Tau Ceti (an Ell Donsaii story #6) (33 page)

Dex tilted
hies
head back and forth, trying to understand. Then the pictures showed a flyer
landing
to perch
on the
horizontal
stick. When it
landed
, the stick fell
out of its hole
and the rock fell
. The weight pulled
the noose shut around the flyer’s legs. The dalin reappeared
,
taking
away
the trapped flyer.

The pictures started over.
Dex studied them carefully through several repetitions. Syrdian came back from relieving himrself and watched
the drawing
s
also. Dex began boring a hole through the back end of one of
hies
staves
.

Syrdian said, “
Do you
think the drawings
are
say
ing
that we can catch flyers with a
flyer
snare made like the drawings show?”

Dex tried to fit a perching stick into the hole
hie
’d b
ored. “T
hat’s what I think. Do you?
”

Syrdian shrugged,
“
I guess.
Can I help?”

“We’re running low on fiberlin string. Do you know how to make it?”

“Yes, but I’ll have to go
to see if I can find any
fiberlin vine tomorrow.”

“Can you unravel some string
off a piece of the rope we brought up from the cave?”

“Sure how long?”

“A little more than the span of your arms.”

Syrdian looked fondly at Dex a few moments, then turned to look for their rope.

***

Washington D.C.—President Flood announced today that his administration, like President Teller’s before his, had negotiated several strategies to release D5R’s new solar technology gradually and broadly. This strategy is hoped to stabilize the instability recently plaguing the energy sector, especially the petroleum markets…

Ell’s AI spoke in her ear, “‘Raquel Blandon’ has a call from
Shan
Kinrais
.”

“Who?”

“
T
he
Shan
you
met at Vic’s bar
23 days ago.
”

“
Oh,
OK. Hi
Shan
, long time.”

“Hi Raquel. I find I keep thinking about my best clogging partner.”

“It was fun… I’d like to dance with you again sometime.”

“Well… Do you remember that I like to play basketball?”

“Yeah?”

“I belong to an intramural team and a couple of our guys can’t play tonight. I remembered that you said you played in h
igh school? Could you fill in? W
e’re desperate.”

“What!” Ell laughed, “First of all
,
I’m broken hearted to find you aren’t calling me to go dancing again. Then, even worse, I learn that you’re only calling me to fill in on your basketball team because you’re ‘desperate
?
!’”

“Crap! I didn’t put that very well
,
did I?”

“No! Are you always this clumsy talking to girls?”

“Probably.” He laughed at himself, “Do you think that’s why I don’t have a girlfriend?”

Ell giggled. “Ya think? Yeah.
I’d cut you some slack
anyway
,
except
I
’m afraid I don’t have the stamina to play full court without subs.”

“Oh, this is half court, three on three.”

“When?”

“Six PM. You bail us out so we don’t have to forfeit and I’ll buy you dinner after.”

“OK, but you owe me a night out clogging too.”

Shan
laughed, “You’ve got a deal.”

Shan
scanned the gym again. If Raquel didn’t get here soon they’d have to forfeit
. He breathed a sigh of relief; he’d seen her walking around the periphery of the cou
rts. Behind him Ryan said, “Who’s supposed
to fill in for Jim and Roger?”

“Raquel,”
Shan
murmured staring at the girl approaching. Wearing old sweats that somehow looked… good. Something about the way she walked… Slender, pretty, but… graceful.

“Who!?” Ryan broke in, “A girl!? Why not just forfeit and get it over with? Oh God, it’s that clogging girl you had the hots for isn’t it?!”

Shan
turned, “No one else could play! Just think of it as two on three, they won’t
let
us play without a third player you know?”

Ryan turned away in disgust, “This’ll be a
total
humiliation.”

“Even if we lose, we’ll still get some practice.”

Ryan barked a laugh, “
No
, these guys we’re playing, they won the league last year.” He waved at four guys walking their way,
all dressed in black,
the short one at least six foot one, “It’ll be an embarrassment.”

Raquel stepped up. “What’ll be an embarrassment?”

Shan
turned to her, “Hi Raquel, apparently
we’re
playing last year’s champs and Ryan thinks we’re gonna get a beat down. Do you remember Ryan from Vic’s?”

“Sure,” R
aquel put her hand out to shake.
Ryan took it sullenly.

The four guys approached, one stepping forward, saying, “
We’re team ‘Destruct.’
Are you the ‘
Integs’?”

Shan
nodded, “Yup.”

“Where’re the rest of your players?”

“One’s sick, one’s out of town. Raquel here’s
subbing
.”

He rolled his eyes, “Oh, come on! Tell you what, take the loss and one of us will play on your team
, then we can at least
have
some fun games.”

