The Champion

  And you repay him by embarrassing him in front of billions, and not bothering once to see how he handled that.

  But that meeting, in this very office two seasons ago ... what was it Zak had said to him? You given any thought to what you’ll do after football?

  It had seemed like a stupid question at the time. What was there besides football? Nothing. Other than finding his family, Quentin hadn’t wanted anything but football. So much had changed since then, and Quentin had a bigger perspective on his life, on his place in the universe — enough to now realize that Yitzhak wasn’t talking about Quentin hanging up the cleats and then getting a job or starting a business.

  The backup quarterback had been talking about something else altogether. Quentin still wasn’t sure what, but Zak’s question had carried a sense of importance, something larger than Quentin, larger than the Krakens, larger than anything. Quentin didn’t know what that was, and probably wouldn’t, because Zak sure wasn’t interested in talking to him about anything — ironically — other than football.

  “Hey, Q,” Becca said. “Anyone home?”

  He forced a smile. “Sorry, I was just thinking.”

  Becca nodded toward the holo of Yitzhak. “About him?”

  How did she always seem to know what was on his mind?

  “Yeah,” Quentin said. “He hasn’t spoken to me since the first day of practice.”

  Becca shrugged. “That’s on him, not you. You run the offense. You made a call. We’re in the business of winning, not in the business of making people feel good about themselves.”

  Would she have felt the same way if he’d sent her to the sidelines and brought in Kopor the Climber to play fullback? If that had happened in a game with the highest of stakes, without warning, and in front of a watching galaxy and a packed stadium? Probably not. It was easy for her to support his decision: she been the one he’d chosen.

  Quentin silently wished for the imaginary Yitzhak to shut the hell up.

  “Miss Montagne?” the HeavyG model/receptionist said. “Mister Lundy will see you now. Go right in.”

  The circular wall to the left of his desk rose up. The holo of Fas Arenald and one of golfer Declan Murphy faded out, revealing a meeting room.

  Out strode a gleaming rainbow-colored Dolphin, his body resting in a mechanical chassis supported by four silvery legs. Jewels studded his dorsal and tail fins as well as the metal cable that ran from the chassis up to an input jack just behind his blowhole.

  “Becca the Wrecka Montagne! Welcome!”

  Danny Lundy spoke in squeaks and chitters that his chassis instantly transformed into a voice one would expect from a fast-talking super agent. Danny strode forward and offered the smooth hands of one of his two streamlined mechanical arms.

  A smiling Becca shook the offered hand. “Hello, Mister Lundy.”

  “A pleasure to meet you, buddy,” he said. “I can’t begin to say how excited I am about this meeting.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Becca said. “Quentin has told me a lot about you.”

  “All lies, I’m sure,” the Dolphin said. “I’m much nicer than sentients let on, pal. And call me Danny. Come on, let’s talk about getting you the representation an athlete of your caliber deserves. An All-Pro with your contract, guy? It’s a shame, a crime, a travesty. If you sign with me, Gredok will fear you more than he fears someone with really big feet. Ha! But I’m not saying Gredok is a shrimp, because that would be an insult to one of my favorite foods, buddy. Follow me.”

  Danny walked into the meeting room and sat behind a long glass table.

  Becca looked at Quentin. She mostly suppressed a laugh of amazement.

  “Wow,” she said quietly. “Is he always this intense?”

  Quentin shook his head. “Not always. You should see him when he gets really fired up. And a little advice — if he pulls out a fish at any point, just duck.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind,” Quentin said. “Let’s just hear what he has to say.”

  SHE’S YOUR GIRLFRIEND NOW, isn’t she, Quentin?

  The end of the first week of preseason brought with it one of Quentin’s least favorite things: the dreaded Media Day.

  In his rookie season, he’d been a train wreck, saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, letting reporters lead him by the nose into comments that would create controversy and help get them page views. But since then, he’d become skilled at managing the press.

