1

PRE-SEASON: WEEK ONE

THEY CAME HOME AT NIGHT. They came home champions.

Quentin stayed in his room aboard the Touchback. He was too nervous about the return trip — wouldn’t it be ironic to fight through the war that was his rookie season, win the Tier Two tournament and reach Tier One, then fly back from Earth only to have the team bus crash on the way home? Since he started every intergalactic trip assuming he was going to crash anyway, the concept of such a cruel fate made for a tense flight.

He waited. Waited for the punch-out, for the Touchback to slip into normal space.

The ship started to vibrate, shake a little.

It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine, just relax.

He repeated the familiar mantra in his head, but it didn’t help. This was it, he’d die on this stupid ship before he played a single down of Tier One, before he lived his dream.

It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine, just relax.

He kept his eyes shut. Best not to see it happen. Maybe this time he wouldn’t hurl.

It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fi—

The reality wave started cascading over the ship — just because he couldn’t see it didn’t mean he couldn’t feel it. Quentin’s eyes squeezed even tighter, so hard that his upper lip curled. His stomach churned; an oily, queasy feeling that threatened to coax the dinner out of his belly.

The feeling of splitting, of spreading, of being in several places at once. It pulled at his mind, told the part repeating “it’s fine” that it was completely full of crap, because any sane sentient knew that things were most certainly not fine.

And then it was over.

Quentin Barnes opened just his left eye, just a little, to see if anything was shimmering, was waving. Everything looked solid. He let his breath out in a long rush, then sprinted for the bathroom as his stomach rebelled.

• • •

QUENTIN HAD JUST FINISHED brushing his teeth free of the taste of vomit when the computer voice chimed through his room.

[FIRST SHUTTLE PASSENGERS TO THE LANDING BAY]

He spit, then smiled. The first shuttle trip to Ionath City was for key players, for starters who had established themselves as vital parts of the Krakens franchise. That list of players included him.

He walked out of the bathroom and took one last look around. His few belongings were packed into flight crates. Gredok the Splithead, owner of the Krakens, was retrofitting all the players’ rooms as part of an overall upgrade to the Touchback. Sure, Gredok was a gangster, a thug, and a killer, but he took his duties as team owner very seriously — he wanted his players to have facilities that rivaled those of any Tier One team.

Quentin left his room with a strange sense of anticipation. He would spend the next four weeks planet-side. Training, practice, holo-study — all the things needed to prepare for his first Tier One game. The next time he saw this room, it would be for the trip to planet Tower and the season opener against the Isis Ice Storm.

He walked down the corridor, appreciating the orange walls and the black and white carpet more than ever. He loved his team colors. No matter where his football career might take him, he knew he’d have a permanent place in his heart for the orange and the black.

He heard the now-familiar, rapid-fire of pounding footsteps behind him. Quentin automatically put his back against the wall, making room for the sprinting Sklorno.

The Sklorno, it seemed, were always sprinting.

A pair of them shot down the corridor. He recognized them — Milford and Denver, two of his fellow rookies from last year. Their big feet hit the carpet hard as they stopped.

“Quentin Barnes Quentin Barnes Quentin Barnes!” Milford said.

“Hey,” Quentin said, in a calm voice, lest he excite them further. When Sklorno got excited, Sklorno drooled. Never a fun thing.

Milford and Denver were among the few Krakens taller than Quentin. Denver stood eight feet, ten inches tall, just two inches shorter than Milford. They both wore their Krakens jerseys — Denver was number 81, Milford number 82 — but that was the only clothing that blocked their strange, see-through bodies. Sklorno jersey numbers had to go on the sides, not in front, because their coiled arms stuck out of their chests right where the numbers would ordinarily be placed on a Human jersey.

The jerseys only covered part of their bodies. On the exposed areas, translucent chitin showed the semitransparent muscles flexing beneath and clear blood coursing through them like pumping water, all of it supported by black skeletons. Semi-visible internal organs fluttered here and there.

Nowhere did they have more muscle than in their thick legs that folded backward like those of a grasshopper. Coarse, black fur jutted out of their knee and ankle joints. The legs supported a slender, back-curving body-stalk. On top of that body, the strangest part of a Sklorno — the head.

They each had two raspers, long rolls of skin-covered muscle embedded with thousands of small teeth. Usually the raspers stayed rolled up behind a thick chin plate, but whenever the ladies talked to Quentin the raspers tended to hang down like a dog with a three-foot-long double tongue. Above the chin plate sat a small crop of coarse black hairs. Out of that hair jutted four eyestalks. Each stalk moved independently, looking in all directions at once like curious cobras rising up to strike.

“Quentin Barnes QuentinBarnes QuentinBarnes!” Denver shouted again. “We are on first shuttle with you!”

Quentin nodded and started to say something, but apparently the conversation was over. The two receivers took off on a dead sprint, headed for the shuttle bay. Quentin followed them, but at a slightly more casual pace.

The shuttle bay’s fifty-foot-high domed ceiling held the usual assortment of equipment, machines, and stacked metal crates, everything meticulously arranged and organized. Outside of the players’ individual rooms, everything was meticulous and organized courtesy of Messal the Efficient, the Krakens team manager.

Quentin looked up, looked to the words that floated in the center of the shallow dome. A sentence made of large, holographic letters ran the length of the bay. The glowing letters never moved, never faded, and they were never turned off, even during ship-night. They read: THE IONATH KRAKENS ARE ON A COLLISION COURSE WITH A TIER ONE CHAMPIONSHIP. THE ONLY VARIABLE IS TIME.

The words made Quentin’s chest feel all fluttery, stopped his breath short. He’d seen the sign many times during the Tier Two season, but Coach Hokor had changed the words slightly. Before, it had read the Ionath Krakens are on a collision course with a Tier One berth. The only variable is time.

Well, they had turned that dreamy prophecy into a hard-won truth. Now Hokor was setting the goal higher, as high as it gets — a Galaxy Bowl championship, a Galactic Football League title. The thought scared Quentin a little, made him wonder if they could live up to such expectations. Scared him... and also thrilled him.

He wasn’t here to chase mediocrity.

He was here to capture glory.

He stared at the sign, then nodded.

Quentin walked toward the shuttle, which was painted in Krakens’ orange and trimmed in black and white. A large Krakens logo — the iconic reddish-orange “I” inside a yellow shield, with six white, stylized tentacles spreading off behind it — decorated the side.

Other first-shuttle Krakens filtered into the landing bay. Quentin saw the blue-skinned Don Pine, two-time Galaxy Bowl winner and now Quentin’s backup. Denver and Milford, along with Scarborough and Hawick, the starting Sklorno receivers. Mum-O-Killowe, the twelve-foot-long Ki defensive tackle that had gone from rookie to starter in one season, just like Quentin had done at the quarterback position. Aleksander Michnik and Ibrahim Khomeni, the monstrous, knuckle-dragging HeavyG defensive ends, each 525 pounds and nearly seven feet tall. Kill-O-Yowet, the dominant offensive tackle and seeming alpha sentient of the Krakens’ seventeen Ki players. Third-string quarterback Yitzhak Goldman, who enjoyed first shuttle privileges because he had been born and raised in Ionath City, and as such was a local hero. And the big, tattooed, wild-eyed, and semi-sane Human middle linebacker, John Tweedy.

Standing next to John was Yassoud Murphy, the Krakens starting running back by default. Default because ’Soud was the only one left on the roster — starter Mitchell “The Machine” Fayed had died, and backup Paul Pierson had lost a leg.

Yassoud and John had become Quentin’s closest friends. He worked hard to spend time with everyone on the team, but John and ’Soud were Human. Quentin had spent nineteen years of his life being programmed to think that Human was the only race that mattered. Logically, he could separate himself from that propaganda, but emotionally, he still felt more comfortable with his own kind.

“Hey ’Soud, Uncle Johnny,” Quentin said.

John turned, his crazy stare-into-nothing changing to a smile. ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL? scrolled across his face. John had a sub-dermal tattoo, thousands of tiny light emitters embedded under his skin. With his cyberlink control, John could dial up any words or phrases he liked. Quentin was getting used to it, but seeing letters dance across John’s face was still a bit disturbing.

“Q,” John said, and held out his fist. Quentin reached out his own for the obligatory fist-bump, then did the same for Yassoud.

“Hey,” Quentin said to the running back, “did you braid your beard?”

“It’s called a Persian, big boy,” Yassoud said, then stroked the eight inches of matted, black, curly beard he’d bound together with a thin, orange string. “Orange and black, Q, Ionath-style.”

Quentin smiled and nodded appreciatively. Yassoud loved the Krakens just as much as Quentin did.

Most of the first-shuttle team was there, save for Virak the Mean and Choto the Bright, two Quyth Warrior outside linebackers.

“Hey, Uncle Johnny, where are Virak and Choto?”

“Off doing some work for Gredok,” John said. “Rumor is they’re at Buddha City Station for the heavyweight championship fight.”

“No way,” Yassoud said. “Oh yep, I got to get on Gredok’s good side. Virak and Choto get all the fun.”

Fun. That wasn’t how Quentin saw it. Before he’d arrived last season, Virak and Choto had been football players second, gangland thugs first. Any time they accompanied Gredok, the two were probably involved in something illegal, something that could get them hurt. And if they got hurt, that affected the team. Hopefully nothing would happen. The season was just a few weeks away.

The shuttle’s entire side hung open, lowered via a bottom hinge that turned it into a ramp. Head coach Hokor the Hookchest stood at the top of that ramp. It still struck Quentin as strange that Hokor, a Quyth Leader, was technically part of the same species as Virak and Choto. Where Virak was 6-foot-2 and 375 pounds, Hokor was only 3-foot-1, probably 90 pounds if he’d been swimming and his black-striped yellow fur was soaked with water. Leaders and Warriors alike were bipedal, standing on folded legs that had one segment rising up from the hips to a knee, then a foreleg that pointed down, connecting to a long, three-toed foot. Their middle arms had a similar design: upper arm that pointed up and back, then a forearm that pointed down parallel to the upper arm, ending in a thick, three-fingered pincer. Their chests continued up from the middle arms, tapering to a head with a single eye. On either side of and below the eye, a set of pedipalps ended in dexterous, finger-like appendages. The middle hands were for heavy lifting and grunt work, while the pedipalps handled fine skills, like art or computers.

Hokor wore a tiny little orange and black Krakens jacket and a tiny little black baseball hat with a Krakens logo glowing on the bill. He always dressed in team colors.

At the base of the ramp stood three Krakens players, all wearing jerseys that Quentin had never seen before. Krakens home jerseys were black with orange numbers, away jerseys were orange with black numbers — these players wore white. White jerseys with orange numbers and letters trimmed in black. Orange sleeves led to black-trimmed orange flashes running down the flanks.

Where had he seen these before? It hit him — he’d seen those jerseys in the stands, worn by some of the thousands of fans packing Ionath Stadium.

Throwback jerseys.

Paul Pierson wore one of the white jerseys, number 31. Paul refused to wear a realistic prosthetic lower left leg — instead, he wore a chromed post that ended in a metallic foot. The leg had been torn off by Yalla the Biter, a Quyth Warrior linebacker for the Sky Demolition. Since Paul had lost his leg “in combat,” as he called it, he wanted the universe to know he’d given his all on the gridiron.

Next to Paul stood the Ki lineman Wen-Eh-Daret, number 66, a right guard who had hurt his back in the Tier Two semi-final game against the Texas Earthlings. The injury had proven more severe than anyone thought, forcing the Ki’s retirement. Aka-Na-Tak, the backup, had also been hurt in that semi-final. Aka-Na-Tak was still recovering — he wouldn’t see the field until the third week of the season.

Around twelve feet long, the Ki body bent at the middle. Six feet of body stayed parallel to the ground, supported by three pairs of legs. The body bent up at the front. Two pair of arms stuck out near the thick neck and head. The head? That was the stuff of nightmares. A row of five equidistant eyes gave the species three hundred and sixty degree vision. Six leathery lips covered the six black teeth of their hexagonal mouths. Vocal tubes stuck up from the top of the head, making the Ki look a bit like a Human with smooth, short dreadlocks.

Next to Wen-Eh stood the final white-jerseyed player, another Human. Pancho Saulsgiver, number 48. Pancho, the third tight end on the roster behind Yotaro Kobayasho and Rick Warburg, hadn’t played much during the Tier Two season. Pancho had been with the Krakens for ten years — an eternity in the brutal world of the GFL.

Ten years.

A missing leg.

A broken back.

And then Quentin understood the reason for the special jerseys.

Hokor spoke in his small but gravelly voice. He was tiny, even downright cute in his little jacket and little hat, but when he spoke, everyone listened.

