The Champion

  “Hold on,” he said. “The story on me is a smokescreen to embed Yolanda, and embedding Yolanda is a smokescreen to keep Whykor on the ship without Gredok wondering why he’s here?”

  Froese nodded. “Yes. That’s Plan B. I don’t trust Gredok, Barnes. As far as I know, he’s involved, although he wasn’t on the Touchback for all the confirmed messages.”

  No wonder Yolanda was a little miffed; she wasn’t the star of this operation.

  “Only one problem with your plan,” Quentin said.

  The commissioner raised an eyebrow.

  Quentin tapped his own sternum with the tip of a finger.

  “No one asked me. What if I don’t want anything to do with your Plan B, your Plan C, your plan whatever?”

  “Simple,” Froese said. “If we don’t find the culprit and word gets out — and word will get out, Barnes, because word always does, eventually — sentients in every system will wonder how many GFL players are involved with slaughtering innocents. Then, Barnes, the treatment you received when they thought you were throwing games will look like a warm welcome by comparison. We’re already struggling enough with half the galaxy thinking we’re traitors for bringing in the Prawatt. What do you think will happen to the league’s reputation if there is some unknown villain using GFL travel and diplomatic immunity to murder and destroy?”

  That kind of turmoil would put the season in danger. It could take away Quentin’s chance at defending the title, and quite possibly even shut down the entire league, for good. Then he’d be out of a job. More importantly, so would his teammates and the support personnel. But, if they could find the sentient responsible and bring him — or her — to justice? The league would end up with a black eye, sure, but it wouldn’t be a death sentence.

  “All right,” Quentin said. “I’ll play along.”

  Froese nodded. “I thought so.”

  He waved at his entourage to follow him out the door. The power-armored Sklorno and Leiba filtered out behind him. Then Froese popped his head back in.

  “Barnes, you’re a good man,” he said. “You’re the only one on your team that knows. Help Yolanda figure out who it is, so we can save our league.”

  With that, Froese left. The door swished shut behind him, leaving Quentin alone with Whykor and Yolanda.

  Yolanda crossed her arms and looked at him. She shook her head as if she couldn’t quite handle the fact that she’d been relegated to the role of a bit player, and that somehow it was Quentin’s fault.

  “Whykor and I need a room.”

  “Computer,” Quentin said, “please send Messal the Efficient here, immediately.”

  [I WILL CONVEY THE MESSAGE.]

  Yolanda wanted to find out who it was, she wanted it bad, but Quentin couldn’t imagine she wanted it more than he did. Someone was betraying his team. Whoever it was, they would be lucky if Froese got to them before Quentin did.

  IT WAS HARD TO GET THROUGH practice without screaming at everyone.

  Two days to go before they reached New Whitok. Quentin found himself suspecting everyone who had been on the team for at least four seasons. Even, he was ashamed to admit, John and Ju.

  The first message came from Week Seven of Quentin’s first year in Tier One, the week after they had rescued Ju from the city of Madderch. And John ... he seemed so goofy most of the time, but that brilliant strategy he’d shown in the Portath fighting pit hinted at something deeper. And, of course, John was a killer. As crazy as it sounded, it was possible Quentin didn’t know his brothers as well as he thought.

  He had gone through the numbers with Yolanda. In all, there were twenty-nine players who had been with the team during the span in question. The Prawatt were out, of course, having just joined last season. Milford and Hawick were the only Sklorno possibilities.

  As for the Warriors, Quentin was sure Choto wasn’t a suspect, but Virak, Kopor and Shayat the Thick were. Virak would do whatever Gredok told him to do. Shayat the Thick was a known smuggler — if he would sell drugs, was there any level to which he wouldn’t stoop?

  It could also be any of the eleven Ki players on the squad. Quentin could only know them so well; they were the most alien of his teammates.

  Out of the eleven Human players, only Trevor Haney was off the hook. Surprisingly little turnover among that race.

  And finally the group Quentin didn’t want to think about, because it forced him to look at a player he didn’t want to think about: the HeavyG. Only four of them had been on the team long enough to be suspects: Alexsandar Michnik, Ibrahim Khomeni, Becca — and Michael Kimberlin.