  “No, Jonathan, we are not a lock — your word, not mine — to repeat as champs,” Quentin said, answering a question from reporter Jonathan Sandoval. “And we’re not thinking of anything right now but our opening game against Isis.” Quentin flashed a practiced grin. “But I appreciate your confidence in us, and I’ll send you a Krakens hat so you look like the overly optimistic fan that you clearly are.”

  The black-skinned Human reporter laughed, as did the other reporters surrounding Quentin. They stood on the 50-yard line, right on top of the sprawling orange, black and white Krakens logo painted there. His teammates were spread across the field, each of them surrounded by a few reporters, but his teammates weren’t facing the feeding frenzy that circled the Galaxy Bowl MVP.

  Previous media days had been crazy affairs, sure, but nothing like this. When a team won a Galaxy Bowl, the media paid attention. So many reporters, lined up three deep, all reaching at him with microphones and cameras.

  At Quentin’s side, practically connected to his right hip, stood the comforting presence of Messal the Efficient. Messal would know when the interview session had run its course and gracefully move Quentin back to the locker-room area for private one-on-one talks with reporters. Hopefully there wouldn’t be too many of those talks, because none of this contributed to winning ballgames.

  Quentin! Quentin! The multi-headed monster demanded to be fed.

  He pointed to a sentient at knee-level.

  “Well, if it isn’t Kelp Bringer, my old buddy,” Quentin said. “And what trick question do you have for me today?”

  The Leekee reporter had been a thorn in Quentin’s side for years, always asking seemingly harmless questions, the answers to which could be taken out of context to make Quentin look like an arrogant jerk. Quentin actually had been an arrogant jerk most of that time, but still, Kelp Bringer had found ways to twist simple answers into something Quentin did not mean.

  Save for a body-belt that held his reporting gear, the Leekee was naked, as was the custom of his amphibious species. His black-striped blue skin sparkled in the afternoon sun, showing the defined muscles along his streamlined flat sides. A hunched-over biped, Kelp Bringer looked like he would have toppled forward were it not for his long, flat tail. A ridgeline of small spikes rode up that tail, across his back, and ended at the crown of his pointy head. His small yellow eyes watched Quentin.

  Kelp Bringer’s symbiotes — small insectile things that kept his skin clean — crawled across his sides. Years ago the sight of those things had freaked Quentin out, but like so many other wonders of the universe, he’d grown accustomed to them.

  “You lost Don Pine last year,” Kelp Bringer said.

  “We know where he is,” Quentin said. “So I wouldn’t say we lost him.”

  It was a bad joke, an easy one, but the reporters laughed politely anyway.

  Kelp Bringer’s laugh sounded like a horse coughing up a cat that was coughing up a hairball.

  “Pine is gone,” the Leekee said. “You have Yitzhak Goldman as your backup. Will Ionath move Rebecca Montagne to second string quarterback and drop Goldman to third string?”

  Quentin should have known that question was coming. Of course Kelp Bringer would ask it, because the answer might spark a mini quarterback controversy (there was no controversy as to the starter, so reporters had to get page views somehow). It was also an honest story angle: a championship-level Tier Three quarterback returning to her original position.

  But Quentin would not take the bait.

  He rubbed at his ja
w, put on his best That’s a good question! expression and stalled so he could think.

  A pause actually makes you look smarter, more introspective, Don Pine had told him on this very field three years ago. Think before you speak.

  “Coach Hokor is evaluating the depth chart at every position,” Quentin finally said. “In the Krakens franchise, all positions are up for grabs. Even mine.”

  The reporters laughed again.

  Messal spoke up in his ever-so-polite-yet-completely-insistent voice.

  “I am afraid that is all the time Elder Barnes has right now. Those of you who properly scheduled private interviews may report to Room 13 at your appointed time. Please, do not be late.”

  The feeding-frenzy circle parted. Quentin followed Messal off the field. All those questions, and he’d handled them well, hadn’t given one thing that could blow up into a controversy, or be used to motivate the Ice Storm players.

  On top of that, Jeanine was safely moved in to the Krakens Building. Becca was the best girlfriend a man could want. The team looked strong, ready to fight for another title.