“Gredok the Splithead cannot be here today,” Hokor said. “He has business elsewhere, but told me he is proud of all of you.” Quentin just hoped that business didn’t involve Virak and Choto playing the role of gangland muscle.

Coach Hokor continued. “Tomorrow afternoon, Ionath City is throwing us a parade to celebrate our promotion to Tier One. Then we have a week off, then three weeks to prepare for the Isis Ice Storm. Right now it is time to descend to Ionath, a trip that marks the official end of our Tier Two season. As such, we honor the players that are retiring as Krakens.”

Hokor’s words echoed through the mostly empty shuttle bay then faded out, leaving silence. Quentin didn’t know what to say. He imagined his teammates didn’t either.

“These three players wear white,” Hokor said. “The white jerseys are the original jerseys the franchise had in the year of its founding, 2662. To wear the white is the highest honor the Krakens organization can bestow. Pierson, Wen-Eh-Daret, and Saulsgiver played hard, they gave everything they had, but all careers must end. Active players, pay your respects to them as you board the shuttle.”

Quentin watched the Krakens starters filter onto the shuttle, each stopping to say something to the three white-jerseyed, soon-to-be-ex-teammates. Quentin watched until he realized he was the only active player standing in the shuttle bay.

He walked up to Pierson. Quentin offered his hand, which the running back shook. Pierson was 29, a decade older than Quentin. Years in the league had aged the man — Pierson looked ready for a rest.

“Sorry you won’t be joining us,” Quentin said. “Gonna be a hell of a year.”

Paul laughed. “I played two seasons in the bigs, with the Dreadnaughts. You think our T2 season was tough? Good luck, brother, I hope you do well.”

Pierson’s smirk made it clear he thought he would have the last laugh, that he had been tough enough to last a decade, but Quentin was not. Pierson radiated disdain and jealousy of Quentin’s rising star.

This whole process made Quentin uncomfortable, and he didn’t know why. The chrome of Paul’s foot reflected the landing bay lights, streaky flashes visible even though Quentin wasn’t looking at it.

Wen-Eh-Daret was next. Quentin stood in front of the monstrous creature, unsure of what to say or do. Wen-Eh’s black eyespots stared blankly. The pink hexagonal mouth twitched, lip flaps hiding the disturbing triangular teeth. Quentin still didn’t understand the Ki all that well — did Wen-Eh want to say something?

The Ki four-armed lineman reached up his two right arms, then smacked them against his tubular chest. If he had been wearing football armor, the movement would have produced a clack sound — the Ki equivalent of saying I will go to war with you.

The gesture hit Quentin much harder than Paul’s condescension. Somewhere during the season, the Ki had accepted Quentin as a fellow warrior. He’d led them into battle, led them to victory. Fighting and winning were all that seemed to matter to the Ki.

Quentin swallowed the lump in his throat, then brought up his right fist and pounded it twice against his chest. That was all that needed to be said.

He finished with Pancho, who stood just outside the shuttle door.

“Quentin, you little rascal, I’m gonna miss you this year.”

“You and all the shuckers trying to tackle me,” Quentin said, laughing that Pancho had called him little. Quentin had two inches and more than a few pounds on the man.

“It was great to be your teammate, Q,” Pancho said. “Let me be an old fart and give you some unsolicited advice. Cool?”

Quentin rolled his eyes. “Sure, Pops, go ahead.”

“Pro football is a marathon, not a sprint. Just remember that. Paul and I both made it ten years, which is damn near impossible. We were good players. You’re a great one. If you last ten years? You’ll re-write every record in the league.”

“Just ten? At that point, I’ll just be getting warmed up.”

Pancho smiled and nodded. “I hope so, Q. Have a great season. Ever been fishing?”

Quentin shook his head.

“If you need a break, just let me know. I’m heading back to Earth, to a little town in a place called Michigan. Anytime you need to get away from it all, you call me.”

Where Paul’s well-wishing had reeked of bitterness, Pancho’s rang with genuine affection. The tight end raised his right fist and banged his chest twice. Quentin did the same, then turned and boarded the shuttle.

All that touchy-feely emotional stuff was fine and good, but those three players just creeped him out. Correction; those three former players. All of a sudden, Quentin had to admit he didn’t want to be anywhere near them. It was stupid to feel that way, he knew, but those three retired players suddenly seemed almost... diseased.

Quentin found a Human-sized seat near Hawick, the Sklorno receiver. He sat and buckled in. She trembled a little, but not as bad as Denver or Milford would have done. Quentin was still trying to deal with the fact that Sklorno now worshiped him like some kind of false idol. Hawick was clearly in awe of Quentin, although apparently she wasn’t an official member of the “Church of Quentin Barnes,” or the C-o-Q-B as they called it.

He braced himself as the landing bay catapult tossed the shuttle out into the void. He stared out a view port, taking in the void’s star-speckled blackness. The shuttle floated for a few minutes until it cleared the Touchback, then the engines kicked in.

The shuttle banked. As it came around, the planet Ionath slid into view. Red, cracked, cratered. From this far up, Ionath was an image of death, of the folly of constant war, of how things were before the Creterakians took over. For all the authoritarian rule of the bats, at least they kept the peace.

A chime sounded. Quentin automatically looked up to holo-icons floating near the roof. Graphics showed an unbuckled seat belt, and next to it simple pictures of walking Ki, Humans, Quyth, and Sklorno. The HeavyG players thought the signs were racist, because they showed the rough dimensions of a normal-G Human. Quentin thought that was ridiculous — two arms, two legs, a body, and a head were two arms, two legs, a body, and a head. You didn’t hear the Quyth complaining about their icon, despite the drastic size difference between Leaders, Warriors, and Workers.

He unbuckled, then walked to one of the shuttle’s larger view ports. Only a few of the Krakens players onboard moved within the cramped space. Some of the vets had seen the orbital approach so many times they were no longer impressed. Michnik and Khomeni were among those, apparently — that, or they were too busy eating the huge sandwiches sitting in their laps. The only movement came from Shizzle, the team’s translator and lone Creterakian. Shizzle fluttered to keep his balance on Kill-O-Yowet’s shoulder.

Quentin stared out the view port, taking in the ruined planet. He wondered if there might be messages waiting for him when he reached the surface. Maybe his father had seen his game against the Earthlings a week ago. The T2 Tourney didn’t get the ratings of Tier One, but it was still broadcast galaxy-wide. Maybe his mother had seen a newscast, seen Quentin’s now-adult face and instantly recognized her baby boy.

Maybe. Or maybe he’d never hear from either of them.

A heavy hand hit his shoulder; hit and held. Quentin winced — his shoulder still hurt from the game against the Earthlings a week earlier. The strong hand shook him, the friendly-if-painful grasp of John Tweedy.

“What’s up, Q? I know you got the tar knocked out of you by those Tex linebackers, but come on, trooper, you should be happy. You brought us into Tier One, man. You get a week off! Maybe now you can do something with your money, like get an apartment or something. Hey, maybe you can live near me! We could be shucking neighbors, brother!”

When Quentin didn’t respond, the words TURN THAT FROWN UPSIDE DOWN scrolled across John’s face tattoo.

“Come on, Killer Q,” John said. “What’s got that mopey sad-boy look on your face?”

“It’s just... ah, never mind, I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Come on, trooper! Uncle Johnny’s been in the GFL five years, another three in the lower leagues, all that time trying to get to Tier One. It’s been my dream, Q! And that dream came true ‘cause of you. What’s eating ya? Ya need a girl? Wanna go out and paint the town orange?”

“No, that’s not... well, yeah, we should go out and hit the town, but that’s not what I mean. This Tier One stuff is a big deal, I just wish my parents could see it.”

“Why aren’t they here? Your Dad have attitude? Want me to whip your Pop’s ass? ‘Cause I will whip his ass, I assure you.”

Quentin laughed. He didn’t feel like laughing, but John’s always-on intensity could make anything seem funny. “I don’t know where they are, John. I don’t even know if they’re alive. They vanished when I was real little. Happens a lot in the Nation.”

Tweedy looked around behind him to the left, then to the right, then to the left again. His eyes lingered on Shizzle, who was farther back in the small shuttle, still perched on Kill-O-Yowet’s shoulder.

Tweedy leaned in close to Quentin and spoke in a whisper. “Hey, Q, you told anyone about this?”

Quentin shook his head. “Not really. Warburg knows, some ex-Nationalites in Ionath City, but I guess that’s about it. Why?”

Tweedy did the left-right-left look again, the move probably drawing more attention to him than if he’d just talked quietly. “Listen, you might not want to make your situation public, you know? That’s the kind of thing Gredok can use against you.”

“Why would Gredok use it against me? I’m his quarterback.”

John shook his head slowly, as if he couldn’t believe he was looking at someone so stupid. The funny thing was that John wasn’t the sharpest laser in the kit, but he was so sure of himself and had such conviction that when he thought you were dumb, you actually felt a little dumb even if you knew you were right.

“You challenged Gredok,” John said. “You challenged his authority, and won. You know what that means? Don’t they have crime bosses on Micovi?”

Quentin thought of Stedmar Osborne, and nodded. Stedmar was the owner of the Micovi Raiders, Quentin’s Tier Three team back in the Purist Nation. Stedmar was a not a man to be trifled with.

“Yeah,” Quentin said. “All teams are owned by gangsters. I know that.”

“You know that, but you don’t know it. You get away with stuff because you win games. Gangsters like to win, winning makes money, but the most important thing is respect and control. You challenged Gredok’s authority — he’s not gonna forget that, Killer Q.”

Quentin hadn’t thought about it that way until this moment. Don Pine had owed millions to Mopuk the Sneaky, a gangster that forced Pine to shave points, even throw games outright. Quentin orchestrated an effort to pay off Don’s debt. When Gredok had discovered Pine’s betrayal, he wanted to kill the man. Quentin threatened to walk away from the Krakens if Gredok hurt Pine in any way. Quentin had reacted on instinct, done what he had to do for the good of the team, never really connecting the dots that there could be long-term consequences for those actions.

“Anyway,” John said, “Gredok’s not going to have you whacked. Not yet, at least. But you don’t want to give him any more leverage over you, right?”

Quentin nodded. “Then how do I go about finding my parents? We have the season coming up, it’s not like I can go out and look for them.”

John did the left-right-left look again, then leaned in. I KNOW A GUY scrolled across his forehead in small letters. “Don’t you worry about it, Q. Uncle Johnny-Boy The Minister of Awesome will hook you up. You put it out of your head for now.”

John turned and walked away, leaving Quentin alone at the view port window.

The shuttle rattled as it entered Ionath’s atmosphere. Quentin gripped one of the many hand/tentacle rings lining the shuttle. He looked out at what he now called “home.” A Sklorno saturation bombing 124 years earlier had wiped the planet clean of all advanced life. Only bacteria had remained, and not much of that. Ionath had remained lifeless, damn near sterile, until the Quyth Concordia colonized it. The Quyth seemed immune to the same radiation that killed every other known sentient in the galaxy. The Quyth were in the midst of a centuries-long process of transforming the planet. Much of Ionath still looked lifeless, lined with massive craters and cracks, but those scars were also blurring under an ever-increasing carpet of orange, red, and yellow plants.

The shuttle approached Ionath City. Built in the middle of a ten-mile-wide bomb crater, Ionath City’s clear dome glowed like a torch lit up by the lights of thousands of buildings beneath. As the shuttle drew closer to the dome, Quentin stared in amazement as those lights changed. The white, blue, red, and yellow glow of a bustling, nighttime cityscape steadily blinked off as a new color steadily blinked on.

That color was orange.

The domed metropolis of Ionath City flickered, blinked, and in a span of ten or fifteen seconds, changed into a gleaming black jewel glittering with millions of glowing orange facets.

The orange and the black.

Ionath City welcomed its warriors home.

The pilot dove straight for the huge dome, which obligingly disintegrated a temporary, shuttle-sized hole. The circular roads of Ionath City seemed to guide them in like the concentric rings of a bull’s-eye. Straight streets dissected sixteen equivalent sectors, all intersecting at the city center — intersecting at the home of the Krakens.

In Ionath City, all roads led to the football stadium.

The shuttle angled closer. Quentin saw more lights flare up, the sides of buildings coming to life with skyscraper-high motion clips of the orange- and black-clad Krakens players: Scarborough hauling in a pass; Aleksander Michnik sacking a quarterback; Quentin running through the line, a sweat-dripping snarl splayed across his face; Virak the Mean, black and red blood streaking his jersey, pointing out a gap just before the snap of the ball; and then one that made Quentin’s soul hurt — number 47, Mitchell “The Machine” Fayed, standing over the crumbled, purple-and-white clad form of Yalla the Biter. After Yalla had ripped off Paul Pierson’s leg, Fayed had gone headhunting for the linebacker and crushed him in a highlight-reel hit. Quentin blinked back tears for his dead friend. Reaching Tier One had been the Machine’s ultimate dream. He’d died just two games shy of seeing that become a reality.

