Tau Ceti (an Ell Donsaii story #6) (34 page)

Shan
took it across the foul line and dribbled back up court with Rand pressing him hard. He fired a bounce pass to Ryan who put it up
…
but it bounded off the rim and
towards
Rick.
Shan
’s heart sank but then to his astonishment Raquel darted in front of Rick and
slapped wildly at
the ball
. Wild as her slap had been
,
the ball bounced
directly
back to Ryan. This time it went in.

Rick stepped over the baseline to bring the ball in and Raquel stepped in front of him
. She didn’t have her hands up!
Ryan shouted, “Get your hands…” He stopped because Rick had made his inbounds pass from up high where Raquel’s hands
couldn’t even reach
. But one of her hands
did
wildly
touch it
, deflecting the pass. Only a little bit, but instead of going to
Larry it went
right
into Ryan’s hands.

Ryan fired it back to
Shan
and
Shan
dribbled it back up court. Ryan broke free of Larry and
Shan
fed the ball to him.
Ryan
rushed the shot and it bounced erratically off the rim. However unpredictable that bounce off the rim might have been
,
the gods smiled on
them because
it fell right into Raquel’s hands. She glanced at Ryan but Larry
had him well covered at the moment and Rick was blocking the expected pass as well
.
Shan
had the fleeting impression that she shrugged before putting the ball up and through the hoop herself! Perfectly arced, right
in
the hole
…

Games were to 21 and they lost that first one 21-18. Yes it was a loss, but it wasn’t an embarrassment. They declined to take the loss and one of Destruct’s players, opting instead to
continue
play
ing
for themselves.

They just got luckier and luckier!
Raquel didn’t
make any
“steal
s,” just accidental deflections. But the gods smiled and the deflected passes
went into his or Ryan’s hands. She didn’t seem to put much effort into her passes but they moved fast and arrived hard… and
exactly
to their recipient’s hands. Well
,
that wasn’t strictly true, to catch them
he or Ryan usually
had to step a little, but that step
always
took them away from their defender. She’d only shot twice
the first game
, but she’d drilled both of them.

Nothing about her play seemed to be… remarkable. Except there were no errors. And her
unintentional plays
… like
when she managed to deflect one of their
pass
es
,
were so lucky. They not only were deflected just enough to miss their intended recipient
,
but also
didn’t dribble out of bounds, instead they
went
to
Shan
or Ryan
.
As they were taking their break, Ryan turned grudgingly to Raquel and said, “Nice passes. This time you go back to the foul line and bring the ball up. Feed
Shan
or
me
.”

Raquel shook her head and grinned. “Nah, I’ll get
tired
if I have to run up and down that much. I’ll stay down her
e near the basket except when I’m
chas
ing
one of them on defense.”

Ryan narrowed his eyes and looked like he would protest, but then shrugged his shoulders and turned back to the court.

They won the next game… and the one after that. They led
most of
the time.
It seemed like the Team Destruct player that was on Raquel made a lot of mistakes.
Shan
wondered if they were just flustered to be playing a girl. Or by her willowy good looks? In any case, they fumbled their dribbles, perhaps because Raquel got a hand on the ball. They let her deflect their passes, perhaps too confident that she couldn’t?

When they’d won the third game for the best two out of three and the overall win, Ryan slammed into
Shan
with a bear hug, lifting him off the ground. “Man,
we
were on
fire
!
Way to go!
”
He turned to Raquel, “You play a decent game little lady, thanks for helping us out.” He jogged away, calling back, “Gotta go
!
”

Shan
honored his commitment, taking Raquel out to Five Guys for burgers
afterward
. As they sat down he said, “Hey, you’re
pretty
good with the b-ball.”

She shrugged, “I’m pretty quick is all. Catches guys by surprise and they don’t adapt
to it
.”

“I’ll say
…
Hey, I looked up your company,
it’s
‘Quantum Technologies’?”

She nodded.

“It’s a spin-off of D5R isn’t it?”

She nodded again.

“Have you met Donsaii?” he asked eagerly.

“Well, I’ve seen her around.”

“Oh man, I’d
so
love to meet her. I’ve been studying the math she came up with to describe quantum effects and her 5
th
dimension and it is so
fascinating
! You’ve
got
to promise to invite me to
your next
work part
y
.”

Raquel narrowed her eyes,
“She doesn’t like people bugging her.”

