The twittering batball bounced off the centre of the high-scoring wall and flew straight towards Genar-Hofoen. The creature’s tiny, clipped wings paddled frantically at the atmosphere as it tried to right itself and flee. One of its stumpy wings was ragged, perhaps even broken. It started to curve away as it approached the human. He took a good back-swing with his bat and slammed it into the little creature, sending it yelping and spinning away. He’d intended it to head for the high-scoring wall, but the stroke had been slightly off-target, resulting in the spin he’d given the thing and its course towards the corner between the high-scoring wall and the right-side forfeit baffle. Shit, he thought; the batball thrashed at the atmosphere and curved further towards the forfeit baffle.

Fivetide darted forward and with a flip of the bat strapped to one of his front limbs - and a resounding, ‘Ha!’ - snapped the batball into the centre of the high-scoring wall again; it thudded against the roundel and ricocheted off at an angle Genar-Hofoen knew he wasn’t going to be able to intercept. He lunged at it anyway, but the creature sailed slackly past, half a metre away from his outstretched bat. He fell to the floor and rolled, feeling the gelfield suit tensing and squeezing him as it absorbed the shock. He picked himself up to a sitting position and looked around. He was breathing hard and his heart was hammering; playing this sort of game against another human would have been no joke in Affronter gravity. Playing it against an Affronter, even one with half his tentacles sportingly tied round its back, was even harder work.

‘Hopeless!’ Fivetide roared, crossing towards where the batball lay motionless near the back of the court. As he passed the human he flicked a tentacle under Genar-Hofoen’s chin and levered him up. The gesture was almost certainly meant to be helpful, but it would have broken the average unprotected human neck. Genar-Hofoen merely found himself propelled off the floor like a rock out of a catapult and sent sailing towards the ceiling of the court, arms flailing.

~ Idiot! the suit said, as Genar-Hofoen reached the top of his trajectory. He assumed the suit was talking about Fivetide.

A tentacle wrapped itself round his waist like a whip. ‘Oops!’ Fivetide said, and lowered him safely to the floor with surprising gentleness. ‘Sorry about that, Genar-Hofoen,’ he yelled. ‘You know what they say; “It’s a wise lad knows his own strength when he’s having fun,” eh!’ He patted the human relatively gently on the head, then continued over to the motionless body of the batball. He prodded it with the bat.

‘Don’t breed them like they used to,’ he said, then made a noise Genar-Hofoen had learned to interpret as a sigh.

~ Tentacled scumbag fuckwit, said the suit.

~ Suit, really! he thought, amused.

~ Well . . .