This time both players dropped together. De Monsero caught the ball a glancing blow, which sent it spinning towards the ceiling. Mervyn leaped high over De Monsero’s head -- easy in the low-g pool, but at full stretch he made only brief contact with the ball.
Maddeningly, it drifted slowly towards the orange target. He somersaulted and pushed himself off the ceiling. Why Revlon? Without warning De Monsero hurtled straight into him, like a rocket, knocking him away from the ball. Mervyn cursed himself for allowing De Monsero to distract him.
‘Foul!’ Tasha cried and sucked the ball back into the trap. ‘Rufus deliberately bumped into Mervyn to throw off his aim and stopped an almost certain hit. Whilst effective it’s an illegal move. Three fouls and the game is forfeit to your opponent - so play with care,’ she told the class. ‘I am awarding a penalty against Rufus so he must now assume position on the strike rings while Mervyn waits on the floor for a penalty shot.’
The ball dropped strait towards Mervyn. So did De Monsero. As the ball rebounded he took careful aim at the target. His caution cost him vital milliseconds and the ball deflected off De Monsero’s descending leg, straight into the orange target. The scoreboard beeped.
‘Two: Nil -- to Rufus. You won’t see a luckier shot than that,’ Tasha said excitedly.
As the purple streak entered the pool for the third time, Mervyn accurately judged the rebound and struck it with a backhander, but it was a poor shot.
He launched himself after the ball. De Monsero arrived first and smashed it hard against the nearest wall. There was no target in sight, but it rebounded straight into Mervyn’s stomach. His armour absorbed most of the impact, but it still winded him. Doubled up with pain, Mervyn rolled on the floor trying to catch his breath and regain his balance. De Monsero leapt after the ball again.
‘The winner of the set is the first to score three hits. A game consists of three sets,’ he heard Tasha telling the rest of the class. ‘But it is a contact sport so you can expect some rough-and-tumble. It’s fine as long as each player is chasing the ball.’
Rough-and-tumble? Mervyn thought. De Monsero was trying to kill him.
A moment later, just as Mervyn was getting his breath back, the ball slammed into the small of his back, and drove him into the wall. This time he saw stars as his helmet rebounded off the inner shell of the sphere. An orange blur hovered just on the edge of his periphery vision. He tried to focus on what it might be, but a bead of sweat trickling down his nose seemed more important.
Orange? Then he remembered: the ball. Somehow it had come to a rest just by his head. He started to reach out for it, but there was someone making faces at him through the wall. Who was it? Aurora? She mouthed something about being behind. Suddenly, his mind cleared, and he realised the danger he was in.
He launched himself skyward with as much strength as he could muster. The sight of De Monsero hurtling head first into the wall beneath him proved reward enough. That would have hurt. De Monsero’s crash had flipped the photon ball into the air, ready for Mervyn to swot it into the orange target.
‘Two: One - to Rufus.’
So De Monsero wanted to play dirty, did he? Mervyn thought, as he hung from the strike rings. De Monsero was pretending to play ‘target swot’, but using it as a cover to play his own game of ‘body swot’. Well two could play at that game; Mervyn knew a few tricks of his own -- he had grown up playing body swot in the mines.
De Monsero’s aim may be good, but Mervyn had worked out his opponent’s weakness: he only used the lower half of the sphere. He had probably learned to play in a high-g environment making aerial acrobatics difficult to perform.
‘You knew about the attack on Starlight, De Monsero,’ Mervyn accused to gain himself more breathing space, ‘you said I wouldn’t have a home in the morning.’
‘Coincidence... just a turn of phrase,’
‘And what’s the Naga got to do with anything?’
Abruptly, De Monsero flared, ‘Don’t meddle in things you don’t understand, Bright. It might be bad for your health.’ He turned his back and jumped for the rings.
Mervyn smiled to himself – now who was riled.
‘Ready...strike.’
Mervyn left De Monsero to pick up the ball and rebounded into a high back flip towards the orange target. He only just managed to intercept De Monsero’s shot; then he Swatted the ball as hard as he could. The orange streak sizzled past De Monsero’s ear, slammed into the opposite wall, missed the blue target, and bounded into De Monsero’s elbow with a crack.
‘Ouch. Foul!’ De Monsero cried nursing a numbed arm. The crowd held their breath, silently waiting for Tasha’s decision.
‘Play on,’ Tasha called and the crowd went wild. Mervyn played on; he ran up the side of the pool, leaped high for the ball, and swatted another shot at the blue target; again he missed, but only just. This time the rebounding ball whacked De Monsero on the knee. The crowd roared. ‘Bad luck,’ someone shouted, it sounded like Tarun.
‘Ouch. Miss. That has to be a foul,’ De Monsero demanded.
‘Sorry Rufus, you moved in front of the ball again,’ Tasha said, and her eyes sparkled with amusement.
Mervyn played on again and looped the ball easily into the centre of the blue target while De Monsero hobbled around: grounded for the moment.
‘Two: Two -- even scores,’ Tasha said. ‘This play’s getting a bit rough for a demonstration game, lads, make sure you aim for the target. ‘Rufus, do you need a break?’
‘No. I can shoot just as well with my left hand,’ he growled.