Sixty-foot-tall motion clips of so many players, orange and black giants making the nighttime skyline dance with life. So many Krakens, but the changing images featured one more than all the others combined.

“Zak,” Quentin called out. “You seeing this?”

Yitzhak Goldman quickly walked over to stand next to Quentin. The third-string quarterback looked out the window, then took a deep breath that exhaled into a smile saturating every iota of his face.

“Ah, good to be home,” Yitzhak said loudly. “Nothing quite like being welcomed home by towering visions of... well... of me.”

All the players on the shuttle laughed, even the mostly humorless Michnik and Khomeni. Ionath City residents adored Yitzhak, even if most of them didn’t really understand he was a third-string quarterback and fairly insignificant to the team’s success. That lack of knowledge didn’t change the fact that businesses wanted Yitzhak’s name associated with their companies, wanted his picture on their products. He was the face of Junkie Gin, the dashboard voice of Hundai Grav-Limos, and the chisel-chinned image of Farouk Outdoor’s popular anti-rad suits that let the adventurous non-Quyth species explore the vast planet. Compared to the advertising money he earned, Yitzhak’s actual salary was probably insignificant.

The shuttle slowed as it approached the roof of the Krakens building, and landed feather-light. The side door lowered. Quentin and the others started filing down the ramp, ready for the now-familiar customs check. While the Quyth Concordia was independent of Creterakian control, GFL rules still applied to every team.

Team buses had diplomatic immunity. GFL players could not be searched or detained. This had been implemented to prevent local system police from harassing players based on species bias. For a team to compete, it had to have players from the main races. Immunity allowed teams to move across systems without fear that some of their players would be arrested, possibly even killed. But just because the players themselves couldn’t be detained didn’t mean the Creterakians would allow team busses be a conduit for weapons or explosives that could be used against the ruling empire. The shuttle had to be searched every time it landed.

Quentin walked out. A red line glowed on the roof. He dutifully took his place on that line, John Tweedy on his right, Scarborough on his left. They all stood, quietly waiting as a white-uniformed, blue-furred Quyth Leader walked up and down the twelve-player line. The Leader’s middle arms held something behind his back. Two white-uniformed workers slid a grav-cart into the shuttle.

“I am Kotop the Observer,” the Leader said. “I am duly appointed by the Galactic Football League to inspect your shuttle.”

Quentin sighed. He knew who Kotop was. Everyone knew who Kotop was, because Kotop inspected the shuttle every time it landed. The little Leader insisted on formally identifying himself. Kotop always seemed annoyed that the players were probably using their personal immunity to smuggle in information, drugs, or other contraband. The unwritten rule was that whatever a player could carry on his person — as long as it wasn’t a weapon — remained totally above the law. Kotop did little to hide his disdain of athletes. He usually had something derisive to say.

“Look at you all,” Kotop said. “The conquering heroes return.”

Quentin expected Kotop’s usual lecture on morals, but this time he sounded different.

John took a step forward and stood with rigid, mock attention. “Mister Kotop Leader Shamakath sir! May I ask what is on your mind, Mister Kotop Leader Shamakath sir? You seem very... happy.”

“I’m always happy,” Kotop said.

The Krakens players laughed.

John stepped back into line.

The two white-uniformed workers pushed their grav-sled out of the shuttle. “No explosives, no weapons,” one of them said to Kotop.

“Excellent,” Kotop said. “I expected nothing less of such fine representatives of Ionath.”

The players looked at each other, confused.

“Kotop, my tip-top,” John said. “Aren’t you going to tell us we are delinquents that will someday wind up dead or in jail as soon as football is finished with us?”

“Not tonight,” Kotop said. He brought his hands out from behind his back. They were holding a little black baseball hat, which he pulled onto his head. The hat showed the Krakens logo on the bill. Across the brim it read: IONATH KRAKENS: 2682 TIER TWO CHAMPIONS.

“Tonight?” Kotop said, “Tonight, I am just a fan, like every being in this city. Congratulations, sentients, and welcome home.”

The team laughed and whooped at the unexpected support. They walked across the roof to ride elevators down to their respective quarters, or to cars and taxis. Quentin, however, walked to the roof’s far side. He stood there, breathing slowly, staring out at an entire city lit up in orange lights, a city alive with the moving, silent images of his teammates, his friends. Some of the towering buildings showed action clips of Quentin, jersey torn and splattered with blood, fighting for victory against the Sky Demolition, the Whitok Pioneers, the Texas Earthlings.

He looked everywhere, trying to take it all in, trying to capture everything and forever burn it into his brain.

Not that long ago, he’d been an orphan. A low-wage miner, on an unknown colony, in a backwater system.

Now? Now his image covered towering skyscrapers. Now, he was a hero.

He would never, ever, forget this moment.

From The Ionath City Gazette

GFL Schedule Announced, Krakens Face Stiff Competition

by TOYAT THE INQUISITIVE

NEW YORK CITY, EARTH, PLANETARY UNION — GFL officials today announced the schedule for the 2683 season. Following their successful season and first-place finish in the T2 Tournament, the Ionath Krakens earned promotion to Tier One.

The GFL has two divisions, the Planet Division and the Solar Division. Ionath was placed in the Planet Division, replacing the relegated Free Birds who finished the 2682 Tier One season with a record of 1-11.

Each division has eleven teams. The Krakens play each Planet Division team once, and also have two cross-divisional games against teams from the Solar Division. Every team gets one bye-week, resulting in a 12-game, 13-week schedule.

2683 KRAKENS SCHEDULE

Relegation-bound?

The Krakens’ primary objective this season is to win more games than at least one other Planet Division team. The team with the most losses is relegated to Tier Two, to be replaced by one of the teams that reach the championship game of the T2 Tournament.

For reference, keep in mind that the Free Birds won the Tier Two tournament in 2681 to earn promotion, then proceeded to lose eleven games in the 2682 Tier One season and were sent right back down again. In the past ten Tier One campaigns, six of the teams that won promotion were relegated the following season.

The Magic Number?

The Free Birds were by far the worst team in Tier One. This season, analysts mostly agree that the teams in danger of relegation are the Coranadillana Cloud Killers, the Mars Planets, and the Krakens. Ionath likely has to win at least three games to avoid relegation.

Guaranteed Losses?

Ionath faces almost certain defeat against the Planet Division’s dominant franchises, including the Yall Criminals, the To Pirates, and the newly renamed Wabash Wolfpack, who went 9-3 last season as the Wabash Wall. As for the Krakens’ two cross-divisional games, one is against perennial Solar Division relegation contenders Shorah Warlords. Sadly, the other is against the 2682 GFL Champion Jupiter Jacks.

Playoff Math

While the odds of the Krakens making the T1 playoffs are just a bit lower than those of every star in the galaxy simultaneously going supernova, reassembling into a bartender, and making this writer a Junkie Gin Blaster with a twist of lime, this column wouldn’t be complete without providing the actual playoff math. It’s simple — the four Planet Division teams with the best record go to the single-elimination Galaxy Bowl tournament. In the case of equal records, the tiebreaker is head-to-head results. In 2682, the four Planet Division playoff qualifiers finished with records of 11-1, 10-2, 9-3, and 8-4. As I mentioned earlier, before the Krakens land eight wins this year, every sentient in the galaxy would die in the burning gases of their suns expanding at nearly the speed of light, leaving this writer to drink his life away as the last living creature (except, of course, for the reassembled bartender). Scientific translation? The Krakens are not going to make the playoffs.

THE CROWD PARTED before the two huge Humans. Quentin and John Tweedy walked down the street, afternoon light playing down through the arcing city dome high overhead. They were trying — and failing — to blend in. They wore nondescript clothes: jeans, sweatshirts with hoods up, sunglasses. Tweedy also wore a strap that circled from his left shoulder to his right hip. It had nine mag-can-sized pouches. Eight carried cans of beer, while one held a pint of Junkie Gin. The strap was the fashion accessory he never seemed to be without, the thing he lovingly called his “beerdoleer.”

Other than the beerdoleer, John wore nothing that called attention to his status as a football star. But at 6-foot-6, 310 pounds, there was only one Human on the entire street bigger than he was — and that Human was Quentin. With 380 solid pounds gracing his 7-foot frame, Quentin towered over everyone.

They walked through Ionath City’s middle northwest quadrant, the busy nightclub district. It should have come as no surprise that any John Tweedy contact would be in this area, as this area seemed to be the only place he went.

Quentin pointed to one of the towering buildings, where someone was hanging one end of an orange-and-black Krakens banner from a fifteenth-story window, the other end reaching across a narrow gap to a neighboring building.

“They’re going all out for this parade,” Quentin said. “That why you brought me this way?”

“Sort of,” John said. “Our guy’s office is on Fifth Ring Road anyway, but thought you’d like to see the whole city ramping up for the parade.”

Quentin nodded. He was happy to see the preparations — banners and flags of orange and black, crowd barriers being put up, general spit and polish on all areas for the parade that would kick off in a few hours. Some fans were already camped out behind the barriers, staking their places for the festivities. If this was how they celebrated promotion into Tier One, Quentin could only imagine what they would do for a Galaxy Bowl victory.

The nightclub district ran along Fifth Ring Road. Fifth Ring was at the mid-point of the dome’s convex arc, the inner point where the mostly red, hexagonal buildings started getting smaller, going from the forty-story affairs at the city center to one-story flats at the dome’s edge. In the nightclub district, bars and restaurants packed the first two floors of almost every building. Fake exteriors done in hundreds of styles, colorful lights temporarily drowned out by the afternoon sun, holo-signs and other decorations calling out to potential patrons. Smooth, red crysteel started at the third floor and rose twenty to thirty stories above.

Fifth Ring looked like the other ring roads: the wide dip of the mag-lev train track in the middle, supporting public transit cars that circled the city. On either side of the track, two lanes of road for cabs, trucks, and private cars. Outside lanes always carried clockwise traffic, inside lanes always ran counterclockwise.

Pedestrian traffic tended to match this clockwise/counterclockwise pattern. John and Quentin were on the outside sidewalk, circling north. They walked among a diverse crowd made up mostly of Quyth Workers, but also peppered with plenty of Ki, Human, and HeavyG sentients. It was only noon and the area was already bustling — by the time the sun went down, the nightclub district would be so packed it could take ten minutes to exit one bar, go down the street a few buildings, and enter the next one. Despite the sweatshirt hoods, Quentin saw occasional smiles of recognition. He tried to ignore them and just keep walking.

“It’s jumping,” Quentin said. “Seems busy for this early in the afternoon.”

“Big sports day,” John said. “All kinds of stuff going down. Big hover-essedari race out in the wastes, so sentients are packing the bars to watch live coverage. Sklorno soccer championship league tourney is in the final four. That was last night, but it’s just broadcasting now. Oh, and in a few hours the Dinolition Derby signal reaches us from the League of Planets. I’ve got some big bucks on Lil’ Pete Poughkeepsie’s team.”

“Dinolition?”

John stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “You haven’t seen Dinolition?”

Quentin shook his head. “Haven’t even heard of it.”

AND YOU BELIEVE IN A HIGHER BEING? scrolled across John’s face. “Oh, man, Q, you’re in for a treat. You think things are rough in the GFL? Try being a dwarf in turtle armor riding a seven-ton T-rex into a death match.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Hell no,” John said. “Dead serious. So yeah, a lot going on makes today a major sporgy.

“Sporgy?”

“An orgy of sports,” John said. “Sports orgy. Sporgy. And look, man, I want to help you find your parents and all, but I got games to watch so can we just get moving?”

John looked annoyed. He shook his head, then started walking again. Quentin walked with him, not bothering to say that John had been the one to stop in the first place.

“So,” Quentin said, “this guy is good?”

“The best. Want a beer?”

Quentin shook his head. He wanted to be totally sober for this. It felt good to finally take a step toward finding his parents. And yet, the fear lingered — what if he found out they were both dead? Then he was alone, no family at all. His teammates, sure, but no real family.

Tweedy drained his beer and tossed the mag-can over his shoulder. It hit a passing Quyth Warrior in the head.

“Hey, Human,” the Quyth Warrior said. “You pick that up.”

Tweedy stopped, smiled, and turned around. Quentin sighed. They were trying to keep a low profile, lest any of Gredok’s gang see them, maybe figure out what Quentin was up to.

