To: JillK677@mail.earthnet.usa.earth

From: JennieD12@mail.earthnet.DS14

Re: My Summer Vacation Adventure

Attachments: DS14_exterior.jpg;DS14_promenade.jpg

    I'm writing this on the shuttle on the way back from DS14. I should be back home in three days. Overall, the Deep Space 14 station is disappointing - its just one vast entertainment complex. Stage shows, gambling casinos, night clubs, and specialty shops by the hundred. Its fun but I think one visit is enough. With one exception. You were absolutely right about Symphony Hall. Its one of the smaller outfits on the station but it has to be the greatest theme park in the galaxy. Actually, I almost forgot about the place. Well, anyway, let me tell you the story of my adventure.

    I had been on DS14 for three days. I had visited the casinos - they're all the same, seen three shows, visited a hundred or so shops, and was beginning to think about going home early. In fact, if it wasn't for the absolutely spectacular views of the green star I might well have come home early.

    I was in my room at the Hilton, browsing through the hundreds of pages of "things to do" and getting rather bored with page after page of identical hype. Then I came to the page for Symphony Hall. All it said was, "Featuring holographic adventures of unusual depth and detail." That would never have gotten my attention except I remembered that you had mentioned the name and recommended it. Kim and Jana had also recommended it from their trips last year. So anyway, I decided to give it a try.

    It took an hour or so to find Symphony Hall. Its not the most prominently marked establishment on the station. I did find it though and once inside it did not take long to find out how to arrange for a visit to a holosuite. I just bought a pass card at the casino's cashier window. From their I could have gone straight in to any holosuite program I wanted, but, as was unfamliar with the offerings I arranged for an introductory explanation.

    Joy and Melissa, two remarkable young women who turned out to own the entire Symphony Hall business, explained the holosuite menu to me. There were eight suites in all, and all but one could be programmed to provide a wide variety of environments and scenarios. According to Melissa, the most popular suite was the smallest. It was basically a bedroom with a program to provide just about any partner one might prefer. Other popular set ups involved simulated sports contests, a nearly impossible rock climb, a burning building, a sinking ship, and a Napoleonic battle. Melissa also said that the largest holosuite, number 6, was permanently set up as a tropical jungle, although the situation and arrangement of props and other features were constantly rearranged.

    "Number 6 sounds kind of interesting," I said at that point. I should have known better but old jungle movies have always had a kind of fascination for me.

    "Its my favorite too," said Joy. "I always use a program where the idea is to find a gold icon and escape with it. Actually the icon is bronze but it looks gold."

    "Is that all there is to the game....find the hidden icon?" I asked.

    Joy grinned slyly. "Not quite," she said. "There are all kinds of dangerous things in the jungle. Most of the time they'll get you long before you find the icon. Then there are the natives. They don't like outsiders, especially trespassers trying to steal their icon. If they catch you they'll throw you into a quicksand pit....Game over."

    "A quicksand pit?" I asked. "That sounds dangerous."

    Melissa answered, "No more than any of the animals or other hazards. The quicksand is quite real, of course. But all the holosuites have a system that monitors the situation at all times. It will pull you out and end the program before any serious damage is done....You lose the game if that happens, of course."

    "Like going under in the quicksand?" I suggested.

    "Yes," Joy answered. "Or like getting bitten or crushed by a snake."

    In the end I decided to try the jungle adventure.

    After changing into a T-shirt and a pair of cut-off jeans, I went to the holosuite entrance, which was nothing but an unmarked doorway, guarded only by a pass key reader. Inside was a simple hallway with doorways, labeled "Portal 1" Portal 2," and so on.. I went down to portal number 6 and put the pass key in the slot.

    The portal opened into a thatch and grass hut. It was a single room, roughly circular in shape, with no furnishings. There were not even windows, just a doorway immediately opposite the portal, through which dim moonlight provided just enough illumination to walk through safely. Halfway across the room I became conscious of a slight change in illumination behind me. I turned to see that the portal had vanished.

    "Cool," I thought. "Its a bit more sophisticated than the hologames I played as a teen."

    Directly in front of the hut was a small clearing, perhaps twenty feet in diameter. Beyond that was thick jungle on all sides. It appeared to be almost impenetrable except in two or three places that appeared to be, or have once been, crude trails.

