[dogscoff]

*Bump* The Last half-dozen Posts in the Othaglot & Cane thread belong in here.

Here's the next Courier story:

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Hey, what’s this planet called? Right. Well, you got any human drinks here? OK, let me have one of those and start me a tab, I’ll pay later. So buddy, what team you backin’ this year? Whaddya mean, what sport? Haven’t you even heard of dyson hockey out here? Oh come on… it’s the best sport there is. You got two teams on the inside of a big zero-g sphere, right? Oh never mind. Look, can you get Terran entertainment feeds? Right, well see if you can find any sports feeds, I’ll show you.

There it is, that’s the big Piranhas game. I got a fifty riding on this match. That’s the Old Worlder Stadium around Mars, the most famous stadium anywhere. I been there. No, actually in the gamesphere, on the pitch. It’s a real privilege. I’ll tell you how if you like, but it’s kind of a long story…

Now I used to have this friend, name of Grizzle. Well, that’s a long story too, but the point is, me and Grizz go way back. He’s a real sport nut, and he likes to gamble. More than once I‘ve had to help him out when the debt collectors come round ‘cause, you know, Grizzle ain’t the type to get his loans from the bank.

Anyway, I was on Mars dropping off a package, and I run into Grizzle and it turns out he’s got tickets for the big Emporers game. Now like I say, this guy owes me a few favours so I’m thinking, you know, maybe he can let me have one of these tickets. And I ask him, and he says to me:
“I can do better than that, ol’ buddy. You help me out this one Last time and I can pay you back everything I owe with interest, and you’ll get to see the game too.”

Now I’m suspicious, you know. Grizzle’s one of those guys who always thinks he’s got a dead cert to set him up for life, but he tells me this time it’s different. You see, Grizzle was just back from Sallega Prime. He met this sallegan out there in a market. No, you wouldn’t get one of the ruler class in a market, this was one of the worker class, the Salzalum. This market guy knew someone in a research lab. These Salzalum, they’re built for working and not thinking, you see, so somehow Grizzle manages to persuade them to, ah, acquire a little Sallegan technology for him.

Now you must have heard the stories about the Sallegans having time travel machines. Yeah, well I don’t know about any of that, but I do know one thing they got: They got gadgets that can see into the future. That’s what Grizzle managed to get hold of, you see- some kind of prototype. Now you can imagine how useful that might be to a gambler, can’t you?

So we’re thinking, this is gonna be easy money, but there’s a snag. This gizmo doesn’t exactly see into the future. Instead, it transmits pictures back into the past. There’s a difference. The thing is, it only transmits for a few hours before it burns out, so we don’t get a chance to test it. Also, we didn’t want to risk taking into the spectator galleries, ‘cause you get searched on the way in for recording devices. Last thing we wanted was to get it confiscated. That’s why Grizzle wants me to help him out, he can’t figure out a way of getting the thing past security and into the game.

So the game is just a couple hours away, and we’re sitting in one of the spectator bars – yeah, I’ll have another one, thanks – spectator bars trying to think of how to do this. Best thing, we figure, is to try and get it onto the referee, ‘cause it was pretty small and the ref ought to get a good view of all the goals. Still, we can’t think of a way of finding the ref before the game.

We’re out of ideas and about to give up, when suddenly the gizmo comes to life! It starts showing us pictures of the game that hasn’t even happened yet! Even better, it shows us where we gotta put it to get good pictures of the match: You see the picture was following the game just like the feeds when you watch it at home.

I dunno why we never thought of it before. We were going to put the gizmo on one of the feedbots that buzz around relaying pictures back to the pay-per-view crowd around the galaxy. We knew exactly where we had to put the thing, and what’s more we knew we were going to manage it somehow, because we’d already seen it in the future. You get it? No, neither do I. Let’s have another one of those drinks.

Where was I? Oh yeah, we’re in the bar watching the match before it even started, and of course we’re noting down who scores what and when. Now I know you’re thinking maybe this sounds like cheating, but when you think about it, it isn’t really. We’re just trying to predict the score like everyone else. Only difference is, we got a little help. The match finishes twenty minutes before it’s due to start, 7-5 to the Emporers. We go straight to the bookie’s and get the odds for an accumulator, based on predicting every single goal and who scored it and in what minute. I tell ya, the odds were good. Buying your own planet good. We put down every single bit of cash and credit we could get our hands on.

All we had to do now was get the gizmo onto the feedbot, but we only had a few minutes before they started letting the spectators in. Now I’m not sure why Grizzle thought that I’d be able to help him smuggle this thing in any better than anyone else – I mean I’m just an honest courier – but if this is what I gotta do to be rich then this is what I do. Besides, we’d already seen proof that we were going to get the gizmo in place, right? So I figure, whatever I try, no matter how lame it is, it’s got to work- kinda like destiny or something. So I walk right up to the gates of the player’s area, and I tell the guard guy that I’m one of the coaches.
He looks me up and down a few times, and I puff out my chest and look impatient, and he just lets me in! Didn’t ask for id or nothin’! The players were all getting ready for the game, and so I sneaked around them and picked up some mag- skates and went out into the gamesphere itself. I never thought I’d actually skate on that Transteel, but here I was, looking down at the spectator galleries beneath my feet like I’m one of the Old World Emporers themselves. I’m wondering if this day could possibly get luckier.

