Spike draped a ma.s.sive arm across my shoulders and steered me toward the batting cage. "Practice is almost over and there's no one in the Dome here who will laugh at you." He slapped me on the back.

"You're in a uniform. You might as well do some hitting."

As much as I wanted to protest that if I was. .h.i.tting I couldn't be keeping my eye out for trouble, the little kid inside me desperately hungered for the chance to step up to the plate. "All right, you've got a victim.

You aren't recording this, are you?"

"Wolf, I wouldn't do that to you?"

As I shucked the navy-blue Seattle Seadogs training jacket1, Jimmy got me a batting helmet. "Strap this on. You're not chromed, are you?"

"Nope. The only chips in me are the nachos we had for lunch."

Handing me the helmet, he flipped a switch on the back that started a little green LED blinking. I pulled the helmet on and noticed the faint green glow tinting the full faceplate. The helmet had been fashioned of high-impact plastics and didn't feel particularly heavy, even though I knew it contained batteries to power the faceplate.

"Wolf, take a look at this." Jimmy picked up one of the baseb.a.l.l.s that had squirted under the batting cage's canopy. He held it under a small lamp built into the batting cage. As he rotated it slowly, I saw a purplish grid play like faerie light over its white horsehide. On the helmet's faceplate I saw a nearly life-size simulacrum of the ball, complete with grid, track along with the ball's movement.

"The helmet tracks the ball?"

Jimmy nodded and slowly stood. "Up there, in the roof, there's an ultraviolet light projector that provides the illumination for the grid to show up to our eyes-or, in your case, on the helmet's faceplate. In the case of most jacked hitters, the helmet would interface with the hitter's biosoft and send an impulse that would direct his swing to connect with the ball. In your case you'll get a projection of where the ball will be, but you have to use your own judgment as to when to swing."

1I had actually planned to refer to the Seadogs as the Mariners in this portion of my memoirs, but the word-processing software Valerie set me up with seems to be determined to avoid use of the word Mariner.

I heard some laughter and looked over toward the bullpen. The pitchers had gathered to watch me, no doubt certain they'd see someone yet worse than themselves at the plate. In the two days I'd been around the team, they'd given me something of a wide berth, which I didn't mind. The last thing I needed was a bunch of practical jokers trying to give me a hotfoot while I was trying to figure out how the team was being sabotaged on their pennant run.

Just before I stepped into the batting cage, I looked up at the mound. The practice pitcher had been shooed away by a tall, stocky player with a pug nose and broad grin. I turned back to Jimmy. "You guys have been planning this, haven't you?" I pointed toward the mound in an imitation of a gesture my pitcher had once made famous. "I may not be the world's greatest baseball aficionado, but even I know Babe Ruth had a hot hand on the mound."

Jimmy shook his head. "Don't worry. Ken's not wired from those years."

Babe plucked a ball out of the basket behind the mound. "C'mon, Wolf, they never let me pitch. You aren't afraid of me, are you?"

I let a low growl rumble from my throat as I dug in on the left side of the plate. "I just hate southpaws, that's all, Babe."

He reared back and threw.

The helmet picked up the ball as it left his hand. In an instant the computer dropped a box around it, then drew a line straight from that original box to a point low and tight across my knees. A series of green boxes then plotted the course of the ball as it actually came in. The direct line readjusted itself as the ball began to break, but by the time I'd seen and tried to digest all the information, the pitch thudded into the batting cage.

Up on the Scoreboard someone toted up a strike. Giggling sounded from the dugout, and the outfielders slowly started trotting in. Babe beamed and armed himself with another baseball.

"Don't let it get to you, Wolf." Jimmy's voice soothed some of my embarra.s.sment as I tightened my grip on the bat. "Just relax. When you see the first line, take a cut. You'll get a piece of it. The helmet is tough for all of us."

"Yeah, but you get paid to do this."

Babe's second pitch came in and I knew I'd seen that track before. I stepped into the ball, but I didn't quite manage to get all of my bat on the carbon-copy pitch. My hit popped straight up, then shot back down as the ball ricocheted from the cage's steel skeleton. I jumped back and dodged it.