  Everything had worked out, and Quentin had what he had always wanted — he could truly focus on football, and football alone.

  31

  Preseason Week Two

  QUENTIN BARNES SCRAMBLED out of the pocket, and Quentin Barnes gave chase.

  The first Quentin Barnes was the hologame version, the stat-maxed cover boy star of the just-released Madden 2686. When it had come out, Quentin had been shocked to see a bloody, snarling, nine-fingered version of himself featured as the game’s main image. The cover of Madden? Him? He’d barely been able to believe his own eyes. It was an honor comparable only to that of league MVP, because it meant that sentients all over the galaxy thought that you were the best player in existence.

  Like every young quarterback, Quentin had once dreamed of being so good and so popular that he’d grace the Madden cover, but now that it had come true, it felt surreal and more than a little wrong. He was part of a team — being on the cover put all the attention on him. It was almost... embarrassing.

  “Too slow,” Becca said. She leaned right, urging her hologame Quentin Barnes to avoid the pursuing linebacker. That linebacker, John Tweedy, was the real Quentin Barnes, or at least controlled by him.

  “Dammit,” Quentin said. “Dammit!”

  Last play of the game, Krakens versus Krakens, and Quentin had a four-point lead. All he had to do was get a sack or force an incomplete pass and he’d win.

  “Uh-oh,” Becca said, “Crazy George looks open!”

  Quentin — the real version — saw George open near the goal line, the area John Tweedy would have been playing if Quentin hadn’t blitzed.

  Real Quentin wiggled his fingers to make his holo Tweedy dive for holo Quentin’s feet, but Becca made the holo Quentin effortlessly avoid the tackle.

  Is this what it’s like when people try to catch me in real life? No wonder they want to hurt me ...I want to hurt MYSELF right now.

  Holo Quentin’s pass ripped downfield and smacked into holo Starcher’s oversized hands. George tucked the ball tight as Bumberpuff rolled into him hard, wrapped four tentacle limbs around him. George managed one more stumbling step, then fell across the goal line for a touchdown.

  Becca stood up and raised her hands in victory. “That’s game, baby!”

  Quentin slumped back in his couch. He wanted to put his foot right through the holotank.

  Becca did a shuffle-step dance to the left, then to the right. She started singing.

  “You said I couldn’t beeeeat you, I couldn’t beeeeat you.”

  Quentin crossed his arms. “You don’t have to be a dink about it.”

  She laughed and puffed out her lower lip.

  “Awwwww, after all that smack you talked, are you sad you lost?”

  He gritted his teeth. He hadn’t expected Becca’s mind for football strategy. In the world of Madden, at least, she was every bit his equal.

  She laughed again, then sat in his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck.

  “Awww, Q ... would it help if I kissed it and made it better?”

  She put her lips to his. He felt her warmth, felt her body ease against him. Quentin’s thoughts faded away into a blissful nothingness — for that moment, her kiss was all that existed in the universe.

  She pulled away, smiling at him.

  “Yeah,” he said. “That definitely makes it better.”

  [CORMORANT Bumberpuff AT YOUR DOOR] the apartment computer called out.

  Quentin sighed, as did Becca.

  “I’ll head home,” Becca said. “I’m beat from practice anyway.”

  “We could just ignore him.”

  On the practice field, Quentin treated Bumberpuff like any other teammate, but the truth was he still didn’t fully trust the guy.

  Becca stood. “You know you won’t ignore him, so don’t pretend that you would. He wouldn’t be here this late if it wasn’t important.”

  She leaned down and kissed him on the cheek. “I’ll let him in on my way out.”

  Bumberpuff strode in, standing upright, long tentacle legs moving with fluid grace.

  “Thank you for seeing me, Quentin.”

  “Captain, what brings you around at this time of night? If you want to go over the Ice Storm passing attack again, we can do that tomorrow before practice.”

  “I am not here to talk football.”

  Of course he wasn’t.

  “I was afraid of that,” Quentin said. “Out with it, what’s up?”

