The Colossaur stopped walking for a moment, while Moy kept going.
Ettubrute watched him move on, away. The artist was still talking. Excited, gesticulating, not realizing he was alone. Cutting a path through the crowd of Cetians, who stared at him in surprise. Some pointed, shaking their heads reproachfully. Others, who had possibly witnessed his performance, made way for him with respect.
“Yes… When it comes right down to it, you and I are in this together, Moy,” the Colossaur whispered, so low that the artist, walking far ahead, never noticed that he had used perfectly correct Planetary syntax.
Nor, of course, that his agent’s tiny pig eyes had a suspiciously moist sheen…
The World Human Parliament
Xenoid tourists who want to learn all about the political history of Earth always get the same tour: First they view the ruins of the Acropolis in Athens and the Roman Forum, then their guides take them to Geneva, proud seat of the World Human Parliament.
The visit invariably takes place in two stages over two days.
First day, a Sunday, they are brought to the large building where they tour the immense, empty halls. This allows them to appreciate the walls and floors of fine marble (a material found only on Earth), the gigantic holoscreens, the comfortable ergonomic desks decked out with sophisticated computer voting terminals. Visitors can also admire walls adorned with frescos by great contemporary Earth artists—allegorical representations of Truth, Justice, Virtue, and the other eternal themes of every democracy.
The next day, a Monday, the xenoids return with their guides to watch representatives and parliamentarians in plenary session. They attend their heated debates, listen to their passionate arguments, watch the voting process with great interest, taking long holovideos of the hotbed of human passions that constitutes any governmental body.
Their guides then wearily explain the principle of representative democracy, by which each city sends its favorite sons to Parliament so they can all come to common agreement on which decisions are best for the whole planet.
This explanation typically satisfies ninety percent of the tourists.
As for the other, more curious ten percent, who keep on asking how Parliament can be sure Planetary Security will carry out any regulations they pass, how the people who elected them can remove them if they don’t fulfill their promises, and other fundamental questions, the guides take them outside the gigantic edifice and show them something.
A simple Planetary Tourism Agency sales kiosk, mobbed by all the other tourists trying to buy reminders of their stay on Earth.
Smiling wistfully, as if they are letting down their hair, the guides mention the fact that this one simple kiosk takes in almost as much money in one day as the entire monthly budget of the World Human Parliament.
Then the interested tourists stop asking questions. They’ve understood who really rules the planet. And they march off, content, back to taking holovideos.
The Champions
We are the champions.
The best on Earth.
The defenders of human pride in the sporting arena.
The public knows it. They have confidence in us.
We know it because their raucous cheers rock the fuselage of our aerobus like thunderbolts when they detect us in the sky. Our vehicle, painted in the colors of Earth, descends from the high-velocity lane and heads along the wide avenue toward the stadium, gliding a few scant yards above the heads of the fervent crowd.
They worship us. We’re their idols. If we win today, we’ll be even more than that. Practically their gods.
“What a sea of people. The pilot’s going to get us killed,” grumbles Gopal, our coach, looking down through a hatch. He can’t help it. These ceremonial pre-game entrances always make him jittery. But the rest of the team, including me, really enjoy it. It’s a beautiful tradition, and what would Earth be if we gave up our traditions, too?
Our pilot is used to crowds, and he confidently drives the aerobus above the ocean of humanity. Doesn’t even glance down.
I do. The sight of thousands of faces wild with hope, thousands of hands shooting me the V for Victory, gives me strength before each game.
Today I’ll need it more than ever. This is going to be the toughest Voxl game of my life. My gateway to fame if I do well. My path to becoming a has-been, a nothing, if I fail.
I’m going to go out there and give it my all.
Everybody else on the team knows how important today is, too. Each in his own way is focused on a single idea: winning. Nobody wants to think about a loss…
Losing would mean eternal shame. Maybe the end of our careers, maybe no Voxl team would ever want to give us another contract…
Just thinking about it brings bad luck.
But no. Victory is ours. It has to be. Today, we’re not just the best Voxl players on Earth right now; we’re the best in years. We are the champions, and this might be the year.
Never before have six humans this good at Voxl played together on the same team.
Mvamba, tall and skinny as a basketball player, is kneeling in front of a miniature folding altar. Praying in his deep Bantu dialect to a tribal fetish, carved from a piece of wood as dark as his skin.
Sometimes it really does seem to help if you believe in a personal, intimate little god who watches over you, pray to a protective spirit or a guardian angel. Not even two years ago Mvamba was a regular guy driving broken-down old aerobuses around Sydney. Just one more African immigrant, left stateless after the xenos sank their whole continent in Contact times. A scout from the local team, the Black Hands, saw him throw a rock at a mugger and decided to give the kid a tryout. His career rocketed straight to the top: center forward for the Black Hands, offensive back for the Melbourne Skulls… and now, his big shot. A chance only one player in ten thousand will get: defending the colors of the whole Earth. A rookie couldn’t ask for more. Most likely, he’s giving thanks to his fetish for his good luck.
Here, watching Mvanda’s prayer with a smirk, is Arno Korvalden, the Danish defensive back. The Blond Hulk. A committed atheist and the burliest guy on the team at 412 pounds and six feet nine inches. Also the oldest hand. He was playing with the Copenhagen Berserkers back when I was still swiping credit cards in the outer ring of the Havana astroport. Sportswriters have been speculating about his retirement for some time. But the Great Dane keeps on playing, and right now he’s the best defender on the planet. Not that he cares much how Earth does; Arno is a pragmatic guy, a mercenary who only responds to the scent of money. Gopal only got him to play with us by promising him a huge bonus, which he’ll make win or lose. Anybody else and there’d be doubts about how well he’d play, but the Blond Hulk is a man of his word. And, simply put, he only knows how to give one hundred percent. Obviously he’ll do his very best.
Yukio Kawabata is here and not here. Though his body is present, the Zen Buddhist trance he’s been in for nearly an hour has probably sent his spirit back to the imperial Edo of his samurai ancestors. From the way he plays it, Voxl is obviously just a modern equivalent of Bushido for him. Yukio is an idealist through and through. He can afford that luxury; he’s rich enough already. His family owns a nice block of shares in the Planetary Tourism Agency. That’s why he doesn’t care how much he makes or whether he wins or loses. He plays well, better than anyone else; that’s his obsession. And he’s a terrific right center, with reflexes and fast legs that are the envy of lots of professionals in the League.