More laughter from the dugout started my cheeks burning anew. A second strike appeared on the score-board and someone triggered a computer graphic showing a cartoon figure swinging and missing bigtime. One of the pitchers flopped over onto his back as the breeze from my cut reached him.

You do not have to tolerate this, Long Tooth,the Old One snarled in my head.Let me give you my quickness and strength. Then you will show them.

I shook my head. Ringing the practice field, four watcher spirits monitored the area for magic. For me to invoke the Wolf spirit in a real game would result in my being ejected from the league forever. Here, in practice, it would attract unwanted attention, and it had been agreed upon earlier that such a thing was not a good idea.

I held my hand out to Babe and backed out of the batter's box. "Ever have a desire to burn one down the third-base line into those clowns?"

Jimmy chuckled under his breath. "Yeah, back in double-A when I was starting out. Pitchers can be h.e.l.l on you because they're out in the bullpen without adult supervision most of the time."

"I know. When I was out there earlier they were teaching me how to spit." "Now there's a skill for the Fifth World." Jimmy hooked his fingers through the netting on the cage. "What would you do if Babe was shooting a gun at you?"

"I'd shoot him back."

"Same dif here, only the bullet is bigger and you're sharing it with him."

"Gotcha." I reached up and turned the helmet off. "I think I'm set now."

"Go get 'em." Jimmy waved at the outfielders to back up. "Longball hitter stepping up, boys. Get on your horses."

Babe wound up and delivered a solid fastball. It came straight down the pipe and I swung all the way through the ball. I was late on the swing, so the ball hooked out into foul territory, but it was a long way out in foul territory. That surprised Babe because his next pitch came in high, leaving the count at 1 and 2 on the Scoreboard.

"Wolf, this'll be his curve. Tight, golf-shot it."

Just as Jimmy predicted, Babe's curve arced in and broke down. I stepped out and snapped the bat around, connecting rock solid. The ball exploded off my bat and pa.s.sed just above Williams' glove as the third baseman leaped up at it. Beyond him it skipped off the turf and tucked itself into the corner of the outfield.

Behind me Jimmy chuckled. "That's a double for sure, maybe even a triple. You've got good wheels."

"You're being generous."

"Never going to fit undercover, Wolf, if you don't brag a bit."

"Just taking my lead from you, Jim."

With the rest of his pitches, Babe kept me honest, but I got pieces of more than I missed. As he began to tire and I got into my rhythm, stroking the ball felt really good. Finally, as we both agreed it was to be the last pitch, I pointed toward the outfield. "This time I'm serious."

Babe laughed aloud. "Yeah, you and every other curb-climber. No mercy, Wolf." "Asked or given, Babe."

Because I'd begun to hit his curve, he came straight at me with a hard fastball. I saw him release it at the top of his arm's arc and I knew in a split-second that ball would be jetting fat and happy through my strike zone. Pushing off with my left foot, I strode forward. Cranking the bat around, I knew the ball was going places.

It was, like right into the backstop as my bat missed it by the same margin Christmas misses June.

With my bat pounding the turf as my swing spun me around, I dropped to my knees. Looking up I saw even Jimmy holding his sides to stop chuckling. "What the h.e.l.l was that?"

Babe jogged down from the mound and laughed with a low, sinister voice. "Just a reminder, kid. We're the pros in this league, and you're just a promising amateur." If not for the impish light in his eyes, I'd have figured Babe was mad at me. He slapped Jimmy on the arm and headed into the dugout.

I slowly regained my feet and brushed my knees off. "That ball broke like a Ferrari on Pothole Road."

Jimmy nodded and kicked some of the b.a.l.l.s back out toward the mound. "Yeah, well, Babe was just having some fun with you."

"What was that pitch?"

He kicked a ball toward me and I noticed that dirt clung to part of it. "Babe gave you a spitter."

I swore. "And what doyou do when somebody pitches you one of those?"

"Miss like you did . . ." Jimmy shrugged. "Or hit it on the dry side."

