The Starter (53 page)

Quentin felt his hands itching to turn into fists, but he kept them still. He could handle this, and in a mature way — after all, he wasn’t on Micovi anymore. He shook his head, slowly. “No change, Ju. Sentients risked their lives to go get you. You should be walking in here and thanking me up and down, not telling me my leadership sucks.”

Ju shrugged and looked away, as if he were bored with the conversation. “Don’t think I’m ungrateful, Quentin, but that’s in the past. A leader has to look to the future.” He bent and set his beer can on the VR deck. “I’ll tell you what. I hear you’re a brawler. How about you and I have a go to decide it?”

“What...
now?
”

“Sure,” Ju said. “Man to man. You whip me, I follow your lead. I whip you, the team is mine.”

Quentin’s free hand clenched tight. A mixture of emotions tore at his thoughts: the urge to just attack Ju, take him up on his offer; the words of Yitzhak; Quentin’s own desire to stop solving problems with his fists; and — the most disturbing one, perhaps — just how
fast
Ju had moved back in that abandoned building when he blasted Quentin in the nose.

Quentin shook his head. “That’s not how we solve things here, Ju. I’ve gone through a lot to help put this team where it is. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be dead, so how about you shut up and do your job?”

Ju smiled condescendingly. “I understand. I mean, I just got here. As long as we keep winning, the team will keep following your lead, right?”

Quentin nodded. “That’s right.”

Ju picked up his beer and raised it in a salute. “Well then. Here’s to hopes of winning.”

He drained his mag-can, then tossed it to the deck. Ju walked out as a bit of remaining beer spilled onto the VR flooring.

Quentin felt a fist in his chest, a fist that made him want to lash out. Ju Tweedy wanted to be the man, and that did something to Quentin’s soul he’d never felt before.

Once Quentin took over a team, no one ever challenged his leadership. At least, not until now.

One game in, and the real Ju Tweedy had arrived.

The tiger, it seemed, had not changed its spots.

• • •

ANOTHER PUNCH-OUT,
another trip to the bathroom, another round of vomiting.

Quentin’s eyes scrunched tight as his stomach fought for something to bring up. He’d tried to be clever, starving himself for the last twelve hours to cheat his stomach of material, hoping this might stave off the punch-out sickness his worrying mind brought on. Nice hypothesis, but the testing phase involved data collection — and what he was collecting was puke.

It seemed to last longer this time, almost as if his stomach was telling him
oh, did you think you were getting used to space travel? Nice try, smarty-pants, but I have the last laugh — next time have a burger so I can get some real work done, okay?

Not that his stomach could talk. Talk? No. Make strange, choked noises? Yes, that it could do quite well.

This time it wasn’t just the regurgitation itself that annoyed him, it was the amount of time it took — he was about to see his first Sklorno world, and he didn’t want to waste a single second.

Finally, he felt his stomach relax. He stood and rinsed his mouth out in the sink.

He had been getting better at space travel. So why this gut-clenching relapse? Maybe it was the anger that he had to bottle up inside, anger at Ju Tweedy’s arrogance. Three days since that encounter in the VR room, and Quentin couldn’t quite get it out of his mind.

He dried his face on a towel, then threw it in the sink as he ran out of his bathroom, out of his quarters, and down the corridor. He was about to see another new world, another new culture.

He ran into the observation deck. The deck was packed with Sklorno, all fourteen Krakens of that species. They pressed against the view port windows, jumping up and down, their exposed raspers splattering the crysteel with spit, tentacle-arms pressed flat as if they were desperate to reach out for the planet itself. A few other Krakens were in the lounge — Don Pine, the kicker Arioch Morningstar, and Ju Tweedy. Ju winked at Quentin, then turned his attention back out the lounge windows. Most of the players steered clear of the insanely jumping Sklorno. Only one window stayed free of the spastic celebration — because the wide form of Michael Kimberlin took up most of it. Rebecca Montagne stood to his right. As big as she was, she looked like a little kid next to Kimberlin.

Wait a minute, was she tucked in a little too close to Kimberlin?

Quentin shook his head. It was none of his business if Becca was dating Michael. Or John. Or whoever.

