by Scott Sigler
“Sit down, Barnes,” Coach Graber said. He was smiling, but he didn’t look happy. “You’ve got a decision to make.”
The infinity symbol tattooed on Graber’s forehead had faded in the twenty or so years since his confirmation at the age of thirty — what had once been a detailed, deep black was now a slightly fuzzy gray.
“Barnes, you’ve had one hell of a season.”
“Thanks, Coach.”
“Best I’ve ever coached, I’ll tell you that. High One as my witness.” Coach Graber paused. Quentin nodded once, smiled, and the coach continued.
“Quentin, there comes a time in every young man’s life when he has to decide his path. Your time is now. Stedmar sold your contract.”
Quentin’s stomach dropped to nothingness, replaced by a tingly swarm of butterflies. This was it. He was going. “Who?” he said with a dry mouth.
“Ionath Krakens.”
Quentin frowned. The Krakens ... a Tier Two team. He’d hoped for a Tier One franchise, like the up-and-coming Alimum Armada, or even his boyhood dream of the To Pirates.
“The Krakens? You’re sure?”
Coach Graber nodded. “I’ve got the contract right here.” He handed Quentin a messageboard. Quentin looked at the readout — it was a done deal, all right. All he had to do was put his thumbprint on it to make it official.
The Ionath Krakens. If that was his ticket out of the Purist Nation, that was good enough for him. And it was a team based in the Quyth system, where millions of Nationalites had fled during Butcher Smith’s cleansings. He’d often prayed his parents weren’t dead, but had actually fled to the Quyth system and couldn’t return or contact him in any way. Maybe now he’d find out. Tier Two teams still enjoyed galactic broadcast coverage — even if his parents weren’t in the Quyth system, there was a chance they’d see him play, see him and join him. He’d have a real family.
“Now Quentin, you know full well that’s going to take you out of the system. You’ve still got the option of religious refusal.”
“Yeah,” Quentin said dryly. “I have that option.”
“There’s a lot of people in the Purist Nation, including me, my son, who hope that you stay in-system until your thirtieth birthday so you can be confirmed. A person with your fame could go far in the Church. You could be a Bishop, or even a Mullah, if you applied yourself.”
Quentin nodded, only half listening. He loved it when people used the words ‘my son.’ Someday, someone would use those words and it would mean something, something real. Right now, it meant jack.
He could take religious refusal, which would negate the contract. If he did that, a different Tier Two or Tier One team could pick him up — but only after the next PNFL season. League rules specified his contract could only be sold once per season, and if he refused that contract, that meant another year with the Raiders.
Another year of Tier Three ball. Another year of dirt and mud and the never ending drone of the atmosphere processors.
“Coach, I’ve always wanted to play Upper Tier ball. To tell you the truth, I can’t wait to get out of here.”
“Then stop ignoring your religious calling. Get confirmed, see the galaxy as a missionary spreading the faith.”
Quentin hated the Church with all his soul. He loved the High One, believed deeply in the High One, but he knew in his heart that the Church was rife with flaws, half-truths and outright lies, all designed to keep certain families in power and keep the majority of the population from questioning their lowly place in the Purist Nation. He would always believe, but would never preach the Gospel of Stewart.
“I’m no missionary, Coach. You know that.”
“Someday you’ll feel the calling. But you have to be careful about going out-system before your soul is prepared! Satan lives out there. We can see him on the news every day, he takes the shape of the Whitok, Ki, the Sklorno, the Quyth, and disguises himself in Human form in the Planetary Union, the League of Planets, the Tower -”
“Yeah, Coach, I got it. I’ve heard this speech before. In fact, I’ve heard it all my life, a few too many times from a few too many people.”
Coach Graber’s eyes narrowed. “It’s a speech you need to listen to, son, not just hear.”
“I’m not your son,” Quentin said. “And I’m not part of your Church.”
“Do you dare blaspheme against the High One?”
“I believe in the teachings of the High One,” Quentin said. “I just don’t believe in the Church. There’s a big difference. The best football players are aliens, and I want to play against the best.”
