Isn’t there always?

The natives refused to communicate. They didn’t object to being observed, they just refused to acknowledge the presence of the Terran contact team. They continued with their daily lives as though nothing had happened. If members of the team were in the path of a native, it would carefully walk around them as though they were clumps of vegetation. When a member of the team tried to talk to one of them, the native stared without any sign of understanding until the attempt was over. Then it would go on its way. Even amongst themselves they hardly spoke and then only in a series of monosyllabic grunts.

The contact team had begun by referring to the natives as Mecks. By the time their replacements arrived the name had been corrupted to Meeks. You could do just about anything short of dissecting one of them on the spot and they’d sit still for it. The only thing they wouldn’t allow was for someone to enter their homes.

The Meeks stand about five and a half feet tall on average, weighing in at about two-eighty pounds. And they’re ugly. Covered with coarse brown hair apart from on their broad white faces, they’ve got piggy little eyes, a flat, black nose and huge, soft lips like a cow’s. Their arms and legs are shorter than you’d expect for their height and their heads are set almost directly onto their shoulders. They do have necks but they’re so short and muscular that it’s almost impossible for them to turn their heads. Generally if Meeks want to see anywhere except dead ahead they swivel from the waist or shuffle in a circle.

It was frustrating. The contact team shipped out in its entirety when the follow-up crew arrived. Which was unusual. Normally one or two of the team develop a kind of proprietorial feeling for the newly discovered planet. Not on Meckelen’s World. Not even the team’s anthropologist. He was only too pleased to get away. Shortly afterwards he suffered a complete nervous breakdown. His psychiatrist reckoned it had something to do with the quality of his find and the total absence of results. The poor guy hasn’t worked since.

The new team did make one piece of progress. All the Meeks observed by the first contact team had been of the same sex. One day the door of a village hut opened and out walked a tall, thin Meek. It was wearing the standard jellaba with the hood up so that its face was covered, but glimpses of arms and legs indicated that it lacked body hair.

Each of the huts in the village housed between three and eight of the original variety of Meeks. It grew clear as they became more relaxed in the presence of the off worlders that there was also one of the secondary type to each dwelling. The slender Meeks wove the clothes, cooked and looked after the children (although that was only a guess, new adolescents appeared in the village but no babies were observed).

Meckelen’s World appeared to have a not untypical primitive society. The only questions that remained totally unanswered were why were there so many males in comparison to females and where did babies come from? On these absolutely no progress was made.

Study of the female Meeks was next to impossible. Whenever a team member got near one of them she took off running into the thick bush that grew hard to the edge of the village. Once in the bush all that was ever found of the subject would be her jellaba lying on the ground abandoned. Was it possible that the female possessed some form of natural camouflage, like a chameleon?

Although the practice was never given official sanction, several groups of scientists formed hunting parties; one of their number deliberately startling a female and chasing her into the bush where his colleagues waited. This method proved a complete failure. For several weeks after this obvious interest was shown in them, the females stuck close to home. In fact it was only when the next relief ship arrived and the second research party were rotated off planet that the females reappeared with any regularity.

The third team to land on Meckelen’s World comprised only fifty percent scientists. The other fifty percent was a construction crew whose job it was to build a permanent outpost; living quarters for the scientific staff and their families, a small food processing plant, a decent landing pad for the atmosphere shuttles that would be arriving more regularly as the human population increased and of course a vast array of research facilities.

Only things didn’t quite go to plan.

Do they ever?

Right from the start, the Meeks took a keen interest in our construction work. The study team saw this as a breakthrough and encouraged their curiosity. The Meeks waited until the first of the houses was near completion and then moved in to take a long, close look at it. Mostly they kicked and pushed at the walls, then one of them sat down with a piece of hard, rough-surfaced rock and began to rub it against our construct. He sat there for days until he began to wear a shallow indentation in the side of the house. Then he returned to the Meek village where there was some sort of pow wow.

The next morning a Meek appeared at our construction site and plonked himself in front of the excavator. We tried to go around him but he moved, placing himself in the way whatever direction we headed in. When we turned to other machinery there were Meeks sitting either in front of it or on it. A couple of the more determined workers got shovels and began to dig foundations manually. Meeks appeared and took up position so close in front of them that it made it impossible to continue.

Naturally I was called to the scene. Appraising the situation, I ordered the construction team to down tools. We made great show of putting away shovels and walking around with our hands empty. The Meeks sat around the site impassively. On the following day they showed up again. I called a temporary halt to all building work and gave the hard hats a vacation. Over the next week less Meeks showed at the site every day. Finally there was only one left. I tried a small experiment. I turned on the excavator. The Meek took off. Five minutes later the place was crawling with natives.