    "Well, I guess I'll take the middle trail," I said to myself. "I have no clues to go on so I might just as well guess....It probably doesn't make any difference anyway."

    I began to push my way down the path. It might be more accurate to say I began to struggle and claw my way through the dense undergrowth. Vines kept getting tangled around my legs, forcing me to tug and haul with every step. Thorny brambles kept snagging on my clothes and scratching my bare arms. After ten minutes my T-shirt was ripped in two places and I was bleeding from minor cuts in half a dozen places.

    This was not my idea of fun. The cuts were minor, but they hurt. I decided to turn back. This path was not the one I wanted to follow. As I turned around, even that wasn't easy, I realized that the path, such as it was, had taken me around the right side of a large pool of water, and there seemed to be an easier path around the other side. I went that way, and promptly discovered how tricky this hologame was.

    The ground near the edge of the pool was notably flat. And wet. Knowing this was a jungle adventure game I recognized it right away as probably quicksand, or, at least, deep, sloppy mud. Well, I wasn't going back through the bramble bushes if I could avoid it; the small cuts were really starting to sting now, so I began picking my way carefully around the edge of the quagmire.

    It was tricky. Some one had obviously given a lot of thought to the details of the environment, even if the game was simple. Immediately to the right of the quicksand, the ground sloped upward to form an increasingly steep embankment, composed entirely of what appeared to be wet, slippery, red clay. There were a number of small clumps of grass and protruding roots that looks as if they might make useful handholds. They all looked firmly anchored but it was obvious they were installed as traps. I knew if I relied on a single one of them for support I would be up to my neck in quicksand in seconds. Game over.

    I began crawling, almost crab walking, along the embankment, being careful to keep my weight low and my feet away from the flat surface of the quicksand. The further I went, the steeper the embankment became but I could see that it leveled out a few yards ahead and that it did not become so steep as to be impassible. I slipped once but caught myself short of the quicksand. I slipped a second time, confirming directly that the quicksand or mud was at least knee deep. I had no reason to think it would not be well over my head. Even though I knew this was a game, I was beginning to feel real apprehension. I did not want anything to do with sinking in mud.

    I reached a particularly treacherous spot. I was on a sixty degree slope of wet clay, with my feet about three feet above the waiting mire, and clinging to the muddy slope like a mountain climber on the side of a cliff. Suddenly I became aware of something moving to my immediate right, just slightly above my head. I turned my head slowly, being careful not to upset my balance. In a second I was screaming. Actually, I was trying to scream but there was no sound coming out of my mouth. Twelve inches in front of my face was the biggest snake I've ever seen. It must have been eight inches in diameter and I swear it was twenty feet long.

    "Come on, Jenny, its only a hologame," I told myself over and over. I'm not sure if I actually said it out loud, but I am certain I didn't believe myself. It was so real! Then it began to move. The whole snake, there must have been twenty feet of it, just moved forward all at once, clearly stalking me. It looked hungry. I moved as quickly as I could to put some distance between myself and the snake without falling down the embankment into the quicksand.

    I calmed down just a bit by the time by the time I was five yards or so past the snake, but my heart was still racing. The giant snake was still just a few yards behind me and might well want me for lunch. I was still on a slippery clay slope, with a gooey bed of quicksand a step away to my left.

    For a moment, my situation struck me as comical. Here I was in an old Tarzan movie from the twentieth century. I was playing the Vera Miles role and was supposed to be startled into the quicksand by a big snake. For a moment, I was quite proud of myself for having outwitted the program. I had been scared half to death by that snake but I hadn't let it make me plunge blindly into the mire. I had been alert enough to see the snake and calmly back away.

    A second later I found out I wasn't so clever. I had seen the quicksand blocking my path. I had seen the treacherous hand holds on the clay bank. I had seen the big snake. But I hadn't seen the little ball of paper hanging on a branch just above the embankment. Suddenly I felt a sharp pinch on my thigh. Then another on my cheek. Two more, on my shoulder and, of all places, on the side of my breast. Bees! In seconds there were swarms of them.

    "Shit, that hurts," I cursed.