“Satan takes many forms, Quentin. Are you going to consort with crickets and salamanders and Satan’s other minions?”
“I’m not going to consort with anyone, Coach. I don’t have to associate with them, just win ballgames with them. If Satan himself can run a post pattern, I’ll hit him in stride for six.”
Graber’s breath shot out in a huff. “That’s blasphemous! And besides, you’re not ready to play Tier Two. You couldn’t handle the speed.”
“Shuck that. I’m going to rip Tier Two apart.”
“Quentin, I think you just need another season or two to prepare yourself. You’ve only been playing the game for four years, my son. Imagine how much you can learn with just one more season!”
“One second I shouldn’t go because it’s sacrilegious, the next I shouldn’t go because I’m not good enough yet? Maybe you just want me to stick around and win you a couple more PNFL championships, is that it?”
Graber leaned back, his eyes wide with hurt. “Quentin, you can’t think that I have anything but your best interests at heart. I don’t want Satan to swallow your soul, boy, and that’s what will happen if you go out-system and mingle with the sub races.”
“I’m not a boy.”
“You are until you’re thirty! You know the Scriptures!”
Quentin stood up. “You can toss your Scriptures into the Void. No one here gave a crap about me before I threw a football. You all talk of the glory of the Purist Nation and the purity of Humans, but all I see is a galaxy ruled by off-worlders. If the Purist Nation is so great, if we’re the chosen ones, then why are we ruled by the bats? I’ll win the PNFL championship for you next week, but then I’m out of here.”
“You’re not ready.”
“Is that right, Coach?” Quentin held the message board inches from Graber’s face, then slowly brought his left thumb towards the imprint spot. He stared into Graber’s angry eyes as his thumb punched home his destiny. The board let out a small confirming beep.
“I’ll be here for practice this week, and I’ll win your stupid PNFL championship for you,” Quentin said. “And as soon as that game is over, you can kiss my butt goodbye.”
Coach Graber’s shoulders sagged. “Your decision is made. May the High One have mercy on your soul.”
Quentin laughed. “My soul? Coach, without me, you’d better be worried if the High One will have mercy on the Raiders.”
Quentin walked out of the office, slamming the door shut behind him.
• • •
SEVEN DAYS AFTER SIGNING the Krakens’ contract, Quentin Barnes walked out of the Raiders locker room for what he hoped was the last time. He’d left them with a 35-14 win over the Sigurd Norsemen, and another PNFL championship.
In his left hand he carried his duffel bag. In his right he carried the PNFL Championship MVP trophy. High One knew he’d earned it, with a record-setting 24-for-28, 363-yard performance. That and four TD passes. Not a bad day’s work.
He walked outside, where the constant sound of the atmosphere processor greeted him. He hated that noise, and he hated this place. A hundred people waited for him, many of them wearing the blue tunics of the Church. Most of the others, and even some of the tunic-wearers, wore some kind of Raider gear — shirts, hats or banners. He looked out at a throng of silver and black, most of it from Raiders’ jerseys marked with the number “10” — Quentin’s number.
> Once again his eyes searched for a certain face that he did not yet know. For a pair of eyes that looked like his. For a smile that only a parent could have for a child.
Once again, he saw nothing but strangers.
The crowd surrounded him. At seven feet tall, he towered over everyone. Kids thrust messageboards at him, begging for his thumbprint and maybe a few words.
“Oh Elder Barnes you’re the greatest!”
“What a great game! Can you sign this ‘To Anna?’”
“Elder Quentin, sign my pad, please!”
They called him “Elder,” a term of respect, even though he was no more a part of the Church than the Creterakian occupiers. He didn’t bother to correct them.
Stedmar Osborne was waiting for him, leaning against a jet-black limo, Sammy and Frankie and Dean his ever-present bodyguards.