It seemed pretty obvious that they didn’t want us building permanent dwellings. For a couple of months afterwards I worried that they might physically express a desire for us to leave. Although they weren’t armed, the Meeks were as tough a looking bunch as you’d care to meet. They moved pretty slow, except for the females, but I reckoned if one of them took it into his head to beat on a human and managed to catch one, it could be a massacre. And there were a lot more of them than there were of us.

As it turned out I had nothing to worry about, except for the fact that after a year we had still to complete a single building. The natives were no longer restless but my construction crews were. And although the survey team were ostensibly busy they were also beginning to show signs of disillusionment with Meckelen’s World and its phlegmatic indigenes. The scientists and the workers broke up into two discrete camps. Their frustrations manifested themselves in disharmony between the factions. I could feel tensions mounting. At some stage the situation was going to explode. I had to defuse it, but how?

My thinking wasn’t helped by the fact of my own frustrations. As usual, work on my biography of Joe Montana was the first thing to suffer. Apart from a couple of easy weeks at the start of my tour of duty, I’d hardly written a page. To calm my frayed nerves I decided to lock myself away with a bottle of medicinal bourbon and read over a couple of Montana’s old playbooks from the 49er days. I found the answer to my problem staring up at me from the yellowed pages. Let them take out their frustrations on one another but let them do it on a football field.

As with any good idea, this was backed with a healthy weight of self-interest. When I was a kid I’d always dreamed about playing pro ball. Unfortunately I developed all the musculature of a string-bean. So I studied the technical side of the game; there was always coaching. And the more I studied the more my passion for football turned into a passion for coaching the game. By the time I grew to manhood there was nothing else I wanted to do. But how does an outsider break into the professional game? I never found out. I helped out the coaching staff at college. I even coached little league during the summer. But none of this counted. I graduated college with an MBA and a commission in the Air Force reserve. How I made a mistake like joining the Planetary Corps I’ll never know. I wasn’t even drunk when I signed up, just disillusioned. No matter how successful I was in my career or how high I rose in the service I would never attain the title I so desired.

But anyway, there I was on Meckelen’s World and with a chance to put my footballing expertise to good use. Both sides agreed that my idea had merit. Both sides also refused my offer to coach them. The scientists had more potential coaches than they knew what to do with; some of them had even played college ball. The hard hats just suspected my motives. So, as usual, I got to watch from the sidelines.

The authorities back home on Terra would have been horrified to see the use to which our high tech machinery was put. We manufactured the equipment we needed with little difficulty. Our only worry was whether the Meeks would allow us erect goalposts.

Initially we just marked out a field and practised the basics. Once the Meeks discovered it was a game they began to take a slight interest. I don’t know what they made of the spectacle but pretty soon they were placing bets among themselves regarding various aspects of the game, even though our teams were only in training. So we took a chance on the goalposts. They watched carefully but made no move to stop us.

The game between the scientists and the hard hats was a little esoteric in its attractions. The scientists, in temperament at least, were all quarterbacks, their opposition were full backs. Defence was nowhere. Scientists threw the ball on every possession; the opposition had little answer. Construction kept the ball on the ground; the opposition were overwhelmed. Nobody was getting much satisfaction. At half time the score read: Scientists 34 pts. Construction 41 pts.

Everybody was exhausted and honour was satisfied. The match was abandoned as a draw. The next morning a delegation of three Meeks appeared at my tent. I smiled and indicated with hand signals that they should enter. One of them returned my smile, after a fashion, and said, “Thank you.” I sat down very carefully on my chair, afraid that my perception of reality was somehow askew.

The Meek spokesman smiled again. “We wish you and your comrades to leave our land, Mr Spendal,” he said in a high, sing-song voice.

I shelved the first ten questions that entered my head and looked for clarification of their demand. “You’d like us to move to another village or tribe?”

He shook his head. He made flying motions with his hands and did a passable sound effect of a shuttle lifting off.

“We’ve invested a lot of time and resources in this planet. We can’t abandon it just like that,” I said, snapping my fingers.

“Why did you come?”

“To learn about your people and your planet.”

“You watch. You learn,” he said. “Now you go.”

“There are many things we wish to know about your people. Things that we’ll probably never learn without your cooperation.”

He thought about this for quite some time. “You play game,” he said, miming the kicking and throwing of a football. “You teach.”

“Ah!” I was beginning to get the picture. The Meeks were hooked on games and gambling. Here was something new to their experience, something well beyond their intellect to invent or even interpret. “Of course,” I said. “We teach you football,” I copied his little mime, “and you show us your ways.”

