Our old coach stalks back and forth in front of us, his hands behind his back and a scowl on his face. He looks more like an old general than ever. Finally he stops and sighs. Here comes the speech. I think, with a cynical sense of relief, that it’ll be his last.
“Players!” he booms, and now he’s more like a drill sergeant, because no general would howl like that. His voice sounds too loud for his long, gaunt body.
“I’m not going to tell you all what you already know. I’m not going to remind you how much is riding on your victory, today, right here. I just want you to think about one thing: that we’re humans. The sons of Earth…”
“AND PROUD OF IT!” we scream, as he has taught us.
“Good.” His smile fills our hearts with something ineffable. “Do you all know what it means to be the pride of Earth? It means that, just this once, it doesn’t matter if you were playing on opposite teams in the World Championship six months ago. Or if the countries where you were born have hated each other to death since before Contact. Now we’re all one thing: humans. And they’re all xenoids. The enemy. It’s us against them. It them or us. And nothing else matters.”
He let out a deep sigh. “As for the rest, I hope you already know it after six grueling months of training. And if you haven’t learned it, may Allah help us.” We all smiled at the joke, added to break the tension.
Jonathan glances at me and winks. Meaning, “The old man says the same thing every year.” Probably true, but I can’t laugh. As team captain, it’s up to me to set an example.
“Forget defense. We’re playing to win. As the game develops I’ll be giving you instructions,” Gopal adds, and his olive Hindustani skin looks pale with exhaustion. “But don’t forget that you’ll have the last word, because…”
“WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!” The battle cry fills our hearts with faith, and Gopal grins like an old gargoyle.
“Yeah… What I was about to say, though, was that you’re the sorriest troop of monkeys I’ve ever seen set foot on a Voxl court. But, sure,” he winks at us, and for a fraction of a second he’s nearly Mohamed Gopal, the Delhi Wonder, once more, the first human to play in the League, “now you’ll get your chance to prove me wrong.”
Jubilant, confident, laughing, we race off to our changing rooms. Each has his own, the door marked with his name. As always, Mvamba comes in last. He doesn’t know how to read. He waits until everyone’s there so he’ll know which is his by simple elimination. Well, some skills aren’t strictly necessary for being a good Voxl player.
And you really don’t need to be able to read in today’s world. Computers talk, so do credit cards… Even so, the African’s illiteracy is a secret between Jonathan, himself, and me. We especially promised him that Arno Korvaldsen would never find out. The Blond Hulk made such cruel fun of the Slovsky twins for not knowing who Julius Caesar was, if he ever learned about this he’d make Mvamba the target of his taunts for months. And ridicule is practically the only thing the former aerobus driver fears. He’s so shy…
It isn’t easy to live and play as a team. Not for anybody, especially not for the captain. My position brings lots of responsibility and not much credit. Everybody’s always waiting to see me make a mistake or forget something, from the coach to the substitute player. Meanwhile, the only praise I get is winning. The eighteen points on our scoreboard. It’s only then, without needing anyone to tell me, that I think I’ve really done a good job. Never perfect, though. No such thing as a perfect game in Voxl.
The second I slide the door open, the antigrav field lifts me into my room. They say that League stadiums have internal teletransport booths and that none of the spectators come out to watch live games because they all prefer to see it on holovision.
Bah. They say so many things about the League… Here on Earth, the holonet broadcasts the games, too. Sure, there are lots of details that you can appreciate better, replays from different angles, in slow motion or infrared… But it can’t be the same as being right here in the Metacolosseum, roaring at every move the teams make. If it were, why would so many xenoids be coming here instead of watching it from the comfort of their hotel rooms?
I start gearing up. The ceremony is as ancient as Voxl itself. Some two thousand years old, from the time the Centaurians started playing it on their frigid world, long before they came into contact with other intelligent races.
Gopal helps me on with each piece of the uniform, just as personal servomechs are doing in each of the other teammembers’ changing rooms. Helping the captain dress is an ancient privilege for the coach… and our last chance to exchange views.
“Careful with Mvamba’s leg, it’s still weak from his latest defracturing treatment,” he whispers while helping me pull the medical monitoring and feedback lining over my bare skin. It’s a complex device that will oversee my physical status, second by second. My metabolic stress levels and any fractures, sprains, or dislocations will be logged by the system. It will also make sure my heart doesn’t explode while the device administers the hormone and stimulant dosages I’ll need to bear up under all the stresses and strains of the game.
“You think the twins will make it through to the end of the match?” I ask, bringing up an old point of contention: for me, despite their undeniable physical conditioning, they could still use a little battle hardening.
Gopal nods confidently. But he whistles a catchy tune from Delhi that I’ve heard him hum other times when he’s nervous and doesn’t want anyone to know.
He’s not positive they’ll hold up either. I’ll keep that in mind.
Over the inner lining he places the shock-absorbing coverall that will protect me from the effects of the force field suit, the outermost layer of my armor.
“Keep an eye on Arno,” Gopal is still counseling when he begins placing the field generators on me. “Sometimes he forgets he’s on defense and he tries to win the game all by himself.”
I nod. I’ll keep an eye on Arno.
When I turn the suit on, an impenetrable force field surrounds me. A calculated diffraction effect makes it glow in the glorious pink and blue of Team Earth. And the number 1 that identifies me as captain, under the triangle logo of Planetary Transports Inc., our official sponsor. May the Virgin protect them a thousand times.
Competitive gear for a first-class Voxl player is incredibly expensive. Factor in the strict technoscientific quarantine to which Earth is subject, which means that practically every piece of gear has to be purchased from the Centaurian corporation that hold nearly exclusive manufacturing rights throughout the galaxy, plus the fact that the training equipment, special diets, and all the rest practically double those costs, and you start to realize that the guys at Planetary Transports are true patriots. That they’re highly committed. And that they’re likely to boil us alive if we don’t validate their investment by giving a good performance they can use as advertising.
For a quarter of what they’ve invested in feeding me, monitoring my medical condition, training me, and suiting me up, my father could have bought himself a first-class ticket and gotten off this planet safe and sound.
I’m going to dedicate this match to you, Papa… wherever you are. If you weren’t pulverized by an asteroid or recycled by the gypsy junk-hunters, maybe you’re still tumbling along out there, frozen for all eternity. All I know for sure is that you didn’t make it. Sorry, old man. A few more years and I would’ve taken you on a trip. Of course, you had no way of knowing that, or patience enough to wait for the miracle…