Quentin signed quickly, but he signed every messageboard thrust his way. He didn’t have time for personalized messages, so he pressed down thumbprints as fast as he could. The satisfied kids and their parents started to drift away as he kept signing. At the end, the weak children finally found their way to him. His heart sank as he looked at some of them — more than a few had Hiropt’s Disease, all of them assuredly from Micovi’s slums, where the roundbugs grew to the size of housecats. One of the boys, dressed in the blue tunic of a Church ward, was missing an arm.
“What happened to you?” Quentin asked the smiling boy.
“My family lived on an ore hauler over on the North Coast,” the boy said, his eyes wide with hero worship. “One of the engines blew and I got hurt.”
“You here with your family?”
“High One took them, Mr. Barnes,” the boy said, a smile still on his face as if his family’s tragedy was the most pleasant of conversations. “Died in the explosion. The Holy Men have told me it was part of the High One’s plan. I’m in the Church now, someday I’ll be confirmed.”
Quentin smiled sadly at the boy. An orphan. Without a family sponsor, he had little or no chance of being confirmed. Not unless he could run a forty in 3.8 seconds and haul in passes with his one arm. This boy would spend the rest of his life in the mines. But at least the boy’s parents hadn’t abandoned him.
Quentin shook away the thought. Who was he to question his own parents? Maybe they were out there, somewhere. Millions fled the planet during the cleansings, fled or died. Maybe they just couldn’t find him ... right, couldn’t find the most famous athlete in all of the Purist Nation.
He pressed his thumbprint to the boy’s messageboard. Quentin opened his duffel bag and handed the boy his sweaty game jersey. The boy’s eyes widened to white marbles dotted with flecks of blue.
“Take it,” Quentin said. The boy dropped his messageboard as he grabbed the jersey with his one arm. He clutched the jersey to his chest, his face the very picture of joy.
“Let’s go Quentin,” Stedmar called.
Quentin nodded at him and knelt to pick up his bag. He paused there, looking at the bag, then reached in and started passing out the contents. To each of the remaining kids he gave something: shoes, game pants, a T-shirt, even the bag itself. When he had nothing left to give, he stood and walked past the clamoring children to the waiting limo.
Stedmar was laughing at him. “Traveling light, kid?”
Quentin shrugged. “Don’t need that stuff anymore, sir.” He had to look down to talk to Stedmar, who at six-foot-four was a full eight inches shorter than Quentin.
One of the bodyguards held the door. Quentin and Stedmar got in the back. The bodyguard drove the limo towards the spaceport, a mere five minutes away from the stadium.
“I’m surprised you didn’t give away the trophy,” Stedmar said with a smile.
Quentin held it out. “I saved that for you, Mr. Osborne.”
The smile vanished from Stedmar’s face. “Don’t you mess with me, kid.”
“No sir,” Quentin said. “Four years ago you found me and gave me a chance. I’m off this planet because of you.”
Stedmar slowly took the trophy. He looked at it, a strange expression on his face, then looked back at Quentin.
“I made a pretty penny on you, Quentin. I won’t lie to you about that. I was already underpaying you, and I sold that same contract to Tier Two, where it’s not even close to what you’re worth.”
Quentin shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll be able to renegotiate next year.”
“Sure, unless by some crazy fluke the Krakens make it to Tier One. Then you’re a protected player for two years, and they can keep paying you what you’re making now.”
“I’ll make the money back eventually, Mr. Osborne.”
Stedmar nodded. “Somehow I know you will. But listen, kid, you’re in for a lot of changes. Some people like the big time, some don’t. I’ve seen a lot of Nationalites go out-system with big dreams, and most of them come running back. They can’t handle being in the same cities with the aliens, being on the same busses, shuttles and transport tubes. I mean, have you ever seen a Sklorno up close?” Stedmar’s face wrinkled with disgust. “You can see right through their skin. And they drool. It’s a big adjustment.”
“I’m not leaving to make friends,” Quentin said. “I’m going to win a Tier One championship.”
“And I hope you do, kid. Just remember that if you don’t like the galaxy, you’ve always got a home here with the Raiders.”
“And how do you think your Raiders will do next season?”
Stedmar looked out the window. “I don’t think we’ll be worth a dead roundbug. But you’ve still got something to learn, Quentin.”
