Naturally, no phph player is absolutely perfect; if he were, there would be no contest and nobody would bother to attend a game. Pebbles fall short, they go awry, and sometimes they are thrown so hard that they escape altogether from our light gravity and fly into outer space. At the end of the game period the referee (usually a superannuated former champion) tots up the score and announces how many times each player missed the target and by which of these errors he missed it. By a rather confusing arithmetical computation he then determines which of them won, and the winner collects his pledges—and the fans collect the side bets they have been making all through the game.
In this particular game Hodnuth won. But then he won about half the time, so that wasn't what gave it its importance. The Ground Dwellers, as everyone knows, are an excitable and volatile race (which is why we conquered them so easily, with the added advantage of our command of levitation and our immensely greater size and strength), so just an ordinary phph game often looks like a riot. When anything out of the way occurs, such as the appearance of a new young contender to take on one of the champions, the Ground Dwellers simply go wild. And this time they practically exploded. I confess that even we Real People were amazed.
One of the Thinkers was discovered attending the game.
Now, when we first arrived here, and cleaned up on the Ground Dwellers and established them in their proper subservient position, the Thinkers were our leaders. It was they who had figured out the whole invasion, had headed the Sixty Hastgunt Flight, and had worked out the tactics and logistics of the Great Conquest. But once we were settled and things were going smoothly, they called a last General Meeting and told us that their part was finished, and that now they were going to retire to the Far Colony and go on with their Thinking. Since then, if a problem arises that our own Council can't handle, one of us has to fly to the Far Colony and obtain the advice of a Thinker. They live together there with their families (supported of course by all of us) and spend all their time in study and research. It is one of the natural advantages of us Real People that we have these specialized Thinkers to do all our intellectual and cultural tasks and teach us what we need to know, leaving us others free for the truly satisfying functions of government and commerce.
Never in all the ganaths since that last General Meeting had a Thinker been seen among us, and that so august a being should condescend to attend a mere phph game was unbelievable. Yet there he was—easily recognizable, naturally, since all Thinkers have long white hair and long white beards. (Even the female Thinkers—though some heretics say their beards are artificial.) In fact, that is the way one knows that a new Thinker has been born. Soon after birth his hair and beard begin to grow, both white, and as soon as he is weaned we fly him to the Far Colony to be reared and educated by his own. If a Thinker has a child who isn't one, they send him back to us.
As soon as the spectators realized that a Thinker was among them, the excitement reached boiling point. The Ground Dwellers almost went crazy—for, of all things, the Thinker had seated himself not in the perches of honor of the Real People, in front, but in the Ground Dwellers' bleachers. We ourselves noticed all the scrambling and heaving, and when some of us flew over to investigate we could hardly believe our eyes.
When I say scrambling and heaving, I don't mean they were mobbing him. They're much too afraid of us for that, and anyway their reverence for the Thinkers is positively religious—much more so than ours. After all the Thinkers are simply specialized members of our own race, and though we revere them we could scarcely worship them, as the Ground Dwellers do. No, they were clearing a respectful space all around him, but then they kept gazing at him in awe, half of them falling on their knees in his presence. I sneaked a glance at the phph players, and as I suspected they were looking anything but happy. Phph champions are pretty vain. They don't care for rival attractions.
One of our party—it was Sephar, who as usual pushed himself forward—bowed to the Thinker and asked if he wouldn't be more comfortable among us. But he shook his white head and said no, he could see better where he was. (I wonder if Thinkers may not have a bit of vanity too, and if he wasn't enjoying seeing all those poor creatures prostrate themselves around him!)
"Then will Your Honor join us when the game is over?" persisted Sephar. "If you would enter my poor pit of a dwelling, it would overwhelm me with pleasure to have you feast with us."