The Meek shook his head. “You teach us football. We play game against you. You win, we answer everything you want. We show inside our homes. We let you build big huts. We let you stay.”

I had a feeling I knew what was coming but I asked all the same. “And if we lose?”

He smiled and stood up. His companions did likewise. “You lose,” he said. “You leave.” They stood in silence for some moments looking down at me. “You agree?” the spokesman enquired.

“I must think it over. Talk to my colleagues,” I said.

“No think. No talk. Answer now. Yes or no. Simple.” For the first time since I had arrived on Meckelen’s World I felt threatened by one of the natives. There was aggression in their stance and in their eyes. I had a feeling that violence was not as foreign to them as we had supposed. “Answer now,” the Meek said. His voice deepened to a growl.

I didn’t feel I had any choice. To be honest, the integrity of my own skin did colour my reply. “Okay,” I said. “We’ll play.”

The Meeks grunted in unison. Their spokesman took a pair of sticks out of his pocket and handed one to each of his colleagues. They each produced a knife and began to carve a series of identical notches. This must have been planned in advance, although the spokesman had given every appearance of thinking out strategy on his feet. It was something to think about. Later. At that moment I had plenty to occupy my mind.

When the carving was finished they returned the sticks to the spokesman who passed one to me. “We play in this many days,” he said. As I counted notches he asked, “Who knows most about football?”

“Theoretically and tactically speaking, I guess I do,” I said aloud. Subvocally I counted, “Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty.”

“Then you will coach our team,” the Meek said.

“Now wait just a goddam minute.”

“We agree to play you at your game for highest stakes. Only fair that best expert teaches us. Otherwise odds too easy to calculate.”

I suppose I could have argued harder but the fact was they did have a valid point. And anyway, no amount of coaching was ever going to turn them into a team. Physically they were wrong for the game. They had the strength but not the speed. Besides, if I didn’t coach them no one else would and without coaching they couldn’t play. And if they didn’t play they couldn’t lose. And if they didn’t lose they wouldn’t co-operate.

That afternoon I called a meeting of the entire survey team. At first I had a credibility problem. Not that anyone doubted that the Meeks would gamble the future of their planet on a game; everyone had watched their continuous gambling. But they did have difficulty believing that I’d been stupid enough to accept the challenge. If we lost, my career was down the toilet. Everyone’s career was down the toilet. Right then, I was not a popular man. For a while the jury was out on whether they should tear me limb from limb. What saved me was a simple statement of philosophy from a hard hat.

He was sitting near the front, a huge guy with muscles like knots in steel hawser. I watched this square, crew-cut head emerge out of the crowd and keep on emerging. Standing on a three step podium, I was just about looking down at him. He began pushing his way through the rows of seats that separated us. I began to pray. When he got to the front he turned to face the crowd.

“If we can’t beat the heck outta this bunch of short-assed, no-necked dummies, then we don’t deserve to be on this planet.”

There were tentative shouts of “Yeah!” and “Right on!” from his peer group. One of the scientists stood. “I don’t know if this is something that Mr Spendal has the authority to commit us to,” he said.

“Siddown, bonedome,” shouted the hardhat. “We’ll take care of this if you don’t got the stomach for it.”

This time the Yeahs and Right ons came in a chorus. Ham fists were pounding playfully into enormous, granite-carved biceps. Discussions were over. In sixty days the fate of Meckelen’s World would be decided by a game of football. I could hardly believe it myself.

Their offence was pretty limited; none of them was exactly a natural wide receiver. Sure they could catch, and their number one quarterback threw a mean pass, but there was no way one of them would ever lose a defender for guile or speed. That left them with a one-faceted attack: the running game. And this would be the strength of the team, I was convinced. Every time I watched the quarterback slap that pigskin into the fullback’s midsection I wondered how anyone was ever going to take the guy down.

Their star runner was just over five feet tall and tipped the scales at a little under three hundred and fifty pounds. His legs looked as though they’d been borrowed from a rhinoceros. His centre of gravity was so low that he was almost impossible to knock off his feet. The only problem was that he moved so slowly each defender could have a couple of attempts at putting him down every ten yards.

The Meeks were willing. They were optimistic. They were having fun. I couldn’t help but grow fond of them. They listened intently to every word I said. They took every suggestion I made to heart. They tried their hearts out. They called me ‘coach’.

They had acquired but a single English phrase. “Yo coach!” How could I not be flattered. If ever there was a phrase guaranteed to make me happy, that was it.

