’s not important.” He grinned. “Except to Xavier. He’s not going to like this at all. Somehow, Ali’s father gamed the Game Master. What did he think, Ali? Let you win the biggest game in history, you’d get bored and decide to grow up?”
Learn to run a kingdom, Scotty thought. But Ali was in torment. “Darla?” Scotty asked. “What do you know about these things? About flying.”
“A scosh. Read some of the specs.” She closed her eyes, as if reading the inside of her lids. “I know that the most important thing in any flight is control. What is it…? Pitch, roll and yaw axis? You have to have all three in hand from the time you launch until you land.”
“Stability augmentation system,” Scotty said from memory, and she nodded enthusiastic agreement. “The thing has to be statically and dynamically stable around all three axes.”
“So…,” Wayne said, seeming to grow fascinated despite himself. “We don’t have a lot of thrust, but we do have an elevated surface.”
“Look,” Darla said. “We got to figure that they did all the calculations, and we have a pretty serious margin of error for sustained flight. In this place, muscles will produce power at greater than what they call ‘minimum sink rate.’”
“I like the sound of that,” Scotty said. “That lava might even give us a thermal!”
“Hell yes!” Angelique grinned, then sobered. “Wait a minute. That’s not real lava.” A pause. “At least, I don’t think it is.”
“Damn. I forgot,” Scotty said. “Nix on the thermal.”
“What about a safe landing?” Wayne asked.
Darla closed her eyes and concentrated. “We need a controlled energy loss. If there’s a short runway you might use some kind of netting for absorption-”
“Like an aircraft carrier?” Scotty asked.
“Exactly like that. If you were going for some kind of sustained flight you’d want some redundancy built into the system, but this was supposed to be short and sweet.” She ran her hands over the wiring, inspected the pulleys. At any distance it all looked jerry-rigged, but up close this was clearly the work of talented, sober artisans.
“It looks rickety for the camera, but trust me: This is first-class equipment. We can do this.”
Scotty tried to visualize it. A flying machine with beetle wings… the pilot would lie on a surface of leather over “wood,” with his feet stretched behind him on pedals…
Yes, it could work. It damned well better. And there were two of the wooden cradles. Xavier expected the first flyer to crash.
“How are we going to do this?” Scotty asked.
Angelique squatted, drawing in the dust with her fingertip. “We have to assume that Xavier knew that Ali and Sharmela had flown before, and that that was how the IFGS approved this.” On hands and knees, she looked down over the edge of the chasm into the flaming horror. “That smoke smells scary real.”
“Too bad the effects are off here. I’d like to know what that bloody munchkin had in mind.”
“Long way down,” Scotty said.
“Probably not as deep as it looks,” Angelique said. “A few of the holos are still working.”
“What exactly do you think we’re really dealing with?”
“Safety nets, masked with effects. No safety lines, I think… Foam stalactites on the ceilings… there may have been some kind of maglev device to take the sting off a fall.”
Wayne nodded. “Remember that we’re on the Moon. Falling just doesn’t have as much energy, so safety isn’t as stringent, I’d bet. I have no idea what Xavier must have said to Cowles, but I think he got his way. As usual.”
“All right, Scotty,” Angelique said. “What do you think?”
“That we have to go for it,” he said. “Mickey, you and I will keep an eye on the door?”
“What about me?” Darla asked. “I’m not just a pretty face.”
“Stay here. An engineer’s mind will come in useful.”
“Do what I can.”
Mickey clasped her shoulder. “Keep an eye on Maud, will you? She seems a little shaky.” Then to Scotty: “Let’s go.”
Ali and Sharmela were crawling over the flying machines, inspecting them inch by inch.
“So…,” Wayne said. “What do we have here?”
“Look,” Darla said. “We’ve had limited human flight at Heinlein, and some of the larger domes.” She glanced at Scotty. “I think your lady Ms. Griffin was big into it. Mostly, though, it’s just a little playtime in half-furnished domes. You know, before the liquid wall bubbles go in. The locals would gin up some hang-glider wings, and go at it. There’ve been a few flappers, but again, we just haven’t had open areas large enough to really take advantage.”
“Talked about it, though,” Scotty remembered.
“Absolutely,” Darla said. “I’m guessin’ they were planning to follow up this game with some kind of tourist flight package.”
“Should I feel comforted?” Ali asked.
Wayne donned an expression that he probably hoped would be comforting, but was actually a little creepy. “They wouldn’t want a disaster first time out.”
Sharmela ran her fingertips over the flying rig, judging. “So the foot pedals operate the wings,” she said. “The arms guide them. The material looks pretty flimsy.”
“Yeah,” Darla said. “But try to tear it. Look a little closer. That’s Falling Angels, the zero-gee facility. Nanothreaded graphene. Pure carbon. Spider silk is maybe twice as strong as steel. This stuff is about a hundred times stronger than that.”
Angelique was examining the cave. Anything, anything in the environment might be usable. The walls were festooned with vines.
Ali stood up, walked along their side of the divide, judging. “Look at this. We have a long flat runway, and a glide path right across. Practice room. ”
Wayne brightened. “Well, God bless the IFGS. Let’s get this in position.”