Quentin turned as well. The offended Quyth Warrior was normal for his species, which was to say he was much smaller than John Tweedy. Quentin had grown so used to being around Virak the Mean, Choto the Bright, and his other Quyth Warrior teammates that he’d forgotten how big they were relative to their species, just like he was big for his.

The Warrior wore grey pants that covered his folded-up lower legs. He wore no shirt, exposing his pale orange torso and big lower arms. A few enamels decorated his carapace, but nothing like the full-body art of Virak and Choto. The pedipalp arms on either side of the Warrior’s head twitched. Quentin thought he saw a tinge of pink flicker through the Warrior’s single, baseball-sized eye.

“You talkin’ to me?” John said, his smile growing even wider, his face scrolling the bright words FREE TRIPS TO DEATHVILLE, GET YOUR TICKET PUNCHED HERE.

The crowd started to part, giving John, Quentin and the Quyth Warrior plenty of room.

“John,” Quentin said. “Now’s not the time.”

John shrugged. “Not up to me. Up to Mister Happy Public Helper, here.” John pointed to the empty mag-can. “What do you say, Mister Happy Public Helper? You want to do something about that trash on the ground?”

The Quyth Warrior looked at John, then at Quentin, then back. The pink color faded, replaced by swirling yellow.

“John Tweedy?” the Warrior said. “Oh, I am a huge fan. Can I have your autograph?”

The Warrior reached into one of his pants pockets. Quentin flinched, took a half step back to run, but the Warrior pulled out a message board that he offered to John.

John sighed, then took the board and signed it.

“And you,” the Warrior said to Quentin. “Are you Barnes? Really?”

Quentin nodded. John passed over the messageboard, which Quentin quietly signed and handed back to the Warrior.

“Oh thank you! Such an honor! And good luck this season. Go Krakens!”

The Warrior put the messageboard back in his pocket, picked up the mag-can, then continued down the sidewalk.

“John,” Quentin said. “I thought we were supposed to keep a low profile.”

“I can’t help it if I’m so damn pretty,” John said. “It sucks, though — sentients recognize me too fast. Almost impossible to get into a decent brawl these days. I even get recognized when I go to Orbital Station One to see my brother Ju. Now that we’re in Tier One, it’s going to be even worse.”

Quentin thought back to the mines of Micovi, where a similar, minor altercation could quickly escalate into a lethal fight. “John, why would you want to start something like that? What if that Warrior had a weapon?”

“Hard to get a weapon inside the dome, Q. The Quyth aren’t big on their citizens and workers getting shot or stabbed every ten minutes. Most conflicts end as a straight-up fight. And when it comes to a straight-up fight? I’m kind of good.”

“I noticed,” Quentin said, thinking back to the fight at the Bootleg Arms bar. He and several other Krakens had tried to pay off Don Pine’s gambling debt to Mopuk the Sneaky. Mopuk, living up to his name, had refused to take the money — a game-tanking GFL quarterback was far more valuable than the millions Don owed. Mopuk’s bodyguards tried to attack Quentin, but the bodyguards ran afoul of Virak, Choto, several Ki linemen and John Tweedy. John used his bare hands to kill two Quyth Warrior toughs, one by punching through the single eye to the brain behind, one by snapping its thick neck.

When it came to a brawl, John Tweedy was one bad man.

“I’ve studied how to fight,” Tweedy said. “So many different styles. That’s how I spend the off-season, at least when we have an off-season. I even did some pro fighting, did you know that?”

Quentin shook his head. “I had no idea. How did you do?”

“Real good, but you can’t succeed in that sport without mods. If I certified as a pro fighter, which you have to do in order to get mods, then no football.”

“So why did you choose football?”

“I’m a better football player than a fighter,” John said. “I make a load of money in football, but I’d be lucky to earn a living in the octagon. I can’t even beat up my brother, Ju. He had a few pro fights, even sparred again Chiyal North.”

“The Heretic?” Quentin said. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“Nope. Ju is the baddest man I know, and Chiyal whooped him.”

“Chiyal is a hero where I come from,” Quentin said. “We don’t exactly have a lot of intergalactic sports stars coming out of the Purist Nation. Last night’s fight... such a tragedy.”

John nodded sadly. “A real shame he died right there in the Octagon against Korak the Cutter, but what a bout! I mean, my man Chiyal used his own shinbone to stab Korak. That’s why the Heretic is the champ — whatever it takes to win.”

“Was the champ,” Quentin said. “Dead men don’t hold titles.”

John shrugged. “Korak died first, so Chiyal won the bout. He died the champ. Hey man, if I had to die to win a Galaxy Bowl? I’d do it in a heartbeat. A championship is immortality, Q. Immortality.”

Quentin shook his head and started to argue, but stopped when he realized that he felt the same way. Quentin had long ago decided he would do anything needed to win a GFL Tier One title. Anything. Was he so different, then, from Chiyal “The Heretic” North, who had died winning the undisputed heavyweight title?

John stopped walking and looked up at a twenty-story red building on his left. “This is it, Q, we’re here.” He turned to look at Quentin. John stared with wide, crazy eyes. His eyes always looked like that, except for when he was on the football field, when they were wider and crazier, which was bad, or when they crinkled in time with one of his psycho smiles, which was far, far worse.

“Don’t you embarrass me in there,” John said. “None of your hayseed hick-osity. This is a serious guy I’m introducing you to here. A serious guy.”

“What makes you think I’ll embarrass you?”

John shook his head, the words DUMB SPELLED BACKWARD IS BMUD scrolling across his face. He opened the door and walked in. Quentin followed.

Maybe they were past the edge of the nightclub district, because this place looked like some kind of an office building. Quentin looked around, suddenly realized something odd — aside from a couple of nightclubs, he hadn’t seen the inside of anything in Ionath City other than the Krakens building.

Outside, all the buildings were varying shades of red. This lobby? All white. In the middle of the lobby, a Quyth Worker sat behind a circular desk. A couple of scarred Ki wearing green uniforms stood on either side. They looked out of shape, perhaps, but also had that aura of ex-soldiers or former cops. Whatever their past, now they worked office-building security.

John strode to the reception desk like he owned the place. The Ki on either side didn’t have to turn their heads to watch him, what with their 360-degree vision and all, but you could tell they were instantly paying close attention to the two massive Humans.

The Quyth Worker behind the desk wasn’t like the slovenly ones Quentin often saw in the bars and nightclubs, swilling gin, nearly drinking themselves into a coma. This one was dressed in a tidy green uniform. The Worker reminded Quentin of Messal the Efficient, the Krakens team manager.

The Worker recognized John, and his one eye flooded with yellow. “Well, Mister Jo—”

John held up a hand, cutting off the worker’s sentence. “I’m Mister Smith,” John said. “That person you thought you just saw? He was never here.”

John pulled the pint of Junkie Gin out of his beerdoleer.

The Worker looked at it greedily, then tapped a couple of buttons that probably turned off cameras somewhere in the lobby.

“Well, Mister... Smith. That is a rather nice gift.”

“Look at the label,” John said. The Worker did, then started to quiver.

“This... this is actually signed by Yitzhak Goldman?”

“The man himself,” John said. “I’m gonna head up, got some business upstairs. You’ll make sure there’s no images of us, right?”

The Worker nodded violently, a difficult maneuver considering his relative lack of a neck. “No one will know you and your friend were here.”

John rapped his knuckles on the desk twice, then walked around it, heading for the elevators. Quentin followed.

An elevator hissed open and they got in. John pressed a button for the fifteenth floor.

“John, what was that all about? An autographed bottle of gin?”

“Stuff is like gold,” John said. “Really expensive, the Workers are crazy for it. And a signature from Yitzhak? That Worker will do whatever we ask.”

“Yeah, but why wouldn’t you use my autograph? I’m the starting quarterback.”

John pulled a fresh Miller from the beerdoleer and popped the top. The mag-can frosted up instantly. “Get used to it, Q.” He drained half the can. “The Quyth are going to root for you like crazy, but no matter what you do they will always like their own better. Yitzhak is the native son, and that’s that.”

Quentin still found it odd the Quyth adored a Human that much. Yitzhak wasn’t even their species. Zak’s family had lived on Ionath going back something like three generations. He’d been born right here under the Ionath City dome. It seemed the Quyth didn’t see race — they only saw borders. You didn’t have to be a Quyth to be a Concordia citizen; you just had to want to be part of the Concordia. Learn the culture, learn the history, swear allegiance to the Concordia above all others — all others, including your original homeland — and the Quyth would welcome you with open pedipalps.

The elevator stopped. Quentin followed John out. The lobby hadn’t looked new, but it had been neat and clean. Everything on this floor seemed damaged. The place smelled musty. The walls had once been smart-paper, but no longer had the ability to flicker images and patterns. Now the material just sagged.

Splatters of dried brown covered one spot.

“John,” Quentin said, and pointed to the stain. “Is that blood?”

John finished his mag-can and tossed it down the hall. “Yeah, probably. A lot of private investigators in this building, some bounty hunters and the like. Everyone needs an office for tax purposes, you know?”

Quentin nodded, although he really had no idea how taxes worked.

John stopped in front of a door marked with a placard that showed one line repeated in fifteen languages. Quentin read the line in English: SUITE 1510 — GONZAGA INVESTIGATIONS.

“Remember,” John said. “Don’t embarrass me.”

He knocked on the door. Quentin heard a buzzing sound, then metallic clicks — which sounded like several big deadbolts sliding back. The door opened and John walked in. Quentin followed, glancing at the edge of the door as he did. Holes in the thick door were an inch in diameter. The door’s frame had matching, recessed circles. When the door was closed and the bars extended, a hover-tank couldn’t get through.

The office was a long room with walls and floor made out of irregular, flat, red stones. At the end of the room sat a white desk. Behind the white desk, a man dressed in a business suit made out of some shiny pink material. In front of the desk, two white chairs. Above the two white chairs, something that looked like a stubby-legged horse all done up in a frilly green, blue, and yellow material.

Quentin stopped in his tracks. The whole thing made him feel oddly uncomfortable. He pointed to the strange, frilly horse. “John, what is that?”

“That’s a piñata,” John said.

“What’s a piñata?”

“A piñata,” the man in pink said, “is fabulous. Uncle Johnny Boy the Awesome, walk your muscles over here and bring that de-licious quarterback with you.”

Quentin stared at the man. Something... off about him. Something that made Quentin nervous.

John walked to the left-side chair and sat, leaving Quentin standing alone and feeling like an idiot. Quentin walked to the right-side chair and sat, looking up as he did — whatever a piñata was, he was sitting directly under its green, blue, and yellow horse ass.

“Quentin Barnes,” John said, “meet Frederico Esteban Giuseppe Gonada.”

“Gonzaga,” the man said. “But that was very close, John.”

Tweedy nodded.

“Fabulous to meet you, Mister Barnes. Or should I call you Elder?”

Frederico seemed overly excited about the whole situation. And the way he’d said Elder — all smiles, but the word was laced with hatred.

“Quentin is fine, thanks.”

“Well, Quentin, you certainly are a big boy, aren’t you?”

“Uh...” Quentin said. Well, he was much bigger than Frederico. Hard to tell while the man was sitting, but Frederico might be six foot even. If so, that made Quentin a full foot taller. Frederico looked athletic, but couldn’t have been more than two hundred pounds. Next to Quentin, he looked anorexic.

“Soooo,” Frederico said, drawing out the word. “Uncle Johnny tells me you’re just a lost little lonely heart.”

“I’m... what?”

“You need help finding your parents, your family,” Frederico said. “I think you came to the right place. At least your pretty eyes came to the right place.”

Quentin stared at the man, then at John. John shrugged.

“Uh, yes,” Quentin said. “That’s right, I want to find my parents.”

“So you can kiss them with that big, pouty mouth of yours?”

Quentin leaned back. Had this guy just called his mouth pouty? Why would a guy say that... unless...

Quentin grabbed John’s arm. “Tweedy, can I have a word with you?”

John nodded. Quentin led him back to the back of the office.

“What is this?” Quentin said in a hard whisper. “Why is he talking about my eyes and stuff?”

“He said he thinks they’re pretty,” John said, matching Quentin’s volume. “It’s like you don’t listen or something.”

“Yeah, but... he’s a guy. Why would a guy think my eyes are pretty?”

Tweedy sighed. “Maybe, backwater, because he thinks guys are prettier than girls.”

Quentin stared and blinked, the words hitting home. “You mean he’s gay? Like... a homosexual?”

Tweedy dug the heel of his right hand into his right eye. SOME MEN YOU JUST CAN’T REACH scrolled across his forehead.

“Yeah, Q,” John said. “Maybe he’s gay. Are you going to tell me that after all you’ve been through with big scary aliens and working in the mines and gangsters and roundbugs you’re afraid of a little gay guy?”