    I slapped two or three of them but is was no use; they were swarming all over me. I panicked. Those stings may have been holographic forgeries but the pain was certainly real. I lost my balance and was immediately up to my knees in the quicksand. At this point the whole thing was completely real as far as I was concerned. I threw myself sideways, against the embankment, and tried to roll over. I was able to pull one foot out of the sucking mire. Using that foot for leverage I was eventually able to pull out the other leg. My shoes disappeared in the process. I rolled over a couple of times, crushing a lot of bees against the sloped ground of the embankment, but this seemed to enrage them even more. They came at me in waves. I had to get away from that nest, even if it meant the quicksand. Blindly, I thrashed my way forward a few yards, then I slipped down onto the flat again. This time my luck held; the ground was solid. A few more steps and the bee began to lose interest. I was safe.

    No! I wasn't! The ground was moving under my feet. More quicksand! Quickly I dropped to all fours, they lay flat, attempting to spread my weight out over as large a surface area as possible. I was lying on top of what appeared to be a semi-dry crust, in the middle of a circle that was almost twenty feet across. The whole thing was like a giant water bed, rippling and undulating every time I so much as breathed, and it was a waterbed that threatened to come apart at the seams at any moment. Here and there were small cracks in the crust, where it had spread apart slightly. As these opened and closed, I could see the mire below. In fact, I could smell the mire below. It was a dark, greenish black color and very viscous. There were even a few lumps of goo the size of a fist hanging from the edges of overhanging cracks made by movement of the crust. The odor was the same as an ocean mud flat at low tide; bacterial decay with more than a hint of rotten egg.

    I had to get off that floating crust. I knew that if it broke up under me, or if I broke through by some unwise move, I would have little or no chance to avoid drowning in the muck. It would suck me down with every move, with every breath, until it engulfed me completely. It would eat me alive!

    One arm or one leg at a time, I began to belly crawl toward the shore. It looked awfully far away. I pulled myself forward on my arms, dragging my legs. Then I pushed with my legs and slid my arms forward. I repeated this over and over, progressing a few inches each time. Gas of some kind, reeking of rotten eggs,  bubbled up all around; squeezed up out of the mire as my weight depressed its surface. I'm only 108 pounds but I felt like half a ton pushing down on the crust.

    When I got within about two feet of solid ground, with its abundance of vine-like branches reaching all the way to the edge of the mire, I began to believe I might make it. Then, quite suddenly, I knew I would not. My right arm broke through and plunged into the muck all the way to the shoulder.

    "Damn!" I said, more in frustration than fear. "Not again."

    I tried to pull the arm out but the goo was very thick and I had little leverage. Instead, the other arm broke through and plunged in, also to the shoulder. I really began to panic at this point. Both arms were stuck, and I was flat on my chest with my face barely out of the stinking goo. The only way to get enough leverage to extract my arms was to draw my legs up under myself. And I knew what that meant. In all likelihood my legs would break through and I would be hopelessly trapped waist deep or deeper with my legs straight down where they would be useless. But I had no choice. I drew up my legs and began to pull my arms free. I got one free. I got the other one free. And then my legs did break through, just as I had feared. I suddenly just sank, slowly and steadily, almost in slow motion, all the way to my chest.

    The muck was thick but not very dense and I had a strong sense of  my lack of buoyancy. There seemed to be a lot of gas mixed in with the gelatinous slime, and that had the effect of reducing its density without making it thin enough to swim through. The odor of rotten eggs and putrefaction increased to overpowering levels as this gas gurgled to the surface in response to my presence. Friction from the ooze's viscosity was the only thing keeping me from going under instantly, but I was going down quite fast enough. At least my arms were free.

    I had just one chance. The vines on the shore were just out of reach. I just might be able to lunge far enough to reach them.

    I could sense that if I tried to lunge for the shore, the motion of my legs and arms that would require would cause me to sink considerably faster, perhaps all the way under.

    "Well, Jennie, you're going under anyway....you might as well try," I said to myself. "What difference does it make if you suffocate ten seconds sooner."

    That's what I told myself, but when you're about to take what you know is going to be your last breath, you'll do just about anything to make it your second to last.

    I forced myself. Pushing down with both feet and one arm I lunged as far sideways as I could, reaching desperately for shore with my free hand. It wasn't quite enough. My hand just grazed the end of a vine but grasped nothing but ooze. In the process I sank almost instantly to my lips in the muck. It tasted gritty and horrible - worse than it smelled. I believed I had taken my last breath.