Even though I'd not worked up much of a sweat, the shower felt good. I would have lingered, but Jimmy and I had dates for the evening and the woman I was seeing considered punctuality next to cleanliness in the way of divine attributes. As I was definitely considering dedicating a temple or two to her, I knew better than to keep her waiting. A tall, beer-bellied man with a lopsided smile tossed me a thick white towel as I stepped from the shower. "You went after the spitter. 'Sa nasty pitch." He pounded his own chest proudly. "Fzz able to hit that one."

The man's slightly slurred speech and the partial paralysis of the right side of his body made me uneasy, but I returned his smile. "You're a better man than I, in that case."

Jimmy left the shower and fielded the towel line-drive easily. "That you could, Thumper. You could hit that spitter like it had been in the desert for years." He jerked a thumb at me. "Wolfgang Kies, meet Al Grater. He used to play under Ted Williams for Seattle about ten years back."

My smile broadened. "Yeah, okay, I remember now. You were playing Williams' 1947 season back in '39, weren't you? I actually saw you play. You hit a double, a triple, and a homer in that game."

"The Thumper, 'sme." His brown eyes watched me carefully. " 'Sa good year."

The ragged scar tracking back through his black hair on the left side of his head reminded me of what had happened to him. In the 2040 season he'd been hit by a pitch that, as it turned out, had fractured his skull. He remained up at the plate and hit the next pitch out of the park, but collapsed rounding third. The brain damage hit him as hard as a stroke. The Seadogs management tried to put him back together, but could not, so they let him work around the Dome.

"It was a good year indeed." Babe Ruth draped an arm over Thumper's shoulders. He pointed a fat corona's glowing tip at me and grinned. "That was the year I entered the team's AAA Coastal League franchise, and the last year I ever swung at a spitball."

Jimmy rubbed his towel through his closely cropped, kinky black hair. "You had to throw that pitch because you knew Wolf would have hit anything else you threw at him." Babe winked at me. "True enough. A little seasoning, Wolf, and you could play Wildfire Schulte or Footsie Marc.u.m."

"Thanks, I think."

Jimmy rested his left hand on my right shoulder. "Might want to rethink that, Babe. Wolf isn't wired and he turned the helmet off. He was. .h.i.tting you all by his lonesome."

Babe blanched a bit, but his jocularity only vanished for a nanosecond. "I'll get someone to get me my '16 statsofts2and then we'll give him a real workout."

I nodded. "You're on." I turned to Jimmy. "We'd best get moving. We don't want to be late."

Jimmy fastened his towel around his slender waist. "I hope you're right about this woman you've got me meeting. I hate blind dates."

I frowned. "It's not really a date. Just drinks and maybe dinner. Wouldn't do that to her or you."

Babe seated himself on the bench by our lockers. "Big night? Where are you going?"

"It's a new place." I grimaced. "It's called ParVenue."

Babe smiled wryly. "Oh, I think you'll love that place, Jimmy. Thinking about asking the boys upstairs to get me a membership there as my next signing bonus."

Jimmy grunted, but I was unsure if he was still uneasy about having a blind date or if something about the club Valerie had chosen irritated him. I looked at Babe and Thumper. "If you two want to come along, I think my connection can get you in."

Babe shook his head. "Not me. Seattle's governor wants the Sultan at some reception she's tossing tonight."

2Statsofts are what they call baseball activesofts. They're just like normal activesofts in all respects save that they carry with them a bit of a personality overlay-much the way an activesoft of Hamlet for some actor might carry with it data on how the role was played by this actor or that in the past. Depending on the rev of Hamlet you run, you can be Gibson, Branagh, or Olivier.

"Thumper?"

Al shook his head with a herky-jerky motion. " 'Sa not for me. 'Sides, I got work to do around here. I'm changing all the burned bulbs in the Scoreboard. Want it right for when we beat the San Diego Jaguars."

