The Champion (50 page)

“Later,” Quentin said. “Whatever this is about, I want to get down to business.”

It had to be Sandoval. Froese wouldn’t have escorted Yolanda here, using the GFL’s flagship to do so,
and
come to Quentin’s room himself unless she had a big,
big
story brewing — something that could embarrass the league. Sandoval, obviously ... only that didn’t explain why Leiba held a stun-stick, especially when the power-armored Sklorno looked like they could wipe out all the Krakens in a matter of minutes.

Quentin owed Yolanda big-time for setting up that meeting with his sister, but if this was about Sandoval, he had to deny everything. Even dead, Sandoval had the power to turn Quentin into Public Enemy Number One. Quentin hated himself for it, but he needed to go on the offensive.

“Can’t wait to hear what this is about, Yolanda,” he said. “The last story you did on me turned out so well.”

Froese pointed his stubby finger at Quentin’s couch.

“Sit,” the commissioner said. “I’ll do the talking.”

“Shouldn’t Gredok be here for this?”

“I don’t want him here,” Froese said. “That’s why I came when I did, because I know he’s not on the ship. Now
sit
.”

Quentin sat.

Gredok wasn’t making the trip to D’Oni, but the
Touchback
was still in orbit over Ionath; Froese could have easily requested Gredok’s presence. Even more worrying was the absence of Hokor, who
was
on the ship. Froese and Yolanda wanted Quentin isolated, without allies.

The commissioner stared. For such a tiny sentient, he had power in his eyes: the power of total authority and absolute conviction in what he did.

“We know,” he said.

Froese waited, as did the others. Quentin looked at each of them in turn, wondering if maybe this time he was the one who didn’t get the joke.

“Good for you,” Quentin said. “You
know
 ... what, exactly?”

Froese stood. He wasn’t much taller standing than he was sitting.

“You want to play games, Barnes?”

Quentin shrugged. “That is how I make my living, Commish.”

Froese’s dead-eye glare continued. Quentin took the moment of silence to read the man: a bit of a flush to the dark complexion; eyes dilated more than the other times Quentin had talked to him; left thumb making small, almost imperceptible circles on the left pointer finger. Those signs indicated that Froese was doing his best to hide fear.

Fear
? Of what ... of Quentin? Why would the commissioner be afraid of him? If Froese had found out about Sandoval’s blackmail, that would make him
angry
, not
afraid
 ... at least not afraid of Quentin.

“Look, Commish, I honestly don’t know why you’re here. What I do know is that you came into my quarters without being invited. I don’t know where you grew up, but on Micovi that’s called
breaking and entering
. I also know you’re holding up our trip to D’Oni. Whatever you
know
about me can’t be that shocking, because all I do is play football.”

And make deals with blackmailing agents of the CMR, and be the focal point of a church of millions, and integrate new species into the league, and stop wars ... you’ve been a busy boy, Quentin Barnes
.

Froese’s hard glare wavered. He seemed unsure. He glanced at Yolanda.

Ah ... so this
was
her doing after all. Now Quentin would find out what was happening.

She let out a slow breath of air. Her purple skin looked darker in the cheeks. Her eyes were wide, her nostrils flared ... she, too, was afraid.

What the hell was going on?

“I’ve been working on a story,” she said.

“Well, you
are
a reporter,” Quentin said. “I imagine you’re always working on a story.”

She shook her head. “Not like this. This is the big one. If it was anyone else, I would have already written and filed the story, but I was wrong about you once.”

He crossed his arms. “That’s a rather kind way of putting it.”

She’d accused him of tanking games in her exposé on how the Krakens — Quentin included — had abused the GFL’s diplomatic immunity to help a known killer — Julius Tweedy — escape justice. She’d been wrong across the board. Yolanda had made up for that mistake a few times over, sure, but the weeks following that story had been among the most difficult in Quentin’s life.

“I won’t make that same mistake again,” she said. “That’s why I’m here now,
before
I file the story. Right now only the people in this room know.”

