The Champion (78 page)

Whistles blew. Quentin saw the medsled carrying Pishor off the field, saw Darkeye face-up on the back of Shun-On-Won, who was acting like a living medsled, carrying the injured linebacker to the sidelines.

“Q, it’s too late,” John said. “I need you.”

The Jacks broke the huddle and spread out, lined up.

John was making a terrible mistake, but there wasn’t time to do anything about it. No timeouts: Quentin had to play along.

“What do you want me to do?”

John pointed at Don Pine. “See him?”

Quentin nodded.

“Go after him, as fast as you can,” John said. “If someone gets in your way, knock them over. You
blitz
, Quentin. Think you can handle that?”

Quentin nodded again, feeling foolish, feeling like he had to do right by John, that he’d do anything to not let John down.

“Good,” John said. He slapped Quentin’s helmet. “Go make a beautiful mess of things. I’ll handle the rest.”

The Jacks got into position. John screamed something at his fellow defenders. Quentin didn’t understand John’s call, didn’t know the defensive signals.

The place where Quentin felt most at home in the entire galaxy now seemed like an alien world. Where was he supposed to stand? Should he blitz on the snap or wait a second? Did he have to make sure it wasn’t a run?

John said go after Fine as fast as you can, just do that.
..

Pine bent behind center.

Quentin didn’t know where he was supposed to line up, so he ran to the left, stood just outside the shoulder of Alexsandar Michnik.

Pine started calling the signals, turning his head as he did — and stopped cold when he saw Quentin. It threw Pine off. The quarterback gave his head a quick shake, then started the count over.

Just make a mess of things, just make a mess of things
 ...

“Hut
-hut!
”

The lines crashed into each other. Quentin stood there for half a second, forgetting to run. Michnik powered in, giant arms flailing against the Jacks offensive tackle.

Blitz-blitz-blitz!

Quentin sprinted in. He came around the battling Michnik and lowered his right shoulder, angling toward Pine. Pine had dropped back five steps and planted, was bouncing lightly in place, looking downfield. Quentin closed in, then CJ Wellman drifted into his path. The wide running back came forward, snarling, ruined metallic jersey glinting in the stadium lights.

Quentin suddenly forgot he was playing defense, forgot everything: he had to get to a particular spot on the field, someone was in his way, and this was just
football
.

Wellman’s elbows went wide, his hands came up to stop Quentin’s momentum. Quentin leaned forward, making Wellman do the same, then Quentin planted and
spun
— the same move he’d done a thousand times while carrying the ball worked just as well when he didn’t have it at all. He hit Wellman but was already turning, whirling, and then he was past.

And Don Pine was right there, looking the other way.

Quentin took two steps forward and drove his left shoulder into Pine’s ribs, feeling the effortless power of a perfect hit. Quentin was distantly aware of his body screaming in complaint as he kept driving, his left arm wrapping around Pine, wrapping and
lifting
. Quentin took two full steps, then he brought Pine down,
slammed
him into the ground. They hit so hard Quentin
bounced
off the older man.

Somehow, Quentin wound up on his feet. His eyes squeezed shut, his head and right shoulder and left arm all fighting to drag him down into gibbering madness.

He heard the crowd roaring.

Quentin blinked, looked around ... a few linemen were still there, lying on the ground or slowly getting up, but most everyone was missing. He turned, looked back downfield and saw why.

Fifty yards away, John Tweedy had the ball. He ran along in a pack of Krakens — Mum-O, Bumberpuff and Wahiawa were all blocking two Jacks receivers that ran with them, trying to get to John. John passed the fifteen, the ten, the five ... he crossed the goal line standing up.

Touchdown, Ionath.

It was over.

Quentin stumbled, caught himself. He looked down again. Pine hadn’t moved: he was unconscious.

Quentin’s legs gave out. He fell more than sat, wound up almost cross-legged except for his left foot, which stuck out awkwardly. If his collarbone had been cracked before, now it was definitely broken, maybe in more than one place. His head swirled and pounded, drowning out all that went on around him. The left arm had rocketed past eight-out-of-ten pain on its way to a solid
eleven
.

