by John Shirley
Hill swore.
It was now second-and-ten. Again the humans lined up in a shotgun offense, and again the Blastoff quarterback got off the pass in time. It was a short, quick pitch to the sideline, complete for a nine-yard gain. The crowd cheered lustily.
Hill wasn’t sure what the Brish’diri would expect on third-and-one. But whatever it was, they didn’t get it. With the aliens still slightly off balance, Blastoff went for the bomb again.
This time it was complete. All alone in the open, the fleet human receiver snagged the pass neatly and went all the way in for the score. The Brish’diri never laid a hand on him.
The crowd sat in stunned silence for a moment when the pass was caught. Then, when it became clear that there was no way to prevent the score, the cheering began, and peaked slowly to an ear-splitting roar. The stadium rose to its feet as one, screaming wildly.
For the first time all season, the Kosg-Anjehn trailed. A picture-perfect place kick made the score 7 to 0 in favor of Blastoff Inn.
Tomkins was on his feet, cheering loudly. Hill, who had remained seated, regarded him dourly. “Sit down,” he said. “The game’s not over yet.”
The Brish’diri soon underlined that point. No sooner did they take over the ball than they came pounding back upfield, smashing into the line again and again. The humans alternated between a dozen different defensive formations. None of them seemed to do any good. The Brish’diri steamroller ground ahead inexorably.
The touchdown was an anticlimax. Luckily, however, the extra point try failed. Tuhgayh-dei lost a lot of footballs, but he had still not developed a knack for putting his kicks between the crossbars.
The Blastoff offense took the field again. They looked determined.
The first play from scrimmage was a short pass over the middle, complete for fifteen yards. Next came a tricky double pass. Complete for twelve yards.
On the following play, the Blastoff fullback tried to go up the middle. He got creamed for a five-yard loss.
“If they stop our passing, we’re dead,” Hill said to Tomkins, without taking his eyes off the field.
Luckily, the Blastoff quarterback quickly gave up on the idea of establishing a running game. A prompt return to the air gave the humans another first down. Three plays later, they scored. Again the crowd roared.
Trailing now 14 to 6, the Brish’diri once more began to pound their way upfield. But the humans, elated by their lead, were a little tougher now. Reading the Brish’diri offense with confident precision, the defensemen began gang-tackling the alien runners.
The Kosg-Anjehn drive slowed down, then stalled. They were forced to surrender the ball near the fifty-yard line.
Tomkins started pounding Hill on the back. “You did it,” he said. “We stopped them on offense too. We’re going to win.”
“Take it easy,” Hill replied. “That was a fluke. Several of our men just happened to be in the right place at the right time. It’s happened before. No one ever said the Brish’diri scored every time they got the ball. Only most of the time.”
Back on the field, the Blastoff passing attack was still humming smoothly. A few accurate throws put the humans on the Kosg-Anjehn’s thirty.
And then the aliens changed formations. They took several men off the rush, and put them on pass defense. They started double-teaming the Blastoff receivers. Except it wasn’t normal double-teaming. The second defender was playing far back of the line of scrimmage. By the time the human had outrun the first Brish’dir, the second would be right on top of him.
“I was afraid of something like this,” Hill said. “We’re not the only ones who can react to circumstances.”
The Blastoff quarterback ignored the shift in the alien defense, and stuck to his aerial game plan. But his first pass from the thirty, dead on target, was batted away by a Brish’dir defender who happened to be right on top of the play.
The same thing happened on second down. That made it third-and-ten. The humans called time out. There was a hurried conference on the sidelines.
When action resumed, the Blastoff offense abandoned the shotgun formation. Without the awesome Brish’diri blitz to worry about, the quarterback was relatively safe in his usual position.
There was a quick snap, and the quarterback got rid of the ball equally quickly, an instant before a charging Brish’dir bore him to the ground. The halfback who got the handoff streaked to the left in an end run.