When I asked who wanted to be our kicker every member of the squad demanded to try out. On the sidelines our audience, every male from the village who could get away from his work, livened up. So far the onlookers had lounged around desultorily placing bets on various and indecipherable aspects of the training. As the kickers lined up, trade goods changed hands at an incredible rate.

Short legs they may have had, but what power. I placed Arkcluk in charge of the rest of the team for long periods and concentrated my own efforts on picking and coaching a kicker. I ended up with a guy who could kick goals from sixty-five yards out and began to feel that at least we wouldn’t be disgraced.

I was a little worried about leaving the others. Whenever my back was turned, the quarterback began throwing passes. Then he began throwing blindfold. Somebody would call out a play in that grunty speech of theirs, a receiver would sneak into position, they’d snap the ball and the quarterback would throw. I’ll tell you, I was surprised how good he was. He was spearing that ball down the receiver’s throat regularly. And their patterns were beautiful. Everyone seemed to know exactly where he should be. It was like they’d been playing the game all their lives. Or they could read each others minds. It was a real shame all that practice would be for nothing. I doubted we’d call a single throwing play when we faced up to the Terrans. But I let them get on with it. They were enjoying themselves and I reckoned they were about as good at tackling and running the ball as they were ever going to be. Why spoil their fun? The opposition would be doing that soon enough.

The field on which the big game was to be played lay in a hollow surrounded by low hills, a natural amphitheatre. On the day of the game the slopes were filled to capacity. Word of the event had spread to other villages and all of them had sent representatives. Each visiting party came loaded down with trade goods; it was a gambler’s paradise.

Before the kick-off I walked to the centre of the field to shake hands with Doc Laguna, the coach of the Terran side. During the weeks of practice I ate, drank and slept football. I’d hardly spoken to any of my fellow Earthmen, especially the footballers who’d made a point of avoiding me. He gave me a broad shit-eating grin just bursting with confidence.

“How’s it going, Spendal old man?” he said, pumping my hand up and down vigorously.

“Not bad,” I replied. “I think we can give you a pretty good game.”

“We?” he said. “We?”

We? I thought to myself. I’d become so wrapped up in trying to give the Meeks a fighting chance that I’d forgotten just where my interests lay. And my loyalties. But even with that timely reminder I couldn’t help but fell almightily pissed when the Terran squad trotted out. The first two faces did not belong to members of the Meckelen’s World survey team. I recognised them all right. One of them had been a running back with Notre Dame. I remember there were headlines on the sports pages when he turned down an offer from the Redskins in favour of continuing his studies in astrophysics. The second guy was the best defensive end the navy had ever put a uniform on. Both men had happened to be posted to Wreidaltes. I whirled on Laguna.

“Ringers,” I said.

“Insurance,” he replied. “We could have whipped the Meeks without them but with the stakes so high, why take chances?” He flashed that grin again. I was sure I could see foreign matter between his teeth.

I went to the sideline where my squad was lining up. Alkcluk was the Meeks’ coach for the game. He would call the plays and make the decisions. Officially, I was there in an advisory capacity only. I looked along the lines. There was a Meek female sitting in the back row along with the running backs. I turned to Alkcluk.

“Wide receiver,” he informed me.

“What?” I said. “But she hasn’t even trained. And anyway, the defence will tear her head off. You can’t send a woman out there.”

“Not woman. Meek.” He smiled. “Training done too. Terran team not only one with surprises.”

I stopped. Could Alkcluck have somehow overheard my conversation with Laguna? Impossible. We had been much too far away. Maybe he had read the surprise in my body language while I spoke to the Terran coach. Maybe he had read my mind. Maybe it was just a lucky guess. I had no way of knowing. There was no point in pursuing it.

I began to argue about the female again.. Alkcluk placed a hand on my shoulder. “My friend,” he said. “Our planet. We judge how best to fight.” At that moment I felt a surge of real affection for him and his race. I truly hoped they would not be disgraced by the performance of their team. “Trust me,” he said.

The whistle blew and the game was on. The Terrans kicked off. Meek tactics were simple. Move the ball on the ground. Keep possession for as long as possible. Eat up the clock. Attempt a field goal on fourth down, whatever the field position. Their first drive ended just short of the halfway line. The field goal team came out. Three points. Doc Laguna’s grin tightened ever so slightly.

At half time Terra led by fourteen points to twelve. On every possession in the second half the Meeks managed to notch up a field goal, but with only two minutes, nineteen seconds left for play the gap was five points. Doc Laguna looked capable of swallowing a linebacker. He threw me a wave.

The Meeks ran the ball almost to the halfway in four grinding plays. The clock showed fourteen seconds left in the game. Time for one final play. I knew what Joe Montana would have done in this situation but he had wide receivers. Alkcluk came up to me.