    I clawed at the mud with the one hand still near the surface, making short, desperate strokes. It was enough to momentarily lift my mouth clear of the thick mud, but only for a moment. I was able to take in one gasping breath before I plunged back down, this time past my nose. My eyes were actually below the level surface, but I could still see because I was in a shallow depression made by my own sinking. All I could see as I went under were the edges of crust surrounding the shallow depression, plus the dim, out of focus green and brown of the vines and roots that were just out of reach.

    Then the muck closed over me. It was absolutely dark and suddenly cold. It could see or hear nothing at all, but I could certainly still smell and taste the mire. I began to struggle and thrash helplessly and blindly. My hunger for air grew and grew. It was over.

    I doubt if I had more than seconds before I lost all control and reflexively inhaled a throatful of choking mud when my hand felt something solid and stringy. My hand closed around it and I pulled with all I had left. I could feel my head break the surface although my eyes were so full of mud that all light was totally blocked. I think that enabled me to hold on for another second or two, until my mouth was clear of the surface. Then I explosively exhaled and inhaled. I was lucky no mud was in my mouth or I think I would have inhaled it all the way to my lungs.

    I coughed uncontrollably. I wheezed and struggled for breath. I vomited. But I was breathing again, and I had something relatively solid to hold on to. As I laboriously hauled myself onto the shore I remembered this was all supposed to be a holographic game. Some game. It was all way too real. The pain of being suffocated in enveloping, engulfing mud was much too intense to be a game. I began to sense that something might be wrong.

    I recovered fairly quickly from the physical stress, though the fear I had felt was still with me and would remain so for some time. I crawled away from the mire on hands and knees as fast as I could. I still had some considerable anxiety about the giant snake, not to mention the quicksand, but at least the bee stings no longer hurt. My T-shirt now hung in tatters and my skirt was totally gone. I really didn't care much about modesty at that point, of course. I just wanted to get away from that mud.

    For the next fifteen minutes or so the path was fairly open and I moved quickly. I thought I was moving back toward the thatch hut and the portal, but there was no sign of it. I was in an area of medium-sized trees and chest-high grass, and it was very dark as the moon was now intermittently covered by fast moving clouds. The ground was very wet but there was no sign of any more quicksand. Everything seemed fairly benign. For a while.

    Suddenly there was a brief, but very definite noise to my left; from somewhere in the grass not far away. It was a sort of guttural rumble, such as a large animal might make. A few seconds later I heard a very soft, rhythmic rustling; footsteps.

    "What is it now?" I said out loud. I was beginning to feel like a mouse in a game of cat and mouse. In my mind the sounds I was hearing were those of a tiger, probably about to pounce on me as its prey.

    I moved away from the sound as fast and as far as I could, but that was not far. The sound was still there. Noticing an easily climbable tree, I decided I'd better start being a squirrel rather than a mouse. Pulling myself up an abundant array of horizontal branches to a point about fifteen feet off the ground, and straddling a large, sturdy branch, I looked back at the ground below me.

    "Oh my!" I said to myself in sudden, near hysteria. "I guess its not a tiger after all....It's a lion....No, it's two lions....Damn if it isn't three lions!"

    Three huge lions had indeed been stalking me and I had climbed the tree just in time. Now I was perched in a tree above three lions circling below and looking up at me in frustration. They could not get at me, at least I figured they couldn't, though I can't say I was certain. I've never heard of adult lions climbing trees anyway. But I was trapped. I could go nowhere until the lions got tired and went away. And I certainly wasn't going to try going anywhere until I was sure they were gone. That might be a long time.

    For a half hour I hardly moved. I figured if I didn't move or make any sound perhaps the lions would forget about me. For a few moments it seemed as if they might be about to give up and go away.

    Then I felt a sharp, hot pin jabbed into my calf.

    "Ouch!" I said. "What the hell was that?"

    Instantly, I was the center of the lion's attention again. They were eyeing me hungrily again, circling just below.

    "Ouch!" I yelped involuntarily as another pin stuck into my foot. Suddenly I felt a dozen more such jabs, all over both legs. I looked down.

    "Oh my god....Ants!" I screamed. There were thousands of ants all over the branch I was sitting on, between myself and the trunk. Each was an inch long or slightly more, velvety black with a red abdominal stripe. They were obviously not happy about my being on that branch. I shook several dozen off my legs before they stung me, but it was obvious they would be immediately replaced by many more.