The other Brish’diri defenders lumbered towards him en masse to seal shut the sideline. But just as he reached the sideline, still behind the line of scrimmage, the Blastoff halfback handed off to a teammate streaking right.
A wide grin spread across Hill’s face. A reverse!
The Brish’diri were painfully slow to change directions. The human swept around right end with ridiculous ease and shot upfield, surrounded by blockers. The remaining Brish’diri closed in. One or two were taken out by team blocks. The rest found it impossible to lay their hands on the swift, darting runner. Dodging this way and that, he wove a path neatly between them and loped into the end zone.
Once more the stadium rose to its feet. This time Hill stood up too.
Tomkins was beaming again. “Ha!” he said. “I thought you were the one who said we couldn’t run against them.”
“Normally we can’t,” the director replied. “There’s no way to run over or through them, so runs up the middle are out. End runs are better, but if they’re in their formal formation, that too is a dreary prospect. There is no way a human runner can get past a wall of charging Brish’diri.
“However, when they spread out like they just did, they give us an open field to work with. We can’t go over or through them, no, but we sure as hell can go between them when they’re scattered all over the field. And Blastoff Inn has several excellent open-field runners.”
The crowd interrupted him with another roar to herald a successful extra-point conversion. It was now 21 to 6.
The game was far from over, however. The human defense was not nearly as successful on the next series of downs. Instead of relying exclusively on the running game, Marhdain-nei kept his opponents guessing with some of his patented short, hard pop passes.
To put on a more effective rush, the Blastoff defense spread out at wide intervals. The offensive line thus opened up, and several humans managed to fake out slower Brish’diri blockers and get past them to the quarterback. Marhdain was even thrown for a loss once.
But the Blastoff success was short-lived. Marhdain adjusted quickly. The widely spread human defense, highly effective against the pass, was a total failure against the run. The humans were too far apart to gang-tackle. And there was no way short of mass assault to stop a Brish’dir in full stride.
After that there was no stopping the Kosg-Anjehn, as Marhdain alternated between the pass and the run according to the human defensive formation. The aliens marched upfield quickly for their second touchdown.
This time, even the extra point was on target.
The Brish’diri score had taken some of the steam out of the crowd, but the Blastoff Inn offense showed no signs of being disheartened when they took the field again. With the aliens back in their original blitz defense, the human quarterback fell back on the shotgun once more.
His first pass was overthrown, but the next three in a row were dead on target and moved Blastoff to the Kosg-Anjehn forty. A running play, inserted to break the monotony, ended in a six-yard loss. Then came another incomplete pass. The toss was perfect, but the receiver dropped the ball.
That made it third-and-ten, and a tremor of apprehension went through the crowd. Nearly everyone in the stadium realized that the humans had to keep scoring to stay in the game.
The snap from center was quick and clean. The Blastoff quarterback snagged the ball, took a few unhurried steps backward to keep at a safe distance from the oncoming Brish’diri rushers, and tried to pick out a receiver. He scanned the field carefully. Then he reared back and unleashed a bomb.<
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It looked like another touchdown. The human had his alien defender beaten by a good five yards and was still gaining ground. The pass was a beauty.
But then, as the ball began to spiral downward, the Brish’diri defender stopped suddenly in midstride. Giving up his hopeless chase, he craned his head around to look for the ball, spotted it, braced himself—and jumped.
Brish’diri leg muscles, evolved for the heavy gravity of Brishun, were far more powerful than their human counterparts. Despite their heavier bodies, the Brish’diri could easily outjump any human. But so far they had only taken advantage of that fact to snare Marhdain’s pop passes.
But now, as Hill blinked in disbelief, the Kosg-Anjehn defenseman leaped at least five feet into the air to meet the descending ball in midair and knock it aside with a vicious backhand slap.
The stadium moaned.
Forced into a punting situation, Blastoff Inn suddenly seemed to go limp. The punter fumbled the snap from center, and kicked the ball away when he tried to pick it up. The Brish’dir who picked it up got twenty yards before he was brought down.
