Shockball by Viehl S. L

Author:Viehl, S. L. [Viehl, S. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, General, Adventure, Speculative Fiction
ISBN: 9780451458551
Google: w-lT7NLisYkC
Publisher: Roc
Published: 2001-01-01T07:00:00+00:00

A couple of hours later, Hawk asked if he could look over their charts as I was hooking Reever up to the dialysis rig.

“Why? Think I messed up?”

“No. I am only curious.”

“Curiosity is good.” I handed him the charts. “Would have been nice if you’d helped me when Rico cut Wendell’s throat open.”

“I cannot go against my chief.” He gave me a faintly guilty look. “No matter how much I wish to.”

I went over to the container and started my weekly inventory of supplies. I had to keep a close eye on the antibiotics stock. As it was, I’d used nearly a quarter of it treating the hybrids. Another thing to bug Hawk about.

“Patcher, I don’t understand.” He showed me one of the charts. “You put here the fractures were caused by muscle contractions. Bones cannot be broken by muscles.”

“Sure, they can.” I counted my syrinpresses and frowned; one was gone. “Alternating current passing through the body cycles, and with each cycle, the muscles contract. If you’ve got voltage higher than one kilowatt, and sufficient duration, the jolts can fracture every bone in your body. We won’t even discuss distal soft-tissue ischemia, entry- and exit-point thermal injuries, spinal cord damage, rhabdomyolysis, myoglobi-nuria, cardiac and pulmonary arrest. Both your players were hit five or six times, and at least once with maximum jolts.”

“I see.” Looking even more bewildered, he went back to studying the charts.

Reever looked interested, too. “It sounds as if they were almost electrocuted.”

“They almost were.” I recalled Reever hadn’t spent much time on Terra. “These players were all penalized during the game. The sphere they use to score points is controlled by a computer system, which monitors the plays. Whoever commits an illegal motion while in contact with it triggers the computer to register a penalty. The player then gets a nice, automatic bio-electrical shock.”

“It sounds barbaric.”

“Yeah, but it packs the arenas, I’m told.”

“I was at the game,” Hawk said suddenly. “I saw what happened to them. They knew what they were doing.”

“Which makes them idiots, as well as injured,” I said. Hawk shrugged. “The Night Horse won.” Damn men and their damn stupid games. “The Night Horse are going to end up crispy little piles of ash if they keep getting that many penalties per man.”

“I will so inform the chief,” Hawk said, then departed without another word.

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