“Aw hell, she doesn’t even need to talk to me. I’d just like to be able to
brag that
I shook her hand.
Or I could just worship the ground she walked on?
”

After their burgers and fries, they wa
lked to an ice cream shop where
to
Shan
’s amazement
,
while he had a small cone
Raquel sucked down a large milkshake.

Back home
,
after working on hi
s math a while
,
Shan
found himself musing about
how
the games
had gone
.
After a while h
e
skimmed
through
his AI
’s video of the games
.
She didn’t take a lot of shots, nor make every shot, but
his skin prickled when
he realized that she missed every time
when
they were leading and made every shot when they were trailing…
what a weird
coincidence.

Finally he turned back to his hero Donsaii’s beautiful equations.

Dex
landed and Syrdian felt relief to see that hie had a
couple of small
burrower
s
. Syrdian had only
caught
one flyer with the pole snares
that
day. When t
hey’d first started putting the snares
up in the meadow they’d caught quite a few flyers
each
day. But it seemed that the flyers had
become wary. Syrdian moved the snares
every day
,
but had begun to think that hie needed to move them to another meadow.

They were eating better than they had been
,
but
were
still somewhat hungry most days. Dex worked tirelessly putting out snares and hunting small animals from the air. Syrdian found himrself admiring Dex and wishing that hie had the confidence to tell Dex how h
i
e felt. But hies chest hurt when hie tried to talk about such things.
Despite hies higher status in the
Yetany
tribe, it felt to himr that, in their little tribe of two,
Dex
held all the
rank
—if
so
,
Syrdian should be respectful and
wait
for Dex’s notice.

As Dex helped break
down
their catch and prepare them to be roasted
hie
glanced covertly at
Syrdian.
They’d been eating better but
Syrdian
still
appeared
thin.
Hie mused to himrself over how
hies
love for Syrdian at a distance last winter had proven false when
hie
’d come face to face with the real Syrdian after the talor’s attack.
That
Syrdian had seemed shallow, pathetic and not at all who
Dex
would have wanted to spend hies life with. But then, after
Dex ha
d agreed to try to help Syrdian live through the summer despite
hies
torn wing, Syrdian had seemed to change.
Instead of
hies
initial
incompetence and arrogant
attitude,
Syrdian had assiduously
done
what
ever
hie could to help and learn
ed
how to do
most of the
things that hie hadn’t known how to do.

When it turned out that the flyer snares needed to be checked frequently to keep flying predators from taking their prey, Syrdian had volunteered for the job
in order to allow Dex time to do the things that required flight
.
These musings led
himr
to wonder… “How does your wing feel now, Syrdian?”

“It doesn’t hurt anymore. I’m worried because some of your little threads have gotten loose. Do you think they need to be replaced?” Syrdian sounded apprehensive over the prospect.

“I don’t know, let me see.” Syrdian raised the wing and Dex bent
hies
head near. The sutures were more than loose
. On
the surface
hie
could see and Syrdian could not, many of them were broken.
The skin of the wing around them was discolored.
Dex plucked at them with a claw, “Does this hurt?”

“It’s sore.”

Dex grasped the tissue to either side and tugged in a direction to pull the wound open. Nothing separated. “Does that hurt?”

“No.”

Dex pulled the wing up to look at the underside. The threads were loose and had actually pulled out in a couple of places leaving pieces of thread dangling. Hie tugged on a loose loop with a claw and the thread pulled right out of the wing. “I think you’re healed. I’m going to try taking the sutures out.”
Hie
pulled another one loose.

“But, what if… what if the wound comes open again? I don’t want
you to have you put them in again. I don’t think I could take the pain
.”

“They’re loose. They aren’t doing anything anymore.”

“What if the suture spirits are…? I don’t know… doing something even
though the sutures are loose
.”

“Spirits? These are just stitches, like I
make
to hold leather together.”

“But if you take the threads out of leather, it comes apart!”

“Leather doesn’t heal.
I think you
r
wing
has
healed.”

“They aren’t doing any harm. Please leave them in?”
As if begging,
Syrdian dipped hies head in submission.

Taken aback, Dex wondered why Syrdian would dip submission, hie was much higher ranking than Dex. “OK, I think you should try beating your wings some to see if you think it’s strong enough to fly
.”

Syrdian’s head went
way
up and back. “Really?!”

Dex shrugged hies wings, “Have to try it sometime.”

“Let’s get
these burrowers
roasting first.”

Once their catch was roasting, Syrdian said, “Shall I try it now?”

Dex shrugged, “Sure.”