He walked up to that window, moving to the left side of Kimberlin. Quentin still hadn’t gotten used to feeling
small
, which was exactly the way he felt when he was near Kimberlin anywhere other than a football field.

“Hey Michael,” Quentin said.

The big lineman looked down, then nodded a greeting and looked back out the window.

Outside the
Touchback
, the planet Chachanna loomed close. A big planet, much larger than those of the Purist Nation and maybe even a bit larger than Earth. Unlike the pale blue Earth, however, Chachanna almost glowed a suffused pink.

• • •

ALIMUM, THE CAPITAL CITY
of Chachanna. Endless veins of small, moving lights represented vertical layers of traffic sliding between towering buildings, a pumping and pulsing that reflected the nighttime city’s endless circulation of sentients. In that regard, Alimum looked familiar, but Quentin had never seen anything so...
dense
. You couldn’t tell where the city ended. It just
sprawled
, an endless mass of civilization. Normally a shuttle came in from an angle outside the city, then entered city airspace and flew toward the stadium. In Alimum, there
was
no “outside” the city. The shuttle entered the atmosphere over buildings that were all taller than Ionath’s largest. As the shuttle moved toward the city center, the buildings grew progressively bigger and bigger.

And everywhere,
movement
. Cars, flying vehicles, little tiny specks that were sentients moving inside and on top of every building. The evening hour didn’t seem to matter in Alimum.

The shuttle leveled out as a path of ever-larger buildings passed beneath. Some of them had to be three hundred stories, maybe even more. Off in the distance, Quentin saw the glowing sphere that was Alimum Stadium. His heart quickened at the sight of one of football’s great palaces.

The dome had two layers of pure crysteel. Between those layers, a two-foot-thick moving wave of plasma suspended in a dome-wide mag field. The result of that technological magnificence: a spectacular surface that glowed like a million-facet diamond blazing in noonday sun, only the sun was
inside
the jewel.

But as the shuttle closed in, something else caught his eye. Thick columns of glowing pink smoke rose up all over the city, semi-illuminated from some fire at their base. The columns expanded as they rose, funnels that slowly merged into the clouds above.

“Anyone know what’s with the smoke?” Quentin asked. “That like the Sklorno version of fireworks? Welcoming us, or something?”

Michael Kimberlin’s head snapped around to look at Quentin, his eyebrows raised high, his mouth open. The lineman looked at Hawick and Milford, almost as if he was worried they had heard.

“What,” Quentin said. “Did I say something racially
insensitive
again?”

Kimberlin shook his head, but the eyebrows stayed high, and the mouth stayed open. He walked over to stand next to Quentin.

“The smoke columns are part of a... welcome... for us. Of sorts. I know many of those cookeries run all day and all night, I’ve just never seen
all
of them running like this.”

“Cookeries?” Quentin said, “so, they’re preparing a feast or something?”

Kimberlin nodded. “Yes, it’s a feast to welcome us. Or in honor of us, more accurately. You and Don Pine, in particular.”

“Sweet,” Quentin said. “I wonder if it’s edible for Humans. What’s the main course?”

Kimberlin blinked, then answered. “Sklorno.”

“Right, a Sklorno feast, but what are they cooking?”

“Quentin, they are
cooking
Sklorno.”

The words didn’t seem to register for a minute. “You’re messing with me, right?”

Kimberlin shook his head. “No. The Sklorno eat each other all the time. It’s how they deal with overpopulation.”

“By eating each other.”

Kimberlin nodded. “There are eighty billion Sklorno on this planet. Alimum alone has five billion in just the city proper. It’s difficult for them to control breeding. If there is even a minor statistical increase in the birthrate, they are looking at millions of extra mouths to feed.”

“But that’s barbaric,” Quentin said. “Cannibalism? That’s
insane
.”

Kimberlin snapped his fingers. “
There’s
the racially insensitive Quentin I’ve heard about.”

He was trying to make a joke, to lighten the mood, but Quentin didn’t appreciate the humor. “Screw you, man. They
eat their own
, that’s just evil.”

“You can’t judge their culture,” Kimberlin said. “This is their way as a species. They’ve been dealing with massive overpopulation for centuries, maybe a thousand years, and this is their solution. Do you know how many Sklorno are in the Dynasty?”

