I didn’t care about losing, and I didn’t care about the pain in my side. I was elated. I had come to the courts, found a partner, and gotten into a game. Jim had treated me like I was competent, even though I wasn’t, and so though I failed, I at least got a chance to try. As bad as I was, I learned that day that I loved playing the game—even playing it that badly—even more than I loved watching it.
Jim and I sat together the rest of the afternoon, until I had to go home to dinner. We played every chance we got, and we talked between those chances. We talked about the players on the court. We debated the greatest moment in an NBA championship series, both of us going for classics over recent efforts: Jim argued for Michael Jordan’s huge straight-from-the-sickbed performance in Utah, while I pitched a moment from ancient history, Willis Reed’s injured run onto the court in the famous game in the Garden. We lost every game, with our best effort coming in an eleven-to-four outing in which a lot of lucky bounces went our way and the other guys looked like they were barely paying attention.
The best moment of the day, though, came when I got up to leave. As I turned to walk away, Jim said, “See you tomorrow?”
I smiled. “Yeah.” I was sore from a day of playing—not watching, but playing—basketball. I had a partner and a chance to play again. Life was good. “See you tomorrow.”
* * *
As consciousness returned I fought the temptation to move and instead stayed very still, eyes shut, trying to maintain the slow, even breathing of one asleep. I felt a bit muzzy from whatever the aliens had hit me with and had to work to concentrate, but I was not in any physical pain—good news for R.C., I hoped. I could feel a hard platform under me and bonds of some sort around my wrists and ankles. I tensed my muscles ever so slightly against first the wrist bonds and then the ankle ties, but predictably none of them gave at all. If I couldn’t work the bonds I wasn’t going to gain any advantage by pretending to still be out, so I opened my eyes and looked around.
I was in what had been an auto mechanic’s garage. As my head cleared, the smells of the room grew stronger, more distinct: oil that had worked its way for years into the pores of the concrete floor, grease, dust, bits of metal, hints of mold. The room was dim but I could clearly see the old wooden workbenches along the side walls and the lighter spots on the walls where racks had hung. I could also see three aliens—they looked like the ones who had taken me, though I couldn’t be sure—standing in the same triangular formation near the foot of the unfinished worktable I was sprawled across. To my left and slightly behind them sat a fourth alien, one a bit smaller than the original three and wearing a large breathing helmet instead of the tighter masks of the others.
The alien who had done all the talking so far picked up where it had left off, as if nothing had happened. “You must locate James Peterson and return him to us.”
My throat was dry enough that it took me a few moments to be able to speak clearly. “No,” I said, “I don’t have to do that.”
“You are our prisoner, and you must do as we instruct.”
Motivation was clearly not their strong suit. I raised my head a bit and cleared my throat. “No, I don’t. You can obviously knock me out and take me captive, but you can’t make me do anything. It doesn’t work like that.”
The alien in the rear spoke for the first time. His translator must have been set differently from the other alien’s, because his voice came out higher, a tenor to the other’s bass. “We can kill you if you do not do as we say.”
I was glad and a bit surprised to realize that aliens could be amateurs, too. They were clearly used to dealing with people who were also amateurs, people who had no ability to accurately gauge what they were really worth—or not worth—in any situation. I don’t know why I was surprised, because most people—and, I had to assume, most aliens—aren’t very good at what they do. I’d almost certainly end up paying in the short term for this knowledge, but it was still a source of power they didn’t realize they had given me. “Of course. But if you kill me, I can’t do what you want me to do.”