He saw movement from the Ionath sidelines: the medsled coming for him, Doc Patah fluttering along beside it, his orange and black backpack catching the stadium lights. Quentin slowly turned to look at the other sideline. Sure enough, the Jacks medsled was on its way as well, a Harrah wearing a gold, silver and copper backpack close behind.

Quentin had a sense of the universe spinning, expanding, then he was on his back, staring up at the night sky, at the stars and ships far beyond the city dome.

Those stars seemed to slowly blink out, one by one. Points of light faded, then vanished as the sky turned black, until just one star remained.

“For you, Coach,” he said, then that star, too, winked out.

Epilogue

Transcript of broadcast from Galactic News Network (GNN)

“Brad, it’s a sight to behold down here on the green grass of Rolling Rock Stadium. We’re awash in orange and black confetti, there are more guards than football players down here, and some of the Krakens are up on the podium getting ready for the trophy presentation.”

“Tom, I have to say, it’s good to see you back reporting again, and under more joyous circumstances this time.”

“Yes, Brad, this is far better than being shot at, and there’s so much security here it would take a nuke to get at any of these players. It’s all sports for me from now on. Brad, it looks like ... yes, there is Gredok the Splithead on the podium with Commissioner Rob Froese and other league officials ... and ... yes, with them is Rebecca Montagne.”

“Tom, does this mean Montagne is the MVP of the game?”

“Well, Brad, it certainly seems that way. She threw for one touchdown and ran for another, and had no turnovers. And besides, quarterbacks almost always win that thing. However, Brad, it might be well-deserved — if anyone had said the Krakens would win this
without
League MVP Quentin Barnes under center, no one would have believed them.”

“Truly the stuff of dreams, Tom.”

“It is, Brad, it is. The coverage now goes to the trophy presentation. For GNN Sports, this is Tom Skivvers, signing off.”

“I LOST THE DAMN GAME,
do I have to watch this crap, too? Holo,
off
.”

The image and sound of the trophy presentation ceased, replaced by the vital signs of the two men sitting side by side in rejuve tanks. Doc Patah fluttered about one; a Harrah wearing a silver, gold and copper backpack fluttered about the other.

Quentin thought about turning the presentation ceremony back on, but let it be. He could barely focus on the coverage. And, anyway, he would watch replays of it over and over again as long as he lived. He would have loved to be up on that podium with Becca, but this was her moment.

“You sound grumpy, Pine,” Quentin said. “Something got you down?”

“You better stick to football, kid,” Pine said. “Your comedy chops ain’t that grand.”

Quentin laughed, which drove daggers of pain through his shoulder, making him hiss audibly.

“Ha-ha,” Pine said. “Serves you right.”

The pain should have come as no surprise, seeing as Doc Patah had the shoulder opened up, flesh held in place by clamps so he could work on Quentin’s ravaged clavicle.

“Young Quentin, I’m going to need you to sit still during this procedure.”

“Doc, you’ve got me so locked down I can’t move a thing.”

“Except for your mouth, apparently,” Doc Patah said. “That never stops moving. Which, truthfully, will come as no surprise to anyone who knows you.”

Pine laughed. His, too, ended in a sharp hiss of pain.

The Jacks’ team doctor let out an annoyed sigh so long it made Quentin think of Rosalind.

“Ha-ha,” Quentin said.

Both men fell silent. Quentin heard the whine of bone saws, the soft sounds of clamps pulling at flesh, the tiny
whoosh
of suction and the steady beep of his heart monitor. That beep intermingled with Pine’s, creating a strange, steady, unified rhythm.

Just the two of them down here, in the stadium’s hospital. Plenty of other injured players during the game, sure, but they were either still up on the field or being treated in the training room. Only Don and Quentin were hurt badly enough that their respective team docs felt the need for immediate surgery.

Don Pine and Quentin Barnes, side by side. The old and the new. Although Quentin wasn’t really “new” anymore. That fact was becoming more and more obvious.

It was several minutes before Pine broke the silence.

“Kid, what you did out there today ... it was awesome.”

Like any elite athlete, Don Pine hated to lose. The agony of defeat hung on his every word, yet there was also respect in that voice, respect and admiration.

