In Flavio's ears, the countdown echoed clearly. A mere few seconds from the start of hostilities, he still felt dizzy. He regretted delaying his jump into the sphere while mentally reviewing the game theory, strategy, and opening tactics.

The key was to accumulate as much momentum as possible and avoid at all costs being without thrust and adrift. At the start, the twenty bubbles, each weighing more than eight kilograms, would launch from the central area in the directions of the faces of an icosahedron. As a server, he had to change hemisphere twice to activate the first scoring target for his team. Since subsequent targets would be activated with each hemisphere change, he had to stay as close to the center as possible, coordinating his movements with the bubbles and other players to maintain speed and achieve direction changes. He immediately dismissed the idea of hitting the scoring target himself for the triple score bonus. Such feats were for servers of Clyella or Wilol's caliber.

Just before the start, Clyella looked at him and whispered to her team.

«He has something planned with Nyark and Juneat. Do you know anything about it, Sleeld?»

The executive shook his head and shrugged.

Adrenaline constricted Flavio's veins as his heart pumped it into his muscles like a raging beast. Toward the end of the countdown, he regretted the rules for physical protection and the exclusion of lethal blows. He smiled, thirsty for battle, and as soon as he heard the siren wail, he leapt forward with all the thrust his new body could provide.

At the same instant, Clyella and Sleeld jumped, holding each other's arms, a second later they tucked their knees to their chests, touched the soles of their feet together, and pushed off each other once more. Clyella found herself hurled upwards and Sleeld downwards. Aliel and Besbe remained crouched in defense in their starting position. Flavio was in flight, about to intercept the bubble that was drifting his way, heading north, at just over a meter and a half per second. In front of him, he saw Wilol performing the same maneuver to catch the southward-directed bubble.

Both grabbed the eight-kilogram bubbles at the same time, and Flavio realized he had lost the race for the center of the sphere. Being shorter and lighter, Wilol would have outpaced him, clashed with him in the northern hemisphere, and would have tried to bounce back into his own dome. With one move, Wilol would have activated the target for the blue team, prevented Flavio from doing the same for the red team, and would have found himself propelled toward the sphere's surface at a higher speed than him.

In a fraction of the time it takes to blink, Flavio decided to play his game. He would minimize damage by latching onto Wilol. Together they would slowly transition into the southern hemisphere, activating the blue target in the northern dome. Afterward, Flavio hoped to attack him and manage to jump over him to push himself back into the northern hemisphere and activate his target in the south. Not a very brave plan, he thought, but one suited to the means of an Earthling in his first game.

In a move mirroring Wilol's, he positioned the bubble beneath his feet, feeling it swell in volume between his hands along with the speed he was giving it, and kicked it backward.

With a sudden move, Wilol twisted to the side, threw his bubble westward, and found himself on a diverted path to the east. Caught off guard and surprised, Flavio advanced into the void, inert, and dodged by the opponent. At the base of the southern hemisphere, Nyark and Juneat awaited him in their trap.

The skirmish he faced with them seemed never-ending. They fought two against one, coordinating as if they were a single person. Between holds, kicks, and punches softened by the protective measures, the two Executives with the darkest skin kept Flavio stuck between their attacks, mere inches from the surface of the sphere.

Meanwhile, with Gavan's help, Wilol had activated the target on the eastern hemisphere. Kidhe quickly reached it and scored. Wilol activated the target to the west and then, pushed by Kidhe, touched it, obtaining a triple score.

Clyella whirled among the bubbles, throwing them in an attempt to reorganize a strategy, shouting directions to Sleeld, Aliel, and Besbe who, at last, four against three, managed to interrupt the blue team's gameplay. Wilol and Kidhe had gained a sixty-point lead.

Sleeld had launched himself in a run along the sphere's surface and was hurling himself at Nyark and Juneat. The two released Flavio and disappeared contentedly, like satiated locusts.

Propelled by Sleeld, Flavio returned to the northern hemisphere, activating the target for the red team. Immediately, Sleeld scored and threw himself to assist Aliel and Besbe in defense, as, on both sides, the race began to activate the strategic targets. Inertia increase of the bubbles, perfect elasticity, decrease in the value of the scoring targets, increase in the viscosity of the air... each accompanied by its opposite in the antipode.

Clyella coordinated with Flavio to recover part of the disadvantage.

«Jump on bubbles five, thirteen, eleven, six! Grab the twentieth!» she shouted at him while trying to slow down Wilol's moves. «Wait, be ready to throw it to me... now!»

