Away Games: Science Fiction Sports Stories (3 page)

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Why would you want to experience failure?”

“They will take my emotions away after the season, which is to say, after tonight, and not return them until the start of next season,” he said. “Time is short. I must experience everything I can while I can.”

“Even defeat?”

“Do all humans win all the time? Did we not defeat Birmingham last night?”

“You did this to me just to learn what failure felt like?” I exploded. “You fucking soulless machine! I worked my whole life to make it to a title game and you pissed it away on a lark!”

He sat stock-still for a moment. “And now I feel guilt. It is a very interesting emotion, quite separate from failure or disappointment. Thank you, Jacko, for introducing me to it.”

“Well, I’m not thanking you for introducing me to failure and disappointment!” I snapped. “They’re old friends, and they didn’t need you to bring them around again.” I glared at him. “I thought you couldn’t make value judgments or exercise free will.”

“I thought so too,” he answered. “But emotions override everything.” He smiled happily. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

“You destroy everything our team has worked for, and you think it’s wonderful?” I yelled. “You go to hell!”

He got to his feet, and for a minute I thought he was going to punch me into the middle of next week.

“I am not prepared to give up my emotions just yet,” he announced. “Offer my excuses at the bus tomorrow, and tell them that I will return before next season.”

“You’re seven feet ten inches tall,” I said. “Where do you think you’re going to hide?”

“Where they won’t find me.”

“What the hell are you going to do?”

“There are so many things,” he said. “I have never loved and lost. I must find someone to love, and then I must lose the object of my affection. I think both sensations will be exquisite.”

“You’ve become a fucking emotion junkie!”

“Isn’t everyone?” he asked mildly.

Then he was gone.

He hasn’t returned yet, but he always keeps his word, and we’ve got a couple of months before the season starts, so I’m sure we’ll be seeing him soon.

You know, there was a time when I felt sorry for the Big Guy because he couldn’t feel any emotions. These days I figure robots have it easy and don’t know it. I think in another week or two, after the woman he loves leaves him, when he’s finally experienced heartbreak and regret, he’ll be wishing he could never feel another thing.

I always thought basketball was best when it was played at a high emotional level. I guess I was wrong. When he finally shows up at training camp, they’re going to take the Big Guy away for a day, and remove all the regret and sorrow and frustration from him, and he’ll come back as good as ever.

I wish to hell they could do it to the rest of us.

***

The Short, Star-Crossed Career Of Magic Abdul-Jordan

Author’s Note

If I were writing this today, I’d change his name to LeBron Kobe Jordan, but that’s about it.

Nobody knew his real name, but that didn’t matter, because by the time he was ten years old they’d already renamed him Magic Abdul-Jordan, after three of the greatest ancient basketball players. There wasn’t a shot he couldn’t make, and oh, how that boy could jump! He was quicker than a Denebian weaselcat, and nobody ever worked harder at perfecting his game.

When he was twelve, he stood seven feet tall, and his folks moved to the Delphini system, where they still played basketball for big money. Hired him a private tutor, and let him turn pro when he was thirteen.

First I ever heard of him was when word reached us out on the Rim about this fifteen-year-old phenom who stood more than eight feet tall and could reach almost twice his height at the top of his jump. A year or two later his team ran out of competition and went barnstorming through the Outer Frontier, and wherever Magic Abdul-Jordan went, he filled the stadiums. I don’t think that young man ever saw an empty seat in any arena he ever played.

Nobody knew why, but the kid just kept on growing and forgot to stop. By the time he was seventeen, he was nine feet tall, and they changed the rules to try to make things a little fairer. The baskets were raised to a height of fifteen feet, and he was only allowed two of those spectacular dunks of his per half; anything more than that was a technical foul.

But none of that bothered him. He kept honing his skills and working on his moves. I finally got to play against him on Ragitura II, when he had just turned twenty. By then no closed arena could accommodate the crowds that wanted to see him, and he played all his games in outdoor stadiums. I think maybe two hundred thousand Men and about half that many aliens showed up to see him that day.

When he came out onto the court I couldn’t believe my eyes. He was close to twelve feet tall, but he had the grace of a dancer. Don’t tell me about the square-cube law, I was there; I saw him. This kid could have stuffed the ball if they’d hung the basket twenty feet above the floor, and he was so quick he led his team down the floor on every fast break.

I was the best player on our team, so I got the dubious honor of guarding him. The rule changes had allowed each of his opponent’s ten fouls. I ran through all ten of mine in something like six minutes, at which time he’d already put 37 points on the board. When the game was over, I did something I’ve never done before or since: I walked up to an opponent and asked for an autograph.