The human defense this time put up only token resistance as Marhdain led his team downfield on a series of short passes and devastating runs.
It took the Brish’diri exactly six plays to narrow the gap to 21 to 19. Luckily, Tuhgayh missed another extra point.
There was a loud cheer when the Blastoff offense took the field again. But right from the first play after the kickoff, it was obvious that something had gone out of them.
The human quarterback, who had been giving a brilliant performance, suddenly became erratic. To add to his problems, the Brish’diri were suddenly jumping all over the field.
The alien kangaroo-pass defense had several severe limitations. It demanded precise timing and excellent reflexes on the part of the jumpers, neither of which was a Brish’diri forte. But it was a disconcerting tactic that the Blastoff quarterback had never come up against before. He didn’t know quite how to cope with it.
The humans drove to their own forty, bogged down, and were forced to punt. The Kosg-Anjehn promptly marched the ball back the other way and scored. For the first time in the game, they led.
The next Blastoff drive was a bit more successful, and reached the Brish’diri twenty before it ground to a halt. The humans salvaged the situation with a field goal.
The Kosg-Anjehn rolled up another score, driving over the goal line just seconds before the half ended.
The score stood at 31 to 24 in favor of the Brish’diri.
And there was no secret about the way the tide was running.
It had grown very quiet in the stands.
Tomkins, wearing a worried expression, turned to Hill with a sigh. “Well, maybe we’ll make a comeback in the second half. We’re only down seven. That’s not so bad.”
“Maybe,” Hill said doubtfully. “But I don’t think so. They’ve got all the momentum. I hate to say so, but I think we’re going to get run out of the stadium in the second half.”
Tomkins frowned. “I certainly hope not. I’d hate to see what the Brish’diri war faction would do with a really lopsided score. Why, they’d—” He stopped, suddenly aware that Hill wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention. The director’s eyes had wandered back to the field.
“Look,” Hill said, pointing. “By the gate. Do you see what I see?”
“It looks like a car from the trade mission,” the E. T. agent said, squinting to make it out.
“And who’s that getting out?”
Tomkins hesitated. “Remjhard-nei,” he said at last.
The Brish’dir climbed smoothly from the low-slung black vehicle, walked a short distance across the stadium grass, and vanished through the door leading to one of the dressing rooms.
“What’s he doing here?” Hill asked. “Wasn’t he supposed to stay away from the games?”
Tomkins scratched his head uneasily. “Well, that’s what we advised. Especially at first, when hostility was at its highest. But he’s not a prisoner, you know. There’s no way we could force him to stay away from the games if he wants to attend.”
Hill was frowning. “Why should he take your advice all season and suddenly disregard it now?”
Tomkins shrugged. “Maybe he wanted to see his son win a championship.”
“Maybe. But I don’t think so. There’s something funny going on here.”
By the time the second half was ready to begin, Hill was feeling even more apprehensive. The Kosg-Anjehn had taken the field a few minutes earlier, but Remjhard had not reappeared. He was still down in the alien locker room.
Moreover, there was something subtly different about the Brish’diri as they lined up to receive the kickoff. Nothing drastic. Nothing obvious. But somehow the atmosphere was changed. The aliens appeared more carefree, more relaxed. Almost as if they had stopped taking their opponents seriously.
Hill could sense the difference. He’d seen other teams with the same sort of attitude before, in dozens of other contests. It was the attitude of a team that already knows how the game is going to come out. The attitude of a team that knows it is sure to win—or doomed to lose.
The kickoff was poor and wobbly. A squat Brish’dir took it near the thirty and headed upfield. Two Blastoff tacklers met him at the thirty-five.
He fumbled.
The crowd roared. For a second the ball rolled loose on the stadium grass. A dozen hands reached for it, knocking it this way and that. Finally, a brawny Blastoff lineman landed squarely on top of it and trapped it beneath him.