Sleeld had resumed running on the surface. Glued to the sphere by centrifugal force, he deflected bubbles and hit both opponents and teammates in a massive game of zero-gravity billiards. The players gradually gained more speed, along with the bubbles which became larger.

The teams increased their respective scores, with Clyella's reds chasing Wilol's blues. Flavio managed to activate a new target right under Sleeld's feet and, for the first time, the red team took the lead, 420 to 414.

The surface friction targets lit up, and both captains widened their eyes. The other players hesitated for the brief moment as strategies were reconsidered. Clyella shouted new instructions to Flavio and leaped into a brawl with Wilol. Suddenly, the scoring targets were no longer important; the red team was doing everything to prevent the blues from deactivating the surface friction, and Sleeld started running towards the target that would have doubled it. Kidhe managed to stop him by plummeting onto his head. Flavio realized that Clyella's plan had changed and was now aimed at letting the activation time expire.

Drowning out his opponent's voice, Wilol began shouting random numbers between one and twenty, and so did Nyark and Juneat. The red team players then understood what Wilol had been plotting from the beginning. Lacking telepathic abilities, Flavio needed to hear Clyella's instructions to coordinate with the rest of the team.

Flavio smiled at the naivety of Wilol's tactic. Among the few exceptionally developed skills he possessed was the ability to isolate and process weak or confused sensory signals. He focused just a bit and clearly distinguished Clyella's instructions.

«Bubble seventeen, pass to Besbe, engage Gavan!»

He grabbed bubble seventeen, bounced it off the sphere's surface, activated a new scoring target, and threw the bubble again towards Besbe, who was running out of momentum and needed to get closer to the surface. He hit another bubble towards the center of the sphere and leaped to block Gavan.

Surprised by his opponent's trajectory, he saw him slip by and give Wilol a push. Flavio cursed, frustrated for miscalculating his last jump.

The blue team's captain and server stretched out an arm and, just in time, deactivated the surface friction with the tips of his fingers. Sleeld slid past the scoring target and had to jump to resume aerial play. Unable to control their orientation when jumping on the sphere, all the players found themselves spinning in the air.

Meanwhile, Nyark and Juneat had gotten close to him to shout their numbers right into his ears. Nyark's crude imitation of Clyella's voice was irritating to him.

The new instructions from the red team's captain became more frantic. «Correct your spin, throw to Sleeld then to Aliel, activate on the upper dome!»

With his arm stretched out to the side, he grabbed bubble three and threw it at his feet to change his angular momentum. He saw Sleeld and Aliel already positioned to reach the upper dome and score as soon as the target was activated, but the bubbles he was supposed to throw to them passed by too far. He couldn't adjust his trajectory and ended up activating the scoring target on the eastern dome. Meanwhile, the blues had regained the lead, 430 to 428.

Flavio realized that Wilol's tactic was more refined than it seemed. His brain could perceive and process external signals, yes. But the price to pay was an effort that wouldn't allow him to reason about movements within the sphere at the same time. Either he focused on Clyella's instructions or on the game. Going adrift and out from any team strategy, he felt panic chilling his stomach.

The scoring gap continued to widen, 438 to 428... 454 to 436... the outlook for the reds was disastrous from every perspective: with a bulky gunner like Sleeld confined to aerial play and a telepathically handicapped server cut off from communication with the rest of the team. Flavio resigned himself to the idea of not being able to harmonize with his teammates.

On the other hand, the strong telepathic bond between Nyark and Juneat would allow them to continue shouting at him without losing coordination with the rest of the blue team. Flavio looked over at Clyella, who, without finding a solution, was yelling tirelessly. He focused on her instructions one last time and decided to do the exact opposite.

Clyella fell silent at once. The blues extended their lead again, but Flavio was determined to do things his way. If harmonizing with the others' gameplay wasn't possible, he might as well force his team to harmonize with him. The reds understood his intentions and, lacking a better plan, began to follow his lead.

With Nyark and Juneat busy keeping him isolated, Flavio saw an opportunity to go after the opponents' score. He knew Clyella could read his plans and adapt the team's strategy accordingly.

The reds pushed themselves to the limit while the blues settled for conservative play, always reserving some of their resources to prevent Clyella from coordinating with the server.

The target's value was reduced again when the red team was trailing the blue team by only two or three hits. The reds won a strategic target to extend the match clock by a few minutes, but the gap in the scores seemed insurmountable. Every time Flavio and Clyella managed to the gap, the blues immediately scored on the counterattack.

The reds were trailing 602 to 620 with less than three hundred seconds left when the game-duration targets lit up again. Plus five minutes on the upper dome, minus five on the lower one, in a spot too distant for the blues to exploit and secure a winning advantage. Wilol then coordinated to defend the upper target from the red team's siege.

