Fledgling by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee

Lesset down on purpose," Roni said surprisingly. "I was right there and I saw the whole thing. It really was an accident! I think you really do try to be a good Team member, but you can't help it if you're clumsy!"
    Theo stared, feeling her fingers curl in toward the palms. She needed her needle and her thread right now , she thought, or she was going to—going to—
    Orange flashed at the edge of her vision. Gasping, she spun, and called out to the Team.
    "Professor Viverain is on the court!"
    Viverain was the acting head of the L & R department, but unlike Professor Appletorn, who held a full-time collegiate position, she was a traveling academic who sought work where she could now that her old college had been decertified. Viverain rarely instructed the Four Team students, but when she did she wanted them to play just as sharp as graduating Fifth Forms.
    "Four Team Three, I expect everyone to be in position by the time the ball-bin is full!" Viverain called out. "We're going right to a game!"
     
    Groronk!
    The first round buzzer went off and the bin overhead emitted a rumplety-bumplety sound as the balls loaded. The Team members stared up into the bin, trying to get a look at the balls they'd drawn—and each called a number. The Team Captain would then make the consensus call. Together, they had all of ten clicks to bid.
    "Fourteen," said Lesset, which was predictable, because fourteen was about the least you could score on a round.
    The greens . . . Theo thought she saw a lot of greens! Green was a high score ball if you could get a good shot . . . 
    "Sixteen," said Kartor. Theo thought that was a mite low . . . but the balls still weren't finished loading.
    "Nineteen!" Estan and Anj called at practically the same second. That was starting to be high, in Theo's opinion . . . but no, maybe they'd seen how many greens there were.
    Surer now, Theo called out her bid—"Eighteen!"—just as the bidding clock hit eight.
    Roni stared, soundless, at the overhead . . . the clock hit nine, then . . . 
    "Twenty-one!" she called; the official Team bid. Everyone else gasped. That hadn't been a consensus call!
    The buzzer double-clucked and the first ball began to roll down the spiraling wire chute, dropping toward the launch spout. Roni hurried down court while her team members darted glances and shrugged shoulders at each other. Twenty-one would take a lot of luck.
    Overhead, the chute vibrated and sang as the ball picked up momentum.
    "Let's go!" Theo called. She pointed at Kartor, whose face was just shy of grim.
    "Third Ring!" she said. "Estan, you back Lesset in Second. Anj—" but Anj had already drifted dreamily off down-court. Theo sighed. The Team Captain should've set the positions, but Roni didn't care where the rest of them were, as long as she was in First Ring, where scoring was easiest.
    Roni liked to score.
     
    They did work up a sweat on the first round, with Theo's off-the-cuff positioning proving to be reasonable. She and Kartor were in the outer, largest, Ring. They could, if required, dive or drive into Ring Two. Ordinarily, you tried to get fast people into the middle ring . . . but having Lesset on one side of Ring Two wasn't too bad, because not only could Estan help her when she flubbed, but Team members in Rings One or Three could back her up, too. Depending on how, and how bad, she flubbed, if the ball got back into Two or Three on the other side of the court, it might still be playable. Roni was hogging Ring One, even though she shared it with Anj.
    On good days Anj was their best player; and she could rove into Ring Two at need. Playing at the edge of Two, where Lesset should be, she could keep the errors to a minimum. Estan played opposite Anj except when back-up was required, and Lesset wandered between her supposed posts, sometimes blocking good passes and other times causing bad bounces.
    On the whole, they did better then they had a right to on the first set. A typical