He seemed like a nice, modest young man, and everyone predicted a great future for him. I made up my mind to keep an eye on him as his career developed, but that was the only time I ever saw him.

Next I heard of him was a little over a year later. He was up to fourteen feet tall, and it was getting hard to find anyone to play against him. They kept changing the rules, and he kept growing past all the changes. Pretty soon they had the basket so high that he couldn’t dunk anymore—but none of the other players could even throw the ball that high.

Another year passed, and he was eighteen feet tall and still growing. They had to construct a special ship to accommodate him, but then one team after another canceled their games. They gave all kinds of reasons, but the simple fact was that no one was willing to play against him anymore. He was just too big and too good, and finally, faced with imminent bankruptcy, the team had to cancel his contract.

That was the last anyone ever saw or heard of the poor bastard. Every now and then I’ll hear about a real tall, middle-aged phenom playing in some pick-up league, and I’ll fly halfway across the galaxy to see if it’s him, but invariably it’s some guy who’s seven feet tall and starting to go a little bald.

Anyway, that’s why you never saw him or heard of him. But trust me—no one who ever had the privilege of watching Magic Abdul-Jordan in action will ever forget him. He’s probably out there somewhere, towering above his world like an attenuated mountain, still working on his moves, hoping and praying that they’ll ask him to come back for one last game so he can give a new generation of fans one final thrill.

But of course they never will.

***

Monuments of Flesh and Stone

Author’s Note:

This was written around a painting by Hugo winner Frank Wu. Everyone else saw two humanoid aliens reaching their arms up for a low-hanging world. Me, I saw two guys going for a basketball. There was a tiny man lying on a blanket in the background, and a humanoid female pushing a grocery cart (even Frank couldn’t tell me why)—and I incorporated them into the story as well. And, oddly enough, I took it all seriously.

Plutarch sure as hell wasn’t much of a planet. It resembled a war zone, except that nobody had fought a war, not in its entire history.

In fact, nobody had done much of anything. I know; I had to bone up on the place before I arrived there.

In the whole history of planet, not a single resident had ever sold a book. Or a story. Or a poem. Not one had ever become a professional actor, either on stage or in holos. None of them had ever composed a piece of music. If any of them had ever made a scientific or medical breakthrough, no one had recorded it. Of course they had their share of local politicians, but not one of them had ever gone on to higher office off the planet. It was just a peaceful, forgotten little world, out on the edge of the Democracy, five-sixths of the way to the sparsely-populated Outer Frontier.

There wasn’t a single thing to distinguish it—except for the statue.

It had been created by the Denebian sculptor Mixswan, who had stuff on display on half a hundred worlds. I don’t know how they afforded him (or was he an it?); the whole population must have chipped in.

Mixswan didn’t exactly do non-representational art, but the figures didn’t look like the Men or Canphorites they were supposed to be. They appeared gold and spiky, all angles rather than muscles. One of them—it looked like it might have been the biggest—had broken and eroded over the centuries, and the bottom half was totally gone, while another was missing its head. Still, the statue instantly caught the eye —and I’ll never know how Mixswan managed to keep that ball in the air.

It was the most impressive sight on Plutarch. Hell, it was the
only
impressive sight. I’d heard about it—after all, it was the only thing on Plutarch anyone ever talked about—and since I was here on business, I figured I’d better let the locals see me admiring it.

So I looked at it, and looked at it, and wondered what the hell kind of world would commission a statue to commemorate a defeat. I mean, if
I
ever celebrated a loss, I’d be looking for a new job the next day and no doubt about it. And yet Plutarch had created no statues, no edifices of any type to mark a triumph in this, a victory in that, a breakthrough in something else. Just the one statue that must have put them in debt for years, maybe decades given Mixswan’s reputation. It didn’t make any sense.

A woman with a pushcart walked over to me. I’d seen hundreds of different shopping carts in my life—anti-grav, self-propelled, able to select items off a shelf and grab them with artificial hands, even some that could morph into a flyer or a boat to take the owner home when he or she was done shopping—but this was the first I’d ever seen where the owner actually had to use his own strength to push the damned thing.

“I don’t believe I’ve seen you here before,” she said. “Welcome to Plutarch.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I just arrived a few hours ago.”

“Have you come to admire our monument?”

“No, I have business here,” I said. “But I find your monument very interesting.”

She nodded. “It depicts the greatest moment in our history.”

“I’ve read about it.”

“You can see it, if you like. Every shop sells the holo.”

