For a moment Clavell was preoccupied, then he shook himself out of it. 'Hell with that.'
He shucked off his pack, spun and unzipped it, and dug inside. 'SJ,' he snapped. 'Let Al have your Spider.'
Alphonse winced. 'You're kidding, of course.'
'Ah.' The major stopped digging. He brought out a hand grip device that looked very like a dead spider: six stubby curved arms connected to a flat handle. On the underside of the handle was a Teflon gear device. It was a standard rappelling implement, adjustable to cables from 1/2 inch to 3 inches, standard equipment for a Hazardous Environment Game.
Clavell grinned maliciously up at Alphonse. 'You speak Spider, don't you? All we have to do is slide down twenty-odd feet of line and go in through the roof.'
Alphonse's head hurt. 'Now wait just a redheaded minute.'
Reality came popping back into his mind, tearing apart the carefully constructed illusions. In that very crystalline instant he remembered that he was Alphonse Nakagawa, acrophobic systems analyst for Texas instruments. That Al had once offended his Sunday-school teacher by implying that it was hell, and not heaven, where people were forced to cling precariously to clouds.
Clavell's eyes sparkled with mischief. 'We all knew that this adventure was risky…'
Translation: This is a master's level Game. We've all signed personal liability waivers.
'The easy thing to do would be trade with another team. Who? Bishop? Hasn't he got enough of an edge already? If we can handle this ourselves, we can even the score.'
SJ was holding his rappelling apparatus out to Alphonse, an enormous grin on his freckled face.
Clavell's logic was compelling. Bishop, Panthesilea, and the Troglodykes were certainly ahead on points. If they could really pull this off… Al said, 'Mary-em? You're our mountain climber. Can this be done?'
She looked down at the capsule swaying twenty feet beneath them. The floor, the dock's underlip, extended three feet farther than the ceiling. The cable winches ran at each upper corner, and the center of the roof. With a winch operating properly, the capsule should have been drawn up and into its place comfortably.
'I'll give it a shot, boss man,' she said. The tiny woman doffed her rucksack. She tightened her sword belt and took the Spider from SJ. 'Let's see this thing. Wrist thongs?'
'Or belt attachment. '
'I prefer wrist.'
'Go for it.' SJ squatted down next to her and helped her stretch out her shoulders. He wrapped her wrist thongs snugly into place. 'How've you been?' he whispered happily.
The little woman with the nut-brown skin grinned up at him. 'Just fine, youngster. Haven't seen you since South Seas Treasure.' She tested the connections on her wrists. 'Hell of a Game.' Her eyes twinkled with the memory.
'Hell of a Game.'
The major was ready. 'Fair's fair, Alphonse? One from each team.'
Al's curiosity was piqued. 'Why did you suggest it like that? You and SJ could have done this.'
'Cooperation,' Clavell grinned. 'I figure that teamwork will accomplish more than backstabbing.'
'And when it comes down to the wire?'
'Let's play it straight,' Clavell said, wrapping his wrist thongs into place. 'And let the gods sort it out.'
Alphonse froze for a moment. Was Clavell saying 'Let the Best Man Win'? Could he really be that much of a straight arrow?
Clavell bowed to Mary-em. 'Ladies first?'
'Age before beauty? Blow balrogs, sonny.'
Mary-em climbed up on SJ's shoulders and found the lower rung of the service ladder that took her up to a corner cable. She grinned down at him. 'Got it.'
The first thing that Mary-em thought as she clamped her Spider around the cable was, Going down is easy. Coming back up will be a bitch-kitty.
She twisted and locked the Spider's handle, ensuring that its Teflon and plastic gears were fully engaged. She slid it back and forth smoothly a few times, satisfied with its action. She rolled her shoulders, anticipating the strain when her weight hit her wrists. She breathed deeply, exhaled, and stepped off.
It was a long way down to a desert floor dotted with brownish green shrubs and cactus. The wind plucked at her hair. Peripherally, she watched the modular apartment's empty shell recede as she slid away.
She'd learned that the challenge in a Game was to keep the adrenaline level high. If her grip on unreality started to wane, she would tell herself over and over how real it was, to deliberately get her juices flowing.
But now, swinging two hundred feet above the desert floor, she needed just the opposite. She needed calm, and so she whispered to herself, 'Aren't the illusions nice today? How do they do that? Look at the desert floor down there. Wayyyy down there. Nope, just another wonderful illusion from the mischievous boys and girls at Dream Park…'
Mary-em kept the Spider's braking action at about seventyfive percent, and the device vibrated just enough to make her nervous as it ate friction.
She was dangling in space now, halfway between the apartment and the modular box. She risked a look back up and saw her friends' faces disappear as she slid down out of sight.
Her toes touched the top of the apartment, and she felt it sway, then settle back down. She anchored a lifeline to the cable no need to take unnecessary risks, now, was there?
Major Clavell landed a moment later, on the opposite cable. Their combined weight rocked the box enough to give her the willies, but they steadied themselves, brought the flash of panic under control, and saluted each other like cavaliers.
The desert floor swung dizzyingly, back and forth and back and forth…
And gradually came to a halt.
Clavell was vibrating with pleasure, really enjoying himself for the first time in the Game. 'Let's get down to cases, shall we?'
The man was crazed. She liked it. 'Why not?'
Both of them had safety lines attached by this time, cords that occasionally snapped taut as one or the other of them lurched or lost footing.
'This is the life, eh, Mary?'
'One teensy mistake and that'll be past tense.'
There was a trapdoor in the capsule's roof. Clavell carried twenty pounds of tools on his belt. Mary-em wasn't complaining. The man had unexpected class.
The lock in the trapdoor was an antique, a circular design taking a special key. Mary-em had never seen its like, but Clavell must have recognized it. He had it open in about thirty seconds. He wedged open the trapdoor and slipped inside, kicking a light fixture out of his way.
Lightly, as if afraid of jarring the room from its cable track, he jumped down. The major landed on the balls of his feet, instantly alert.
Mary-em followed a moment later. She dangled from one burly arm in almost simian fashion, sniffing for danger. 'Oook oook,' she chuckled, then dropped down as lightly as Clavell.
The transportation sections of modular apartments were generally office space and bedroom. This bedroom was walled in shatterproof Plexiglas, and the view out over the desert floor was spectacular.
She sighed. 'My enclave could never afford such wealth,' she said.
''If we can just solve this puzzle, wealth will come to both our peoples.'
Good man.
'You take the office. I'll take the bedroom.'
'Check and double-check,' Clavell said.
Tony McWhirter bunched his shoulders, dreading the sound as the feet came tromping up behind him.
'Hello, Mr. Meyers,' he said politely. He turned and held out his hand. Meyers ignored it. He was furious.
Mitsuko Lopez glanced around, lost interest. Richard and the Whitmans didn't bother. They're no busier than I am. I'm low man on the totem pole; I'm the worst choice for playing dominance games with the IFGS.
Ordinarily calm, the little man was swollen purple around the neck, and red in the face. He looked like a were-frog caught in midtransforrnation. 'Just what the blazes do you think you're doing?'
