Touchdown, Touchdown, Rah, Rah, Rah!

After one of the breaks in the game Ray went to the open-air broadcast booth, where Jones and a retired bagdrag player were giving a commentary to the Earthside audience. “It’s the end of the fourth fifth,” Jones was saying, “With the score tied at six, six, and six, with one stench—foul, that is, against Flerk Polytechnic.”

“Dad’s ride,” the player said in his version of English, “end it leafs Vrekle plus Bnurx in a god position three drat the hag across their mutual coal line and scare two pints. Weal come left bat rafter a weird from your sponsor.”

One of the technicians made a chopping gesture. Jones took off her headset and gestured for Ray to come closer. “Not a bad game,” she said. “Lots of action, no long time-outs between plays, and with all that padding on her your girlfriend is a lot more photogenic than I expected.”

“Do you think it’s worth covering the rest of the season?” Ray asked.

“Big Mac will think so, if these ratings hold.” She nodded at the computer terminal on her table. “The autorating system says our viewership has been going up throughout the game. Staying here might not be such a bad idea,” she mused.

“I thought you wanted to get off this ‘dirtball’?”

Jones shrugged. “If I can go home with higher ratings, I’ll wait. Besides, that redhead at the embassy is OK, once you get to know her.”

“You mean Delores?” It surprised Ray that anyone could like her. On the other hand, he mused, maybe Jones could drive a wedge between Nyquist and his henchwoman. The day was looking better and better.

“Delores, right,” Jones said. “We’re having dinner tonight, unless Nyquist pulls something rotten. You heard from him yet?”

“No.”

“I’m worried,” she said. “He doesn’t seem like the sort of man who submits to blackmail. What’s he got up his sleeve?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Ray said. “I’ll handle him.”

Jones looked dubious, but the cameraman flashed her a thumb’s-up before she could comment. “And we’re back at you, live from Kya,” she said, putting her headset back on.

Out on the field, the three teams had resumed their positions around the bag. Vrekle and one of the other teams had combined forces, and their line swept away the third team’s players as their carriers dragged the bag over a goal line. It all looked like a mountain on the move, but that sight was nowhere near as imposing as the spectacle of Nyquist, forcing his way through the throngs of kya spectators toward Ray. “Well, Bennett,” he said cheerily as they came face to face, “Sorry I had to miss the start of the game, but I had to do a little housekeeping.”

“ ‘Housekeeping’?” Ray repeated.

“I had to clean your clock.” Nyquist smiled nastily. “I found out that Jones never sent a taped interview to Earth, and GSN doesn’t report on anything but sports. You bamboozled me into letting you broadcast this game, but I guarantee it’s the last trick you’ll pull. You’re being deported. You’ll leave on the next ship.”

“Don’t say good-bye just yet,” Ray said. “You’ll be coming with me. Watch.” Ray drew his notepad from his pocket and played back a recording. A simulacrum of Nyquist s office appeared. “This had better be good, Bennett,” Nyquist’s image said as he entered his office. “What have you got? Some kya complaining about UN policies?”

“Let me show you,” Ray’s image said. The Ray-image produced a notepad and placed it on the ghostly desk.

Standing on the grass before Nyquist, Ray smiled as he turned off the notepad. “I painted over its record light before I came to your office, so you couldn’t know I was taping our meeting. There you are, submitting to blackmail, to protect yourself. What do you think will happen if the UN sees that?”

After a chilly moment Nyquist returned Ray’s smile. “I’ll lose my job. You’ll go to jail for blackmail. It might be worth it, Bennett.”

“I wouldn’t go to jail unless I returned to Earth,” Ray said. “So I’ll stay here. After all, my work is here, and my fiancée likes it here.”

“ ‘Fiancée’?”

Ray gestured toward the field, where Elizabeth was trading sides on the bag with another player. “I’ve had a lot of good ideas lately,” he said. “Now, I doubt you want to lose your job, so why don’t you just back off?”

“And let you ruin this world?”

“How do you ruin a world?” Ray asked him. “I’ve figured out something, Mr. Ambassador. Things change.”

“Is that supposed to be brilliant?”

“Understanding it is,” Ray said. He gestured at the field. “Thousands of years ago, that was how they fought over food. Now it’s just a game, because they developed agriculture and don’t have to fight over food any more. Or should they have preserved their culture and stayed in little nomadic herds that fought over scraps of food? That’s as unrealistic as saying Neolithic humans should have stayed in the caves.”

“You really don’t care how much harm you do here, do you?” Nyquist asked in disgust. “You’re just rationalizing everything.”