Quentin held up three fingers. “More than this many?”

“Just a bit,” Kimberlin said. “The Dynasty’s best guess is 263 billion citizens. The closest to that is the Quyth Concordia, with something just over 170 billion. There are rumors the Creterakians have more citizens than the Dynasty, but a bat is about one one-hundredth the mass of a Sklorno. And, those 263 billion Sklorno are packed onto just
five
planets. The Planetary Union, by way of comparison, has over 31 billion spread out over twelve habitation centers.”

Quentin squinted at the big lineman.

“What are you looking at?” Kimberlin said.

“Looking
for
.”

“Fine, what are you looking for.”

“The data link,” Quentin said. “You got a computer in that melon of yours, or what?”

“It’s called
education
, Barnes. You should give it a try.”

“If I get one, can I use fancy phrases like
by way of comparison?
”

“For a quarterback, you are shockingly inerudite. How long did you go to school?”

“A couple of years,” Quentin said. “Don’t worry about it, big man, it’s too late for me anyway.”

“It’s never too late to learn, Quentin,” Kimberlin said. “I think you are intentionally obfuscating your intellect and wearing your ignorance as some misguided badge of honor. Knowledge is power. You ever decide to really leave your backwater heritage behind and understand the galaxy in which you live, let me know. I’d be happy to tutor you.”

Quentin waved a hand dismissively. “Yeah, right. I got educated for my career, and seem to be doing just fine at that. But if I ever need to figure out what
obfuscate
means, I’ll be sure to look you up.”

The shuttle banked a little, angling for the Crystal Dome. In doing so, it flew directly through a billowing column of pink smoke.

Quentin closed his eyes, and hoped the shuttle’s air system was entirely internal.

“You can open them now,” Kimberlin said.

Quentin did.

“Just remember a few things while you’re here.”

“I’m already trying to
forget
things.”

“You aren’t just a player here, Quentin,” Kimberlin said. “You’re a religious icon.”

“Oh, come on, not that
Church of Quentin Barnes
crap again —”

“It’s not
crap
,” Kimberlin said. “It’s real, and you had better pay exceedingly close attention to it. Don, you want to tell him?”

Don Pine turned in his seat, gave Quentin a long look.

“Naw,” Don said. “Mike, you used to handle this stuff for me back in ‘78 and ‘79, so help Quentin out.”

Until just then, Quentin hadn’t made the connection that Kimberlin and Pine had played together when Pine was with the Jupiter Jacks. Would have probably been Kimberlin’s rookie season when the Jacks won the 2676 title. Kimberlin didn’t wear his GFL championship ring from that year. Maybe he hadn’t played much his rookie season, didn’t think he deserved to wear it. So Kimberlin had been with Jupiter when Pine’s career fell apart in ‘78 and ‘79, yet neither of them mentioned it. Interesting.

“Fine,” Kimberlin said. “I’ll share my knowledge in this domain. Sklorno are about as different from us as different can be. They started most of the galactic-age wars. They caused the extinction of not one, but
two
sentient races. The planets the Sklorno couldn’t conquer, they destroyed. Experts think it’s only a matter of time before the Sklorno start another war.”

“What’s this got to do with me?”

“I’m trying to make you understand that this is a very different place. If you say the wrong thing, you could start a religious riot that would line the streets with dead. You could have a million sentients waging war in your name, or the same million sentients committing suicide because they misinterpreted the way you say
hello
. This is not some Human system of little difference from your own, this is a truly
alien
culture. Know the customs of the culture you are visiting, especially when they think you are an omnipotent being.”

“That’s funny,” Quentin said. “I don’t
feel
omnipotent.”

Kimberlin looked up, sighed, and shook his head. “Do try and leave your paltry attempts at humor on the shuttle, Quentin. I’m rather attached to living.”

• • •

THEY DISEMBARKED THE SHUTTLE
at the Crystal Dome’s landing pad and lined up for customs inspection. Quentin stood in line with Don Pine on his right, Michael Kimberlin on his left, and John Tweedy next to Kimberlin. They waited for the customs officials to finish checking the shuttle. Quentin took advantage of that time to process — or at least try to process — an overwhelming assault of visual information.