  Kimberlin, the man that knew sentients in the Harrah independence movement. What kind of a person would know sentients like that? Someone in the ZG, that’s who. Kimberlin, who seemed to think the Guild was behind two attacks on the Krakens, maybe even knew who those attacks were specifically aimed at.

  “Barnes! Get your head back in the game! Are you going to run the offense today or should we just forfeit to the Coelacanths?”

  Quentin looked up at Hokor’s floating golf cart.

  “Sorry, Coach,” he said. “I’m ready. Huddle up, everyone.”

  Coach was right; he needed to focus on his job. Whykor and Yolanda would uncover the Guild member. Quentin needed to make sure his team didn’t get upset by winless D’Oni.

  “All right, boys and girls, we’re working I-formation now,” he said to the huddle. “Coach wants X-slant, Y-post, Z-cross, A-wheel. Kopor, stop stepping up too far. You won’t be able to pick up a corner blitz — stay home so I don’t get killed on Sunday. And Starcher, your post is looking sloppy. Make a sharper cut. Okay, let’s get to work. Run it like you mean it. Ready?”

  “Break!”

  QUENTIN HATED throwing up. He hated it more than anything.

  “Wow,” Ju said. “If there was a Hall of Fame for heaves, that would have been a first-ballot inductee right there.”

  “Classic,” John said. “Just when you think an artist has painted his masterpiece, he goes and breaks all the barriers.”

  Well, almost anything; he hated listening to the Tweedy brothers make fun of his puking even more than the puking itself.

  Quentin stood and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. The Tweedys were with him in the observation deck, as was Yolanda, who had dutifully followed him around to keep up the illusion. She stayed a few feet back, as if that made her an impartial observer instead of a participant in the event. Kopor the Climber was there as well. Quentin was still trying to improve their connection. Kopor had never been a part of the strange punch-out ritual.

  “You regurgitate,” the Warrior said. “You do this every trip?”

  “Not every trip,” Quentin said.

  Ju rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on, Q, close enough. You see, Kopor, our team leader is afraid of flying.”

  Kopor’s baseball-sized eye swirled with dark red, the color of surprise.

  “Afraid of flying? But punch-space is the safest form of travel. Statistically speaking, you are twenty times more likely to die in the shuttle trip to or from a planet than with a punch-in or punch-out.”

  A statistic Quentin suddenly wished he had never heard.

  “Gee, Kopor, that makes me feel so much better, considering we’re about to take a shuttle down and all. And I’m not afraid of flying. I just get motion sick.”

  Yolanda came a few steps closer and joined the group. “But do you get motion sick because you’re afraid?”

  She spoke the last word like a starving man saying the word steak.

  Quentin started to deny it, then stopped. She was going to write what she was going to write; all he could do was stammer about it and give her something else to write about. Maybe Yolanda was cover for Whykor, but she certainly wasn’t lazy — she was still going to write a feature story on one Quentin Barnes. An angle like the Galaxy Bowl MVP being afraid of space travel? She wasn’t going to let that one go.

  He looked out the viewport at yet another new planet, a
sprawling world of pale green. Like Isis, the city of D’Oni was mostly below the surface. What looked like an island was actually the all-species urban center; the rest of the city sloped down building-covered shores and into the water. Far off from the island, miles-high shimmering metal towers jutted out from what looked like a calm surface. The tiny bits of moving white at the bases of those towers, however, made it clear the calmness was only an illusion created by elevation — D’Oni was known as the planet of perpetual storms.

  “You got lucky,” Yolanda said. “A cloud-free day on New Whitok is rare. But don’t worry, the weather report says a storm is coming.”

  John huffed. “Big surprise. And the stadium doesn’t have a dome.”

  I HATE GETTING WET scrolled across his face.

  [FIRST-SHUTTLE PASSENGERS, REPORT TO THE SHUTTLE BAY]

  “Well, Yolanda, I’ll see you on the surface,” Quentin said. “I’ve got to head down.”

  She smiled and shook her head. “Oh, don’t worry, Quentin — I’m on the first shuttle with you. I’m embedded, remember? Where you go, I go.”