Anyway, I had a job to do. There were a few linesmen about, checking the markings and stuff, so I quickly went to the officials’ area and found what I was looking for. There they were, a half dozen feedbots sitting on a rack, waiting for me. I found the one that always follows the puck, fixed the gizmo to the back of it and set it to start transmitting.
Any chance of another one of these? No, I’m making a big delivery tomorrow, other side of town. I’ll get paid then and I can pay you. Seriously, I’ll come straight here. C’mon, one more won’t hurt. Thanks.

So I’ve planted my little money maker. All I need to do now is get back out. Then it occurs to me: The pictures we saw proved that I was going to make it in there, but they didn’t prove that I was going to make it out without getting caught. No sooner have I thought it than a guy in a referee’s outfit comes into the room and spots me. He just looks at me like I’m a ghost for a few seconds, then he sees from my face that I’m just a guy hanging around looking guilty.

Anyway, he says to me: “You’re not supposed to be here.”
And I say “No, I just wanted to get some autographs from the players, but I got lost.”
“Well, I ought to have you arrested, but you’d better just get the hell out.”
And that’s it! I hurry out of there, and straight away bump into a linesman. I tell him what the referee said and disappeared before he could even look at my face. I’m wondering how I could be this lucky! I woke up that morning to a normal day, and suddenly I’ve got a seat at the big game, a winning ticket, I’ve actually been in the gamesphere and it seems like I can talk my way into or out of anything.

So we take our seats for the game. ‘Course we’ve already seen it once but we’re enjoying it anyway ‘cause there’s nothing like being there and besides, you know, we’re both gonna retire after this.

The first goal was due for the eleventh minute from Kursk Delgato, who played South Dome for the Mongeese back then. Anyway, he scored it just like we knew he would, exactly like we already seen it. Second goal was supposed to be this incredible cross-sphere volley by Gator Kihome. ‘Course Kihome transferred to the New Birmingham Novae since then, and the Emporers got that new Silverene Dubluck guy in air attack. I mean, he’s pretty good, but he ain’t no Kihome.

Anyhow, the second goal didn’t go in. I mean, when I saw it the first time round, the time it did go in, I thought it wouldn’t cause it was one of those shots that almost curved in, you know? It was really close. So the second time, when I saw it going wide, I thought
“That’s ok, it’s gonna curve, it’s gonna curve…” but it didn’t curve. It just went wide and the game carried on. Me and Grizz couldn’t believe it.

Of course, after that the whole game was different. There wasn’t that next face-off because the goal didn’t happen, so it all changed. We’d lost it, and we couldn’t understand why. We watched the rest of the game, hoping it would all come together somehow, but it didn’t. The Mongeese won, 8-7. Pisses me off just thinking about it. Get me another one of those, will ya? I’ll pay you next week, I’m getting paid by then.

We were just leaving the arena when I spot the referee guy – you know, the one who’d seen me in the officials’ area – being arrested. Suddenly I’m thinking I hadn’t seen him during the game at all, maybe he’s not even a referee. I moved closer so I could hear what was going on. It seems he wasn’t a genuine ref, and he’d snuck into the officials’ area just like me. No wonder he was so shocked when he saw me.

From what I heard though, it sounded like this guy was actually a cheat. Yeah, I know, it makes you sick don’t it? He’d been in there to switch the puck for one with some kind of computer-controlled mag drive that could make it change direction. With that he could rig the game and make a fortune on the odds.

That’s when I started to realise what had happened to me and Grizz. The way I see it is this: The game we saw ahead of time was the cheat’s Version- that’s how it would have turned out if the cheat guy had been able to fix the game. That incredible curve on the second goal – that was down to the rigged puck, you see. Trouble is, just by knowing the future I accidentally changed it. If I hadn’t known about the feedcam from viewing the future match, I would never have gone into the official’s area and bumped into that linesman. Then, when I told him about the referee he must have realised something was wrong and gone to take a look. I guess he found the rigged puck and changed it for a normal one. Because of that the goal didn’t go in, the result was wrong and me and Grizz lost all our money.

The thing that really makes me sick is this: I didn’t have to sneak into the officials’ area and mess things up at all. We could have just bought a pay-per-view live feed and put the gizmo in front of the screen during the match. That’s probably where our pictures should have come from anyway. Of course we never thought about putting the gizmo outside the gamesphere when we’d been trying so hard to think of ways of getting in. Once we saw those pictures from the feedbot, that was it. If we hadn’t of seen the pictures and drunk all that beer watching them, maybe we would have come up with the live feed idea on our own. If them Sallegans do have time machines, that’s the one thing I’d go back and change.

Still, I did get to stand in the Old World stadium gamesphere. That was worth it on its own, but buying my own private planet woulda been nice. Anyway, I gotta go. Good to chat to ya. The tab? Oh, I come by this planet all the time, I’ll settle the tab next time I’m through, if that’s… oh OK then, well how about I pay you next week, I got a job lined up, I can… Tomorrow then, how about tomorrow... oh come on, be reasonable…