Universe Vol1Num2

by Jim Baen's Universe

  ****

  "So when I'm doing this memeport for Miss Kakousis, do I spell in Terran or Tooleck?" Josh said, throwing up his arms in exasperation.

  "Either," Doosam said. "Both. Miss Kakousis and Mr. Mistoki have been arguing about it as long as I've been in school here. But Miss Kakousis won't take points off for either spelling."

  They were headed to recess, following a crowded tunnel downward, with Doosam trying not to run over people's feet, talons and tentacles.

  "I was expecting Nari teachers," Josh said. "Not Tooleck, Terrans, Nalo . . . "

  "Wait until you get to Miss Hissberger," Doosam said balefully. "She's a Jootan and limestone is she mean! We've got her for math and she's just brutal. Thinks everyone in the Galaxy is lower than the Jootan. Real Zimbot."

  "Wow!" Josh said. "I didn't think there were any more Zimbot!"

  "Oh, I don't mean she's a really real Zimbot," Doosam replied. "I mean, she's not going to drag the Adoo students off to the mines or sprinkle them with salt. But . . . well . . . you'll learn."

  The tunnel leveled out and through a big open iris Josh could see a large room. It was filled with kids and had some sort of big fungi lining one side.

  "Is this the lunchroom?" he asked, worried.

  "No, of course not!" Doosam said. "This is the gym!"

  Kids were running around in circles or talking or sitting on some of the fungus. At one end a game of dyup ball was just starting with the two sides picking players.

  "Let's go play dyup!" Doosam said, rolling quickly across the gym floor. "If we hurry we can get there before they're done picking."

  "Don't they play null-grav around here?" Josh asked, frowning. He'd played dyup before but Terra tended to have more null-grav teams while it seemed like the rest of the galaxy played dyup.

  "There's a lot of Terrys in Heteran and some of the other schools play null-grav, but we play dyup at Central," Doosam said as they reached the group

  "Hi Doosam," a Tooleck said as the rock rolled to a stop. "I take Doosam!"

  "I'll take Denpas," the other team captain, a Nari, said.

  Josh tried to look alert, happy and the best dyup player ever to be born or whelped or whatever. No luck. All the other kids gathered around, and even one female human, got picked until it was down to just him, standing all alone.

  "You've got seven, I've got eight," the Tooleck said. "I'll get rid of Fidbut."

  But Doosam had been talking to the Nari and the local lifted his banana shaped black head and shot out a labial extension.

  "I'll take the Terry," he spat, then lifted the oblong dyup flyer and lofted it into the air. "Go!"

  Dyup is a simple game with simple rules. The dyup ball is caught by a player and then thrown to another player on his, her, its or V!Tup team, who then passes the ball to the next player on the team and so on and so forth until it gets to the end of the field and tossed through a small gate called a shuttle. Players who have the ball cannot run with the ball or be touched except under certain circumstances. Attempts to pass the ball can, of course, be intercepted by the other team.

  There are a few complexities.

  The first of these is that the dyup ball has an anti-gravity lift and drive device that is misweighted so that it constantly spins within the ball and sends it in random directions. Thus if tossed upward it may come directly down upon the head of the tosser. If thrown to another player it may curve in any direction. It never goes more than seven meters above the playing field but other than that it will go in any direction randomly. If a player touches it and cannot catch it and it thereafter strikes the ground out of bounds it passes to the other team, assuming anyone can get a hand on it at all.

  Humans are limited to catching the ball only with their right arm. If they touch it with their left arm or hand the ball turns over to the other side. They can clutch it to their body but it cannot touch the head or the right leg. It can be bounced with the left leg but only if the player is not standing in one of the seven rings. There are similar rules for other species.

  This then brings us to the question of the seven rings.

  There are seven rings in the dyup field, Udhas, Snup, Thawasaf, Bebas, Nihad, Idaya and George. They are placed equidistantly down the field in two sets of three with the Udhas being in the center.