  Yolanda was keeping up the illusion, that was for sure. As annoying as it was to have her tagging along, Quentin had to admit it kept all the attention on her, and not on Whykor. Whykor stayed in Yolanda’s cabin, doing whatever the heck it was that he was doing.

  And whatever that was, he was scheduled to be done by the time the Krakens came back from this game.

  QUENTIN WASN’T SURE who hit him. It was hard to tell, considering that it came from his blind side. Helmet in his back, had to be. He lay on the wet plum-colored field, unable to focus on anything but the dull agony raging through his right shoulder, the cold rain pouring down, and the insane roar of 130,000 fans, most of whom were hoping to see the Coelacanths’ first Tier One victory.

  He heard whistles blowing. Hokor had called a timeout, Ionath’s last.

  “I killed him! I killed the godling! I am now famous!”

  Quentin recognized the Sklorno’s voice: D’Oni strong safety Lubbock. He recognized it because he’d also heard it back in the first half, when she had blitzed and damn near taken his head off.

  “Not ... dead,” Quentin said. “But nice ... hit.”

  “Joy and happiness and also sad and I will do better next time, great and powerful Quentinbarnes!”

  He heard big Sklorno feet pound the turf as Lubbock dashed away.

  A hand on his helmet, the voice of a Quyth Warrior: Kopor the Climber.

  “Are you injured?”

  “I’m fine,” Quentin said, although he knew he wasn’t. He craned his head to glance up at the play clock — D’Oni 21, Ionath 17, ball on D’Oni’s thirty, fourth down, seven to go, thirty-two seconds left in the game. The Krakens needed a touchdown, or they would lose to the winless Coelacanths.

  Quentin started to push himself up, but his right arm said no, thank you, and instead of just working, it decided to fire a bolt of pain through his shoulder and into his back.

  “A little help here,” he said.

  Two sets of hands grabbed him, lifted him gently but quickly. Ju had joined Kopor. Ju looked pissed. Kopor’s eye swirled with both mauve, showing sadness and disappointment, and dark-green, a color associated with embarrassment.

  “I am sorry,” Kopor said. “I missed my block.”

  Ju reached out a big hand and pushed Kopor in the chest. “Missed? You scrub, you didn’t even see that safety blitz! Do your damn job!”

  Kopor’s heavy middle arms shoved back. He had fifty pounds on Ju and easily knocked the taller sentient stumbling over the white-lined plum field. Ju instantly regained his balance, raised a fist and rushed back in even as Kopor came forward to meet him. Quentin stepped between them and got crunched, the blow zapping his shoulder again, making him cry out in pain.

  Linemen swarmed in. Kimberlin pulled Kopor back. Sho-Do-Thikit wrapped his four arms around Ju, whose face showed instant and deep remorse.

  “Q! I’m sorry! Are you okay?”

  Quentin grabbed Ju’s facemask — grabbed it with his left hand — and used it to yank the running back right out of Sho-Do’s arms.

  “Get in the damn huddle, Tweedy!”

  Quentin’s heads-up display activated. Coach Hokor’s black-striped yellow fur was matted to his face, and his little hat was soaked through from the rain.

  “Barnes! I didn’t call a timeout so you could play grab-ass for sixty seconds. Get over here, and bring that worthless fullback with you!”

  The rest of the Krakens moved to the huddle. Kopor started to do the same, but Quentin stopped him.

  “Kopor, you’re out.”

  Quentin wasn’t sure if the fullback heard the words over the crowd’s deafening roar, but he obviously understood Quentin’s intent. Kopor’s eye flooded a heavy red-orange: the color of shame.

  They jogged to the sidelines where Hokor was waiting. Quentin scanned for Nancy Wolf, Kopor’s rookie backup. As he looked, he saw Becca: orange jersey wet but spotless, helmet in hand, her eyes asking the question: Am I coming in to replace you at quarterback? She was obviously worried about him, but she couldn’t fully hide her eagerness — if he was too hurt to continue, she was ready to come in and lead the team.

  Not today, not while I can still walk.

  Kopor strode past Hokor, shouldered through his teammates and headed to the bench.

  Quentin saw Nancy Wolf and waved her onto the field. She nodded, blue eyes set with grim determination, then pulled on her helmet as she ran to the huddle.