“I’m not afraid,” Quentin said. “It’s just that... well, you know, it’s a... a...”

“A what, Q? Is being gay a sin?” DID HIGH ONE MAKE STUPIDITY, OR DID IT EVOLVE ON ITS OWN? scrolled across his face.

Quentin felt his temper rising. “Listen, jerk, don’t ridicule my culture, you got that? I was raised to believe certain things.”

“Certain things. You mean things like all aliens — including your teammates — are actually the spawn of Satan and should be killed on sight?”

“Well, no, that part was ridiculous.”

“Why?”

“Because now I know aliens.”

“And how many gays do you know?”

Quentin blinked. He looked across the room at Frederico. “Including this guy?”

“Yeah.”

“Well... one.”

Tweedy nodded. “Look man, you asked for help and I delivered. Frederico is the best. You need someone found? You need to sneak into a system? This is the guy. And he’s ex-Planetary Union Navy or something. Can fly any ship. If you want to find your parents, hire Frederico — unless you’d rather go to Gredok with your troubles?”

Quentin automatically shook his head. “No way. I’m not giving him any more leverage on me.”

“Such wisdom from such a primitive screwhead,” John said. “You’d be an idiot not to use Frederico. But then again, Purism produces a butt-load of idiots.”

Quentin felt his fingers curl up into fists. “John, I am warning you. You keep insulting my religion, and it’s going to go somewhere neither one of us want it to.”

“You don’t even like your religion.”

“I like it enough to defend it.”

John rolled his eyes. “Fine. Give Frederico a chance, and I’ll lay off. Just talk to him. If you don’t think he can cut the gig, we take off, okay?

Quentin looked at Frederico, shiny pink shoes up on the desk, big smile on his face. Frederico saw Quentin looking, put his fingers to his mouth, kissed them, held his hand in front of his face and blew.

“He just blew me a kiss,” Quentin said.

“Better than him giving you the finger.”

“Yeah, but he just blew me a kiss.”

John sighed. “Quentin, aren’t you a professional athlete?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s two hundred pounds, tops. You weigh twice as much as him. Do you think he’s got a homo stun gun or something? Maybe a magic spell of gayness that makes you want to dance and sing show tunes?”

“Well... no.”

“Then stop being you. You come sit down with me now, or I’m heading to the bar to watch Dinolition. Which is it gonna be?”

Quentin looked up at the ceiling. He knew he was being ridiculous, but it was hard to get past a lifetime of rhetoric. He had once thought the Sklorno, the Quyth, and the Ki were Satanic. He’d gotten over that. Maybe he’d get over this as well.

He walked to Frederico’s desk and sat in the chair on the right.

John sat in the left-side chair. He pulled a mag-can of Miller from the beerdoleer. “Sorry,” he said, and reached across the desk to offer Frederico the can.

Frederico took it, popped the top, and sipped. He put the can down and stared at Quentin. “So, you’re okay with me doing this job?”

Quentin took a deep breath. “Look, I may have reacted, uh, poorly. I, uh, I’m not used to... to this.”

Frederico shrugged. “That’s fine, you’re the client. Pay the bill on time and you can act pretty much any way you like. But please answer my question — are you okay with me being gay? You’ll still hire me?”

Quentin nodded. “Yeah, sure. I’ll hire you.”

“Wow.”

“You didn’t think I would?”

Frederico shrugged. “You’re from the Purist Nation. Everyone from the Purist Nation is a racist homophobic hate-monger.”

“Millions of people are from the Purist Nation. Don’t judge me as a stereotype. We’re not all the same.”

“I suppose not,” Frederico said. The over-the-top exuberance had left his voice. He didn’t sound girly anymore, he sounded like a regular guy. “Now, you know I charge a lot, right?”

“Not really spending my money on anything else,” Quentin said. “I mean... this is my family, you know?”

Frederico nodded slowly. “I hear you. Well, as long as your money is good, that’s what matters to me. I hate you Nationalites, but I’m doing this as a favor for John.”

John raised his mag-can in salute and belched.

Frederico laughed and shook his head. “You’re one of a kind, Uncle Johnny the Awesome.” Frederico waved both hands over his desk. Lines of light flared to life in front of him — a holo-interface. The middle of the desk changed appearance, going from white to clear. Quentin couldn’t see from where he was sitting, but there was likely a recessed screen inside the desk. Frederico’s fingertips poked at icons made of nothing but light.

“Okay, Quentin,” he said. “Tell me what you know.”

“Their last name was Barnes.”

Frederico entered that. “First names?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? They were your parents.”

“I was really little,” Quentin said. “They were just Mom and Dad to me.”

“What happened to them?”

“I don’t know. They disappeared when I was two, maybe three. I’m not sure.”

“So, probably seventeen years ago? About 2666?”

“Yeah,” Quentin said. “How’d you know that?”

Quentin felt an elbow hit his left arm. “‘Cause he’s good,” John said. “That’s why.”

Frederico shook his head and reached under his desk. “I am good, John, but this one was easy.” Frederico tossed a paper magazine on the desktop. Quentin turned it so he could read the cover — KRAKENS INSIDER: KRAKENS VS. WALLCRAWLERS.

“Game program,” Frederico said. “Has your age right in there.”

John’s eyes widened in stunned admiration. “That’s amazing. See, Q? I told you this guy was good.”

Frederico laughed to himself and entered more info. “How about sisters, Quentin? Brothers?”

“Just one brother. They hung him when I was five.”

The detective shook his head and made a tsk-tsk sound with his mouth. “Right. Let me guess. A really awful crime, like... stealing food?”

“Yeah. How did you know?”

Quentin felt the elbow hit his left arm again. He turned to see John, nodding slightly, eyebrows raised. I TOLD YOU THIS GUY WAS GOOD scrolled across his head.

“You’re not my first Nationalite client,” Frederico said. “You’d be surprised how unoriginal your story is. They hang people for all kinds of things. They save burning at the stake for heretics, though. Heretics, and what else, Quentin?”

Quentin felt his face flush red.

“Come on,” Frederico said. “Who else do they burn at the stake?”

“Homosexuals,” Quentin said.

Frederico nodded. “You ever see someone burned at the stake?”

Quentin nodded slowly. He had seen that. Many times.

“So have I,” the detective said. He shook his head quickly, like he was chasing away an annoying memory. “Right, and your brother’s name?”

“Quincy,” Quentin said. “I think. I called him...”

Quentin’s voice trailed off.

Frederico stopped entering data and looked at him. “I need all the info I can get, Quentin. A nickname is just as valuable to me as the real thing. What did you call him?”

John sat patiently, also waiting. Quentin knew he wouldn’t hear the end of this.

“Fine,” Quentin said. “I remember calling him Kin-Kin, ‘cause I couldn’t pronounce Quincy.”

Frederico nodded and tapped icons. Quentin tried not to look at Tweedy, but he couldn’t help himself. He turned to see John staring at him with a stone-straight face, the words WE’LL FIND KIN-KIN, DIDDUMS scrolling across his forehead.

Quentin sighed and turned his attention back to the detective.

“What else?” Frederico said. “Aunts? Uncles? Who took care of you after High One smote your brother for the horribly sacrilegious crime of murdering bread?”

“I was an orphan,” Quentin said. “I was on my own. Should I tell you about the orphanage system?”

“No,” Frederico said. “I know quite a lot about that subject, unfortunately. Let’s talk money — I charge ten thousand a week, plus expenses. If you don’t pay within a day of getting the bill, I drop the case and don’t come back no matter what you do. Understand?”

Quentin nodded.

“Good,” Frederico said. “Now, listen carefully. Just because I’ve handled cases like this before doesn’t mean I want you to get your hopes up. I’ll be honest with you. Odds are that your parents died in a pogrom, that they were incinerated in a mass grave and there was no record keeping of their death. They’re just gone, and you’ll never know different. If they did get out of the Purist Nation, they probably changed their name, abandoned their religion and assumed you were dead. Or more likely, they knew that if they contacted you, an enemy of theirs still in the Nation might find you and kill you to avenge some debt of family honor. The odds of just finding out what happened to your parents are about one in a million. The odds of actually finding them? Let’s just say you can’t find a bookie anywhere in the galaxy that would take that bet.”

Quentin stared at the pink-suited man for a second, weighing the words carefully before speaking. “So what you’re saying is that I’m wasting my money. Wasting ten grand a week, on you. Why should I do that?”

“Ten grand plus expenses,” Frederico said. “Don’t forget that important little caveat. You should hire me because if your parents can be found, I’m the guy to find them. Quietly. I’m assuming you’re here because you don’t want Gredok the Splithead to know about your family?”

John sat forward quickly, beer sloshing out of his mag-can. “Unbelievable! Is this guy good, or is this guy good?”

Quentin smacked Tweedy in the shoulder. “Give it a rest, John. It’s obvious that I don’t want Gredok to know.”

“Yeah,” John said. “Sure it’s obvious, now that Fred has gone and said it out loud. I didn’t see you figuring that one out before.”

“I said it on the way here!”

John nodded, eyes wide. “Yeah... yeah, you’re right. It’s like Fred knew what we were talking about, like he’s psychic.”

“I am psychic,” Frederico said. He put his fingers to his temples and stared at John. “Right now you’re thinking... this guy is really good.”

John stood up so fast the chair shot out from under him. He pointed a finger at the detective. “You knock that off, Fred, okay? That’s just way too freakish. No disrespect to you, man, but I’m—”

“Outta here?” Frederico said.

John dropped his mag-can, took a step back and held up both hands, palms out. “You stop that, Fred, you get—”

“Out of your head?”

John turned and ran out of the office.

Quentin and Frederico watched him go, then faced each other.

“John’s great,” Frederico said, “but he’s a real piece of work.”

Quentin nodded. “Tell me about it.”

“Look, Quentin, I won’t waste your money. I’m extremely talented at everything I do, this included. I’m worth twice as much, so I’m a bargain at this price. And if at any point I figure out I can’t help you, I’m done. I won’t charge you for work I can’t finish. If you come up with something else that might help me — you remember anything — you call me.”

Frederico stood and held out his hand. “Now the tough part. Can you shake a fag’s hand?”

Quentin realized that he didn’t even want to touch the man, just like when he’d landed on the Touchback and hadn’t wanted to touch Don Pine’s skin because it was blue. But Quentin had overcome so many preconditioned prejudices there was no point in stopping now.

Quentin stood, towering over Frederico. “Well, you’re the first fag I’ve met, so let’s give it a try.” He forced himself to meet the man’s stare as they shook.

“Know what, Quentin?”

“What?”

“You got really pretty eyes.”

Quentin reactively yanked his hand free.

Frederico laughed. “Class is still in session, apparently.”

“Yeah, I guess so, and I learned something today.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“That fags can be total jackasses, just like everybody else.”

Frederico laughed louder and applauded. “Now you’re getting it. And remember how I said that I excel at everything I do? That includes being a jackass.”

Quentin nodded, then walked into the hall to find John Tweedy wearing an empty beerdoleer and standing amidst a pile of three empty mag-cans.

“Q! Are you okay? Did he get inside your head?”

“I’m fine. Just calm down. How about we go get you a beer?”

The big linebacker nodded. “Yeah. Yeah that’s a good idea. I’m a little freaked out. That guy is good, man.”

“We can only hope,” Quentin said. “How about the Bootleg Arms?”

John nodded. The two Krakens left the building and headed for the Bootleg Arms, the club owned by Gredok the Splithead.

Transcript from the “Galaxy’s Greatest Sports Show with Dan, Akbar, & Tarat the Smasher”

DAN: Hello fans! I’m Dan Gianni back once again to give you the greatest show in sports. As always, I’m joined by Akbar Smith and Hall-of-Fame linebacker, Tarat the Smasher.

AKBAR: Thanks, Dan.

TARAT: Always happy to be here.

DAN: So guys, we’ve got a full show today, with just two topics. Why? Because those two topics are so big, so juicy, so tasty, we’re going to be inundated with calls.

AKBAR: So I take it we’re talking about the Tier Two expansion?

TARAT: I’m so excited I could just molt.

DAN: Tarat, seriously, please don’t. But absolutely, Tier Two expansion! It’s so exciting.

AKBAR: It’s not tradition.

DAN: Tradition? What do you mean, tradition?

TARAT: Tradition means the way things have always been done, Dan.

DAN: I know what tradition means, Smasher. What I’m saying is, what tradition?

AKBAR: There are six Tier Two conferences, Dan. Six, not eight.

DAN: Well, now there are eight. How can you not be excited about the Whitok Kingdom being brought into the galactic fold with the Whitok Conference? And they’re adding a second Human conference? It’s brilliant.

AKBAR: What the hell do you mean, brilliant?

