Only then did Wayne look down. The floor was composed of some transparent material, plastic or glass or something else, set over a swimming pool or reservoir. The water was clear enough to see golden coral growing thirty feet beneath them… and even as he watched, a squadron of merfolk swam into view, a wedge of bronzed skin, emerald flippers and for the females, discretely positioned chest shells. He estimated about fifteen of them, but it was difficult to be certain because other guests obscured his view. The pyramid of swimmers fractured into smaller groups, then pairs. They scooted and somersaulted through the water, then reformed into a wedge and swam out of view.
All but one. One mermaid remained behind, a pug nose with blazing red hair and a fleshy, muscular body. Fit/Fat again. Looked good on her. She gazed up at him, and winked one emerald eye. Bubbles gushed from her lips as she mouthed the word: Later.
She swam away.
“Quite amazing,” a rotund fellow in Beefeater garb said. His handlebar mustache was slightly askew. “I believe Professor Challenger brought them back from Fiji.”
The room was filled with bejeweled and gowned celebrants, perhaps two hundred of them in a room that had probably never held more than a hundred and fifty. They displayed an array of costumes that must have occupied every amateur or freelance seamstress and tailor on the Moon for months. What a show!
“Hallo.” A tall, broad man in another red Beefeater uniform approached. His British accent was phony-thick, but dammit, at least he was trying. He looked like a fleshy John Wayne, with a receding hairline and strong laugh lines. The Duke approached with his hand extended, and Wayne automatically reached out in return. The very vaguest of recollections danced at the edge of memory.
“Good seeing you, sir!” the guy said. “Name’s Chris Foxworthy. Met you two years ago in the desert.” Ah. Vegas?
“Had a good run with you there, and actually took honors.” So… he might have come through the low-level game there, and won a few points.
“Good man,” Wayne said. He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I came when called, of course. But it was all so hush-hush. Do you know what the boffins are up to? They certainly have enough to work with, after… well, you know. The unpleasantness.”
Foxworthy wagged his head solemnly. “Sorry old boy. Not for me to say.”
A string quartet seated in the room’s corner began a Straus waltz and four pairs of NPCs danced with clockwork precision.
This was all just lovely. Clearly, they were already on camera. Performing a waltz in one-sixth gravity while pretending to be under Earth Normal was quite a trick. Not all of them succeeded, despite obvious practice. Sharmela Tamil had grabbed a female partner and joined the fun, but a too-enthusiastic spin launched them both into the air, to drift like autumn leaves. They looked just wonderful, as if they were floating.
He was certain that the broadcast and the inevitable edited video streams would be great hits.
An oddness presented itself: In the last five years he’d grown accustomed to the pop his knee made when he stood. Here, it didn’t. Less weight stress perhaps? He damned near pushed himself off the floor when he straightened, and noted that several of the others had the same tendency to bounce up when they moved.
“Have you met everyone?” Wayne asked, and steered Foxworthy over to Mickey and Maud Abernathy. Like Asako Tabata they were fiftyish now, and the last time he’d seen them before today had been in their Pushmi-Pullyu costume at a Dream Park New Year’s soiree. There was something different about them now, more than just the Middle Eastern costuming, and he couldn’t put his finger on it.
“Mickey? Maud?” Mickey raised a haughty eyebrow. Right. Too much informality for nineteenth-century Britain. “Pardon. Mr. and Mrs. Abernathy? I would like to present Mr. Christopher Foxworthy-”
“Pleased to meet you,” Maud said.
“Charmed,” Mickey said. His accent was Cambridge layered over Cockney. Wayne suspected he’d been a scholarship kid. Maud, on the other hand, seemed veddy upper class.
“I suspect we’ll be seeing more of each other in the future,” Foxworthy said. In other words, despite his present costume, the guy was almost certainly an NPC who would be making their lives miserable in the coming days.
As they started their chitchat, he looked around the room, wondering where Angelique had gone. He became aware of a disturbance on the other side of the room, people cheering. He saw two tall, superbly vital women, one Asian, one quite Nordic. And a full foot shorter, but walking as if he were riding an elephant, a tiny man with a gleaming, shaven scalp.
Oh, God, he thought. Here it comes.
Like a miniature icebreaker carving its way through a glacier field, Xavier plowed toward the middle of the room. He nodded here, shook a hand there, as he stopped to hear a joke, question or compliment, laughing politely in turn. His every word or nod of a shaven head an act of noblesse oblige.
Then his forward progress stopped, and he mounted a small stage at the back of the room. “Your attention please!” he called, voice booming from hidden speakers. Instantly, all conversation ceased.
“I, Lord Xavier, am honored to welcome you to the Adventurer’s Club.” A hot current rippled through the room. Whatever he said next would shape the next seventy-two hours of their lives.
“Many of you have no doubt read the sensational newspaper accounts of the disappearance of Professor Cavor, and his adventures upon the Moon. Perhaps you have even read the fictionalized accounts of this fantastic journey as written by Herbert George Wells, which ended in a disrupted radio call, with no further communications to come. We all believed that this was the end of this great man. Then just two months ago our dear American friend Nicola Tesla received an almost unbelievable radio message. Cavor was alive, and after years in captivity, had somehow created a radio powerful enough to send a signal to Earth. He not only gave us details of his captivity, but sent the formula for the amazing Cavorite, which allowed him to break gravity’s shackles and fly to the Moon. The Queen’s top scientists have been able to re-create his invention, and with it build a device capable of taking ten stout souls on a mission of rescue.
“I warn you: Not all are expected to survive. You have accepted our commission without fanfare or promise of reward… except for that of serving our gracious Queen, and the ability to proclaim, now and for all time, that they are the very best and bravest. That, and the right to plant the Union Jack on the Moon itself. Who is with me?”
A moment of stunned silence, as Wayne’s mind whirled. They were on the Moon, pretending to be on the Earth, about to travel to the Moon. But not the real Moon, but the fantasy Moon envisioned by H. G. Wells.
The sheer poetic madness of it all fairly took his breath away.
That sentiment seemed shared, because there was a long, incredulous pause, then Angelique stepped forward, fetching in her tan jungle explorer regalia.
“I, Angelique Chan, accept your commission. My compatriots have come from the four corners of the Empire not merely to rescue the great Professor Cavor, but to claim the Moon itself for our beloved Queen.”
Choruses of “Hear, Hear!” arose from around the room, and Xavier nodded in satisfaction, his shaven head shining.
“Then I ask only that you enjoy the hospitality of the Adventurer’s Club, that you may carry our respect and admiration with you across the cold stellar void. That you enjoy libations aplenty, that they may stimulate your courage, that you not quail regardless of the challenge ahead. That you live this night, and every day from now on, as if it is not your last, but your very first.”
As the room exploded with applause, Xavier hopped down from the stage.
Xavier passed through the crowd, flanked by his Valkyries, smiling and nodding and shaking hands as he went.
Then his forward progress stopped, and he was talking to… Angelique. He nodded politely, then turned and looked directly at Wayne. And headed his way, the crowd parting before him, Angelique close behind. As they approached, Wayne could almost hear dramatic showdown music blaring, maybe some of that classic Ennio Morricone wail from The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Many of the crowd had the threadlike flexcams woven into their costumes. These images all flowed into a central bank and synchronized so that distant viewers would ultimately be able to swoop, dart and hover like hummingbirds through a virtual party.