  Hokor circled a pedipalp hand inward, telling Quentin to kneel. Quentin did.

  “Barnes, you look hurt.”

  “I’m fine, Coach.”

  “Fine as in you are my All-Pro quarterback who can run any play I call, or fine as in you’re so stubborn you’re not coming out no matter how badly you are injured?”

  Quentin shrugged. “Just give me the ball, Coach.”

  Hokor’s body gave a quick involuntary shake that sent water flying from his fur. “Suggestions?”

  “They kicked my ass on a safety blitz, and I think they’ll try the same thing again. I say roll-right, flood all patterns right, have Nancy block the back side then fall down immediately, then when the defense comes after me, she gets up and sprints for the left corner.”

  “A trick play,” Hokor said. “Did you make that up just now?”

  Quentin nodded.

  Hokor looked at Quentin’s right shoulder pad. Quentin realized the shoulder was hanging down: he forced it up to level, ignoring the pain.

  “Just a scratch, Coach.”

  “Of course,” Hokor said. “Barnes, run the play that you called.”

  Quentin stood and jogged to the huddle. He called the play, happy that Nancy kept a poker face and didn’t show excitement that the game would be in her hands.

  The Krakens broke the huddle and came up to the line. Quentin looked out at the defense. Their uniforms were a crazy iridescent fabric that caught the stadium lights and reflected them back in a dozen subtle colors that shifted with each player’s every move. Numbers, letters and the two parallel helmet stripes were steel blue with black piping. On each shoulder, running from the back to under the chest numbers, as well as down each leg’s armor, was a stylized white fish.

  They called this stadium the Slaughterhouse. From the outside, it seemed to float in a reddish ocean like a plum jewel ringed in shimmering platinum. Sentients packed the stands, most dressed in iridescent clothes that matched their on-field heroes. There were a few Sklorno, Ki and Quyth, but most of the spectators were the dominant races of the Whitok Kingdom: Humans, Amphibs, Dolphins and — of course — Whitokians. Part of the local tradition was “the swim,” when the amphibious races partied all day before swimming out to the facility and entering the stadium through dozens of concrete ramps that extended into the water. Non-amphibious fans had to either take a boat or cross the footbridge that reached a mile out to the shore.

  The noise level made the pla
ce rattle. The winless Coelacanths were just thirty-two seconds from upsetting the defending Galaxy Bowl champions. These fans knew that a win — a single win — might make the difference between staying in Tier One and being relegated at season’s end. And if the Coelacanths could beat the Krakens, they could play with anyone; one more defensive stop would probably make this place explode.

  But Quentin would not allow them to have that one stop. Not today.

  He slid his hands under Bud-O-Shwek. His right shoulder screamed in complaint, and his head felt full of rusted iron bolts. Something was wrong in both places — very wrong — but he ignored his body’s warnings.

  “Blue, thirty-three,” he called out, shouting to be heard over the Slaughterhouse crowd. “Blue, thirty-threeeee. Hut-hut!”

  The wet ball slapped into his hands. Quentin stepped back and ran right. He saw Nancy Wolf move left to block the Coelacanths Ki defensive end: the defensive end smashed her to the ground, then chased after Quentin.

  Running right, Quentin looked downfield, scanning targets: Denver, covered on a flag-right; Milford, covered on a 15-yard out; George Starcher, covered on a hook. Defenders pursued Quentin from behind or angled toward the sidelines, trying to keep him from getting outside. He kept his eyes fixed on his three receivers — watching them try to find open space and watching the defensive backs react — never looking all the way to the left where Nancy would, hopefully, be sneaking up the far sideline.

  Five yards from running out of bounds, Quentin planted his feet and turned. All the way on the other sideline and thirty yards downfield, the rookie fullback was all alone.

  At this angle, it was a 61-yard pass to reach her (his brain flashed one of Kimberlin’s geometry lessons: a-squared plus b-squared equals c-squared ... she was fifty-three yards to his left, thirty yards downfield ...)

  The pressure closed in on Quentin; he gunned the ball. The defenders slowed before hitting him, as they didn’t want a roughing-the-passer penalty to give the Krakens an automatic first down. They only bumped into him instead of laying him out — even those small contacts sent spears of agony through his right side.