“Why on Earth,” said JK, “would any sane person do something like that?”
MX wiggled his shoulderoodles in a gesture of dismissive revulsion. “You know how thae people here on Earth are like. It doesn’t surprise mae much. There is nay no sanity here, if yae ask mae.”
“No, Iae believe there must be some good in thame. But what utter waste of time. A sub-optimal solution such as this makes nay no sense to mae. And then there’s the inconvenience to everaeone participating, on and off the action-fields.”
“Well, those were the parameters thae play by. Asked mae minions on the outside.”
JK got up and surfed to the vista, where he could see the usual bustle around the Embassy fe Celestra buildings. Earthers were busy at work, mowing the lawns, taking their buggies to work, manning the inter-rues, causing routine commotion.
“This is nay no good. MX, get mae a official copy of all the parameters. Then get mae thae President fe Association.”
The decision to relocate JK from Celestra to Earth for three years (at least) had been unanimous. The Cabinet had charged him with envisaging a comprehensive re-education programme for Earth, providing the best policies that Celestra could offer. But the truth was that they were fed up with his constant meddling as Minister fe Recreational. Messing around with the two thousand year old pastime of slaying dinotaurs by making the animals wear armour had been the last straw.
They soon agreed with each other in private that their weekends were at risk. For a society deeply wedded to the idea of the double-solar-siesta, this had gone too far. So the Emperor’s eighth son by marriage (also his third son by ritual adoption) found himself Celestral Overseer on Earth. The itch to modify, optimize, and butt in, had lain dormant due to shuttlelag. But it was well rested and had gently begun to resume work on its most promising host.
The rule changes were made in time for the tournament. JK and MX felt the implementation had gone reasonably well. There had been only three Earth-wide riots, and the five teams that left the association to begin a rebel league on Sirius were swiftly replaced by some more provinces from the British Isles.
Thus it came to be that every football match in the 31st World Cup began with a penalty shootout. As rightly predicted by JK, 9 out of 10 matches ended in the first fifteen minutes, allowing the hard-working (though under-productive) Earthers to learn the match results without having to wait for two hours. Sometimes, by accident (some claimed it was the glorious uncertainty of the beautiful game), the match remained tied after penalties and went into extra-time. The astral configurations had to really be crisscrossed in unfortunate ways if a match ever went as far as to reach normal play.
JK proudly gazed outside his vista, basking in the cheap glow of the local sun that illuminated his first success. A dispatch had already been waved to Celestra, where unknown to him, it had been promptly erased by relieved Cabinet mandarins. MX stood beside him, and emptied his gillophagus.
“Maistre, are yae aware of this monstrous recreation that takes five days to conduct, sometimes without decisive resolution?”
JK let out a Celestral sigh and turned towards his newest task. An efficient administrator’s job was never done, especially among such naifs.
His itch sent out fresh pleasure sensations to his encephalic-centres.
written using a Caferati Fiction Fixation month cue (more here)