“Thank you, my friend,” he said. “You got us here with little to work with. You have much to be proud of. The rest we do ourselves.”

He turned to the subs and nodded. The receiver in the black jellaba with the hood pulled right down, got off the bench and walked to the sideline. The jellaba slipped to the ground. Beneath it the Meek was completely naked, hairless and definitely male. Very definitely male. He had the number eighty-eight painted onto his back.

“Time for our menfolk to play their part,” Alkcluk said.

I couldn’t have been more surprised if my underwear had turned out to be sentient, and carnivorous. The muscular, hairy specimens were the females. And why not? It was just my Terran prejudice that dictated the prettier sex should be female. Or even that there should be two sexes. Naked, the slender male looked very small and very vulnerable. He was average height for a Meek, about five-five, but couldn’t have weighed more than ninety pounds soaking wet. The skinnier Meeks had a reputation for moving fast and being elusive. I hoped it was well earned. For his sake.

The male trotted onto the field his face set in an anxious grimace. He lined up wide to the left and the Terrans put double coverage on him. The Meeks made no secret of what they were intending. Apart from the receiver, every other Meek on the field was gathered in a tight bunch, with the quarterback at its centre. It was a pass play, that was certain. The Terran defence was unlikely to get through to the quarterback. Terra had four men deep in the backfield. They began to drift over towards the Meeks’ left. From where I was sitting I doubted that a rabbit on speed could get through that defence. I caught myself muttering a prayer for the receiver.

The snap came. The two men on the male began to backpedal ready to cover his move. The Meek receiver mirrored their action dropping back well behind the line of scrimmage. The Terran front four battered at the Meek offensive line, getting precisely nowhere. The rest of the team milled about in confusion; there was no-one for them to cover. The quarterback’s arm went back and he launched a high spiralling pass into the end zone. There wasn’t a player from either side within thirty yards of it.

I looked towards the Meek receiver. He was calmly watching the ball’s trajectory. And then he wasn’t there any more. Blink, he was gone. Not running or anything. Just gone. Disappeared. Vanished. The crowd roared. In the end zone a naked Meek appeared directly under the ball. On his back was painted the number eighty-eight. Touchdown. No need for the point after, time was up. On all sides the Meek supporters turned to the serious business of collecting, or paying out, on their bets. I was one of the few people cheering just because my team had won.

I looked over at the far sideline. There were looks of disbelief on the faces of every member of the survey team. Why was I cheering? My team had lost. On Meckelen’s World, Terrans were history. And I was going to get the blame. I could see it on the faces of my colleagues, beneath the incredulity.

Alkcluk tapped me on the shoulder. “When Terrans leave, we would be honoured if you stay, Cliftin Spendal.” Not for the first time I began to wonder if maybe the Meeks could read minds. I’d seen teleportation before my very eyes, why not telepathy also?

I didn’t need to read the minds of my colleagues to know that it might not be such a bad idea. Better to stay here than to be marooned on some airless rock somewhere between Meckelen’s World and Terra by the angry kangaroo court that I could see forming already. I thanked Alkcluk for his kind offer and accepted with alacrity. He arranged for me to be placed in protective custody until my former compatriots could make arrangements to ship out to Wreidaltes.

Well things haven’t worked out too badly in the years since the Terrans left. The Meeks are a warm and generous race. They are indeed intelligent, far more intelligent than we had given them credit for. They just have different priorities than us. They prefer to spend their time on the simple pleasures: work, family, home and anything you can place a bet on. I’ll bet they’d just love Las Vegas.

Unfortunately they wouldn’t last long. The Casino bosses would bar them. To the Meeks nothing is a matter of chance. Roll a die and to them it is a complex problem in three dimensional math. And how do you play blackjack against a telepath? But they are only truly happy when calculating odds on something which despite continued observation still retains a random element.

Which is why they just love football. The MFL now boasts nine franchises and I’m hoping to take my team to Superbowl VI this year and maybe pick up our third title. We took Superbowl I and II without breaking sweat but the other sides caught on fast. It really is a highly competitive league these days.

Coaches are in heavy demand so I get pretty well paid. Alkcluk does better, but then, being a mind reader, he’s a red hot negotiator. I still haven’t had time to write my bio of Joe Montana, but what the hell, it’ll probably be five hundred years before there’s a printing industry on Meckelen’s World. And who cares anyway. Whenever I’m feeling a little down all I’ve got to do is take a walk through the village. Someone passing is bound to greet me.

Most of the Meeks still only know two words of English. “Yo coach!”