And suddenly the game turned around again.
“I don’t believe it,” Hill said. “That was it. The break we needed. After that touchdown pass was knocked aside, our team just lost heart. But now, after this, look at them. We’re back in this game.”
The Blastoff offense raced onto the field, broke the huddle with an enthusiastic shout, and lined up. It was first-and-ten from the Brish’diri twenty-eight.
The first pass was deflected off a bounding Brish’dir. The second, however, went for a touchdown.
The score was tied.
The Kosg-Anjehn held on to the kickoff this time. They put the ball in play near the twenty-five.
Marhdain opened the series of downs with a pass. No one, human or Brish’dir, was within ten yards of where it came down. The next play was a run. But the Kosg-Anjehn halfback hesitated oddly after he took the handoff. Given time to react, four humans smashed into him at the line of scrimmage. Marhdain went back to the air. The pass was incomplete again.
The Brish’diri were forced to punt.
Up in the stands, Tomkins was laughing wildly. He began slapping Hill on the back again. “Look at that! Not even a first down. We held them. And you said they were going to run us out of the stadium.”
A strange half-smile danced across the director’s face. “Ummm,” he said. “So I did.” The smile faded.
It was a good, solid punt, but Blastoff’s deep man fielded it superbly and ran it back to the fifty. From there, it took only seven plays for the human quarterback, suddenly looking cool and confident again, to put the ball in the end zone.
Bouncing Brish’diri had evidently ceased to disturb him. He simply threw the ball through spots where they did not happen to be bouncing.
This time the humans missed the extra point. But no one cared. The score was 37 to 31. Blastoff Inn was ahead again.
And they were ahead to stay. No sooner had the Kosg-Anjehn taken over again than Marhdain threw an interception. It was the first interception he had thrown all season.
Naturally, it was run back for a touchdown.
After that, the Brish’diri seemed to revive a little. They drove three quarters of the way down the field, but then they bogged down as soon as they got within the shadow of the goal posts. On fourth-and-one from the twelve-yard line, the top Brish’diri runner slipped and fell behind the line of scrimmage.
Blastoff took over. And scored.
From then on, it was more of the same.
The final score was 56 to 31. The wrong team had been run out of the stadium.
Tomkins, of course, was in ecstasy. “We did it. I knew we could do it. This is perfect, just perfect. We humiliated them. The war faction will be totally discredited now. They’ll never be able to stand up under the ridicule.” He grinned and slapped Hill soundly on the back once again.
Hill winced under the blow, and eyed the E. T. man dourly. “There’s something funny going on here. If the Brish’diri had played all season the way they played in the second half, they never would have gotten this far. Something happened in that locker room during half-time.”
Nothing could dent Tomkins’ grin, however. “No, no,” he said. “It was the fumble. That was what did it. It demoralized them, and they fell apart. They just clutched, that’s all. It happens all the time.”
“Not to teams this good it doesn’t,” Hill replied. But Tomkins wasn’t around to hear. The E. T. agent had turned abruptly and was weaving his way through the crowd, shouting something about being right back.
Hill frowned and turned back to the field. The stadium was emptying quickly. The Rec director stood there for a second, still looking puzzled. Then suddenly he vaulted the low fence around the field, and set off across the grass.
He walked briskly across the stadium and down into the visitors’ locker room. The Brish’diri were changing clothes in sullen silence, and filing out of the room slowly to the airbus that would carry them back to the trade mission.
Remjhard-nei was sitting in a corner of the room.
The Brish’dir greeted him with a slight nod. “Director Hill. Did you enjoy the game? It was a pity our half-men failed in their final test. But they still performed creditably, do you not think?”
Hill ignored the question. “Don’t give me the bit about failing, Remjhard. I’m not as stupid as I look. Maybe no one else in the stadium realized what was going on out there this afternoon, but I did. You didn’t lose that game. You threw it. Deliberately. And I want to know why!”