  A player who catches the dyup ball while standing in the Udhas ring is immune to being tackled but only if they caught it while standing in the Udhas ring. Furthermore they can only throw the ball Jnorbong, or in the opposite direction from their own goal in a 45 degree area towards the edge of the field in the direction of the Bebas or George ring towards one of their own team's players and players from other teams are not permitted to move to intercept the throw unless the ball touches the ground.

  A player who catches the ball in the Snup ring or catches it and can make it to the Snup ring in one bound is then permitted to pass the ball, unhindered, to one other player who then gets three bounds before the game begins again. The first player cannot, however, move out of the Snup ring, and the player who now has the ball gets only three more bounds before having to stop and is liable to be tackled by players from the opposite side during those three bounds. Bounds are limited to a distance of slightly less than two meters and are called "Rhmer." All Rhmer must be Jnorbong.

  Players who catch the ball in the Thawasaf ring or catch it and can make it to the Thwasaf ring in one Rhmer are then permitted to run to their goal but they must first round either the Bebas or Nihad ring, depending upon which is in the opposite direction of their goal and if they were outside the Thawasaf ring they have to make it into the ring in that one bound before running to the other rings. However, they are then liable to be tackled during the run. They are not permitted to pass unless they are in contact with a player from the opposite team.

  A player who catches the ball in the Bebas ring or catches it and can make it to the Bebas ring in one Rhmer is permitted to throw the ball to a player from the opposite team who then changes sides and is permitted three bounds (or seconds) while play stops, after which the play resumes and the player is liable to be tackled.

  A player who catches the ball in the Nihad ring or catches it and can make it to the Nihad ring in one Rhmer automatically passes to the opposite team and is liable to be tackled. Players can throw from the Nihad ring but only Jnorbong if their current goal is on the Nihad end of the field. (Called the Radkas.)

  A player who catches the ball in the Idaya ring or catches it and can make it to the Idaya ring in one Rhmer also passes to the other team but cannot be tackled, and can only throw the ball Jnorbong[1].

  A player who has had the ball turned over due to passes from the Thawasaf or Bebas ring can attempt to make it to the Nihad ring or the Idaya ring. If they enter the Nihad or Idaya ring before they are tackled and within their regulation Rhmer they are immune to being tackled and can throw the ball Jnorbong without attempts to intercept however they also automatically switch to the opposite team but only after their throw[2].

  The rings take up about half the total area of the field.

  Failure to throw Jnorbong, touching the ball with illegal extremities, excess Rhmer or leaving the field with the ball, even if traveling Jnorbong, are grounds to turn over the ball to the other team.

  There is no tripping.

  That, with some minor additional rules that run to some four hundred and twenty-three million words for competition play, is dyup[3].

  In this game, when thrown, the ball traveled upwards very quickly and then down even faster, striking a Nari player on the head and mildly concussing him. There was a brief scrum while both of the team captains got into a violent argument about whose ball it was now. As the scrum broke apart a Nari had the ball and took a Rhmer to the Snup ring. Both of the team captains immediately changed their argument to whether it was a valid Rmer or not, the captain from the opposite team insisting that levering oneself up counted as half a Rhmer with the other violently opposing that call. Bo
th eventually started rolling around on the ground, punching at one another, while the game proceeded around them.

  The Nari, who Josh was pretty sure was from the opposite team, tossed the ball towards him. It curved to the right but Josh snagged it with one hand and a legal knee bounce, then realized that in three bounds he was going to be liable to be tackled so he quickly threw the ball to some spiderlike creature who was immediately piled with bodies. This was technically illegal but the spider creature, when he crawled off the field, wasn't in any position to protest.

  During the scrum the ball shot out and upwards, going down the field rapidly with all the young beings that were hale following it in a milling, screaming, crowd. Josh joined in and was quickly tripped by a Nari he was virtually certain was from his own team. The ball was finally tackled by a small Sjorglun while in the Udhas ring. He threw anti-Jnorbong, or so the opposite team's captain contended, at which the two captains got back to their fight.

  The ball, which had been tossed towards a Tooleck, shot up into the air and then bounced off the ground, rolling out of bounds. However, before anyone could catch it, it bounded into the air again and went off across the field. It was finally caught by a very small Nari who was carefully standing outside all the rings.

