As she warmed up, she heard the sounds of the balls being readied above the court; the slow clunks and chirps as they rode the ball-lift up to the ceiling feed tubes. Involuntarily, she looked up – but the launch bin wasn't open yet so she wasn't really trying to get a jump on the game.
The nearby smack of shoes against floor brought her attention to court-level again, stomach clenching as she saw that Roni was deliberately coming toward her. She was almost as noisy as Lesset, Theo thought, like she thought making noise was proof of effort. Roni came closer, the captain's band already around her arm, and her Team smile locked in place. Her forehead showed a sheen already, as if even the warm-ups were work for her.
"Theo, I just wanted to say – I don't believe those rumors that you knocked Lesset down on purpose," Roni said surprisingly. "I was right there and I saw the whole thing. It really was an accident! I think you really do try to be a good Team member, but you can't help it if you're clumsy!"
Theo stared, feeling her fingers curl in toward the palms. She needed her needle and her thread right now, she thought, or she was going to – going to –
Orange flashed at the edge of her vision. Gasping, she spun, and called out to the Team.
"Professor Viverain is on the court!"
Viverain was the acting head of the L & R department, but unlike Professor Appletorn, who held a full-time collegiate position, she was a traveling academic who sought work where she could now that her old college had been decertified. Viverain rarely instructed the Four Team students, but when she did she wanted them to play just as sharp as graduating Fifth Forms.
"Four Team Three, I expect everyone to be in position by the time the ball-bin is full!" Viverain called out. "We're going right to a game!"
* * * *
Groronk!
The first round buzzer went off and the bin overhead emitted a rumplety-bumplety sound as the balls loaded. The Team members stared up into the bin, trying to get a look at the balls they'd drawn – and each called a number. The Team Captain would then make the consensus call. Together, they had all of ten clicks to bid.
"Fourteen," said Lesset, which was predictable, because fourteen was about the least you could score on a round.
The greens... Theo thought she saw a lot of greens! Green was a high score ball if you could get a good shot...
"Sixteen," said Kartor. Theo thought that was a mite low... but the balls still weren't finished loading.
"Nineteen!" Estan and Anj called at practically the same second. That was starting to be high, in Theo's opinion... but no, maybe they'd seen how many greens there were.
Surer now, Theo called out her bid – "Eighteen!" – just as the bidding clock hit eight.
Roni stared, soundless, at the overhead... the clock hit nine, then...
"Twenty-one!" she called; the official Team bid. Everyone else gasped. That hadn't been a consensus call!
The buzzer double-clucked and the first ball began to roll down the spiraling wire chute, dropping toward to the launch spout. Roni hurried down court while her team members darted glances and shrugged shoulders at each other. Twenty-one would take a lot of luck.
Overhead, the chute vibrated and sang as the ball picked up momentum.
"Let's go!" Theo called. She pointed at Kartor, whose face was just shy of grim.
"Third Ring!" she said. "Estan, you back Lesset in Second. Anj – " but Anj had already drifted dreamily off down-court. Theo sighed. The Team Captain should've set the positions, but Roni didn't care where the rest of them were, as long as she was in First Ring, where scoring was easiest.
Roni liked to score.
* * * *
They did work up a sweat on the first round, with Theo's off-the-cuff positioning proving to be reasonable. She and Kartor were in the outer, largest, Ring. They could, if required, dive or drive into Ring Two. Ordinarily, you tried to get fast people into the middle ring... but having Lesset on one side of Ring Two wasn't too bad, because not only could Estan help her when she flubbed, but Team members in Rings One or Three could back her up, too. Depending how, and how bad, she flubbed, if the ball got back into Two or Three on the other side of the court, it might still be playable. Roni was hogging Ring One, even though she shared it with Anj.
On good days Anj was their best player; and she could rove into Ring Two at need. Playing at the edge of Two, where Lesset should be, she could keep the errors to a minimum. Estan played opposite Anj except when back-up was required, and Lesset wandered between her supposed posts, sometimes blocking good passes and other times causing bad bounces.
On the whole, they did better then they had a right to on the first set. A typical ball started out on the spiral, gaining speed, rapidly, until one of the rotating tubular launch points matched the slot the ball was passing over. The circular court was entirely contained within a tall thinly-padded wall and it was Kartor and Theo's job to gather the ball off the wall, if that had been its trajectory, and sling it underhanded toward the center; or if it were falling elsewhere in the outer ring to make sure that it didn't continue to the outside or bounce away from the other team members.
Once in Ring One – or if lucky tossed or kicked from Ring Two – the ball had to be scored by getting it – for a single point – into one of the waist-high stationary chutes on a flaring parabolic column rising seamlessly from the floor and extending – with a similar flare at the top – to the ceiling. The three rotating chutes higher up the column scored more, with the highest, fastest and smallest chute scoring top points.
The column at school was well padded at the base and, like the spirals, formed of a lightweight open mesh fabric mounted on highly visible mechanicals. In the higher levels and in the pro game the column was a near invisible crystal structure which was often a nexus of collision, but which could be used to aim and deflect the ball to someone in better position for a shot. In this scholastic version, the column was less dependable as a tactic; its safety factor a minus rather than a plus.
Time was of the essence in every version of the game, because as soon as a ball crossed into Ring One, or numbered beats after it crossed into Ring Two, the next ball started down the spiral. It was bad form – and cost points – to scavage, or score, the second ball first.
They only did that three times, the scavage, and came out of the game with twenty-three points, which was good for a first go, and was aided by a lucky score on the part of Estan, who tossed the ball into the rotating upper goal just as the timer buzzed, and Roni calling for it from the other side.
* * * *
The second round was a disaster.
Lesset managed to toss two balls in entirely the wrong direction, causing two double scavages early in the set after Roni had bid a slightly more conservative twenty in the face of her teammates' grumbling of how lucky they'd been in the first game. Everyone rushed to try to make up the difference, the sounds of their running sounding extra clumsy to Theo, and it didn't help that Viverain added to the noise and confusion, by leaning over the wall of the Instructor's Tower, shouting suggestions for all of them.
Twice, Viverain called encouragement, as Kartor and Theo got the ball toward the center, but once into the Lesset Zone things tended to go astray. Lesset's shoes constantly scraped and squealed against the floor as she tried to get back to where she wasn't, and Roni's footfalls sounded like nads slapping water in the pool. In the end, the team missed their bid by five, with the instructor counting out their errors, loudly, the while.
* * * *
"Theo, you've got to get me the ball more!" Roni was panting, her face almost as red as her shorts. "I think if you hadn't kept passing to Kartor and Estan you really could have helped me score more. You know, maybe if you'd managed to get the ball to other females we'd've been in the game!"