“Maybe I’ll buy one,” I said.

“I hope you enjoy your stay,” she said. “You have come at a lovely time of year.”

I hadn’t noticed anything particularly lovely about the time or the planet.

“The corn is just starting to come up out past the edge of the city,” she continued. “If you open your window at night, you can hear it growing.”

I gave her a look that said I was a little long in the tooth for fairy tales.

“It’s true,” she said. “It will grow eight or ten inches a night for the next week. It grows so quickly that you can hear the leaves flutter.”

“I’ll listen for it,” I told her.

“Will you be here long?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “Possibly you can help me. Do you know where I can find Damika Drake?”

She frowned. “He’ll be in school until midafternoon.” She paused. “I knew you were here for him.” She stared at me long and hard. “Leave him alone.”

“I’m not here to do him any harm,” I said. “Quite the contrary. I …”

“We need him more than you do,” she said and began laboriously pushing her cart away.

I figured I’d walk toward the city center. It was the only city left on the planet, maybe the only one Plutarch ever had, and I knew the school had to be there. I circled the statue and found a road that would take me there. Sitting next to the road was an old beggar, seated on the ground, holding out a cup with a few coins in it and a misspelled sign saying “Desstitut” right next to him.

“Hello, old man,” I said. “Doesn’t it get warm sitting out here in the sun?”

“My cross-country racing days are over,” he said with a wry grin. “Course, they only lasted about ten minutes. Got some alms for the poor?”

“What the hell is an alm?”

He shrugged. “Beats me,” he admitted. “I read it somewhere.”

“Will credits do?”

“To coin a phrase, beggars can’t be choosers.”

I flipped a couple of Democracy credits into his cup.

“Thanks, Mister,” he said. “You’re here for Damika Drake, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Figgers,” he said. “Only two reasons for anyone to come to Plutarch. The statue and the Drake kid. I saw you looking at the statue, and you’re still here, so it got to be for the kid.”

“It is,” I said. “Can you tell me anything about him?”

“Not much,” he replied. “I can tell you about the statue, though.”

“I’ve heard about it.”

“Not from an insider,” he said.

I tossed him another couple of credits. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

“I’ve love to,” he said, “but my throat just dried up.”

“I assume a glass of water won’t open it up,” I suggested.

He grinned. “I’m allergic to water. Better make it beer.”

“Okay,” I said, helping him to his feet. “Lead the way.”

He made a beeline for a broken-down building about two hundred feet away. The place was dimly-lit, with one squeaky fan hanging down from the ceiling and spinning slowly. There was a human bartender—the place obviously couldn’t afford a robot—and we sat down on a couple of well-used stools at the bar.

“A couple of long ones,” said the beggar. “My friend is buying.”

The bartender looked at me. “You new here?”

“Just passing through,” I said, slapping some money on the bar.

“That’s what they all say,” replied the bartender. “Especially if they’ve got any money.”

“I was just about to tell him about the game,” said the beggar.

“He doesn’t look like he cares,” said the bartender.

“I’m interested,” I said.

“Then I’d better stick around, just in case old Jeremy here messes up the details.”

He brought out three beers, one for each of us.

“It was 421 years ago,” began Jeremy the beggar. “Nobody’s ever heard of Plutarch—”

“He means the planet, not the man,” put in the bartender.

“He knows that,” said Jeremy irritably. “Anyway, we were just a little backwater world with nothing special to our name.”

“Except Damika,” said the bartender.

“I’m coming to that,” said Jeremy. “We just had one thing out of the ordinary, one thing that made Plutarch special. We had a young man named Damika.” He paused wistfully. “They say he could fly, that he moved so fast the human eye couldn’t follow him.”

“They say a lot of things,” added the bartender. “He was just a man.”

“He had to be more than that,” said Jeremy doggedly. “Anyway, we entered a team in the Sector basketball tournament. There were forty-eight teams entered, only nineteen of them human. Bookmakers were giving fifty-to-one against us in any game, and three-thousand-to-one against our winning the whole thing.”

“But you won,” I said.

He nodded. “Damika averaged 63 points and 22 rebounds a game. Nobody had ever seen anything like it. Even legends from the Earthbound days like Milt the Stilt and Johnny Magic never performed at that level. Suddenly people knew who we were. We had tourists coming to watch us practice before the Quinellus Cluster championships, and even better, we had investors. All because of the basketball team.”

“All because of one young man, actually,” said the bartender.

“He must have been something to see, this Damika,” I said.

“They say he jumped so high and stayed in the air so long that textbooks had to rewrite the law of gravity.”

