Something was coming. And whatever that something was, it wss groaning in sync with the sound coming from the rim of the flat circular door.
“It’s a homing call,” she said. “They’re telling the cows to come in.”
She raised herself up onto her elbows and called to the others. “Keep an alert! Something is coming. It’s big, and you don’t want to be seen, or stepped on. Look sharp!”
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The sound from below and the shaking ground behind them seemed to meld, and so suddenly that he felt adrenaline jolt up his spine, as the first sign of lunar animal life appeared.
It was enormous, like a segmented caterpillar half the length of a city block. Its flesh was white, and dappled, and with every laborious breath those sides rose and fell. Wayne could see no feet, and from the way it rose up and inched forward like the greatest worm that ever lived, it was more lizard than snake.
“Mooncow,” Maud said quietly. “That’s what it was called. A mooncow.”
All he knew was that he didn’t want to try to fight something this size. Its six eyes were relatively tiny, clustered around what he thought of as its nose. The caterpillar’s neck was fatter than the main section of its body. It opened its mouth and emitted a bleating noise that rolled over the crater rim and resounded from the clouds themselves.
Six, no seven man-sized creatures appeared around the mooncows. Their eyes were faceted, and their thin arms were covered with some kind of horny carapace, a substance that reflected the sharp light with a faint blue sheen.
One of the insectile creatures (Selenites? Was that the word?) looked in his direction, and Wayne ducked down. He felt something… a vague creeping sensation rippling up his back, at the same time that the earth itself seemed to tremble. The spit dried in Wayne’s mouth. Despite his best attempt to stay steady, a sour sensation that he recognized as fear began to boil in his stomach. He wiped his hands on his pants, and tried to slow his breathing.
Couldn’t let himself get spooked. Not so soon, anyway.
When he looked back up, the mooncows were halfway down the hole, humping along. At the right angles, their bodies were partially translucent. He thought he could see the contents of their stomachs, vast clots of vegetable matter churning their way through the beasts’ digestive systems.
Then finally the last of the mooncows was down the hole. The Selenites kept watch until the last minute, but he had the sense that they weren’t specifically looking for intruders, just keeping a mindful presence. Then they entered the hole, and a moment later the clanging sound began anew, and the lid slid shut.
Angelique held up her hand, palm flattened, and they rose from hiding.
Wayne jumped down onto the circular door with a thump. “Well,” he said slowly. “I suppose it would be too much to hope that they just left a door open for us.”
Asako Tabata’s pod speakers were normally indistinguishable from a human voice, but now they were amplified. “There may be a problem,” she said. “I note that the temperature is dropping.”
Wayne looked to the west, where the shadows were stretching toward them. To the east he saw something that made his skin creep: There where the sky was darkening, the clouds had blackened as well.
Even as he watched, the very first snowflake touched his upturned face.
“Oh, shit, ” Scotty Griffin said, and he looked not the slightest bit happy. “Nightfall. The air is freezing.”
“We’ve got minutes,” Angelique said. “We’ll freeze to death out here.”
Asako zipped her pod around the metal door’s circumference, stopping here and there to probe with little metal arms. Wayne got down on his hands and knees to inspect more closely. Arcane symbols, things that looked like dancing worms and burning leaves, were etched around the edge, but these might be just Moon-speak, and not necessarily gaming clues.
“How much time do we have?” Angelique whispered.
“Not much,” he said. The sky above them was scarred now, ripped by a silent storm. Pinpoint stars burned through the thinning air, bright enough to sear his eyes. What would happen as the night fell? First, the temperature would drop drastically. Then… the gases would start freezing. What would freeze first? Free oxygen? Nitrogen? CO 2? He didn’t know, but figured they’d be dead long before they knew.
It was snowing now, and the air was starting to feel like the middle of winter. He shivered, teeth clattering. The other gamers must be wishing they’d brought parkas. The plants around them were shriveling, browning and curling up. So… they were seasonal… if the Moon had twelve seasons a year. Or did every month have four seasons, which made a total of forty-eight seasons…
His mind was drifting. The cold was getting to him. Jesus! Was this Dream Park’s doing?
“I’ve got it!” Asako called out, and they ran to her side as her pod emitted an ear-shredding squeal, a higher-pitched version of…
“The mooncow sound,” Angelique said.
“Brilliant,” Wayne said, shivering.
The sound wavered then swooped low. The instant it hit the same tone that the mooncow had used, the door beneath them shivered and began to slide open. They had to scramble for safety, but the slab slid only a third of the way open, perhaps awaiting another mooncow call.
“Let’s get in there,” Angelique said.
And not a moment too soon. The sky above them was filled with snow, and blackening as they watched. Nothing would survive on the surface for more than another few minutes. The gamers jumped down into the darkness.
17
0837 hours
Angelique landed in a crouch, alert and silent. The ramp ran all the way to the lip, so she supposed she could have just walked down, but it was more satisfying, and certainly more theatrical, to jump.
The tunnel stretched down into the lunar depths for what looked like miles, with side tunnels branching off. Its brassy ridged sides reverberated with faint echoes. Selenites and mooncows, humping away into the distance? Possibly… but that implied that sounds carried well down here. Not necessarily a good thing. She held up a flat hand, signaling for silence.
One at a time, the others gathered around her, and as they did, the circular lid slid shut. BOOM.
So. They were in the meat grinder again. No way back. They had two assignments now: To find their ship, and to find Cavor. One might lead to the other.
“Quietly,” she said. “I’ll take lead. Wayne, you take the rear. Asako… stay with me.”
The woman in the bubble nodded, and off they went. Angelique noticed that the bubble’s treads compensated for the terrain effortlessly, lurching up and then back down as they passed the first tunnel ridge. The tunnel looked as if it might have been constructed from preformed sections.
“What’s this?” Mickey Abernathy called from up ahead.
“You’re the psychic. You tell me,” Sharmela said, but when she squinted into the dark to see more clearly, her voice fell silent.
There in the middle of the tunnel was a pile of brownish muck half as tall as a human being. Broad coarse tufts of moon grass jutted out of it, and the consistency was a lot like peanut butter. Warm peanut butter. And it stank.
Wayne howled and wiped his hand on the tunnel floor. “It’s mooncow sh- dung!” he said, correcting his language for a family audience. That bald-headed son of a bitch! Some kind of joke? Hoping to bump them out of character?
If audiences back home were enjoying Wayne’s discomfort as much as his companions, this game was going through the roof.
Just as he finished wiping his hands on the ground, the walls around them began to hiss. Steam gouted forth,