Shan
looked stubborn, “We’ll play one game with
our
team. If you guys put
a
bad
hurt on us
,
then
we’ll take the loss and you can loan us a player.”

He shrugged, “Your funeral.” He pointed around his team, “Steve, Rick, Larry,” he pointed
a thumb at
himself, “
Rand
.”

Shan
said, “I’m
Shan
, this is Ryan and Raquel.”

“OK.
We’ve got
five minutes
to warm up.
”

“
Right
.”
Shan
tossed the ball he’d been holding against his hip to Ryan who dribbled it out onto the court and tossed up a
rim
clanger.

Shan
nervously watched Raquel catch the ball which had bounced directly to her. She
dribbled
it a couple of times, as if getting the feel for it, then she bent her knees gracefully and launched a shot
with
nice
form
…
but
it was an ‘air ball,’ so short it didn’t even touch the rim. His heart sank.
He glanced back at her, expecting her to be wincing.

She grinned at him, “Haven’t played for
years
.”

His heart sank further.
Shan
jogged to retrieve the ball
as it
bounced off the court. He tossed it to Ryan who put it in. Raquel retrieved it and tossed it to
Shan
, but
her pass

was low.
Why
did I think this would be a good idea? Not even a good idea, why did I think it would be an
acceptable
idea?
He launched a shot which banked almost in, but bounced
off the rim,
up and out. Raquel caught this one too, dribbled it a couple of beats and passed it out to Ryan.
There’s one good pass
, he thought. Ryan dropped that basket too and
Shan
developed a little hope.
Sometimes
Ryan could
get
really
hot. If that happened today, maybe
the game
wouldn’t be
too
embarrassing.

Raquel rebounded and tossed the ball to him. This time it hit him right in the hands, pretty hard. His eyebrows rose and he took the shot.

To his dismay it bounded high up off the rim. He hadn’t made one yet! To his surprise Raquel appeared under it to rebound again
and this time
she
put it back up. It fell through, nothing but net…

One of the league refs showed up and
said, “Let’s get this game going.”

Shan
and Ryan pulled off their sweats and after a moment’s pause Raquel shrugged and did the same.
Shan
’s breath caught a moment when she pulled o
f
f the pants.
Those legs are gorgeous!
Then she pulled of
f
the
sweat
top
. As it came up it pulled her
snug
little
tank top
up
briefly
to reveal
her a
bs
. He blinked,
the girl is ripped!
He remembered how well she danced,
she’s got to be pretty athletic.
Maybe
we
do
have a chance
?

Team Destruct won the toss and brought the ball in to Rick who
Raquel was supposed to be guarding
,
since he was the shortest guy on the other team. He tossed it, uncontested to
Larry back at the foul line and Larry brought it back toward the basket with Ryan defending him. Ryan pressed him hard enough that Larry picked up his dribble but then he passed it hard to Rick who pivoted and sank a jump shot over Raquel’s head.

Shan
brought it in to Ryan
,
who dribbled it back to the foul line and brought it back up court. Though Raquel was very loosely guarded by Rick, Ryan made a pass back to
Shan
who had Rand all over him. For a moment
Shan
thought he’d lost the ball but he managed to keep it and put up a wide shot. Rick rebounded the miss and tossed it back to Larry near the foul line.

In short order the Integs
found themselves behind 14 to 4, Ryan having put in a couple of baskets. Ryan called a time out.

“
Shan
feed it to me, I’m making baskets and you’re cold
as ice
.”

Shan
shrugged;
it was true, “OK.”

Raquel grinned, not looking fazed at all by the debacle the game had turned into. “What do you want
me
to
do?
”

Ryan shrugged, “Bring the ball in, try to get some rebounds.”

She grinned again, as if she were having a great time. “OK.”

My God,
Shan
thought,
she could at least have the decency to look embarrassed.
Then he thought,
though
, we haven’t really given her a chance. We’re playing pretty much like she isn’t out there.

Raquel took the ball over to
the baseline to
bring it in.
Shan
was dismayed to see Rick step up to the line, arms out, intending to make it impos
sible for her to even get it onto
the court. He was torn between being angry that they were going to make it so hard on her and embarrassed that they could. To his amazement
,
as Ryan stepped down near the baseline, trying to give her a target,
Shan
saw her wink at Rick, then the ball suddenly rocketed past Rick’s hip, not to
Ryan
nearby, but to
Shan
. A long pass that should have been in danger of interception… except it was hard, fast and right to
Shan
’s hand on the far side from Rand.
Did she
just get lucky
?
Or
do that purposefully
?