Fall of the White Ship Avatar by Brian Daley

"You're right as you can be.
    When can I meet Vinzix?"
    "Any time you like. He's here at Ends Well just at the moment, as a houseguest. What I propose is that you and Hobart go freshen up while I fill him in. He and I were planning on playing a round or two of rovers this afternoon; if you two would care to come along, we could all discuss strategy. Er, do either of you play?"
    Alacrity shook his head. "Never had the time. Besides, it's a rich folks' game. But it'd be nice to stretch our legs; we've been cooped up in a little padded trash-can for—anyway, for way too long."
    Floyt, bewildered, inquired, "What's 'rovers'?"
    CHAPTER 5—BAND OF ANGELS, COMIN' AFTER US
    Rovers wasn't the game it had been back in medieval Terra, but when he was reminded of its origins, Floyt the history buff recognized it at once. The Ancients had played it, a sort of forerunner to golf.
    file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...y%20-%20Fall%20of%20the%20White%20Ship%20Avatar.htm (42 of 242)23-2-2006 17:03:12
    [Fitzhugh 3]-FALL OF THE WHITE SHIP AVATAR
    Millennia before, archers would go afield over a prearranged course, firing arrows from a given point to a particular target, the shots selected for their difficulty and the challenge they presented. From there they'd fire to the next, and so on over the course.
    Rovers has changed a lot, observed Floyt, watching the approach of Lord Marcus Perlez and the Darwin's Star autochthon, Vinzix. For one thing, I don't remember anything about the Ancients having robot caddies.
    Or at least that was what it appeared to be, floating along behind Perlez, a chunky thing that was mostly torso, riding a compact hoverunit. It looked like a cross between a mirrored chiffonier and one of Lord Marcus's prized jukeboxes.
    Marcus had on the traditional get-up: A sporty kilt with an orange-and-green plaid that seemed to be made of light-bulb filament, complete with a sporran covered with some sunset-coral fur. A jaunty purple tam-o'-shanter sat low on his brow. He also wore blinding argyle socks, cleated shoes with tassels on them, and a shirt of rather rakish see-through beige cobweb.
    Vinzix was a different matter. Alacrity looked the humanoid over, trying to keep an open mind about Dars.
    Vinzix was a whisker or two shorter than Alacrity. The native of Darwin's Star was startlingly humanlike, with the look of some impossibly Olympian ideal, like all of them. His splendid bronze skin fairly shot the light of Cornucopia back into their eyes; his shoulders were wide, wider than a human's could've been for his height, and if they weren't articulated exactly like a Homo sapien's , they were no less impressive: muscular bundles, striated and vascular. Vinzix's torso was short, narrowing almost absurdly to a tiny waist, but his legs and arms were long and well defined. He had too many fingers with too many joints, the way Floyt saw it, including some kind of little extra bottomside thumb. He smelled like polishing fluid.
    Vinzix's face was like something that belonged among the long-vaporized images of Mount Rushmore, except that the forehead was eerily high and the eyes unnervingly backset and unblinking. There was also the fact that the Dar's mouth appeared to run halfway around his head.
    Vinzix wore only a winding of stuff that looked like woven bugle-beads and a kind of baldric that held a pouch at his hip.
    Three women walked along behind Vinzix and Lord Marcus, barefoot on the soft-carpet turf of the First Castway, wearing the revealing glowtulle livery of Ends Well. Floyt almost waved and called greetings to Tomasina and Callisto, but it came to him that neither was necessarily present; such were Lord file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20kruis...y%20-%20Fall%20of%20the%20White%20Ship%20Avatar.htm (43 of 242)23-2-2006 17:03:12
    [Fitzhugh 3]-FALL OF THE WHITE SHIP AVATAR
    Marcus's staff. One of the three women held the bansai buffalo, Larrup.
    Lord Marcus Perlez waved at the two happily as he