How I Saved the Cup Final Read online

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  I must admit, I’d been very slightly worried at first. After all, it was three months to Rigel and three months back, give or take the odd few days, and so far I hadn’t managed to hang on to a girlfriend any longer than three weeks. That’s just about all right on a planet, where there’s plenty of room to get away from people, but one thing about being in space is that it does rather throw people together. I didn’t fancy five months or more of Chal and me trying to avoid each other on a freighter, even one the size of the Moscow. But as time went on, things just seemed to get better and better, except for the football. She seemed to have the idea that all men automatically understood it. The trouble is, I don’t.

  Still, nobody’s perfect, and in all other respects I had absolutely no complaints. I was just amazed that she seemed to be so content to put up with me. I mean, I’m not exactly bad-looking, but there were fifteen other available young men on that ship, sixteen if you counted Vijmar, who wasn’t actually supposed to be available on account of the fact that he was married with two kids, but he tended to take the attitude that what his wife didn’t know about wouldn’t do her any harm. A girl like Chal could have had her choice of any of them. But she’d chosen me, and I must admit I did get a tiny bit smug about it when I caught the envious glances. It’s not often I’ve been envied for my girlfriend. Come to think of it, it’s not often I’ve been envied for anything much, even my brains. I’m the sort of guy that people shake their heads sadly over when they think he’s not listening. “Poor old Taw,” they say. “Brain like a buzzsaw, but socially he just hasn’t got it.” I don’t know what it is they think I haven’t got. I mean, I’m perfectly capable of making all the conversation I need. It generally goes, “Hallo, can you tell me what’s wrong with this robot, then?” Then they tell me and I say, “Oh, I see. Well, it’s probably the such-and-such, and if we have the part in stock it should take about so long to fix.” I mean, that’s all clear enough, isn’t it? I’m sure people wouldn’t want me to stand there waffling.

  We were on the homeward voyage, about a month from Earth, when she first mentioned the Cup Final.

  “Taw,” she said, “it’s the Galactic Cup Final on Rehen in six weeks’ time. I’ve just been offered two tickets over the comnet by a friend who can’t go. Isn’t that wonderful?” Her green eyes – absolutely natural, not contact lenses – sparkled with excitement.

  “Um,” I replied. “Six weeks? But it’ll take a month to get back to Earth, and then we have to get to Rehen…”

  “We can do it,” she assured me. “Listen, I’m a pilot, right? That means I can get cheap fares on passenger flights. And that means we can afford to take the express shuttle to Rehen. After all, we’ll have a month’s leave once we get back to Earth. We can do it, no problem.”

  “Er… Rehen,” I said doubtfully. “Isn’t that the place where they have all the electrical storms all the time?”

  “Yes, it is, but there are force shields over everything. It’s perfectly safe, or people wouldn’t be living there, would they? Anyway, don’t you want to see the Cup Final or something? It only happens once every twenty years, and there’s an Earth team in it this time, as you know.”

  “Oh… yes, of course,” I replied vaguely, trying frantically to remember which Earth team it actually was. I felt sure she’d mentioned it at some point, and had a strong suspicion that I would lose marks if I made it obvious that I had no idea.

  “I mean, normally I wouldn’t even think of cheering on Italy, but this is different,” she continued, and I breathed a silent prayer of relief. “They’re representing Earth, after all, since they won the World Cup – you do understand that, don’t you, Taw?”

  I nodded vigorously. “Oh, yes, of course. So we’re, er, going?” I instinctively felt I didn’t have a great deal of choice in the matter.

  “Yes. The tickets will be waiting for us at the spaceport when we get back to Earth, and I can sort out the travel arrangements over the comnet. Oh, Taw, won’t it be wonderful?”

  “Wonderful,” I echoed stupidly. “Er… do I need a rattle?”

  She gave me one of her odd looks. “Darling, what century are you in at the moment?”

  “Sorry. I’d just vaguely heard about football rattles, that’s all.”

  “I did once see one in the International Museum of Sport,” she replied.

  And to think I’d been planning to take her off for a quiet few weeks’ camping in England when we got back, maybe taking in the History of Robotics exhibition in Birmingham. Still, if she’d got the tickets, she’d got the tickets. I suppose it might have been a great deal worse…