“It’s a nice bedtime story,” said the bartender. “He was the best. There’s no sense trying to making him into anything more than that.”

“Anyway,” continued Jeremy, “we were huge underdogs, but we won the Quinellus tournament—and then we went up against the Canphor VI team for the championship of the Democracy. They say more people watched that game than any sporting event in history. Think of it! For one night, two hundred billion people knew where Plutarch was! Hell, if Damika had said he wanted to be king, he’d have gotten it by acclamation.”

“But he was supposed to be a modest, decent young man,” said the bartender. “All he wanted was to bring some reflected glory to the planet.”

“We were big underdogs again,” said Jeremy. “We were giving up seven or eight inches and maybe fifty pounds of muscle per player. But you can see it for yourself if you buy the holo. The Canphorites got off to a big lead, because they double- and triple-teamed Damika. We were playing on McCallister II, which was supposed to be a neutral world, but its gravity was about a hundred and ten percent Standard, and it wore on our lighter players more than on the Canphorites. They were winning 52-38 at the half, and everyone thought it was over.”

“Damned near was,” agreed the bartender.

“But then Damika just took over the game,” said Jeremy, his emaciated face lighting up with excitement and pride some four centuries after the fact. “He did things no one had ever seen before, things no one has seen since, and he single-handedly brought us back from the abyss.”

“He scored 45 points in the second half,” added the bartender. “No one had seen anything like that, not then, not ever. The people who’d spent their savings flying in from Plutarch were screaming and cheering him on, and he didn’t let them down.”

“He tied it with a basket at the final buzzer,” continued Jeremy, “and then the game went into overtime. We were down one point with ten seconds to go, but we got the ball into Damika’s hands, and we knew that he wouldn’t let us down.”

“You sound like you were there,” I commented.

“I wish I’d been,” replied Jeremy. “Ten seconds from galactic glory!”

“Or galactic obscurity,” said the bartender.

Jeremy nodded. “Damika drove to the basket, and two hundred billion people knew he was going to leap four feet in the air and stuff the ball through the hoop—and then it happened.”

“I read about it.”

“That’s the part I hate to watch,” said the bartender.

“Everyone hates to watch it,” said Jeremy. “One of the Canphorites gave him an elbow just as he was about to take off. He fell, and even on the holo you can hear that
crack!
when his ankle broke. It sounded like a rifle shot.”

“He pulled himself up onto one leg to hop off the court,” said the bartender, “and the Canphorite coach began screaming that the tournament rules said that if a fouled player could stand on his own power, he had to take his own free throws. There was nothing about having to stand on two feet. You could see the bone sticking out through the skin, but Damika tried to take the free throws himself. His eyes were glazed, his whole body was shaking from the effort just to keep from falling down, he missed both shots, and that was that.”

“He never got rid of the limp,” said Jeremy, “and he never played again. We didn’t have much of a team without him, and in more than four centuries we’ve never made it as far as the quarter-finals of the Sector tournament.”

“The tourists stopped coming …” said the bartender.

“The investors stopped investing …” said Jeremy.

“And we were nothing again, just the way we’d been before Damika.”

“Still, for one shining moment, we were
somebody
. People from halfway across the galaxy knew about us. Dozens of holo crews landed on Plutarch to interview us.” Jeremy paused. “We knew we were never going to reach such heights again, so we took our planetary treasury and hired the best sculptor in the Democracy to commemorate the moment that Damika grabbed the last rebound in regulation time and scored with two seconds left on the clock.”

“You haven’t kept it up very well,” I said.

“It’s four hundred years old,” said Jeremy. “It costs money to keep it up.”

“And our citizens desert us as fast as they can,” said the bartender. “We had almost half a million inhabitants when Damika played against Canphor. We’ve got about sixty thousand now, maybe a little less.”

“He’s here for Damika Drake,” said Jeremy.

“Big surprise,” said the bartender. “Why else would anyone come to Plutarch?”

“I couldn’t help noticing the similarity in names,” I said.

“Three-quarters of the boys born on Plutarch are called Damika,” said Jeremy. “Every parent hopes
their
Damika will one to restore our former glory.”

“As if it lasted for more than a month,” said the bartender dryly.

“You gonna take Damika Drake away?” asked Jeremy.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve got to talk to him, see what he can do first.”

“I never even asked,” said Jeremy. “Who do you coach for?”

“The Sagamore Hill Chargers, out of Roosevelt III.”

“I’ve heard of them,” said the bartender. “You made the semi-finals out in the Albion Cluster last year, didn’t you?”