Touchdown, Touchdown, Rah, Rah, Rah!

“I’m trying not to,” Ray said. “I’m only saying that change is part of everyone’s culture, and so is learning how to deal with change. I’m saying—”

Nyquist spoke an undiplomatic word. “You’ll get away with it this time,” he said, “but next time, I’ll nail your hide to the wall.” He turned and started to stomp away, then looked over his shoulder, determined to have the last word. “And you’ll still destroy their world.” He vanished into the crowd of kya.

No, I won’t, Ray thought. There was a secret to surviving the hazards that change brought on. Elizabeth had survived her allergies by coming to Kya. Zelk had learned to bend the rules when Faber brought on his crises. Ray had managed to hold things together despite the curves that Mcllvaine and Nyquist had thrown him. The secret of surviving in an unpredictable universe was to keep your wits about you. Simple, he thought, but Faber and Nyquist hadn’t managed it.

The crowd cheered a play on the field. Returning his attention to the game, Ray saw that Vrekle now had sole possession of the bag. Over the crowd’s rumbling gronks he heard Jones shouting out the score—eight, eight and six, with Vrekle tied with Bnurx and in a position to score the winning point, what a game, you poor geeks oughta be here—while on the field, the opposing two teams lined up to take the bag away from Vrekle.

Ray could barely watch as Elizabeth and seven teammates pounded toward their home goal. The opposing teams charged them en masse, a stampede which he thought would have sent John Wayne running home to his mommy. Vrekle’s defensive line went down under the onslaught, and the offense swept over the bag.

Ray looked for Elizabeth while the referees charged into the confused, milling players. He expected to see her removed from the field on a pizza platter, but when a knot of players moved out of the way he saw her still clutching the bag with one hand, while she waved her other fist in the air. The crowd went wild, and over the din Ray heard Jones shout something about Vrekle retaining the bag. Apparently, Ray thought, a team kept possession if even one player kept a grip on the bag—and Vrekle was now within yards of its own goal line.

What came next baffled Ray. The outrunners scurried around the field, and in a moment Vrekle had given up sole possession of the bag. “What’s going on?” Ray asked the nearest kya.

“We’re sharing the bag with Flerk!” she said in excitement. “What a play, what a play!”

“I don’t get it,” Ray said.

Ray didn’t get a response, as the play began and the crowd went wild. Out on the field the offensive and defensive lines collided, and the bag carriers plowed through the chaos to plunge across the goal line Vrekle shared with Flerk. Time ran out then, and the crowd surged onto the grassy field to celebrate the end of the game. Jones shouted out the score—ten, eight and eight—while her co-anchor, overcome with excitement, gronked incoherently in his own language. As Ray forced his way through the mob toward Vrekle’s bench area, he wondered if Vrekle had won. None of the fans had the dejected air of losers he would have seen on Earth.

Whatever had happened, the Vrekle players were ecstatic as Ray caught up with them. “Are you all right?” he asked Elizabeth as he got hold of her.

“I’m fine,” she gasped. “I could— get to like—doing this.”

“How did you manage to hang onto the bag in that one play?” Ray asked.

She started to get her breath back. “I just grabbed my handle like it was Nyquist’s throat,” she said. “After that, it’s like explaining how a Republican can get elected President. It defies all logic, even when you see it happen.” One of the Vrekle players had overheard their talk. “Bouncing into me, I absorbed most of her momentum,” he explained. “Good playing, Shev-ield, and it let our outrunners negotiate a classic play, just classic!”

“Way out in front!” another player chimed in. “Being so, let’s just hear anyone dare to sneeze out another complaint about human students at good old Vrekle!”

Ray steered her toward the broadcast booth. “Did we win?” he asked her.

“We did,” Elizabeth said. “Even better, we won right. We and Bnurx had eight points. Flerk had six. By sharing the bag with Flerk, we scored two points and so did they. That means they came out of the game tied for second place with Bnurx, instead of ending up in third place. Their pride isn’t hurt, and we look more sporting.”

“So everyone wins.” It was, Ray noted, a typical kya attitude toward competition. “But you were in a spot to score an easy point on your own goal, instead of making that long run down the field. What if it hadn’t worked?”

“Then we’d have tied for first with Bnurx, which means Flerk would still have come in second and everyone goes home happy. Speaking of going home, what about Nyquist?”

“I handled him the way you would have, by the throat,” Ray said. “We can stay. Now come on, Jones will want to interview you.”