  “I’ve had contact with the Old Ones. They have a message for you.”

  The confusing nouns of the Prawatt: Old Ones was plural — all the Prawatt that had lived long enough to be added to the mountain-sized sentient that was Petra Prawatt’s true physical form — but they acted as a single entity: Petra, and only Petra.

  “Sorry, Captain, I don’t want to talk to her.”

  Bumberpuff’s metallic body rattled lightly. “She is the leader of an entire race of sentient beings — you can’t just decide to not talk to her.”

  “Oh, can’t I? She’s not my leader, Bumberpuff. I want nothing to do with that psycho. If you channel her in, I’ll just walk out.”

  The body rattled again, then stilled.

  “Quentin, I acquired Rosalind for you,” the Prawatt said. “Without Rosalind, you would have never found Jeanine. You owe me.”

  Quentin’s anger spun up fast, but he didn’t argue. He did owe Bumberpuff. What was more, Bumberpuff had never asked Quentin for anything. The captain played hard, practiced hard, was loyal and selfless. For Bumberpuff to have to use that simple but powerful phrase, you owe me, meant Quentin had no choice but to honor the request.

  “All right, go ahead. I’ll listen to what she has to say.”

  “Thank you,” Bumberpuff said. “I hope it doesn’t hurt me as much this—”

  The Prawatt’s arms and legs stiffened, and just like before, the X-body tipped backward and clonged against the apartment’s carpet.

  The blue-tinged hologram of Petra Prawatt formed above Bumberpuff’s prone body.

  “Quentin Barnes,” the hologram said. “I must talk to you.”

  He had obliged Bumberpuff by speaking with Petra, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to take the opportunity to tell a living god exactly what he thought of her.

  “What you must do is apologize to me,” Quentin said. “Then, you must apologize to my sister, to Fred, to all my teammates and — especially — to Bumberpuff for using him like this.”

  A pause.

  “The others do not matter,” she said. “And I will not apologize to an explorer who is barely old enough to form independent thoughts.”

  Quentin crossed his arms. “You’re not here to make small talk. You’re here because you want something, and before I’ll even listen to you, you have to do what I say. You won’t apologize to Bumberpuff? You should start with him. All you do is take, Petra — you
could stand to learn a lesson from a member of your own race who gives without question, who became a better person in just a few decades of life than you could ever hope to be in all your millennia.”

  Petra’s little face clouded with anger.

  “I am here to discuss the Abernessia, not accommodate your disrespect and arrogance.”

  “Here to discuss, or to use me again? I’m not one of your little robot toys, Petra. I’m a free sentient and I will not be used for your political games!”

  “This is no game,” Petra said. “The Abernessia are coming.”

  Quentin looked into the hologram’s eyes. His anger faded away, replaced by that sense of dread he’d felt when he saw her image of the spider-wasp ships. Petra had the body and voice of a teenage girl, but her eyes were older than anything he knew, eyes that seemed as old as the universe itself.

  She had used him, sure, but she had an entire system to run — she wouldn’t bother with this unless she thought it really mattered. This was just talk, after all ... would it hurt him to hear her out?

  “All right,” he said. “When will they get here?”

  “Maybe two standard years. Three at most. Centuries ago, we launched probes to protect us from another coming of the Collectors. Those same probes detected the Abernessia — millions of ships, all coming to destroy.”

  He thought of the Portath and their advanced technology. They had the ability to effortlessly defeat the Milky Way’s most powerful warships, yet they had fled across the void to escape extinction. The Abernessia seemed like a plague out of the Holy Book.

  Quentin’s mind could deny it all he wanted: his heart knew Petra spoke the truth.

  “So do something about it,” he said. “Make warships. That’s what your kind is good at, isn’t it?”

  She nodded. “We are making them, but that won’t be enough. Everyone has to make warships.”

  He flung up his hands in annoyance. “So go talk to everyone, then. Why are you talking to we?”

  “Because we need more than just numbers” she said. “To survive, all races have to fight as one. We have to fight together.”