The away locker room on the planet Pyros smelled like a barbecue gone wrong. It had the distinct scent of burning rubber, sulfur, and the nervous sweat of the visiting team.
"Put this on," Nex said, tossing a small silver disc to Cal.
Cal caught it. "What is it?"
"Thermal regulator. Stick it to the back of your neck. Without it, your blood will boil in about four innings."
Cal pressed the disc onto his skin. It hissed and sent a jolt of cold down his spine, making him shudder. "Pleasant."
"Welcome to the Obsidian Dome," Nex said, checking a datapad that warped from the heat. "Home of the Pyros Magma-Runners. The average temperature on the mound is one hundred and twenty degrees. Gravity is heavy, at 1.3 times that of Earth. And the fans... well, they throw things."
"Beer?" Cal asked, adjusting his cup.
"Obsidian shards. Sometimes live embers."
Cal climbed the dugout steps and paused. He had played in Texas in July and faced the humid soup of the Florida Gulf Coast League. None of that prepared him for this.
The "stadium" was carved into a crater of a mostly dormant volcano. The stands formed jagged terraces of black rock filled with thousands of flickering, flame-wreathed creatures cheering in a roar that resembled a forest fire. The field wasn't dirt and grass; the infield was crushed black ash, packed hard, and the outfield was a rough stretch of cooled lava rock.
In the outfield, massive cracks in the ground glowed a furious orange.
"Are those..." Cal pointed toward center field.
"Steam vents," Gorth grumbled from behind him. The giant Brontok looked miserable, his thick gray hide slick with moisture as he held two industrial-sized ice packs to his neck. "Don't step on the cracks. You'll lose a foot."
"Play ball!" the umpire shouted. The umpire was a floating robotic drone with a heat shield, hovering safely ten feet above the plate.
Cal took the mound. The ash crunched under his cleats. The air shimmered with heat, making the catcher, Borp, look like a mirage behind the plate. The heavy gravity weighed on Cal's shoulders, making his arms feel leaden.
The first batter for the Magma-Runners stepped up. He was a silicon-based lifeform—a man made of jagged red rocks held together by internal magma. When he swung his bat during warm-ups, sparks flew from his elbows.
Borp put down the sign. Fastball. Away.
Cal wiped the sweat from his eyes. He struggled to grip the ball with his slick hands. Reaching for the resin bag behind the mound, he found it smoking.
"Okay," Cal muttered. "Just throw strikes. Don't die."
He wound up. The heavy gravity fought him every step of the way. He had to push off the ash with everything he had.
He released the ball.
On Earth or even in the training dome, the ball would have zipped. Here, the thick, heavy atmosphere slowed it down. The fastball, usually 89-92 mph with his new arm, crossed the plate looking sluggish.
CRACK.
The rock-man connected. The ball screamed past Cal's ear, sounding like a mortar shell. It struck the black ash of the infield, took a nasty hop off a hidden rock, and shot toward the shortstop—a three-eyed lemur-like creature named Zix.
Zix dove, but just as the ball reached him, a steam vent near second base exploded. HISSSSSS.
A column of scalding white steam shot out from the ground. The ball hit the steam jet and launched straight up into the air, riding the thermal column fifty feet high.
The crowd roared, stomping their feet and shaking the crater.
"Ground rule double!" the drone umpire buzzed.
"Are you kidding me?" Cal shouted, looking up at the drone. "The field ate the ball!"
"Local hazard rules apply!" the drone replied. "Resume play."
Cal stared at the vent, which was sputtering now. He looked at Borp. The turtle-catcher shrugged, a gesture that seemed to say, 'Welcome to the League, rookie.'
By the third inning, Cal was worn out. The Magma-Runners were used to the gravity; they ran the bases like boulders rolling downhill. Cal had given up three runs, mainly due to bad hops and the outfielders' fear of chasing fly balls near the glowing cracks.
Top of the fourth. Runners on first and third. Two outs. The Magma-Runners' cleanup hitter, a creature resembling a walking blast furnace, stepped in. Smoke poured from his nostrils.
Nex's voice crackled in Cal's earpiece (a standard issue implant). "Cal, you're overthrowing. The atmosphere is too dense. Friction is slowing your velocity."
"Thanks for the physics lesson," Cal panted, rubbing the ball. "What do I do? Ask them to turn down the air pressure?"
"Use it," Nex said. "The thick air acts like a fluid. Forget the heater. Throw breaking pitches. Make the air work for you."
Cal looked at the furnace-man at the plate. He looked at the heavy, shimmering air.
Fluid dynamics, Cal thought. Like pitching underwater.
He signaled to Borp. Curveball.
Borp hesitated, then set the target.
Cal didn't try to throw hard. He focused on the spin instead. He snapped his wrist at the release point, putting heavy topspin on the ball.
The ball floated out of his hand, appearing high, like a hanger or a beach ball. The furnace-man's eyes glowed brighter as he prepared for a home run swing.
But as the ball hit the dense wall of heated air, the spin kicked in. The friction bit into the seams.
The ball didn't just break; it dropped sharply. It fell three feet in the span of six inches.
The batter swung over it by a foot. The force of his swing in the heavy gravity spun him around like a top.
"Strike one!"
Cal grinned. The sweat in his eyes no longer bothered him. He realized something: the heavy air slowed speed but magnified movement.
Next, he threw the slider. It swept across the width of the plate, looking like a frisbee before diving into the dirt.
"Strike two!"
The crowd went quiet. The flames in the stands dimmed slightly. They had never seen a ball move like that. On Pyros, the game was about power and straight lines. Curves were a myth.
Cal wound up for the final pitch. He gripped the ball for his "Dead Fish" change-up.
He released it. The ball floated toward the plate, spinning backward. The dense air pushed against it, creating a cushion. The ball appeared to slow mid-flight, hovering in the strike zone.
The furnace-man lunged and chopped at the ball, making weak contact.
It rolled slowly back to the mound.
Cal fielded it cleanly. He checked the runner at third and turned to first. But as he planted his foot to throw, the ground rumbled beneath him.
A hairline crack opened right under his pivot foot. Orange light poured through.
"Move!" Gorth yelled from the dugout.
Cal didn't think. He hopped on his left foot, spun in the air to avoid the opening, and threw the ball to first base while floating sideways.
The ball smacked into the first baseman's glove just as the runner thumped onto the bag.
"Out!" the drone called.
Cal landed awkwardly on the ash, rolling away from the mound as a jet of steam whistled exactly where he had stood a second ago.
He lay on his back, staring up at the smoke-filled sky, his chest heaving.
A shadow fell over him. It was Borp. The catcher reached down and helped Cal up. Borp tapped his chest protector, then pointed at the steam vent, mimicking Cal's curveball falling off the table.
Borp nodded.
Cal dusted the ash off his jersey. "I hate this planet," he wheezed. "But the curveball... the curveball likes it here."
As they walked back to the dugout, a piece of obsidian rock thrown from the stands hit Cal's shoulder. He didn't flinch. Instead, he picked it up and tossed it into the dugout trash can.
"Nice inning, Vance," Nex said, handing him a fresh ice pack. "Try not to melt. We have five more to go."