TARAT: Brilliant means that it’s inspired, highly intelligent.

AKBAR: I know what brilliant means, Smasher. I’m saying you can’t just go adding leagues like that. And come on, Dan, saying that adding a Whitok conference is bringing the Kingdom into the galactic fold? Isn’t that a little much?

DAN: Where the heck have you been for the past twenty years, Akbar? This is a major, major deal, not just for sports but for politics as well. The Whitok Kingdom isn’t controlled by the Creterakians. This is a major sign that the Kingdom has finally recovered from their losses in the Fourth Galactic War, and it marks the first normalization of relations with the Creterakians since the bats ceased hostilities in 2642. Here we are forty-one standard years later, and Whitok football teams will be part of the GFL. This means the galaxy is finally accepting peace, Akbar.

AKBAR: Accepting? Tell that to those lunatics from the Zoroastrian Guild. They are crazy with a capital-Z, but I agree with them on one point — being ruled by the bats isn’t my definition of peace; it’s my definition of subjugation.

TARAT: The Quyth Concordia isn’t subjugated. We live free.

AKBAR: The Quyth Concordia lives free! The Quyth Concordia lives free! Every five minutes with that crap, Smasher. We know, okay? Trust me, we know. And besides, all the Whitok cities are underwater, so tell me how that’s going to work for a game played on a field.

DAN: Akbar, now you’re just being a pain. What about the Pacifica Dolphins? Their stadium is in the middle of an ocean on Earth. Or how about the Isis Ice Storm? Their stadium is something like a mile underwater. All the GFL requires is a playing field where oxygen-breathing players can operate in standard gravity and standard air pressure.

TARAT: The Whitok already have teams playing in the upper tiers, Akbar. Or did you forget about the D’Kow War Dogs?

AKBAR: Well, I suppose that’s a good point. And I guess going from a six-team T2 Tourney to an eight-team format makes for more drama.

DAN: Absolutely. I always thought those first-round bye games were a little confusing. Now it’s a straight-up eight-team, single-elimination tournament. The last two teams standing get into Tier One. Makes you wonder if the Chillich Spider-Bears or the Ionath Krakens would have been promoted if they hadn’t had first-round byes.

TARAT: Well, the Spider-Bears would have made it in, they were just fantastic. But the Krakens? Maybe not without that first-round bye.

DAN: Speaking of the Ionath Krakens, that brings us to our second topic of discussion — the Tier One teams with the worst records get relegated to Tier Two. Out of the twenty-two Tier One teams that kick off in four weeks, which two are getting sent down at season’s end?

AKBAR: Wait, you said speaking of the Krakens. You’re saying the Krakens are going to be relegated?

DAN: Oh come on, there’s no question! Quentin Barnes might have been good enough to get Ionath through the T2 Tourney, but the Krak-pack lost their starting running back, Mitchell “The Machine” Fayed. Ionath has no running game, and I don’t think their defensive backs can stop any Tier One offense.

TARAT: I think Quentin Barnes may surprise you, Dan. He’s a true warrior in the making.

DAN: Warrior? He’s from the Purist Nation! No Nationalite quarterback has ever led a team to a Tier One championship. Eh-ver. He’ll be lucky to live long enough to fail and go back to Tier Two. Let’s go to the callers. Line two from Citadel in the Tower Republic, go...

• • •

QUENTIN BARNES HAD NEVER SEEN a real parade before. He certainly hadn’t been in one, and most certainly hadn’t been a guest of honor.

Back on Micovi, the fundamentalist theocracy frowned on such things. There were processionals, sure — somber marches for the latest martyr, a funeral train for a passed religious leader, that kind of thing. Long lines of people dressed in blue robes, chanting, swaying, self-flagellating, doing everything they could to show their grief and anguish lest a neighbor report them for not feeling enough grief and anguish. Not showing enough anguish might lead to an inquiry, probably an arrest, and — quite frequently — yet another funeral processional.

There was no shortage of funerals in the Purist Nation.

So Quentin Barnes had seen lines of people walking down a street and he’d seen throngs of people lining the sidewalks, but never anything like this. So much color. So much noise.

So much... joy.

Ionath City’s rad-free dome was two miles in diameter. A full circle around Fifth Ring Road made for a trip of over three miles. Three slow miles. Even with a phalanx of riot-geared Quyth Warrior police dishing out random beat-downs, adoring football fans were still climbing over barriers and running up to the sixteen grav-train cars that traveled down the road’s center lev-track.

“This is crazy,” Quentin said to Don Pine, who sat on his right. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Don nodded. He was smiling, waving a cupped hand with a practiced motion. He called it his princess wave. “You’ll get used to this, Q. At least I hope you do. As many times as I’ve done this, it’s hard to be jaded looking at all these happy faces. Just you wait until you win the big one — this is nothing in comparison.”

Quentin found it hard to believe he’d ever think of this teeming mass of sentients as “nothing.” The city had placed dividers down the middle of each two-lane road that ran along either side of the lev-track. That let orange- and black-clad fans fill half of the road, and the sidewalk beyond, and the diameter roads that ran deeper into the city. Every window in the red, hexagonal buildings had several heads of various species sticking out of it. Krakens flags flew everywhere, from the small, hand-held kind to giant flags that were probably ten feet high and twenty feet long. Banners, flags, pom-pons, foam fingers, foam pincers, foam tentacles, jackets, hats, jerseys — more orange and black than Quentin had even known existed.

Ionath City’s urban dome normally held somewhere around 110,000 residents in claustrophobic closeness. Considering the dome was just about the only place most of the Ionath Krakens players could breathe, that was where they held the parade, and that was where an estimated one million additional beings had packed in tight.

Quentin felt an elbow bump on his left arm. He turned to look at Yitzhak, who sat in the seat next to him.

“Q, smile, will ya?” Yitzhak said. “Maybe try not to look like an anthropomorphic hayseed?”

“Shuck you, Zak,” Quentin said, but he smiled and waved. Hard to think that just hours earlier there had been functioning roads, packed sidewalks, grav-cars, taxis, trucks, and trains. Now? Nothing but Humans, HeavyG, the three castes of Quyth, some Ki, and even a few Sklorno females all wrapped up from head to toe. Sentients lined the barriers, at least a hundred deep.

Quentin didn’t know what anthropomorphic meant, but he did know the word hayseed.

And that wasn’t what he was. Not anymore.

“Don’t worry about it,” Don said. “No one is here to see you, anyway, kid — they’re here to see their hero.”

Yitzhak laughed and stood, holding his T2 Tourney MVP trophy high, waving it at the adoring crowd. Quentin had to smile at the third-string quarterback’s exuberance. Zak was soaking up the moment.

The Krakens had earned promotion to T1 with their semi-final win over the Texas Earthlings, while the Chillich Spider-Bears had won their promotion with a semi-final victory over the Citadel Aquanauts. The actual T2 Tourney championship game hadn’t mattered. That was why Zak played. Both Quentin and Don Pine had sat out the final championship game, as had most of the starters. The Chillich Spider-Bears had done the same, fielding an entire team of backups. That was just smart football — both teams had already qualified for Tier One, let the starters rest up for the big time.

So Zak started the championship game, but he didn’t care about starters or second string or third string — he’d played his butt off and led the Krakens to a win. The win meant a “championship,” and that meant a parade.

Quentin, Don, and Yitzhak rode in the front seat of the second train car. Since Ionath City was domed, weather was always controlled and all train cars were open-air.

Public transit train cars had seven rows of species-specific seats that always went in the same order: Quyth Leader and Warrior, then Human, HeavyG, Ki, and Sklorno. Human rows had five seats, HeavyG only three to handle the wider bodies. Sklorno rows had those strange, abdomen-supporting seats the ladies required. Ki seats were little more than flat beams that allowed the long creatures to rest their multiple legs. Quyth Workers had their own train cars, as they weren’t allowed to use the same facilities as Leaders and Warriors.

The three quarterbacks had a train car all to themselves. City leaders had wanted to stretch the parade out, so each of the sixteen cars in the procession held three to five players or team staff.

The car ahead of Quentin’s was the parade’s lead car. It held three Quyth Leaders: Coach Hokor the Hookchest, his yellow and black fur puffed up to full thickness; Gredok the Splithead, his glossy black fur as smooth and unruffled as ever; and an orange- and black-furred leader that Don had said was the mayor of Ionath City. The mayor apparently had white fur, but painted it up in Krakens colors for the big parade.

In the seat behind those leaders rode Choto the Bright and Virak the Mean, who had returned along with Gredok. Quentin couldn’t even look at them without feeling a simmering rage. Both of the linebackers had casts on their legs. As tough as the two of them were, apparently there was someone tougher. Quentin thought he’d extricated Virak from goon-duty, but apparently there was more work to be done. The linebacker’s primary job was now football, but he was still dangerous enough that Gredok would use him whenever the situation demanded it. For a public event like this, Virak and Choto would stay close to Gredok, their leader, their Shamakath.

Even Doc, the team’s physician, participated in the parade. A Harrah, Doc flew in slow circles around the lead car, his wide, stingray-like wings gracefully pushing him along. Orange and black streamers trailed from his tapered tail.

In the train cars somewhere behind Quentin were all of his teammates: Yassoud, Mum-O-Killowe, Stockbridge, Denver, his fullback Tom Pareless and dozens more — the sentients that had pulled together to put the Krakens in Tier One.

The players of the Ionath Krakens.

His players.

His, because now the team was his to lead. Don Pine had said so, passing the torch of leadership in front of High One and everyone else. And all of this screaming, adoring insanity from the fans? Don was right, this was just the beginning. If these sentients thought they were happy now, wait until Quentin Barnes rode down these streets, holding the Galaxy Bowl trophy high in the air.

Like they did whenever there was a crowd, his eyes scanned the Human faces, hunting for a familiar one, one he assumed he would remember but could not be sure.

Quentin again felt an elbow hit his left shoulder. Yitzhak leaned in close to Quentin’s ear.

“Q, come on,” Zak said. “This is face-time for you, pay attention to the crowd.”

“I am paying attention.”

“No, you’re staring these sentients down like they’re linebackers showing a blitz. This is part of the game, Q. We need to bring your popularity up so we can get you some fat endorsement money.”

“I get paid plenty.”

Yitzhak threw his head back and laughed. “Yeah, right. Who’s your agent?”

“I don’t have one.”

Yitzhak leaned away, gave Quentin a funny look. “Seriously?”

Quentin shrugged. “Gredok bought my existing contract, I don’t need an agent.”

“Hooooo,” Zak said. “Brother, I’ll make a few calls. I can help you.”

Quentin shook his head. “Thanks, third-string, but I can actually change my own diapers from time to time.”

Yitzhak waggled the MVP trophy in front of Quentin’s face. “Third-string? Hayseed, just run your hands across this bad boy!”

Quentin took the offered trophy. It was rather nice. A wooden base with a thin chrome pole that supported a regulation-size football made of faceted crystal. The trophy caught the lights from the sun high above, sparkling with intense, rainbow colors.

“Nice, huh?” Yitzhak said.

Quentin handed it back, and nodded. “Yep, I got to admit, that’s a sweet piece of hardware.”

“Damn right it is,” Zak said. “Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to revel in my moment.”

Yitzhak raised the trophy high in both hands, smiling and showing off for a crowd that roared in approval.

Quentin sat, his hand waving like an automaton while his eyes went back to searching the crowd.

And then he saw something that held his attention. Off to the right, on the outside of the ring road, a Human wearing a Krakens’ jacket. The man visually scanned the parade vehicles much the same way Quentin scanned the crowd. Not looking at something, looking for something. Something in particular.

Quentin laughed to himself — he was looking at the crowd like it was a defense. That Human guy he’d just noticed, for example: the guy’s eyes darted around like a linebacker hunting for an open gap, looking for a lineman’s pointing foot to give away the direction of the play. And those two big Humans in front of the linebacker-man, they might be defensive linemen...

Quentin stared closer. The two big Humans, they held that same aura of intensity as the first man. And they were right in front of the linebacker-man, one on his left, one on his right.

Positioned in front, just like blockers.

Blockers that were about to clear a hole.

Quentin had spent a decade working in the mines of Micovi, a place where people died almost every day. Sometimes they died from cave-ins. Sometimes from roundbugs. Sometimes from the stonecats that lurked in the bigger crevices, waiting for a miner to stray too far away from the others. But most often, people died because they were killed by other people. Everything from vendettas, to loan sharks making an example, to basic theft gone wrong, or — most often — simple arguments that quickly blossomed into honor fights. To stay alive, you had to learn to read people, read their faces, scan for bad moods, for desperation, for anything that could make one person want to kill another. Sometimes Quentin had to fight. When he did, he made sure everyone understood that to step up to him was to get shredded. Most of the time, however, Quentin avoided fights because he learned to identify dangerous people and stay out of their way. The mines taught him that all the toughness in the galaxy is no armor against a knife in the back.