Flavio, however, saw an opportunity. Catching everyone off guard, including his own teammates, he decided to take a risk on a move that seemed to have no chance of winning. He deflected a series of bubbles that stalled both teams for a few seconds, jumped onto the southeastern surface, and activated the target in the dead zone, on the lower dome, right next to the target that would run out the game time. Gavan was flying mid-sphere to further extend his team's lead. After striking him with a kick, Flavio found himself propelled into a dive downwards.

Before the blues could get to the upper target, he reached his goal, hitting the scoring target with one hand and the strategic one with the other. The chorus of protests from his own teammates drowned out Juneat and Nyark's shrieks. The computer, unheard by any player, announced the game's conclusion as a tie.

The players, damp and limp like ten heaps of wrung-out rags, were deposited outside. Meanwhile, for the spectators' benefit, the sphere began to display a series of replays accompanied by a stream of match statistics.

«What on earth were you thinking?» Clyella vented, using up the little breath left in her lungs. «We could have won!»

Flavio, on the other hand, had no breath left at all. «I... I... couldn't...» he paused long enough to avoid asphyxiation, «keep up... anymore.»

«Neither could they!» Clyella pointed an arm towards Wilol's team. «Look at them...»

A little further on, covered in sweat and the evening's dim light, Juneat, Nyark, and Kidhe lay on their backs, gasping for breath. Wilol was seated, his torso slouched over his knees and, beside him, Gavan was bent over, in a clear intent to ease the strain on his heart.

The first summary of the game stats was nearly finished when suddenly all ten of them looked up towards the sphere.

«Rookie Flavio» the computer concluded, «rates his skill at level 45.»

A groan of irritation rose from the blue team.

«Nice way to get duped, Wilol!» Nyark complained, «You could have anticipated that Clyella had secretly trained him... Next time you want me on your team, remind me that you suck as a negotiator.»

As most of the group dispersed for dinner and the first stars took the place of the twilight sky, other spheres in the valley hosted games in their three variations. Clyella explained to Flavio that in the over three thousand years of Sphere game history, no one had achieved such a high level on their debut. She advised him not to try to convince others he hadn't trained in secret. He could use that to surprise them again in the next match.

In one gulp, Kidhe emptied the drink bottle he had materialized, and together with Wilol, stood up to join Flavio and Clyella.

«You know, in planning your resonances, we might've overlooked your sense of determination a bit, huh, Flavio?»

Wilol placed a hand on the Assembly president's shoulder. «Don't tease the boy. Otherwise, you'll make him believe his team could have actually won.»

Clyella's irritation was poorly masked behind a smile with too-sharp teeth.

«No, I'm serious...» Kidhe continued, «every time I see you, I think of your double on Earth, and wonder if he'll make the right decision...»

«The computer said fifty percent, right?» commented Flavio, downplaying the matter.

«That probability just means it all depends on his free will... which is somewhat yours too. What do you think? How would you feel in his place?»

«Let's see... if I were rid in one swoop of the only two girls that ever got in my way, if suddenly there were no friends to bother me on weekends, if all my social relationships were firmly enclosed in the warmth of a military setting, and there were no family to distract me from my duty... I don't know, let me think...» Flavio scratched his chin. «I believe I'd be the most emotionally reliable and predictable being in the universe. Or not?»

Kidhe pressed a palm to his forehead. Wilol, on the other hand, opened his big black eyes wide and spread his face into a calm smile.

«This boy's taste for irony is delightful. And your taste in men, Clyella... ah! I'm flattered it hasn't changed after all this time.» Wilol bent down to kiss her on the forehead and then left with Kidhe. Soon after, Flavio and Clyella also headed towards the city.

«You know, I've been thinking lately...»

«I know what you've been thinking, and you already know how I feel...» the Executive interrupted. «It's stupid.»

«I could improve in the game...»

«Nice excuse, but there's no body better suited than another for playing Sphere.»

«Well, I can find out for myself. Sorry, but I can't handle it. I've decided, since I have the chance, I want a different appearance.»

Clyella sighed; getting Flavio to play hadn't worked very well. She smiled. «There's no changing your mind, is there?» she whispered.

Flavio remained silent for a while, but he knew he couldn't hide anything he pondered over from her, and his insecurities had never been a secret.

«Clyella...» he blurted out as they walked under the stars. «Forgive my still very... earthly curiosity, but did you have something with Wilol?»

Clyella drew closer to him in the darkness. «We've been part of the Assembly for thousands of years... everyone here has had something with everyone.»