"Scott Westerfield - Unsportzmanlike Conduct" - читать интересную книгу автора (Westerfeld Scott)

"Let's play some ball."



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Half an hour later, we had two teams out on the field.
Our baseball field was a medium-age impact crater full of sheetgrass, basically flat if y
ignored the low, concentric ripples emanating from the natural pitcher's mound in its exact
center. The home-run "fence" was a ring of chalky two-meter cliffs at the crater's edge,
reachable even by amateurs like us thanks to Tau's nine-five gravity. The sheetgrass surface
was impeccable, tractable, soft in a fall, quick-drying after the heavy Coriolis rains which
swept across us every afternoon: the best of astroturf and earthly grass combined.
Of course, sheetgrass wasn't grass in any botanical sense, but a genetically identical
colony of cilia that acted as water filtration system for the composite organism that filled th
crater. In a way, we owed our presence here on Tau to the rain-catch organisms. They
accounted for most of the biomass of the planet, and thus most of the rich oil field below ou
feet had once been sheetgrass or some ancient relative.
It had been two weeks (six Tau-day microlunar months, actually, a bit over a hundred
hours each) since Yoshi's swing had snapped our old bat and brought baseball on the plane
a halt. It hadn't taken much arm-twisting to get two enthusiastic teams of nine onto the field.
even had a few human spectators in addition to the usual audience of Taus.
"Looks like pretty good attendance today, Doctor."
"I count sixty-seven." Dr. Helene Chirac lifted her tablet and peered at the screen. "Th
beats the previous record by five."
"Think they missed it, Doc?"
"It seems likely they noticed our absence on the field."
As always, Dr. Chirac was our umpire. (With seventeen PhDs and three MDs between
that title was usually ignored, but something about the gray-haired, imperiously formal Dr.
Chirac made it unavoidable.) As head of the xeno team, she had attended every game since
Taus had started watching, hoping that her elusive linguistic breakthrough might be found h
on the field.
Other than becoming baseball fans, the Taus didn't have much to do with us. No Tau ha
ever set foot on the land we'd developed, steering well clear of the camp, solar array, drill
site, and farmland. Whether it was out of respect for our claims or fear of contagion, we did
know. Like good spectators, they stayed at the edge of the baseball field. And when the odd
home run came their way, they always scattered to let one of us retrieve the ball.
The rest of the xeno team were biologists and could work with other life-forms or
long-distance observations. But Dr. Chirac, a linguist, needed face-to-face contact with the
dominant species. Umping baseball was as close as she got.
Our Tau fans were definitely learning the game. They knew when to cheer now. They
showed no favoritism, making their characteristic stuck-pig squeals on tough catches as we
long drives, and a few were clapping as my team took the field for the top of the first inning
They were finally starting to get some sound out of those big, soft hands. I waved to them as
took the mound.
My opposing captain was at the plate. Two full ranks my junior, Alex really was a
captain, as well as our pilot for the landing two years before, company meteorologist, and a
damn fine cajun cook.
"Seven innings?" she shouted, swinging the bat with pleasure. She didn't usually lead o