“The people in this room, minus one,” Quentin said. “Can we stop with all this crap and get to the point?”

Leiba the Gorgeous stood up. The two power-armored Sklorno shifted in place a little, widened their stances as if they were getting ready for action.

Yolanda nodded. Her nostrils flared even wider. She’d been afraid earlier ... now she was terrified.

“All right, let’s do this,” she said. “Quentin Barnes, how long have you been a leader in the Zoroastrian Guild?”

He stared at her, waiting for her to say something like
just kidding, now on to the REAL question
. She didn’t. All she did was stare back at him.

Froese and Leiba waited for his answer.

The two white-armored Sklorno stood stock still.

Quentin heard a slight hum droning from Leiba’s stun-stick.

He suddenly realized something he’d missed: Froese usually traveled with a flock of white-suited, entropic-rifle-carrying Creterakians. They were as much a part of his intimidating entourage as the power-armored Sklorno.

Quentin understood why the bats had been left behind. The ZG’s terrorist attacks had killed hundreds of thousands of Creterakians. Sure, the bats didn’t see death the same way Humans and Quyth did, but kill off a hundred thousand of any species and the survivors are going to be a little bit pissed. If Yolanda had leveled her accusation at Quentin in the presence of armed Creterakians, he might have already been dissolving from entropic rifle fire.

Quentin gave his head a shake. He had to get control of himself, stop whatever tells he might be giving off that would reveal his emotional state. But if he
was
giving off tells, that was okay, wasn’t it? Because he wasn’t a part of that murderous group.

“I’ve never been in the Guild, Yolanda,” he said. “This is even more ludicrous than when you accused me of tanking games.”

She nodded slightly, as if she had been expecting something along those lines.

“Like I said, Quentin, that’s why I’m here.”

Could this season get any stranger?

“I can’t wait to hear your reasons,” he said. “Because whatever went down, I was probably busy robbing a liquor store that day.”

No one laughed. It was a strange sensation: he felt like he was in trouble, a
lot
of trouble, yet he had done nothing wrong.

Yolanda started to speak, then stopped and activated her palm-up display. Quentin saw her reading her notes, saw her nodding slightly: she obviously had the information memorized, yet wanted to check it again before she spoke, just to be sure.

“I have evidence of communication going to and from known Guild cells,” Yolanda said. “These communications occurred when the
Touchback
was in orbit around a planet for an away game.”

She was serious. She actually thought someone in the Krakens franchise was involved with those butchers?

“That could be anything,” Quentin said. “The Guild is probably communicating all over the place. And aren’t you supposed to be a
sports
reporter?”

“I’m a
reporter
, first and foremost,” she said. “I cover sports, and since this story involves a pro football team, I’m on it.”

“You’re making blind accusations because of a couple of messages?”

“Not
a couple
,” she said. “
Twelve
of them, over four seasons’ worth, beginning with your second year as a Kraken, which was your first year in Tier One. My source uncovered hundreds of coded messages, from multiple cities and on multiple planets. Twelve of the messages in question came from the same device. All twelve of those messages occurred when the Touchback was in orbit at that particular city. The correlation is too strong to be chance.”

Quentin couldn’t believe what he was hearing. If Yolanda and Whykor’s information was accurate, someone in the Krakens organization was a member of the Guild — a group that murdered civilians, that sought to overthrow Creterakian rule, that had just caused the Bord uprising.

“You’re making a big accusation here,” Quentin said. “
Really
big. Who is your source for this?”

Yolanda shook her head. “My source remains confidential.”

“Of course it does,” Quentin said, not bothering to hide his disgust. “You can just waltz in here and spout off accusations all you like, and you don’t have to
prove
anything, is that it?”

Yolanda’s expression hardened. Some of the fear melted way. He had just challenged her, and she was responding with aggression — the same way he would if someone challenged him on the football field.