“Thanks, Don,” Quentin said.

Don had been away from the Krakens for two seasons now. Working day in and day out with the man, Quentin had forgotten what it had been like to be a boy on Micovi, a boy willing to pay two weeks’ mining wages for cubes loaded with Jupiter Jacks games. Two years away from Don, though, away from that easy familiarity, and Quentin remembered all too well. He had watched those games over and over, marveling at how Don Pine made defenses look stupid, how he racked up win after win, how he raised not one, but
two
Galaxy Bowl trophies high.

Quentin had
idolized
Don Pine. And now that man admired Quentin. It was hard to process.

“I had you beat,” Pine said quietly, his voice barely audible over one of the doctors grinding away at a bone. Quentin didn’t know whose bone it was.

“How so?”

“New Delhi was open,” Pine said. “She had Bumberpuff beat. All I needed was another half-second. But you ... well, even hurt, you’re faster than I thought.”

If Quentin could have moved his head, he would have nodded. It made sense now; Pine had been in that last i instant of focus before releasing the ball, when a quarterback sees nothing but the target.

“It’s always crazy to me,” Pine said. “How just a fraction of a second can make the difference between winning and losing. Between me having three rings, and both of us having two. Timing, kid. You can prepare your whole life long for something, but sometimes, it all comes down to timing.”

Timing, Like throwing a rock at just the moment when Stedmar Osborne happened to be passing by. Everything that had happened from that moment to this would have never happened at all — Quentin might still be in the mines, if he hadn’t died already.

“Something else, too,” Don said. “Was it Uncle Johnny that put you in the game on defense?”

“Yeah. To be honest, I didn’t have any idea of what was going on.”

“John did,” Don said. “Seeing you out there, on defense ... it took me out of my head for a second. If it had been anyone else, like Ju or ‘Soud, Becca, whoever, I would have rolled with it. But
you
? I had this sudden fear you might somehow do what you do and pull off some crazy play to win the game.”

Which was, of course, exactly what had happened.

“I guess John got it right,” Quentin said.

“He did,” Don said. “Sometimes, that guy is a lot smarter than he seems.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

They sat quietly a little longer, listening to the sounds of their beating bodies being repaired.

When Don spoke again, that agony of defeat was absent from his voice. Another tone there, another emotion, one Quentin had heard during a conversation in the man’s apartment while looking at Don’s self portraits:
self-loathing
.

“Quentin, I’m long past due to man up. When the whole galaxy thought you were a bum, I didn’t tell them what a stand-up guy you were. I should have. I couldn’t. I still can’t. I did the wrong thing, but that bought me two more years of doing the only thing I know how to do. You had every right to rat me out, but you didn’t — which
also
bought me those two years. So I know it doesn’t mean anything, and I know it’s too late ... but I’m sorry for what I did to you.”

Sorry? What did it matter if Pine was sorry? His cowardice had been rewarded with two spectacular seasons, with money and a new round of fame, with playing in front of a crowd that adored him, with two trips to the Galaxy Bowl. Pine got all that, and what did Quentin get?

He got ...

He got ...

Everything
.

He also had two spectacular seasons, money, fame, playing in front of a crowd that adored him, two trips to the Galaxy Bowl — and two
wins
. Two titles. Quentin had what he’d always wanted, and more.

He searched his soul for the anger that came with any mention of Don Pine’s name ... and couldn’t find it. It was gone. Pine couldn’t change the past anymore than Quentin could — what was done was done.

Pine had
apologized
. He’d meant it.

So did it matter if he said he was sorry?

Yes. It mattered. It was just that simple.

“I forgive you,” Quentin said.

Don paused. “You?
Forgive
?”

The man sounded as though Quentin had just told him that he actually
could
go back in time and change the past. Was it so hard for people to believe Quentin could forgive?

Yes, you know it is, because that’s not something you do
.

“I’m as surprised as you are,” Quentin said. “But, yeah ... I forgive you.”

Pine said nothing. It was as if he’d thought he might have to keep apologizing forever and ever, or maybe that he’d say his piece, Quentin would tell him to go shuck himself, and the story would be done, never to be revisited again.