And the Purist Nation had a lot of knives.

Quentin lived through a decade in the mines, from five years old until he joined the Micovi Raiders football team at fifteen; stayed alive because he knew how to read people. Read bad people. And that linebacker-looking Human and his two blockers? They looked bad.

“Yitzhak,” Quentin said. “Let me hold your trophy for a second.”

“No way,” Yitzhak said. “Know why? Because you’re not the MVP, Q. Sure, you’re the franchise and all that, but ol’ Yitzhak is the —”

Quentin stood and reached to his left. His eyes stayed on the three Humans, but his backhanded sweep plucked the crystal MVP trophy right out of Yitzhak’s clutches.

“Hey,” Yitzhak said, a hint of a whine coloring his voice. “Come on, give it back.”

Quentin just shook his head. The three Humans pressed toward the barrier, to the line of Quyth Warrior police. Quentin saw that the men would reach the barriers just about the time Gredok’s train car passed their position.

A hand on Quentin’s right shoulder. “Q, what is it?” Don Pine again, but no humor in his voice this time. Quentin just nodded toward the men.

Don looked, taking it in for a second. “They trouble?”

“Is who trouble?” Yitzhak said. “And can I have my trophy back, please?”

The two big Humans leaned forward and threw Quyth Workers out of the way, picking them up and tossing them aside. Orange- and black-clad bodies flew, some shoved away, some pushed down, some diving for cover. The closest cops — one Quyth Warrior, one Ki — turned to address the surging threat. Quentin took it all in, every detail, his brain suddenly as hyper-alert as it sometimes got on the field during games.

The cops did everything right. They brandished shock batons, shouted warnings, moved to the barrier to use it as a partial shield. They did everything right to handle the two blockers, but they weren’t ready for the third man.

The two big Humans jumped on the barrier and dove at the cops, catching stun batons full in the chest. Both Humans shook from the electrical charge, but their momentum carried them over the barriers and into the cops, pushing the cops back just enough to create a seam. The first Human squeezed through, hurdling the barrier like a running back jumping over a fallen lineman.

Quentin stared, timing the man’s run. His left hand held the crystal football, his right the chrome stand connected to the base. A quick bend and the chrome post snapped clean.

“You jerk!” Yitzhak screamed. “What did you do that for?”

Quentin ignored his teammate. He dropped the wooden base, then held the MVP trophy up to his left ear, just like he’d hold a real football. He timed the man’s movements, twisted his shoulders, and threw.

BLINK

Time slowed to nothing, an almost still-frame rendition of life. He saw that crystal football ripping twenty yards through the air, the tight spiral kicking off a rapid-fire sparkle of rainbow flashes. He saw the crowd, expressions seemingly frozen; some in joy, some in surprise, some in concern.

The rainbow-spinning ball hit the man in the forehead, shattering into a sparkling shower of crystal chunks that — for just a second — looked like an exploding daylight firework.

The man fell to his knees, blood sheeting down his face.

Doc swooped toward the bleeding man, flying fast, orange and black streamers trailing behind in a nearly straight line.

The man’s Krakens jacket drifted open. Around his waist, Quentin saw the shiny reflection of plastic wrap, and beneath the wrap, several tubes lined up in neat parallels.

A suicide bomb.

In the train car ahead, Virak the Mean looked right, saw the man, then dove over the train seat in front of him and threw himself on Gredok and Coach Hokor.

Quentin saw Doc reach the man, oblivious to the danger, the Harrah’s mouth tentacles reaching for the fresh wound. Doc wanted to help. That was what he did.

Quentin watched the man’s weak, numb hands fumbling at his waist, saw dozens of cops rushing in, cops that wouldn’t be alive in another few seconds.

BLINK

“Down!” Quentin shouted as he reached up and yanked Yitzhak to the floor. He didn’t have to worry about Pine, because Pine was already diving over the seat back, deeper into the train car.

The world filled with noise and crazy motion. The car normally floated an inch or so above the track. The explosion hit the car like a wrecking ball, knocking it to the left where it cleared the lev-track and crashed into the street. The car’s left edge dug into the road’s surface, sending up a shower of sparks before it tilted, throwing Quentin, Yitzhak, and Pine over the pedestrian barrier and into the packed crowd. Quentin’s solid weight crashed into a dense throng of bodies.

He was up and moving almost as soon as he landed. This wasn’t the first time he’d been near a suicide bomber. Those guys often attacked in teams. Life on Micovi had taught Quentin many things, but one thing in particular — on a football field, speed kills, but when bodies are blowing up around you and you need to get away, speed means life.

Quentin ran, his 7-foot-tall, 380-pound athletic body a warning to any sentient stupid enough to get in his way.

• • •

QUENTIN SAT IN A BACK ROOM of the Blessed Lamb bar, darkness surrounding him except for the low light given off by neon beer signs and the glow of the holo-juke. The juke’s colored lights played off the steam rising from his plate of habanero falafel biscuits. He hadn’t felt hungry, but he’d already eaten one plate and was two biscuits into his second. Comfort food, it seemed, lived up to its name.

He didn’t want to be here, here with these people, people that reminded him of the old life. The life back on Micovi. The life of poverty, of constant threat, of subservience. The life of hatred.

Yet when the bomb had gone off, he’d ran straight down Radius Eight to Ring Road Four, then circled back clockwise, up Radius One and to this bar, a place full of Purist Nation expatriates. He hadn’t even thought about going anywhere else, like to the Bootleg Arms or to the Krakens headquarters at the city center. At first he’d told himself that he’d come here simply because it was close, that it was in the nightclub district. Had he been near the stadium, he surely would have fled to the Krakens headquarters. But he would never know, because he hadn’t run to the stadium — he’d run to the Blessed Lamb. He had run to his people, people that instantly took him in, sheltered him, protected him.

What did it mean that he’d come here first? Was he really over his racist upbringing, or was he only deluding himself? When things got dicey, did he just want to run back to what he’d always known?

A man in blue robes quietly walked into the back room. “Your teammates called,” he said. “Someone is coming to get you.”

Quentin nodded. “Thank you, Father Harry.”

Father Harry nodded, then quietly sat down at the table. Father Harry, like most people from the Nation, was no stranger to bombs or bombers. Father Harry came from the same messed-up culture that had made Quentin’s childhood a living hell.

“Quentin, are you feeling better?”

Quentin nodded.

“You were both lucky and smart,” Father Harry said. “Smart to get out of there, lucky because the reports are starting to come in. Fifteen sentients died in that blast, including eight police officers.”

“Was the team doctor killed?”

Father Harry nodded.

Quentin closed his eyes. He hadn’t been great friends with Doc, but the Harrah had been the first non-Human to touch Quentin, to talk to him face-to-face, one-on-one. Now Doc was gone. Quentin realized that he’d never even learned Doc’s real name.

“What about my teammates? Did any players die?”

Father Harry shook his head. “Not that we’ve heard. A few minor injuries, apparently, but nothing life-threatening.”

Quentin nodded. There was nothing wrong with thinking of his friends first, his teammates. He didn’t know anyone else in the city. Aside from Doc, the fifteen dead were faceless unknowns. Faceless, except for one thing — they included Krakens fans. They’d come out to celebrate Quentin and his teammates, and now they were gone. Fifteen dead... and how many wounded?

“I should have stayed,” Quentin said. “Stayed, maybe helped people, but I... I ran.”

Father Harry nodded. “I see. Quentin, ask me if I’ve ever argued with an explosion.”

“What?”

“Go ahead, ask me.”

Ah. It was lesson time, and Quentin was not in the mood for lessons. “Father Harry, I—”

“Humor me, Quentin. Out of respect for your elders.”

Quentin sighed. Maybe the people in the Blessed Lamb were racists, but they had always been kind to him. They had welcomed him, fed him, and now they had sheltered him. The least he could do was play along with yet another person who wanted to offer him advice.

“Father Harry, have you ever argued with an explosion?”

“No, Quentin, I have not. Ask me why.”

“Father, come on, you—”

“Ask me why.”

Quentin rubbed his eyes. “Father Harry, why haven’t you ever argued with an explosion?”

“Because an explosion can’t be argued with,” Father Harry said. “What a stupid question, I can’t believe you asked me that.”

Quentin rolled his eyes.

“The last part is a joke,” Father Harry said. “One of my favorites, actually. But the first part is no joke. You can’t argue with an explosion, Quentin. Just like you can’t argue with a bullet or the tip of a knife. Do you know the difference between a hero and a martyr?”

Quentin shook his head.

“A hero is alive,” Father Harry said. “A martyr is not. And since you don’t seem to follow the teachings of Mason Stewart, you wouldn’t even count as a martyr — you’d just be dead.”

“Now isn’t the time for a lecture, Father.”

Father Harry smiled apologetically. “No, of course not, and I’m not lecturing you. I’m saying you made the right call. You can’t even get a firearm into Ionath City. You can bet whatever explosive the bombers used, the city will have analyzed it and installed specialized detectors for it by the end of the week. The people of Ionath City felt safe. They didn’t know what real terror was until today. On the other hand, that feeling of terror is something you know all too well. You just keep listening to your instincts, run when you have to, and you’ll be fine.”

Brother Guido slid into the back room and flipped on the lights. He and his wife Monica Basset owned the Blessed Lamb.

“Quentin, your friends are here,” Guido said. “Please get them out of my bar. Now.”

Quentin stood and walked to the front room. Choto the Bright and Virak the Mean were waiting. Even though the two each had a cast on one leg, their aura said that they were not to be messed with. The fifteen or so Human patrons in the bar stared at the two Quyth Warriors, who stared back. The room seemed wired with tension. Quentin wondered at Father Harry’s words on how hard it was to get a gun into the city — and wondered if the Purist Nation ex-pats had found a way. If they did have weapons stashed, how long would it take for those weapons to become un-stashed.

The Quyth Warriors saw Quentin. They looked simultaneously relieved and annoyed. Quyth Warriors were good at that combined expression. Slightly different hues of red shaded their eyes.

“Quentin,” Virak said. “I am glad to see you are unhurt. Gredok wants you back at the stadium immediately.”

“Good idea,” Quentin said. “Let’s go.”

He almost pushed his teammates out the door, eager to get them out of the Blessed Lamb. He felt eyes boring into his back as he left. He’d come here for shelter, come to this place where the owners and the patrons deeply loved everyone — as long as everyone was from the Purist Nation. He’d come here seeking shelter, and he left with what his Nationalite hosts considered the embodiment of evil. Maybe that was a discussion for another time. As Father Harry had said, you can’t argue with an explosion, and Quentin considered an explosion far more reasonable than a religious zealot.

Transcript of broadcast from Galactic News Network

“Yes, Brad, I’m on the scene at what was a deadly end to a happy day. Ionath City’s residents were packed in tight to enjoy a parade celebrating the promotion of their Ionath Krakens from Tier Two up to Tier One. That parade ended in tragedy as a suicide bomber tried to rush the train. It appears that Ionath City Police stopped the bomber, but at a horrible cost. Eight police officers were killed in a blast powerful enough to knock three lev-train cars right off the track and leave a two-foot crater in the concrete. The bomber and his two associates were killed, as were three pedestrians. The full number of injuries remains unknown, Brad, but Ionath City Hospital has been very busy this afternoon.”

“Tom, what about the Krakens players?”

“Brad, we don’t have conclusive reports yet, but it looks like no players were hurt. The team doctor did die in the blast. The bomb detonated close to the car carrying team owner Gredok the Splithead, a sentient rumored to be involved in organized crime.”

“Was Gredok the target, Tom?”

“Brad, it’s too early to tell, and we may never know. Krakens quarterback Quentin Barnes was close to the explosion as well. He’s from the Purist Nation, a system well known for both bitterness against people abandoning their religion and for terrorist attacks much like the one we had today.”

“Tom, if I remember correctly, haven’t the Krakens had a Purist Nation player for several seasons?”

“Yes, Brad, tight end Rick Warburg has been on the roster for four seasons. The upcoming Tier One campaign will be his fifth. However, Warburg hasn’t had the exposure that Barnes has had. Barnes is shaping up to be a galaxy-wide sports star. It’s possible that radical members of the Purist Church were trying to get to Barnes.”

“With an explosion like that, Tom, can officials even identify the intended target?”

“No, Brad, they can’t. Apparently, all that’s left of the bomber is a left shoe and a little green globule. Investigators are typing what flesh remains, and running that result through intergalactic criminal and identification databases. What’s more important here, Brad, is that city officials are at a loss to explain how explosives were smuggled into the dome. They have identified the chemical components of the explosive. They are confident they will add those chemicals to all entry checkpoints, and nano-sweep the city to find any explosives already inside.”