    I certainly could not remain where I was or the ants would sting me to death. Climbing or dropping down was suicidal. The lions would be on me before I hit the ground. I could not climb higher as the ants were between myself and the tree. My only option was to move further out on the branch. I moved out a few feet, turning around so as to face the ants. I would try to beat them back with my hands if they pursued me further.

    Pursue me they did!. In droves.

    I slapped repeatedly at the ants swarming on the branch, crushing them by the dozen and knocking many more to the ground. I hoped maybe they would drive the lions away. They kept coming.

    "What is it you want?" I kept asking out loud, though I was really talking to myself. "Do you want me?....Is this your branch?....Is there something further out on this branch you want?...Fruit?....Leaves?....What?"

    They kept coming. I kept slapping them off and squashing them. They kept coming. One or two got past my defending hands. They stung.

    "Ouch.....Damn it!....Ouch!"

    I retreated. The lions followed below. The ants kept coming. This was not fun.

    "Ouch!....Damn, that hurts!"

    I retreated further. The lions followed. The ants kept coming. The branch began to sag.

    "Shit, This can't go on."

    The branch sagged further. I looked down at the lions, who were now several feet closer. They were looking right back at me. Then I noticed that just a few feet further out from my current position there appeared to be a barrier of some kind. It was hard to see in the low light but when I looked closely I recognized it as a rusty remnant of a barbed wire fence of some sort. If I moved three more feet it would be between me and the lions. It wasn't totally clear if the fence was completely intact or if it was substantial enough to stop the lions but it gave me some hope. I was running out of branch and the ants were still advancing. I moved further out.

    The branch sagged some more as I moved, and I began to sense that it might break at any moment. Then it occurred to me that I'd better drop down to the ground on my own. I was only ten feet off the ground now and if I waited until the branch broke, it might destroy the fence. I'd be cat food. I looked down in the darkness to find a landing spot.

    "Oh shit! No!"

    It was unmistakable. I was looking straight down into more quicksand.

    "Now what am I going to do?"

    I looked around for options. Was there any way I could go further out on the branch and reach the far side of the quicksand? Was there another branch I could possibly get to? Could I possibly crawl back along the branch, enduring the ants long enough to find another branch?

    The branch decided things. There was a sudden, loud snap. The branch dropped. It shook me off as it struck something half way down. I hit the ground hard and it seemed for a moment the ground was solid after all. Then it became clear it really was quicksand. It was wet and cold and I could hardly move.

    I had landed in a near belly flop position with my arms extended. I was in a near horizontal position except my legs were completely under the surface, and my arms were stuck straight down into the goo. My chin was buried in the mud, as was the tip of my nose. Working my arms alternately, I was able to lift my face enough to breathe, though my wind had been knocked out by the impact and it was rather hard to do so.

    I was two feet from solid ground but the barbed wire fence was right at the edge and the lions were inches beyond that, looking quite interested in rescuing me from the quicksand. Drowning in quicksand suddenly seemed preferable to being ripped apart by lions, so I abandoned the direct route to shore. I looked right and left but both edges of the mire were marked by shear drop offs of at least three feet. No chance that way. Very laboriously I struggled to turn around, fearing another shear drop off on the far side, and knowing that if I allowed my legs to sink down into a vertical position I would have no chance of escape. As best as I could see, the far shore was flat and offered a chance. But it looked awfully far away.

    Slowly and very carefully I began trying to swim across the mire, focusing on keeping my legs up and my body horizontal. I found if I pushed my face down into the muck it helped keep by legs up, but doing so was unnerving. It produced a nearly overwhelming sensation of suffocation. At least this quagmire did not smell of rotten eggs.

    It took ten minutes to reach what appeared to be the center of the mire. I could make slow, exhausting progress and, so far at least, I could remain horizontal, but I could sense that I was slowly sinking deeper. It was getting harder to lift my arms clear or to raise my mouth to breathe. Worse, I was starting to tire. Momentarily, I tried to lie still, in a dead-man's float, to rest, but, feeling myself sinking deeper, I started struggling forward again after only a few seconds. In ten more minutes I was only five feet from safety, but I was so low in the muck I didn't think I was going to make it. Then I began to feel a few submerged roots. The mud became slightly thicker and I was able to get up on top of it just a bit. I made it.