  "That's supposed to change to Tforlock's team!" Doosam shouted, rolling towards the Nari.

  "I'm on Tforlock's team!" the Nari shouted, struggling to hold the active ball in two of his left pseudoarms.

  "No you're not!" Doosam shouted, rolling over and extending two pseudopods to wrestle the ball away. "You're on Hemshots!"

  "Am not!" the Nari contended, grabbing the ball with all his arms.

  "Foul!" Josh called.

  "Not with Nari," Dossam said.

  The ball scrabbled loose and went into play again. Josh managed to jump off Doosam and land with it in the Thwasaf ring. He was clear, most of the team having darted down the field in pursuit while he was bending over getting some breath and trying not to throw up breakfast. So he took off down the field, headed for the Nihad ring.

  Just as he rounded the Nihad he felt something slam into him and he went to the ground with Doosam on his back.

  "Sorry," Doosam said, scooping up the ball. "I got caught in the Nihad."

  "You're in the Nihad again," Josh said, pointing to the red painted ring.

  "So I am," Doosam said, looking at the wall of bodies headed his way. "Catch!"

  Josh had already thrown the ball when he was covered in players.

  "Hey!" he yelled from the bottom of the pile. "That was a fair catch!"

  "Upfield! Upfield," one of the team captains screamed.

  "I'm going to find the bastard that invented this game and kill him," Josh said, trotting in the direction of the ball. Suddenly it hit the ground, bounded into the air, changed course and headed back down towards where Josh was trotting and Doosam was rolling slowly.

  As it passed overhead, Josh felt pseudopods wrap around his belt and arm.

  "Go get it!" Doosam shouted, suddenly extending up like a megalith and tossing the Terran through the air.

  "You're on the opposite team!" Josh yelled.

  "No I'm not," Doosam said. "You were in Nihad."

  "That's my point!"

  Josh managed to snag the ball with one hand. He pulled it into his chest, then had a brief but unpleasant moment of realization that he was about six meters in the air and descending. Rapidly.

  He hit with a thud, his impact slightly reduced by a sudden upward bound of the ball just before he hit. He lay there for a moment, seeing stars and catching his breath. He just started to get up when he was tackled by a Nari. He was pretty sure it was the one that tripped him at the beginning of the game.

  "Leave me alone!" Josh yelled. "It was a legal catch!"

  "You're in the Nihad Ring!" the Nari shouted, pulling at the ball. "It's legal to tackle!"

  "It wasn't a Rhmer, I was thrown and farther than a legal Rmer," Josh said. "It counts as a free catch."

  "Does not!" the Nari said.

  "Does so!"

  By this time the ball had wriggled loose and back into play and Josh suddenly found himself in a fight with the little Nari. The Nari's labial extension shot out and punched him in the nose as Josh kicked in the vague area of the groin region. There probably wasn't anything there to kick but it was better than just getting repeatedly pummeled by the labia. The second time it shot out Josh got a hand around it and began shaking it back and forth as the two of them rolled around on the ground. The Nari's arms wrapped around him while Josh held him off with one hand, jerked the labia viciously in the other and kept kicking him in the groin.

  "Here, now, what's all this then?" Mr. Mistoki said, pulling the two apart with difficulty.

  "He's a cheater!" the Nari said. "It's no fair!"

  "He tackled me after a legal catch!" Josh protested, sticking out his tongue and then tasting blood. "My nobe ib bleeding!" Hurt, too.

  "Well, recess is about over," Mr. Mistoki said. "Now, you two were just having good fun playing dyup; these things happen. Touch feelers and say you're sorry."

  Josh stuck out his hand angrily as the Nari bowed forward.

  "You need to bring your sensory organs into contact," Mr. Mistoki said. "Touch heads in your case, Terran."

  Josh bowed angrily, and whispered.

  "I'm gonna kick your black butt, bug," he said.

  "I'm going to feed you to a brooder," the Nari whispered back.

