Chapter Seventeen

The stadium itself was unlike almost anything I had ever seen before. Some species like mine and Ka’wik’s, had developed athletic sports, as our societies grew and developed, sports was a way of preparing young people for war. This is something of our history that we share with humans. However, most societies had abandoned sports long ago, and in my species it was generally expected that a young dlamisa would stop playing when they became old enough to work.

Humans however, did not. This particular stadium was host to a sport on the North American continent called ‘football’. Which is strange because it shares the name with a different sport that actually involves the use of feet, while this one almost never does and in fact involves lots of violence.

I had only seen clips of it in person in human media up to that point, and I was sure that Boatswain had seen nothing, but when we parked our scooters and made our way inside under the shady tunnel that led onto the field, I was also sure that he liked what he saw.

I knew he did. Because I did.

The first thing we saw and heard were the human cheerleaders, mostly made up of females of the species, dressed in the same way as Lisa, the voice of an older woman was giving some instructions and they were shouting in response and conducting acrobatic aerial maneuvers that would have made Ka’wik wonder if humans could fly too. Spirals, twists, spins as they were flung up that threatened to defy the law of gravity itself.

But that wasn’t what I liked the most, impressive though it was. Nor was it what Boatswain liked, though I was sure he was impressed.

From just out of view we heard the booming voice of a human male, the crashing of bodies…

And we saw the spiral of the ball sail past in the light.

We were in motion before we realized it, both of us.

My datapad dropped out of hand and clattered to the concrete and I took off. I’m nowhere near the size of Boatswain, but for my size at least, I am nimble.

And we are much… much faster than humans. We tore past Lisa who stood dumbfounded for a moment, she shouted, “Wait! Where are you going?!” And her shout caught the attention of the others, the cheerleaders stopped, thankfully before throwing anyone up into the air, and the two of us raced out into the open air, charging past the dumbfounded human players.

Some of them saw us.

But the ones who ran far ahead, rushing for the ball? They had their eyes in the air to catch its trajectory, they didn’t see either of us until we ran past them both.

Many cries of ‘What the-’ and various expletives not fit for a journal intended for academia, came up behind us… and the rational part of my mind was forced to acknowledge that dlamisan military training made some truly impressive specimens.

Boatswain gave me a shove, and I vaguely recalled something similar during the game of Ballyball. I tumbled and rolled away as he shot on, and he jumped in between the ball and the human player intending to catch the blasted thing.

Even if I knew nothing about human expressions, his brief look of shock would have been recognizable to me when Boatswain caught the ball in his mouth and landed back first against the human’s chest.

The human reflexively grabbed my colleague as he would have any intercepting player, and they both went down in a tangle of limbs.

It was only when he saw me standing and brushing myself off, and caught the confused shouts of the players all racing over that he realized what he’d done.

He rolled off the grunting human, stood, and extended his hand, but the human didn’t take it right away.

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He propped himself up on his elbows and looked at the giant multi-eared toothy maw of our dark furry security officer, and just ‘stared’.

“Sorry.” Boatswain muttered after an awkward moment and tossed the ball underhand toward the human, who again failed to catch it. It bounced off his chest and rolled away wobbling over the grass.

“Wait! It’s okay! They’re aliens! That one is from the news!” I could hear Lisa’s shout drawing closer, along with the footfalls of the crowds. I could feel my anxiety rising at the prospect of being surrounded, and stepped well out of the way.

Lisa’s words had an immediate effect on the player on the ground, and he removed his helmet to reveal a large brown skinned human with a thick beard. I do not know why, but his face seemed friendly to me after he exposed it. He held his hand up and allowed Boatswain to haul him to his feet, and this seemed to relax the others, as well as myself.

“You look really different on TV.” The player said, and Boatswain pointed to me.

“That was him she’s talking about. I’m his escort since some humans threatened to kill him after he helped out that girl.” Boatswain explained, and I must say I think he must have picked up something about human culture, because otherwise it wouldn’t have occurred to him to mention helping Fauve.

But he knew enough to trigger human protective instincts, and give me a favorable impression at the start. This was of interest to me, even more so than noticing my clothing had gotten just a little bit torn and more than a little bit dirty. I, after all, am an aspiring anthropologist, studying new cultures and peoples is supposed to be my field of expertise. Understanding another species is difficult at best, most of the time, unless you have special training. But Boatswain knew enough after a short association with Byron, to say just the thing that would see me looked at favorably? Deriving intention of that sort without training or education in my field was beyond exceptional.

And then it came to me, ‘Right, the ‘ballyball’ incident… they all bonded so quickly… could it be that our two species are just uniquely compatible? Did we evolve in a kind of parallel line that makes us natural colleagues, friends, and allies?’ I really wished I hadn’t dropped my datapad when I took off after that damn ball, and looked back in its direction with a sigh of regret just as Lisa came close.

“You okay, Bailey?” She asked and then, to my delight, handed me my datapad. “You dropped this, and it’s probably a good thing too. That was one hell of a hit.” She said and let out a low whistle, I followed her gaze and saw the indentations where I bounced and rolled over the ground. She was not wrong.

“Yes. Yes I’m fine.” I said and winced, it wasn’t much of a lie, but now that the moment passed I sure felt that hit.

“So… you’re his guard, but you… wow. Ah, y’all got some weird guarding methods.” The player who was ‘supposed’ to catch the ball said, and Boatswain looked over in my direction, his own jaw dropped to expose his teeth, and then he lowered his head.

“Sorry, sir. It won’t happen again. I will report myself for disciplinary action as soon as we return.” Boatswain began to protest, but I waved it off with one hand while rubbing my injured tailbone with the other.

“No, no, there was a ball involved. Don’t worry about it.” I said and made sure to keep the path clear for the rest of the humans to approach, the flurry of questions from cheerleaders and players came on like a storm.

Again and again Boatswain had to point out that ‘I’ was the one from the Battle of Waterland Park, but I did nothing to convince anyone either way. Frankly I didn’t want the attention. Attention meant crowds, and I wasn’t a fan of that.

But then came the other questions.

“Why did you go after that ball? Are all of you that fast? Do you play football? Are you students here? Are you male or female? Do you even have females? What planet are you from?” We lost track of the questions and I deferred to Boatswain to handle most of them, which he clearly didn’t like.

I suppose it was a little petty to leave it to him, but he was the one they were interested in, and I took in more from observing, anyway. Getting out that I was the waterboy for the team brought some amusement at least, and judging by the way they looked my now filthy self up and down… I think they decided that was the best job for me.

And for the same reasons as themselves, I agreed.

Boatswain proved a big hit and their practice was briefly given an impromptu pause while Lisa took my arm and began to lead me away, “Over here, let’s get you cleaned up and I’ll show you where the supplies are.” She flashed me a playful, broad and toothy smile then said, “Try not to get distracted this time.”

“If I don’t give you a promise, then I can’t break it.” I answered with an old saying of my people, which she seemed to neither accept nor reject while we shuffled off back the way we’d come, leaving Boatswain to deal with the football team on his own. He seemed not to mind at least, but even if he had, petty as it was… he caught the ball, so the least he could do is handle that much.