“So the danger is over for now?”

“So it would appear, Brad, but the fear is not over. This is the worst terrorist attack to hit the domed area in forty years. Suffice to say, there will be tense times until we know for certain that the three bombers acted alone, or until any of their associates still in Ionath City are caught. For GNN, this is Tom Skivvers, signing off.”

• • •

NOT THAT LONG AGO, Virak and Choto would have led Quentin by force, strong pincers gripped on his triceps, perhaps his shoulders. But not anymore. They were his teammates. He was their quarterback. They walked behind him, just a step, the same way they’d walk behind a Quyth Leader.

The front door of the thirty-story Krakens building looked like an army blockade point. High concrete barriers had been erected around the arched front entrance. Beyond them, a dozen police grav-cars and cops on foot — Ki and Quyth Warrior.

Virak and Choto led Quentin right through the police. On the other side of the concrete barrier, Quentin saw more guards, even meaner looking than the police. These guards ran the gamut of races — Quyth Warrior, Human, Ki, and HeavyG. There were even a couple of Sklorno wearing their full-body robes, so that no area was exposed to the night air.

Beyond the guards, the lobby of the Krakens building.

If you combined a museum and a shrine, you would get something similar to the lobby. High ceilings and black walls created a space that seemed to be vast and endless, like the Void itself. There were even tiny lights positioned high up in the ceiling to represent the constellations and inhabited planets. Glowing team logos marked the nineteen planets that had a Tier One franchise. Most planets had only one T1 team, but Tower, Wilson 6 and Whitok each had two. The sun for Earth’s system glowed brighter than all the rest — a tribute to the birthplace of football, even though currently Earth had no Tier One teams. In areas of the ceiling that didn’t have GFL planets, animations made of glowing star-dots showed famous Krakens plays and players.

That sprawling, high ceiling arched over twenty-one years of Krakens paraphernalia. Display cases showed jerseys, cracked armor, helmets of five different species, old programs. Many displays held footballs that had one quarter-panel painted white, then lettered with the teams, score and date of famous games or key statistical accomplishments. The back section of the lobby was nothing but red brick — a chunk of wall from City Municipal Field, home of the Krakens from 2662 until it had been torn down in 2673 and replaced with the current Ionath Stadium.

The right side of the lobby showed the Krakens’ pride and joy — the golden GFL championship trophy from the 2665 Galaxy Bowl. Slow-motion holos surrounded the trophy, showing key players and plays from that 23-21 win over the Wabash Wall. Just in front of the Galaxy Bowl trophy sat a small case that contained two things — a single championship ring that would have belonged to Bobby “Orbital Assault” Adrojnik, had he lived long enough to wear it, and Bobby’s Galaxy Bowl MVP trophy.

Quentin never entered the lobby without passing by the GFL trophy and running his hands over the case containing Bobby’s treasures. Quentin would have those things someday, no matter what it took.

Even with Gredok waiting for him, Quentin still angled to the right to pay tribute, to see the physical representation of his life’s goals. He didn’t dally, merely walked by as he headed for the elevator.

The elevator led them to the top floor of the Krakens building. The place reeked of money, of power; from the smart carpets showing original designs by the hottest artists to sculptures, both static and moving. More guards up here: meticulously dressed, dangerous-looking Humans, Quyth Warriors with exposed torsos that showed countless enamel tats, and two HeavyG monsters that were nearly as big as Khomeni and Michnik. Where the heck did one find suits to fit such beasts? The guards recognized Quentin. Some of them even smiled, or gave appreciative nods.

When you’re winning, everyone is a fan.

Messal the Efficient appeared out of nowhere, probably sliding out unseen from behind one of the strange sculptures.

“Elder Barnes, welcome,” said the perfectly dressed and groomed Quyth Worker. “Gredok is waiting for you. Please follow me.”

Quentin did. Gredok apparently kept the entire top floor to himself as his personal quarters. Messal led Quentin through the open area to a heavy door. Inside that door: Gredok’s office.

Quentin entered. Sure, Virak and Choto now treated Quentin like a leader, but in the office that faded away a bit. When Gredok the Splithead was present, there was no question who was in charge, who was the Alpha.

The outer room reeked of riches, yet this inner office made it look like a slum. Dim lighting called attention to hanging works of art and sculptures mounted on waist-high pedestals along the room’s edge, each lit up by its own spotlight. Quentin didn’t know about such things, but they seemed very expensive. Priceless perhaps. Some showed Humans — those works looked as old as old gets. Others showed Sklorno, Ki, Whitok. Some even showed Creterakians: art from the ruling race. The whole thing impressed Quentin, but he would still have traded it all for the football pictures and holo-frames in Coach Hokor’s office. Great art is in the eye of the beholder, but great football is in the record books.

The art wasn’t the only thing on a pedestal. In the room’s exact center stood a ten-foot column made of white stone. On top of it, Gredok the Splithead, reclining in a cushy black throne custom-made to his diminutive size. The pedestal and the throne combined to raise Gredok a good thirteen feet in the air. Quentin had to tilt his head back to look into the little Leader’s single, softball-sized eye.

“Barnes,” Gredok said. “Were you injured in the blast?”

“No.”

“No, what?”

Quentin sneered. “No, I am not injured, but gosh, Greedy, thanks for your concern.” He knew very well Gredok wanted Quentin to call him Shamakath, like the rest of the sentients in the syndicate. Well, Quentin wasn’t in the syndicate. He was a football player, not a criminal. Quentin would give Gredok the ample respect any GFL franchise owner deserved, but he drew the line at swearing fealty. To anyone.

“Your disrespect troubles me, Barnes,” Gredok said. “Sometimes you are so intelligent, and other times — such as the times when you are speaking to someone who could have you killed on a mere whim — you are not.”

Quentin shrugged. “The franchise you created kicks major ass,

I’m just not going to grovel at your feet like the rest of those punks in the outer room. I’m your quarterback, Gredok, I am not your property.”

Gredok’s immaculate black fur ruffled for the briefest moment, then once again lay perfectly flat. “Now is not the time for that concern. I brought you here to discuss two things.”

“My good looks and high bowling score?”

Another ruffle. Quentin realized he was precariously close to pushing it too far, and for no good reason.

“Gredok, I’m sorry,” Quentin said. “I’m still a little rattled from the explosion, and from Doc dying in the blast. Forgive me.”

Gredok’s fur settled once again. “I find that choice of words acceptable. Doc’s passing is unfortunate, but I already have a replacement for him.”

Already? Not even a full day had passed. They still hadn’t found all the pieces of Doc’s body, and Gredok had a replacement? But that was the nature of business. To Gredok, football was just that — a business.

“Now,” the Quyth Leader said, “while I’m sure an athlete of your caliber has a rather impressive bowling score, I do not wish to discuss it at this time. The first thing I brought you here for was to thank you.”

Quentin’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Thank me?”

“Your fast reactions may have saved my life.”

“Hey, don’t flatter yourself, Cuddles. I saw a threat and I tried to put it down.”

“You weren’t trying to save me?”

Quentin shrugged. “Naw, just being a good citizen is all. If I’d thrown better, he wouldn’t have set off the bomb at all.”

“Possibly,” Gredok said. “I’ve seen news coverage of the event. The only fault lies with the design of that trophy — you hit that bomber right in the face from twenty yards away. Had the trophy been solid, not hollow, you would have killed him. The real question, however, is who was the assailant’s target?”

Was Gredok for real? That’s what gangsters did, killed each other. “What do you mean who was the target? It was you, of course.”

“You thought I was the target?”

“Obviously.”

“So, if you thought I was the target, then you did intentionally save me.”

Quentin paused, his brain searching for an answer, finding nothing for almost three seconds. “Virak and Choto,” he said. “I didn’t want my starting linebackers to get hurt.”

Gredok said nothing. Quentin stared at him, then looked away. His answer had come too late, a feeble attempt to cover up Gredok’s accurate observation. Quentin wanted to kick himself.

“Which brings us to the second point,” Gredok said. “Who, exactly, was the target?”

The lights dimmed and several holo-screens flared to life, showing replays of the attack. When it happened, it had seemed so obvious the bomber was going for Gredok. But now, with the benefit of multiple angles, Quentin wasn’t so sure. The attacker could be rushing toward Gredok’s car... or... or could be rushing toward Quentin’s car.

“Many possibilities,” Gredok said. “Me, of course, as there are petty individuals who are envious of my business acumen. But also Mayor Kerin the Malleable. Maybe even Coach Hokor.”

“Coach Hokor? Who would want to kill a coach?”

“Welcome to Tier One, Quentin. Who would want to kill a coach? Any Tier One team that thinks they might finish last unless the Krakens lose all their games.”

“Well, okay, but would someone... I don’t know... kill for that?”

Gredok’s pedipalps twitched side-to-side. By now, Quentin knew that was a kind of Quyth laughter. Quentin felt his face turn red. He’d asked a stupid question worthy of derision. Bobby Adrojnik had died in a bar fight shortly after winning the Galaxy Bowl. Suspicion had always centered on Gloria Ogawa, the Wabash owner. The next year, without their star quarterback, the Krakens didn’t even make the playoffs.

“Tier One is about money,” Gredok said. “Where there is money, there is a will to kill for that money. Tell me, Barnes, when you worked in the mines of Micovi, where Human life is so cheap, what was the going rate for a petty assassination?”

Why did everyone have to bring up Micovi? “I think you could have someone killed for five hundred credits, if you wanted it done right. If you didn’t have that kind of cash, you could hire someone hungry for like fifty.”

“Fifty credits to kill a sentient,” Gredok said. “And here, there are billions at stake. Do you understand?”

Quentin hadn’t thought about it in those terms before. He nodded.

“I hope, Barnes, that you can learn these things in time to save me from having to find another quarterback.”

Quentin nodded again.

“And if the target could have been Coach Hokor,” Gredok said, “then it also could have been... you.”

Quentin stared, once again his brain searching for thoughts and finding nothing. Adrojnik had been killed. Adrojnik, the quarterback. Gredok was right. Quentin could have been the target. They had no way of knowing.

“We will look into this,” Gredok said. “The Ionath Police are good at their jobs, when I allow them to do their jobs, that is, but I won’t sit back and wait for them to find the culprit. I will protect my investments. For now, however, I want everyone to stay on the Touchback at least until the season opener.”

Quentin shrugged. “That’s fine with me.”

“Really? Some of your teammates whined about not seeing their mates, their offspring. No concerns from you?”

Quentin shook his head.

“Of course not,” Gredok said. “Sometimes I forget that your entire life is the game of football. That’s one of the things I like about you — you’re focused on what matters.”

If other Krakens players wasted time with mates and kids, that was their problem. Quentin had nothing to leave behind, but in truth he couldn’t wait to get up to the Touchback because it meant safety. If someone was trying to kill him, he’d rather be in a private spaceship that could punch out than in a city of 110,000 sentients.

“Take this,” Gredok said, and tossed something into the air. Quentin caught it — a thin, black bracelet. “Put it on.”

“If I do, does that mean we’re an item? The gossip sites will go crazy.”

“You are not funny, Barnes, and I doubt your Human brain could even understand the complexities of Quyth courtship. That bracelet will let my people track you wherever you go in case these mystery attackers send you running again, or even kidnap you. I would embed search sounders in your skeleton, but GFL regulations stipulate no mods of any kind. Commissioner Froese is cracking down on such things. Put on the bracelet.”

Quentin slid the bracelet over his right hand. It lightly contracted against his wrist. After just a second or two, he couldn’t even feel it.

Gredok waved his middle-right arm, snapped his pincer.

“Virak, Choto,” he said. “Take Quentin straight to the roof, then shuttle up to the Touchback. He is the last of the team to report in. Once you are up, tell Captain Cheevers to take the Touchback out of orbit and find a place to hide until I can arrange for military protection. If Gloria Ogawa thinks she can stop me from beating her team, she has another think coming. And Choto?”

“Yes, Shamakath?”

“Until further notice, you are to stay by Quentin’s side whenever he is off-ship. He goes nowhere without you, understand?”

“Yes, Shamakath.”

“And Barnes,” Gredok said. “Should you give Choto the slip, for whatever reason, it is not you I will punish. I will blame him for failing me. Now go.”

Quentin felt big, strong pincers lightly grab each upper arm. He turned, sharing a brief look with each of his teammates. Any delay on his part would make them look bad in front of their Shamakath. Quentin let them roughly take him out of the office. The second the doors closed on the elevator, they let go and stepped back.

The three teammates headed up to the roof, to the shuttle that would take them off the planet.