“I don’t know about this,” Maud said. “Even if they work, I can’t do this.”
“Can’t what?” Wayne asked.
“I can’t fly one of these.”
He shrugged. “There are only two. They couldn’t possibly expect us all to fly across.”
“You’re right,” Angelique said.
“ Here we are,” Ali said, pulling “vines” down from the walls. “We have line.” Rope, damned fine rope, and plenty of it.
They fussed over the rope while Sharmela stretched like a tabby cat.
Angelique nodded approval. Flexibility was going to be important. “Three of us have had some experience with winged flight. Two were purely virtual. Factor in fear of heights, perhaps, and it’s really only reasonable for one of us to fly across this chasm.”
“Then… why are there two sets?” Sharmela asked, looking up from an impressive downward dog. Fit/Fat for sure. She was bulky, but as flexible as a seal.
“Back up,” Angelique said. “I’m not sure. But the others were supposed to create some kind of rope bridge.”
“That could be done,” Wayne said. “So… attach the rope to the end of a set of wings. Maybe the flyer’s ankles. Someone flies across, anchors it to the far side, and then we’re in business.”
Maud shrank back. “I can’t do that. I can’t.”
“Let’s just wait,” Wayne replied, “until we have things set up before we decide what we can or can’t do, okay?”
The next five minutes were practice time. With two gamers providing each flyer initial momentum, Ali and Sharmela took their wings up and down the slope, as the rest watched the flapping and gliding. Sharmela had wonderful coordination, her foot pedaling and arms working perfectly in unison. But what they had to admit was that Ali, cheater or not, was simply better at this. His prior experience might well save their lives.
“All right,” Angelique said. “Ali? We’re going to give you the chance. Are you ready?”
“Yes,” Ali replied.
“First time I’ve ever been happy to have a cheat on board. Anything else to tell us?”
“I have no idea what else my father’s advisers had in mind,” Ali said stiffly.
“Not the answer I was hoping for,” Scotty said. “Too bad.”
“Horses.”
“You ride a horse?”
“I have won awards,” Ali sniffed. “There should be horses in the game. We’ll find them.”
“Oh, we may have gone around them already.” Scotty shrugged. “Let’s do this.”
“You’ll need to fasten a line on the far end,” Angelique said. “Show me your best knot.”
Ali took a vine and looped it around and tightened it. A decent hitch knot. Angelique examined it, and handed it back. “Try this,” she said, demonstrating. “Right over left, left over right, makes a reef knot both tidy and tight.”
He obeyed.
“Again,” she said.
Again he did as requested, and this time they passed the result around for comment. “Looks good,” Wayne admitted.
“We need to glide this until he gets his momentum,” Angelique said. “You and me, Sharmela.”
The Sri Lankhan stepped up instantly. She gave Angelique an appreciative once-over. “Your legs are longer than mine. We will have to match paces.”
As they practiced, Mickey jogged over, looking a bit weary. “I’ve piled about a half ton of junk against that door,” he said. “If that doesn’t work, I don’t know what to do. Barricaded and barred… they’ll need to blow it open.”
“And probably have the explosives to do just that,” Wayne said. “Get back over there and keep us posted.”
Mickey glared at Wayne, but jogged back, bouncing as he went.
“What’s happening here?” Scotty said.
Even under the circumstances, Wayne’s smile was blissful. “Man’s oldest dream.”
Ali lay down in the frame again, and Scotty tied a vine rope to his left ankle. Ali worked the pedals and then his hand controls a few times. Squeak, squeak… When he wiggled, they did as well.
“Well,” Scotty said, kneeling down beside him. “Some game, huh?”
Ali tried to smile. “I’m afraid you did not know what you were signing up for.”
“I never do. Did any of us?” Scotty squeezed his shoulder. “You want to be a hero, kid? This is your chance. Probably the best you’ll ever have.”
Ali nodded. At that moment, the boy looked so young and vulnerable Scotty’s heart ached.
“This is your moment, then. Take it.” They shook hands. “See you on the other side,” Scotty said.
The women hoisted the contraption onto their shoulders, and braced. Angelique counted to three, and they sprinted down the slope, Sharmela’s short legs taking three steps to every two of Angelique’s, carrying Ali high… and then the winged craft was aloft.
Kendra spoke without turning from the screen. “Horses?”
“Horses. They’re in there, too,” Xavier said, and silently dared her to speak.
She didn’t.
“Terrance Ivanovich Ladd,” Xavier said. “Every book a bestseller.”
“Sorry, I was watching the gamers,” Kendra said. “Ali is about to fly. What about Ladd? I read his books, of course.”
“Of course. Twenty years ago, he was the most celebrated English-language writer in the world. He wanted into my world. He wanted to write the Moon Maze Game with me. I’d have given up my smaller testicle, which is the right one. He was in love with an artist, January Prince. I couldn’t contact this January Prince. Reclusive. Nobody’s ever seen him, or her. I based my Moon folk on his sketches just to get Ladd.”
“Prince, hmm?”
“I am such a fucking idiot,” Xavier said. “I’d heard about Ladd’s money problems, but never thought someone might be able to buy him. I just didn’t think.”