“The primary source doesn’t matter, Barnes, because that source provided only the first two intercepted messages,” she said. “Since then, I’ve discovered the other ten messages myself, through other means. My
proof
is solid, and if you
really
want to see it, just keep flapping your gums and it will be there for you and the entire galaxy to see when I publish my story.”

“Take it easy,” Froese barked. “We’re here to get his side of it, not to threaten him that you’re going to run the story no matter what he says.”

Yolanda calmed herself. She nodded.

Froese turned to Quentin. “Whykor independently verified her information, using our own sources in Planetary Union Intelligence and the Non-Creterakian Intelligence Agency. There is zero question, Barnes — messages sent to and from
this ship
reached Zoroastrian Guild cells.”

“What if it’s someone who isn’t with the organization anymore?” Quentin asked. “It could have been Don Pine for all we know.”

Froese looked at Whykor. The white-furred Worker stepped forward.

“The dates of known communications point to someone who is currently on the roster now, Mister Barnes,” Whykor said. “The first encrypted message correlates to Week Seven of the 2683 season, when the Krakens visited the Lu Juggernauts. Another was received last season, when Ionath visited Buddha City Station — Mister Pine had been traded to the Jupiter Jacks before then and was not on the
Touchback
at the time. The most recent incident occurred
this
season, the day after Ionath’s Week Four game at Yall. A message was intercepted at planet Ol in the Ki Rebel Establishment, the same day the
Touchback
was in orbit there.”

Quentin remembered the trip. Ol — home of the Brigands — was the first punch-point en route from Yall to Neptune.

“That message was partially decrypted,” Froese said. “We haven’t got it all, but there were definitely phrases in that message that mention
an uprising
and an
attack on downtown
. Any guess as to what city was mentioned?”

Quentin’s anger faded away. This couldn’t be happening.

“Bord,” he said. “It was a message about an attack on Bord.”

Froese nodded. “Three weeks before the uprising that damaged Freedom Stadium and killed thousands of sentients all over that planet.”

“So decrypt the rest of the messages,” Quentin said. “Wouldn’t that let you see who it is?”

“We’re trying,” Froese said. “I have top sentients working on that, but the encryption is beyond military grade. We’ve been able to get bits and pieces only.”

Yolanda was a reporter. She got paid for page views, so she might be prone to sensationalizing things if she smelled a great story. But Froese? He had nothing to gain from making this up, everything to gain from ignoring it or claiming Yolanda’s information was wrong.

“Say you’re right,” Quentin said. “Say these messages are coming from the
Touchback
. You don’t know it’s a player, right? It could be a member of the crew, someone from the administrative area?”

Froese shook his head. “I told you we decrypted parts of some messages. Three of the messages involved information about meeting planetside, to deliver or receive material, like data cubes. Players have diplomatic immunity — the crew does not. Players, like you, Barnes, can’t be searched when you arrive at a planet, but if any crewmember goes down they
are
searched and their belongings are recorded. That means we can check customs records — for two of those meetings, no crewmember left the
Touchback
at all, and for one, the crewmember had nothing on her when she went planetside. That means if the messages came from the
Touchback
, they came from a player, your coach, or your owner.”

“
If
,” Quentin said. “If-if
-if
. You don’t know for sure, do you? It could be some other ship that just happened to be at those planets.” He thought of Sandoval, following the team from game to game. “It could be a fan traveling to all of our games, could be someone using us for cover—” he glanced at Yolanda, suddenly hoping she’d take a hint “—it could be a
reporter
assigned to the Krakens, couldn’t it?”

Froese smoothed his tie. “That’s why Whykor is here, Barnes. He knows the electronic signature of the device in question. We know messages were
received
on planets where the
Touchback
was in orbit. If Whykor can verify that those messages were sent from the
Touchback
, that proves someone in the Krakens organization is part of the ZG.”

“He’ll find it,” Yolanda said. “It might take him a day or two, even a few weeks, but he
will
find it.”

Something about the tone of her voice told him she couldn’t run the story without that verification. But if she got it tomorrow — or anytime before the playoffs, for that matter — it would destroy the Krakens’ season.