  "There, now," Mr. Mistoki said jovially, "we're all friends. Josh, I understand that body fluid loss in endoskeletal creatures is not all that serious but you are . . . leaking . . . rather . . . profusely. . . ." The Tooleck trailed off and then keeled over backwards, all five eyestalks retracted into his cranial cavity.

  "Can't stand the sight of body fluids," Doosam said, rolling up behind them. "You might want to stay away from Malfoo."

  "Who?"

  "Malfoo, the kid you were fighting. His dad is in the Nari security forces and he can make a lot of trouble for you."

  "Oh," Josh said, looking around for the little Nari, but he had disappeared. "He tripped me."

  "Yeah, well, he's a migbop if you ask me," Dossam admitted. "But you still need to watch your back around him. Let's off. Art next!"

  "Who won?" Josh asked.

  "Zero, zero," Doosam muttered unhappily.

  "Oh, just like normal. Remember last year when the Galactic Cup was awarded based on which team could do the better macarena?"

  ****

  "Feel the creative energies of the universe!" the teacher squeaked, waving two forelegs in the air ecstatically. "Let them flow, flow through you up the brush and into the canvas! Let them infuse your pigment with their spectacular scintillating rhythms!"

  The teacher was a Grantin, a being that looked something like a large, green, daddy longlegs. Very large. Her body was suspended about two meters above the ground. She was carefully stepping among the students, dropping down from time to time to make a suggestion here, add a dab of paint there. Her lower legs were covered in paint and it was splashed on the underside of her abdomen as well. She looked a bit like a cross between Salvador Dali and Jackson Pollock with a dash of Lovecraft.

  Josh was doing his best to paint a space-fighter like they used in the Orion War. But he could never get the reaction control veins to look right and the fuselage was really just a blue and yellow blob. It was supposed to be one of the Toffire fighters that had saved Tooleck during the System battle. But . . . he could never get it to look right.

  He didn't like daddy longlegs, or Grantin for that matter, but if he was ever going to get it right he was going to have to ask the teacher for help. However, she'd never been by him and he'd tried pinging her a couple of times with no answer.

  "Miss Tchick?" Josh said, raising his hand.

  "Y . . . yes?" the teacher said, skittering around on all ten legs and pointing a few eyes in his direction.

  "Could you give me a ha .
. . a fee . . . could I get some help?" Josh asked.

  The teacher looked at him for a moment and then raised herself up with a deeply indrawn breath.

  "Very well," she said, skittering over to his easel, her body clearing those of the young beings in-between, the legs carefully placing themselves in open spots.

  "I'm trying to do a space fighter—"

  "Oh, why must you male mammaloforms always create weapons of war?" the teacher snapped, carefully lowering her body and swiveling six eyes at it. "Your problems is perspective, young Terran. . . ."

  "What's perspective?" Josh asked, swiveling around on his stool, brush raised.

  The teacher let out a high-pitched shriek and backed away, rapidly.

  "Pardon me, Josh," the teacher panted. "Must go . . ." With that she skittered out the door as fast as her legs could carry her.

  "Terrified of mammaloforms," Doosam said from near the floor. He had a piece of plascrip held down with four pseudoarms and appeared to be painting . . . a rock . . . with two more. He'd used a lot of gray. "Just can't stand them. Rocks are okay, anything with an exoskeleton, sure, but get her around an endoskeletal and she just goes to pieces."

  "You're telling me she has an irrational fear of mammals?" Josh asked.

  "Yep. Not enough legs. Too few eyes. Body all the wrong shape. Just . . . gives her the willies. Grantin are like that. She'll be back. But, face it, you're on your own in this class. Not that she grades hard. Just put some color on the paper and when you turn it in, do it at arm's length. But this is as good as it gets. Next period is . . . math."

  ****

  "You vill take your SEATSSS!"

  The Jootan teacher, Miss Hissberger, had apparently teleported to the space behind her desk. One minute the room was empty of teacher, with various young beings running around doing their individual versions of shouting, the next there was this . . . Jootan standing at the end of the room, waving a meter stick in her hand.

  "You vill sit down unt you vill be QVIET!" she shouted, slamming the meter stick on the desktop.