“He’s launched!” Wu Lin called. “The Prince has launched!”
Ali was flying. On the Moon. For a moment, all thoughts of threat and risk were simply… gone. He soared and swooped between the stalactites, lips stretched in an endless grin, eyes bright with joy.
Below him, the lava boiled. A stench of sulfur clogged his nose. One chance to do this. Get it right. As he left the edge the flying machine hit a thermal, jumped up a hair, and he had to correct, skewing sideways. Ali pumped his feet madly, working his arms to stabilize again.
A moment of panic, and then he flexed his arms hard to regain control.
Flying. By all his ancestors, he was flying! He stretched his arms out, extending the wings, and embraced the wind. Then…
No! He had misjudged the distance. His left wing tip brushed a stalactite. The stalactite sprayed fragments, more like cork than rock. The flying machine skewed sideways, stabilizing just too late to make a safe landing. He crashed onto the edge of the far cliff, and teetered, beginning to slide back into the abyss. Ali clawed his way free, clinging as he slid down. The line tied to his left ankle flagged behind.
He didn’t know what was real, and what was not. Whether the lava below him was mere effect, or actual boiling rock. Whether the stench of sulfur in his nose was genuine or fantastic. Nor did he think of cameras that might be streaming his struggle to Earth and beyond. All he knew was that he would not fall, would not tumble down into the glowing crevasse.
Would not.
A foot at a time, he clawed his way up. Gasping and panting, he found hand holds, pulled himself to safety even as the flying machine tumbled down and out of sight. And when he was secure, Ali rolled onto his back, face split by an absurdly silly grin. He had never imagined that air could smell so sweet. On the other side of the canyon, the gamers howled in joy.
Ali forced himself up and began to search, finally finding an anchor point for the rope vine. It wasn’t hard. One of the stalagmites was tinged slightly silver, just enough to catch his attention. It was concrete, and anchored into rock. Strong enough. He fastened it, chanting his mnemonic to himself. “ Right over left, left over right, makes a reef knot both tidy and tight. ” His hands were shaking so hard that he tucked them into his armpits to calm them.
Tested the line again, and was satisfied. He walked back to the edge of the chasm, and waved.
“Well, all right!” Scotty said.
Wayne rigged a safety line around his waist, attached the loop to the rope, and grinned at Darla. “Give us a kiss, love.”
She did so, pressing her hips against him as she did. Then Wayne winked at Angelique, jumped up and began to climb hand-over-hand across the divide.
Angelique smiled wanly, and the shorter, rounder woman winked at her.
Mickey came running up, wide-eyed. “Scotty. I heard something from the other side. I think the pirates are rattling the door.”
“Not surprising,” Scotty said. “They wouldn’t flounder around forever. This rope is graded for a thousand kilograms. It’ll hold us all at the same time. Get your asses up there.”
Darla jumped up and began to shimmy across. Scotty, Mickey and Maud were last. “All right, beautiful. It’s you and me now,” Scotty said.
Maud shrank away. “I can’t. I just can’t.”
“I’ll go with you. We can do this. I swear.”
“Maud,” Mickey said. “You have to. I won’t leave you here.”
She could not be consoled. “I can’t! I thought I could, but… it’s just too much. There’s just nothing left. I’m tired,” she protested. “Let me stay here. They won’t hurt me.” She paused. “I’m just an old woman.”
“Scotty,” Mickey said. “Thank you for your offer. I think this is something I have to do myself.”
“Are you absolutely sure?” Scotty asked.
“I’m absolutely sure.”
“All right.” Scotty left them to their devices, and stomped on the second machine’s wings. The fabric would not tear, the glue did not give way, but finally the struts themselves bent until the device was useless. “Just in case,” he said.
Scotty jumped up on the line, and began to haul himself across, hand-over-hand, a safety line on the rope. In lunar gravity, it was relatively easy. A moment of panic as his feet slipped on the far edge, and then he was across.
He looked back. Mickey and Maud were fastening themselves onto the line. “I can’t look down!” Maud screamed.
“Then don’t,” Mickey said. Mickey roped himself together with Maud, and a safety line over the top. “Up we go, moppet.”
Maud managed a smile. “Moppet,” she whispered. “You haven’t called me that in years.”
“We’re not done yet, love,” he said, and kissed her. Maud threw her arms around his neck, and he began to hoist them both across. One pull at a time, grunting and groaning with every heroic effort.
Behind them: A sudden chuffing sound, followed by a dull thung as the barricaded door flew open and slammed back into the rock wall.
Maud screamed and lost her grip. Suddenly she dangled from Mickey supported only by her safety rope. He strained to cross as three men and a tall, broad blond woman burst through the door-the pirates arrived.
“Kill them!” Celeste’s severe face distorted with rage.
Lying on his stomach, Scotty aimed back through gusts of lava stench, firing a bolt back across at the pirates. Some ineffective firing back and forth followed as Mickey and Maud struggled to cross the remaining distance.
Screaming, Maud climbed up the rope, holding on to Mickey’s pants, which slid down so that he had to crook his knees to keep her from falling off.
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.