“You’re not going to give me the Holy Man speech, are you? I got that from Coach Graber.”
Stedmar laughed. “You know me better than that. I don’t buy into the Church any more than you do. But what you’ve got to learn, Quentin, is that time always wins, and there’s always someone to take your place. I won’t be able to replace you next year, or the year after that, but you know what? Someone will line up at quarterback for the Raiders. The team won’t shut down because you’re gone. We won’t win another championship next season, but eventually, we will. And when that happens, there will be some other quarterback coming out of that locker room, mobbed by kids wanting autographs.”
Quentin smiled politely. Stedmar was the owner, after all, and deserved respect. He also had the power to have Quentin whacked anytime he saw fit, and that definitely deserved respect. But Stedmar clearly didn’t understand football.
“Yes sir, Mr. Osborne.”
Stedmar grinned, as if he’d just passed on some great pearl of wisdom and now felt better of himself for the charity. “We’ll have your things shipped to the Krakens’ team bus. The league wants you to go straight to the Combine.”
“Don’t I get a chance to meet the team? The coaches?”
Stedmar shook his head. “That’s not the way it works, kid. You’ve got to go to the Combine to make sure you’re not using any disguising technology to hide gene modification, cybernetic implants or anything like that.”
“But I haven’t got any of that bush league garbage.”
“Don’t sweat it, kid, every rookie has to go through it. Besides, it’s a chance for you to see the home planet of our beneficial rulers.” Stedmar spat the last word out like it was a poisonous spider crawling around in his mouth.
“Creterak,” Quentin said distantly. “What’s the Combine like? I’ve heard a lot of stories.”
“You mean the stories like how it used to be a prison station, how they take samples from all over your body, how they jack your brain into an A.I. mainframe to test your analytical powers, how they throw you in a cage with a live Grinkas mudsucker to test your reflexes in a life and death situation?”
Quentin looked out the window. “Yeah, stuff like that.”
“I don’t know, kid. It’s probably all bull. The League doesn’t want the merchandise damaged, if you get what I’m saying.”
The red and yellow bui
ldings of the city gave way to the wide open spaces of the spaceport tarmac. Disabled anti-orbital batteries dotted the landscape, rusted and pitted with forty years of neglect. The huge relics were once capable of taking out a dreadnought as far away as a light-year, or so the story went.
Quentin’s stomach quivered. A chill filtered through his body. The anti-orbital batteries marked the edge of the spaceport — he’d soon be on the shuttle, and after that, the ship that would carry him to the Combine.
Quentin clasped his hands together to stop their shaking, but he couldn’t hide his fear from Stedmar.
“Pre-flight jitters, kid?”
Quentin looked out the window, and nodded. On the tarmac, a shuttle shot straight up, probably headed for the same ship he’d soon be on himself.
“I’ll never get that,” Stedmar said. “You go out on the field and those animals are trying to rip your head off, doesn’t bother you at all, but you act like an old lady when it comes to simple space travel.”
Quentin shrugged and kept looking out the window. Tier Two meant more flying, a lot more flying than his four or five yearly trips with the Raiders. He didn’t have a choice.
The car slowed to a stop. One of Stedmar’s body guards opened Quentin’s door. Stedmar handed Quentin a mini-messageboard. “Your passport is in there. So is the Krakens’ playbook. You need your thumbprint to access either file, but don’t get careless with it — thumbprints can be faked, and plenty of people would love to get their hands on a GFL passport. Just mind your manners, Quentin, you’ve got no experience dealing with these other races, and sometimes they can find just about anything offensive. Watch more, talk less.”
Quentin took the messageboard and slid out of the car. He leaned in to look at Stedmar. “As soon as they put a football in my hands, everything will be just fine, Mr. Osborne.”
Stedmar smiled and nodded, an expression on his face that seemed both proud and slightly condescending. “Tear ‘em up, kid.”
Quentin turned and walked through the doors. He didn’t bother looking back — there was nothing he wanted to see on this planet, and nothing he ever planned on seeing again.