Death Match - Diane Duane [2]
Suddenly the ball emerged, flying out of the tangle at about a thirty-degree angle to Catie’s left. A couple of the players in blue freed themselves from the tangle and launched themselves after it, pushing off with their feet against the huddle of other players who were all jammed together in the middle of things. The whole tangle of men and women wavered a little backward in equal-and-opposite reaction as the first two players pushed off. Then the tangle broke up and went after them, players tightening themselves down into “cannonball” configuration to increase their spin, or to improve the results of a push against some other player. One of the players in blue, a big redheaded, long-legged, slender guy, snagged the ball in the bend of his knee, pulled his arms close to his body like a skater, and spun on his longitudinal axis—then, a second later, used the force of his spin to fling the ball away from him, straight at one of his teammates. This one batted it with the flats of both hands down out of the air and kneed it to a third. The third one boosted himself off one of the players in red and white, sending the other one spinning, and hit the ball with his chest, aiming at one of the other two goal hexes, the one glowing yellow almost directly across the sphere from him—
Except it suddenly wasn’t the goal anymore. It went dark, and 180 degrees around the sphere from it, and about forty-five degrees up, a different hex was now glowing gold. The other goals had both changed position as well.
Another mad scramble for position began, players “swimming” or cannonballing themselves through the space to get at the walls, where there would be purchase for a good hard push, or contenting themselves with a less vigorous push off other players. Here and there several players gathered together and braced to give a single teammate more mass to push against. The ball was in free fall, no one in possession for the moment, but that was about to change, for the players in yellow had so coordinated their launches that four of them were now converging on the ball from different directions. Other players in green or white were arrowing at them from the walls, folded up with arms wrapped around knees, determined to hit them and throw them off course. One got hit and caromed off toward the wall, but as he went he managed to snag the White-team player who had hit him, adding to his mass temporarily and so slowing the speed at which he was being knocked out of play. For a moment Catie watched with some amusement as the two of them struggled for the best position in which to use the other’s vector. Her attention was caught by one of the other Yellow team people, whose T-shirt read 14, as she arched her body so that a White-team forward, aiming for her, missed her by inches. Then 14 Yellow tightened down into cannonball configuration herself, first giving the forward a shove with her feet in passing that simply aided her again in the direction she had originally been going. The white forward flung arms and legs out, spreadeagling, trying to lose some speed, but the move was too late, and a moment later he went smashing into the wall.
He yelped and bounced back, clutching his knee. One of the other White team members, their captain probably, started waving her arms at one hex of the sphere, which abruptly went clear and emitted the referee, an older woman in the traditional pure white.
The ref’s whistle went, and play stopped. The spare-time clock started running in big glowing yellow digits that hung in the air in the middle of the sphere. “Injury check,” said the ref over the annunciator,