    I hauled myself out of the quicksand and began wiping off thick gobs of it. The jungle seemed oppressively quite, making me apprehensive that something else was about to happen; a fire breathing dragon perhaps, or maybe a six-foot spider. Then I realized the quiet was caused by gobs of clay stuck in my ears. I cleared them out as best I could without clean water.

    Suddenly, there it was. The bronze icon was right in front of me, in the crotch of a tree six feet above the ground. I remembered, for the first time in quite a while, that this was all supposed to be a game. I plucked it from the tree. It was surprisingly heavy.

    "I wouldn't want this in my pack while struggling in quicksand," I said to myself. "I wouldn't have lasted a minute in that muck holding on to this."

    Then I realized I didn't have a pack to carry the icon. I didn't even have a pocket. In fact, I barely had any clothes at all. What I did have left was shredded.

    Suddenly there was the sound of distant drumming, coming from the direction I had just come. Half a minute later there were answering drums from two other directions.

    I'd better get out of here," I said, realizing the drumming meant the locals were aware of my trespass.

    "There you are" a vaguely familiar voice said from just a few feet away.

    Startled, I whirled around, not knowing what to expect.

    Joy and Melissa, the two proprietors of Symphony Hall, were standing a few feet away, dressed in jungle attire that was rather more intact than my own.

    "Did I win the game?" I asked in surprise. "I just found the icon.

    "Hardly," said Melissa. "You have to get back alive to the portal to win....Come on we've got to get you out of here."

    To my mounting alarm, Joy explained, "We seem to have a programming problem....the emergency termination routine seems to have a bug in it."

    I must have looked bewildered by her words, so she explained more fully, "Much of what happens in here is quite real....If you cut yourself you have a real cut and you bleed real blood."

    "No kidding," I interjected. "And you've got real bees and ants in here too."

    Joy and Melissa began tugging at my arm to move along, telling me it was urgent to do so.

    The emergency termination routine monitors what is happening at all times," Joy went on. "If anything life threatening happens to you, it ends the program before permanent damage is done. The program ends and you wake up in the entrance hall."

    "The emergency routine does not seem to be working," Melissa added.

    "Can't you just shut down the program completely," I asked.

    "We thought of that," said Joy. "But many of the things in here are quite real. If we shut down the program about the only thing that would disappear would be the props. The animals would be free and could get at us much more easily."

    "Damn!" I said. "You mean those lions were real."

    "Quite real," said Joy. "All the animals in here are real."

    Then Melissa lowered the boom on me, "We can avoid the animals just fine as long a the program is running....Its the human inhabitants we've got to worry about now."

    "We need to get you out of here," added Joy. "Then we can start shutting the system down."

    "Come on....this way," urged Melissa.

    Melissa led the way along the left side of a small stream that flowed from a marsh, the upper end of which was the quicksand pit I had just escaped from. We made rapid progress for the most part, although we had to slow down to pick our way across two patches that looked suspiciously like more quicksand to, but they turned out to be firm ground. All the time the drums continued on and off, each time sounding closer and more threatening. I noticed both Joy and Melissa seemed increasingly worried each time the drums started.

    After about half an hour, the open country we were in became to become more jungle like and difficult. The undergrowth became thick and there were more and more entangling vines. The vines would actually curl around anything that touched them. We continued to follow the stream, which was now confined in an increasingly narrow valley, with walls that rose vertically on both sides for twenty feet or more. It occurred to me that such a place would be ideal for an ambush.

    "No, I don't think so," said Melissa when I voiced that concern. "They're after us all right but they'll be behind us....That's why we have to keep moving....No matter what."

    We kept moving and the jungle got thicker and thicker. Soon we were struggling for every foot. We had to squeeze through narrow gaps between thousands of small bushes that grew almost touching one another. We constantly had to unwrap vines from our arms and legs. Some of the leaves had sharp spines or edges and a lot of the plants bristled with thorns. Soon all three of us had bleeding cuts, although with my shredded clothes I think I took the worst of it.

    "Now we crawl," instructed Joy, just as we reached a point where it seemed totally impenetrable. "Just stay with us and keep going."

    Joy disappeared head first into a tiny gap in the lowest level of the underbrush. Melissa indicated for me to follow. The gap in the underbrush looked like a tight squeeze for a rabbit, but I followed. If Joy and Melissa could get through, so could I.