"Another time then." I opened my locker as they left Jimmy and me alone. I tossed a wink at the picture of Lynn I'd taped to the inside of the door-just keeping with my cover, mind you-and pulled on a pair of khaki slacks. The polo shirt I tugged on over my head was navy blue and had the team's logo emblazoned on the right breast. Sheathing my feet in a pair of nylon Armani-Nike3power trainers and pumping them to snug completed my outfit, then raking a comb through my hair finished my preparations.

Jimmy took a sidelong glance at me and whistled. "Look lots better now than you did in the batting cage."

I jingled the keys of my car at him. "And we'll both look better in the Fenris."

"Then lead on, my friend."

The short tunnel from the locker room brought us directly to the parking lot beneath the stadium. Off to the right, the Fenris lurked like a piece of primordial darkness. All smooth and sleek, it reflected none of the garage's meager light because of a radarbane coating Doctor Raven had sprayed on it. Time seemed to slow as you approached the car, but I figured that was relativity in action because the car looked like it was doing light speed when it was sitting still.

The Fenris even impressed Jimmy. " 'Fifty model, with a twelve-cylinder engine, right?"

I nodded. "Seventy-five hundred klicks on her and still not a dent."

3Active wear for the chic. I actually prefer Gucci-Puma sneakers myself-despite the Old One's protests-but part of the licensing deal with the team meant we got this stuff for free, which meant I didn't mind slumming my way into it.

Jimmy ran a hand gently over the top. "Doc Raven must pay very well."

I smiled and keyed open my door. The automatic locks snapped open and Jimmy settled into the pa.s.senger seat. "Actually this was a gift from a friend, but Raven has been known to be generous." I smiled openly. "You can bet Ms. Lacy-Mitsuto will pay very well if I can solve your little problem here."

"You find out who's been trying to sabotage our drive for the pennant and money will be no object."

I punched in the ignition sequence, and the dozen cylinders beneath the Fenris' hood started hitting like Murderers' Row. The vehicle's headlights rotated up into position and I shifted the car into gear.

"ParVenue, here we come."

Again irritation flickered over Jimmy's face, but I didn't know him well enough to guess what the cause might be. He controlled it and forced himself to relax. "Hey, Wolf, that was nice of you to ask Thumper if he wanted to join us."

"No big deal. He seems like a nice guy. I thought he'd like time away from the Dome."

Jimmy frowned. "He probably would, but I don't think he can exist away from the Dome or the circus environment. He's in deep."

"Like Babe?"

"No." Jimmy shook his head solemnly. "Ken Wilson is in deep by choice. Sure, the Seattle organization planned to draft Babe Ruth and use him, so they wanted someone like Ken whose physiology matched the Babe's right down to length of thumbs and s.p.a.ce between the eyes. Ken was groomed to play Babe Ruth since Little League, so making it to the show is the fulfillment of a dream for him."

Coming out of the Dome's parking garage I waved at Thumper, then steered toward downtown Seattle.

"Wilson's lucky-he looks enough like Babe Ruth to be his clone."

"He didn't when he started." Jimmy began to scowl. "The man's had more plastic surgery than many elf wannabes. Ken's in deep because he chooses to be in deep. He lets the statsoft ride all the time, and he wears the Babe's ident.i.ty like a mask."

"I take it, from your tone of voice, you've got a problem with what Ken does?"

Jimmy waved me off. "Not really a problem, but a difference of opinion. Look, when I started playing ball, I was just like you. I played in the streets with the kids from the neighborhood, then I graduated to Little League on a team sponsored by Renraku. My father is a district manager for them and the corps take care of their own. A scout saw me and I got pumped into the Seattle organization, of which Renraku owns a big chunk."

From outside, street lights strobed pinkish highlights on the ebony of Jimmy's nose and forehead.

Humanoid shadows scuttled through the darkness surrounding Fourth Avenue South as we shot around the Renraku Arcology. Try as I might, I couldn't make out any signs of where the helicopter had crashed during the Night of Fire, but I'd have expected Renraku to clean up fast, so that didn't surprise me much.

By the same token I knew the area of Westlake where I'd seen action that same night had long since been patched up by Tucker and Bors, so the power of corps to heal their wounds was never in question in my mind.