Damon Knight - Orbit 18

Standard bearer. The standard bearer carries the team colors at the end of a seven-foot staff. He is armed with a hammer. He is

assigned to the captain at all times, and if the captain is mounted, then so is the standard bearer.

The wizard. The wizard is the only active player not on the field during play. He remains behind the lines, muttering his magics, attempting to put the whammy on the opposing team from afar by use of appropriate spells and incantations; his major concern is his opposite number. The psychic battle of sorcerers plays a vital role in the game. To aid in this, the wizard is allowed three nubile assistants of any sex. He creates his own style, be it staid and stately Merlin or feathered, gibbering shaman.

The moopsball is a soft, bounceless ball about the size of a grapefruit. In a pinch a real grapefruit will serve, although somewhat lacking in durability. At the beginning of the game it sits on the pedestal at center field.

Each referee carries two shields, to be used to separate combatants in the event of serious altercations. Referees are present to maintain a semblance of order. Players are expected to whale away at each other with their weapons, but punching, kicking, grappling or other forms of unarmed combat are strictly prohibited. Two violations bring immediate disqualification and assignment to latrine duty. There are no substitutions.

Each combatant wears a uniform in the team colors, consisting of a jersey, shorts, knee socks, sneakers and a hardhat. Officers wear feathered helmets. The captain’s helmet is plumed. All male combatants must wear groin protectors and female combatants must wear chest protectors. A small pouch is worn by each player, containing beef jerky, chocolate, salt tablets, Band-aids, etc.

Referees wear white shorts and jerseys. The head referee wears a gray derby.

Moopsball requires three days to be played. A weekend beginning with a Friday is the best time. Activities begin in the predawn hours, with the gathering of forces.

Each team meets at a designated location two miles from the field of play, along with half the refereeing squad. A marching formation is ordered, with noncombatants at the rear, and a forced march to the field takes place. Referees, using an agreed-upon system, grade the teams on discipline, fierceness of demeanor, formation, etc. Small touches, such as bagpipers, can count substantially.

The teams, hereafter called Team A and Team B, arrive at their respective ends of the field in the early morning and set up camp, starting ten yards behind their one-yard lines. The camp will be judged. When the camps are completed, both teams assemble on the field of battle.

Battle formations begin at the two-hundred-yard lines and may extend back to the one-yard line. Guardians are confined to the goal areas, which no other member of the same team is allowed to enter.

Movement of all players other than guardians is unrestricted.

Formations must be set up by 11 a.m. to allow a full hour for war cries and the hurling of epithets across the hundred-yard no-man’s-land. These will be graded. It is a time for the uttering of mighty oaths, and each wizard is allowed an incantation at the head of his team.

As noon draws closer the wizards retreat behind the lines, officers confirm signals with buglers, and all the players rattle their weapons.

At one minute of noon the head referee steps out onto the field at the two-hundred-fifty-yard line and removes his hat. Staring at the second hand of his watch, he holds his hat at arm’s length. At precisely noon he lets it fall.

The play begins at the drop of the hat. Team A and Team B charge the ball, howling.

The object of the game is to bring the ball to the other team’s goal and ram it down the tube, and to smash anyone who gets in your way. The ball can be conveyed downfield in any manner. It can be thrown, kicked, dribbled, air-dribbled, carried; but it cannot remain in any player’s hand for more than five seconds.

Teamwork is important, as is an awareness of the strengths and limitations of the different weapons. The hoop, for example, is especially effective against cavalry. A cavalry wedge can break a large defensive infantry formation, and that wedge need consist of only three cavalrymen. A flinger is at a severe disadvantage when closing with a shield. The prudent commander must know his army.

Nights are filled with feasting and drunken revelry. During the game, the support personnel have been preparing a huge repast and a raucous party. Referees will circulate among the camps, taking notes. In this partying as in all other things, the teams must strive to outdo one another.

Various games may be played to while away the night. Some suggestions:

Pick-a-tent. A warrior, armed only with a hammer, stands in the center of a fifteen-foot circle facing three tents.

In one tent there are three nubile wenches, a hot bath, a steak dinner and a soft bed. But in each of the tents there waits an opponent or opponents. In one there may be a fully armed guardian; in another, two hoops or two shields. These opponents come out smoking when the contestant chooses their tent, and set upon him. The contestant must fight until he or his opponent is driven from the circle. If he wins, he throws open the tent flap to claim his prize. If he has chosen wrongly, he may try once again.

One-on-one. This is a basic challenge match, in a circle, the object being to force the opponent out of the circle.

Inquisition. During the day prisoners will probably have been taken. A prisoner is taken when an opposing player is surrounded and disarmed, or is forced across the one-yard line into the enemy camp, or surrenders for reasons of his own. The prisoners are confined to a compound. They are not allowed to try to escape unless they can come by weapons. Once armed, they can make the attempt.

Inquisition is played by the Wizard, a jailer, a prisoner, and a referee. These four cloister themselves in a tent. The referee takes notes. The jailer watches.

The Wizard asks the prisoner simple yes-or-no questions in an attempt to gain useful information, such as the key to the team’s bugle code or battle strategy.

The prisoner does not answer “yes” or “no,” however. He answers “rum” or “turn” or “rum-te-tum.” This last is a maybe. He may use it twenty times. He is allowed to choose which of the other two means yes and which no. The Wizard has one hundred questions in which to find out which is which and to gain useful information. The prisoner is allowed to lie twenty times.

Play continues from noon until sundown.

Rescue. In the course of the night each team is allowed to send a total of ten players, laden with sidearm clubs, to infiltrate the enemy camp and provide prisoners with weapons, so that they may attempt an escape. These infiltrators are subject to capture.

This is the most crucial stage in the game, since it is the time when a point is most likely to be scored. Just before dawn, as many of each team as can be roused out of their tents and sleeping bags assemble in battle formation on the field. At dawn the hat is dropped and play is resumed.

Now suppose that Team A has roused forty or more players, while Team B has managed to awaken only fourteen. It is very possible that Team A will score in the early moments of play.

Should a team score a point while opposed by a force less than half its size, the scoring team is given five minutes to ride roughshod through the scored-upon team’s camp, knocking over tents, liberating prisoners, carrying off wenches, etc.