    It was as dark as it was tight, more like a cave than just a gap between the trunks of thousands of bushes. In full daylight it might not have been so bad but I could see very little except Joy's feet ahead of me. How she found the way through I haven't a clue. As for the vines and thorns, there were far fewer of them but they were still a nuisance.

    "How much farther do we crawl?" I asked after nearly half an hour.

    "Only about another five minutes," said Melissa from behind me. "But its the worst part....Just keep going no matter what."

    I didn't pursue the question of what made the next five minutes the worst part, but I soon began to sense it was something besides darkness and a tight squeeze.

    Actually, what I began to sense was a faint, but distinctly unpleasant smell. It quickly grew to an overpowering stench I associated with old buildings just after treatment by an exterminator.

    "Phew! What the hell is that stench?" I asked finally.

    Neither Joy nor Melissa answered. They didn't have to. Suddenly we were crawling through thousands of bones, some of which still had decomposing flesh attached. There were hundreds of skulls of every size up to that of a raccoon. And there a few that were as large as a human, though they were not.

    "What is this, some kind of animal graveyard?" I asked.

    Joy answered grimly, "Not a graveyard...It's more of a killing field....Keep going."

    "A killing field," I asked in alarm. "What would kill all these animals in here?"

    Melissa hesitated slightly, then answered. "Tarantulas....Really big tarantulas."

    "Shit!" was all I said. I really don't like spiders, especially big hairy ones.

    Well, somehow we managed to get through the crawl without being attacked. We did see about five of the tarantulas, but they were busy devouring an animal of some kind. It looked about the size of a rabbit but was too far gone to tell for sure. The tarantulas were about a foot across each.

    Finally, we emerged into a wide-open clearing. It was still dark but it was easy to see we were in a steep-walled valley about sixty feet wide. The stream had apparently cut through a series of sedimentary layers as the walls were composed of alternating layers of some sort of shale with thick bodies of clay or sand stone in between. The stream bed was dry, flat, and completely unobstructed. I figured the going would be easy for a while.

    Melissa grabbed my shoulder just as I started forward.

    "Its all quicksand!" she said.

    "We rock climb from here....along the left wall," interjected Joy.

    Don't slip," warned Joy. "Remember the emergency termination system isn't working.

    We started climbing right away and it was soon apparent why we did not climb all the way to the top. It was easy to climb to the first layer of shale, and that layer provided a narrow shelf on which to walk. Above that, however, the wall was almost shear for ten or twelve feet and overhung by the top layer of shale. Climbing to the top was clearly impossible without ropes or other gear, which we lacked. Also, as Joy pointed out, going to the top would make us easily visible to the natives, whose drums were now getting quite close.

    We had about a hundred feet to travel along the rock wall. The first half of that was quite easy. Then the shelf started getting narrower, until it was not much more than a series of foot holds. We inched along, moving one foot at a time and always trying to avoid putting too much weight on one spot. We were only about eight feet off the ground but the ground but the fact that the ground was quicksand made things very tense. This was a case where we would not survive a fall even if we survived the fall.

    With ten feet to go, Joy was across the last really delicate spot and was reaching back to help me.

    "Shit!" she suddenly cursed, grabbing my arm and pulling me forcefully. She was looking up at the opposite bank. I looked up as soon as I was across. Lined up along the top were a band of four or five very strange-looking humanoid creatures.

    "Duck!" yelled Joy.

    I ducked. An instant later a volley of short, dart-like arrows clattered off the rock wall around us.

    "Damn!" yelled Melissa. "Took one in the leg."

    Melissa worked her way across the gap in the shale quickly but not before another volley of darrts caught her in the open.

    "Oooouuuu," yelped Melissa. "I'm hit."

    "Come on Mel!" shouted Joy, jumping past me to try to help.

    "I'm trying," answered Melissa.

    Melissa was across the gap and almost off the rock wall when a third volley clattered on the rocks.

    "Oh!" was all she said as she was struck twice more.

    "You can make it!" shouted Joy.

    "I don't think so," groaned Melissa. Then she fell.

    "Mel!" shouted Joy.

    We looked down just in time to see Melissa's face disppear down into the quicksand. Her hands thrashed about, grasping for anything solid, but there was nothing we could do.

    Joy grabbed my shoulder.

    "Come on, let's go," she said. "Run!"

