For any given channel the colors seemed random, but for the arrangement as a whole they shaped in shirt-ing contours roses, lilies, tulips, violets and gardenias. Air jets emitted corresponding perfumes when appli-cable. An artist had designed this layout, and Stile ad-mired the handiwork. He had been here many times before, yet the novelty had not worn off.
Sheen did not seem to notice. “On your mark,” she said, setting the random starter. The device could pop instantly or take two minutes. This time it split the difference. The channel barriers dropped low, and Sheen leaped for the chute nearest her.
Stile, surprised by her facility, leaped after her. They accelerated, shooting down feet first around a broad bright curve of green, then into the first white vertical loop. Up and over, slowing dizzily at the top, upside down, then regaining velocity in the downshoot.
Sheen was moving well. Her body had a natural ron-dure that shaped itself well to the contour of the chute. The dust piled up behind her, shoving her forward.
Stile, following in the same channel, tried to intercept enough dust to cut off her supply and ground her, but she had too big a lead and was making too good use of her resources.
Well, there were other ways. This channel passed through a partial-gravity rise that was slow. Another channel crossed, going into a corkscrew. Stile took this detour, zipped through the screw, and shot out ahead of the girl.
She took another connection and got in behind him, cutting off his dust. This was the aspect of the Slide that was interactive: the competition for dust. Stile was grounded, his posterior scraping against the suddenly bare plastic of the chute. No dust, no progress!
He put his hand to the side, heaved, and flipped his body into the adjoining channel. This was a tricky maneuver, legitimate but not for amateurs. Here he had dust again, and resumed speed—but he had lost the momentum he had before. Sheen continued on in her channel, riding the piled dust, moving ahead of him—and now they were halfway down.
Stile realized that he had a real race on his hands.
This girl was good!
He vaulted back into her channel, cutting off her dust again—but even as he did, she vaulted into his just-vacated channel, maintaining her lead. Apt move! Ob-viously she had raced here many times before, and knew the tricks, and had more agility under that sweet curvature of body than he had suspected. But now he had the better channel, and he was unmatchable in straight dust-riding; he moved ahead. She jumped across to cut him off, but he was already jumping into a third chute. Before she could follow him, the two di-verged and he was safe.
They completed the race on separate channels. She had found a good one, and was gaining on him despite his careful management of dust. He finished barely ahead. They shot into the collection bin, one-two, to the applause of the other players who were watching. It had been a fine race, the kind that happened only once or twice on a given day.
Sheen got up and shook off the dust with a fascinating shimmy of her torso. “Can’t win them all,” she remarked, unperturbed.
She had made an excellent try, though! She had come closer than anyone in years. Stile watched her as she stripped off mask and shorts. She was stunningly beau-tiful—more so than before, because now he realized that her body was functional as well as shapely.
“You interest me,” he told her. In this aftermath of a good game he was flushed with positive feeling, his shy-ness at a minimum.
Sheen smiled. “I hoped to.”
“You almost beat me.”
“I had to get your attention somehow.”
Another player laughed. Stile had to laugh too. Sheen had proved herself, and now he wanted to know why. The mutual experience had broken the ice; the discovery of a new challenge completed his transition from diffidence to normal masculine imperative.
He didn’t even have to invite her to come home with him. She was already on her way.
CHAPTER 2 - Sheen
Sheen moved into his apartment as if it were her own.
She punched the buttons of his console to order a complete light lunch of fruit salad, protein bread and blue wine.
“You evidently know about me,” Stile said as they ate. “But I know nothing of you. Why did you—want to get my attention?”
“I am a fan of the Game. I could be good at it. But I have so little time—only three years tenure remaining—I need instruction. From the best. From you. So I can be good enough—“
“To enter the Tourney,” Stile Enished. “I have the same time remaining. But there are others you could have checked. I am only tenth on my ladder—“
“Because you don’t want to have to enter the Tourney this year,” she said. “You won’t enter it until your last year of tenure, because all tenure ends when a serf enters the Tourney. But you could advance to Rung One on the Age-35 ladder any time you wished, and the top five places of each adult ladder are automatically entered in the—“
“Thank you for the information,” Stile said with gentle irony.
She overlooked it. “So you keep yourself in the second five, from year to year, low enough to be safe in case several of the top rungers break or try to vacate, high enough to be able to make your move any time you want to. You are in fact the most proficient Gamesman of our generation—“
“This is an exaggeration. I’m a jockey, not a—“
“—and I want to learn from you. I offer—“
“I can see what you offer,” Stile said, running his eyes over her body. He could do this now without embarrassment, because he had come to know her; his initial shyness was swinging to a complementary boldness. They had, after all, Gamed together. “Yet there is no way I could inculcate the breadth of skills required for serious competition, even if we had a century instead of a mere three years. Talent is inherent, and it has to be buttressed by constant application. I might be able to guide you to the fifth rung of your ladder—which one would that be?”
“Age 23 female.”
“You’re in luck. There are only three Tourney-caliber players on that ladder at present. With proper management it would be possible for a person of promise to take one of the remaining rungs. But though you gave me a good race on the Slide, I am not sure you have sufficient promise—and even if you qualified for the Tourney, your chances of progressing far in it would be vanishingly small. My chances are not good—which is why I’m still working hard at every opportunity to improve myself. Contrary to your opinion, there are half a dozen players better than I am, and another score of my general caliber. In any given year, four or five of them will enter the Tourney, while others rise in skills to renew the pool. That, combined with the vagaries of luck, gives me only one chance in ten to win. For you-“
“Oh, I have no illusions about winning!” she said.
“But if I could make a high enough rank to obtain extension of tenure, if only a year or two—“
“It’s a dream,” he assured her. “The Citizens put such prizes out as bait, but only one person in thirty-two gains even a year that way.”
“I would be completely grateful for that dream,” she said, meeting his gaze.
Stile was tempted. He knew he would not have access to a more attractive woman, and she had indeed shown promise in the Game. That athletic ability that had enabled her so blithely and lithely to change chutes would benefit her in many other types of competition.
He could have a very pleasant two years, training her.