heavyweight bodybuilder, huge, twice McCartney’s size, but was notably cautious and deferential to the smaller man, and for good reason. Shotz entered and surveyed the lot for a moment, finally nodding in approval. “All individuals designated Non-Player Characters will shed their costumes and prepare to enter the transport,” the blond man said in his dead, fractured voice. Without a smile, the face beneath the brilliant hair resembled a slab of raw rock. “There will be no talking, no resistance, or I promise you that there will be screaming and dying.”
Nineteen NPCs and techs were escorted from 35-C down through the infrastructure to bubble 137-H on the ground level, out an airlock and to the Scorpion transport. The kidnappers watched until the doors sealed, then the transport broke dock, and headed back toward Heinlein base.
“Mi ami gxi kiam a plano veni kune,” McCartney said.
The blond shrugged. “Might as well lose that. We’re finished after this. Might just as well speak Spanish.”
Inside the Scorpion transport, the nineteen NPCs and techs sat strapped in their seats, marveling at their narrow escape, hugging each other and celebrating as the treaded vehicle chugged back toward Heinlein. “We’re safe!” cried a sheet-metal worker who had, until recently, hoped to spend a few playful hours as an insect.
Then he looked around, and a curtain of concern fell across his face. “Where’s Darla?”
Inside the dome, Darla gasped for breath. Not that the quality of air had actually diminished, but she found that, under stress, she was experiencing her very first bout of claustrophobia.
She was crawling in the spaces between the bubbles used to create the main room systems. It was so dark she was forced to navigate primarily by feel and memory, but from time to time a pinhole of light showed her the way. That was enough to give her hope. And sometimes, as her mother had told her all through a childhood darkened by a succession of grabby stepfathers and drunken “uncles,” hope was all you had.
In the break room, now a makeshift communications room, Ali sat leaning against the wall of bubble 37-C, squinting at the beige walls, wrists bound in the front with plastic cuffs. “What do you want from me?”
“Not you,” Shotz said. “Your father.”
Ali sat up so straight his head banged against the wall. “What?”
“For him to step down from the throne of Kikaya. The people who fund me would like that very much.”
“Who are these people?”
A man entered the room who looked like a Congolese to Ali. A countryman. He held his breath. Danger had entered the room. “I, for one. Look in my eyes. I wish you were your father.” Ali held his breath. The other men were professionals. This Kikayan was a true believer, a far more dangerous thing.
“What did my father do to you?”
The man knelt down to Ali’s level. His breath was sharp. “He crushed the dream of a true democracy. Just the fact of his existence, his belief that he is entitled to a throne others died to protect… is an affront.”
“Who are you?” Ali breathed.
The man’s nostrils flared. “They call me Douglas Frost. I am the son of Kweisi Otoni. Thirty years ago, my father was driven from Kikaya. I have never even seen my country.”
“What do you want?” Ali asked. He tried to keep the fear from his voice, but did not entirely succeed.
“I want your father to die. Or, if that is too much to ask, that he leave, and allow our poor country to heal itself.”
Ali’s head swam. “Kweisi Otoni. I don’t know that name.”
Douglas Frost spat. “Of course you don’t. You know nothing of the true history of your country, and yet you probably think that you are worthy to inherit the throne. You are what people say.”
“Was Kweisi Otoni an important man?”
Frost’s eyes narrowed, and Ali instantly knew he’d said the wrong thing.
“He was to me,” Frost replied.
25
1215 hours
Despite the attempts to keep things quiet, Heinlein dome buzzed with speculation. Kendra had made a brief announcement, asking for calm and noninterference. In such a frontier community, it was easy to imagine someone trying something heroic and suicidal.
Right now, her offices were crowded with engineers and experts of various kinds. It hit her that security was understaffed. But who could have anticipated such a thing?
“We’re pretty much shut out,” Toby McCauley said. “Scans suggest welds at all entry points, and the doors electronically sealed. They only open from the inside.” He paused. “But there is just one possibility I see.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask,” Kendra said.
“Well, all of the primary power was cut. They pretty much ran a perfect game there.”
A Japanese engineer raised his hand. “But they missed something.”
“What?” Kendra asked.
“Well…” The engineer’s communicator bleeped. “Pardon.” He tapped his chest tag. “Ishikura.”
The lower levels of the Heinlein dome connected with the aquifer that served as both reservoir and recreational pool. Part natural cavern and part blasted and sealed by very serious men.
One of those very men was Pete Hamm, a round little man who was one of the oldest Moon hands still active on the base. He had led a crew down through cold moistureless air. There, through paths cut through unweathered Moon rock, they finally reached the aquifer’s pressurized door. He wasn’t certain how the kidnappers had gained access. Had someone betrayed Heinlein? The question was pushing Pete’s blood pressure into a dangerous spiral.
Through the glass portal, they could see a blinking device attached to the far side of the door. A note on the door read: THIS DOOR HAS BEEN MINED. IF YOU ATTEMPT TO OPEN IT, YOU WILL DIE. Big square letters.
Hamm tsked twice to activate his com link. “Communications,” he said. “Kendra. Boss, we’ve got a problem here…”
Ishikura’s plump, slightly crooked little mouth drew into a tight, thin line as he listened to the communicator. He looked up at Kendra. “We have a problem. There seems to be a bomb wired to the door, from the other side. We’d need to put someone in from the aquifer side to see what we’re dealing with.”
“And for obvious reasons, that presents a difficulty,” Kendra said.
Gaming central, the domain of Xavier and his crew, was only minimally less panicked than the rest of Heinlein base. Kendra and her people entered it in a phalanx.
Xavier’s fury gave him subjective height. “I demand to know what exactly is going on.”
“We need to talk,” she said.
His smile was pale and humorless. “You go first.”
The gaming stage was deserted now, and all of the Lunies and Earthers who had gathered to participate in the adventure of a lifetime were sitting with expressions ranging from anger to impatience to fear.
“As you can see,” Kendra was saying, “all of the primary power and communications conduits have been cut. But the negotiations with the IFGS included some new redundant systems designed to protect their investment during the broadcast event.”
Xavier blinked, and for the very first time, confusion rather than arrogance shaped his face. “Are you saying that I can conduct the game? I would think that a dozen kidnappers in there might have an opinion about that.”