    We ran. We crashed blindly through thorn bushes and scratchy brush. We skirted the edge of another quicksand pit and we high-stepped through a dry mud flat swarming with some kind of snakes. I think the snakes were as startled by our behavior as we were frightened of them, and they left us alone. We ran through more brush. We swam across a muddy pond and ran some more.

    And then we came up over a sharp rise and were face to face with about twenty natives, all holding spears pointed in our direction. We were captured.

    The natives bound our hands behind our backs and began makinig us march somewhere. They were an odd assortment of species. A few appeared to be human but most were clearly not, though they were all humanoid in form. They seemed intelligent enough but rather cruel. They seemed especially indifferent to Joy and myself. They were clearly angry at us, and did not speak to us except to indicate where they wanted us to go.

    They took us to what appeared to be a ceremonial site of some kind. There were a few huts and a camp fire or two but this was clearly not a complete village. They brought us to a semi-circular clearing, surrounded by several highly decorated totems and illuminated by torches. Near the center of the clearing were four or five posts about four feet apart in a line. They tied Joy and myself to two of these.

    "What are they going to do to us?" I asked Joy when they left us alone and went off to do something.

    "See for yourself," she answered grimly, glancing with her eyes toward the area beyond the circle.

    "No!" I almost screamed. "Not more quicksand."

    For about two hours they left us alone to ponder our fate. We struggled against the ropes but it was hopeless.We could make no progress at all.

    "Jennie, I'm sorry," said Joy as it became apparent our wait was about over. "The system never malfunctioned before."

    I didn't know what to say. I was frightened of what was about to happen and I was angry at Joy and Melissa. But Joy and Melissa had done everything they could to get me out when the system broke down. It had already cost Melissa her life and we would very soon be joining her.

    "I'm sorry about your sister....and thank you both for trying," was all I finally managed to say.

    Then they came. They took Joy first. They released her from the pole and took her by the arms. Then they forced her forward to the very edge, and just shoved her into the mire.

    Joy didn't struggle much, at least until near the end. She sank quickly at first, then more slowly. With her hands tied there was little she could do anyway and every movement made her sink faster. It took almost fifteen minutes for her to sink from her neck to her nose. Then they came for me.

    I saw Joy go under as they dragged me forward to the edge. She just gagged once, coughed, and went under. She was still thrashing just beneath the surface when they pushed me in.

    I sank much more rapidly than Joy as I simply could not be still. I went down to my ribs almost immediately and was up to my shoulders in a few minutes. The mud was extremely slippery, almost slimy, and it had the same rotten egg odor I had encountered earlier. It was slightly cool to the touch, though not cold, and it shook like gelatin with every muscle I moved.

    As the mud rose around my neck I knew I was done for. There could be no escape this time. I was totally vertical and my hands were tied. There was nothing I could do.

    As the surface of the mire touched the bottom of my chin I really panicked.

    "Help!....Help me!....Please, don't do this!" I screamed.

    The natives made no move. They wern't even watching. I twisted and thrashed wildly, and the mud rose instantly past my nose. I threw back my head in  desperation. I could breathe again, and that calmed me down slightly, but not for long. In another minute the mud was at my nose again, even with my head tilted back all the way. I could feel a circle of mud framing my face and I could feel that circle slowly shrinking. Soon the mud covered my eyes. I pursed my lips to keep it out of my mouth, but that gave me no more than two extra breaths.

    Then the mud flowed into my mouth. I tried to spit it out but it just flowed right back in. I coughed violently as a few lumps of mud flowed down my throat. The cough cost me what buoyancy I had and I went down deeper and faster.

    I could smell the rotten egg odor as I slid further down into the mire. The mud grew colder. My hunger for air grew and grew. Eventually I reflexively blew out what air I had left and inhaled forcefully. My throat filled with mud.

    The next few seconds are a blur. All I remember is thrashing about and being desperate to breathe. Then everything went black.

    Then next thing I knew I was waking up on a bed. I was in a small room with no furnishings other than the bed. I was wearing the same shredded T-shirt and shorts. My regular clothes were neatly folded and stacked at the corner of the bed. I changed clothes and went to the door.

    I was back in the holosuite check in area.

    "Did you have a good adventure?" said a voice from behind a counter. It was Melissa.

    Ah!....Oh!....Well!....Yeah!....I guess I did," I said. "You have a very impressive facility here."

THE END