by Scott Sigler
“Blue, fifteeeeeen! Blue, fifteen ... hut-hut!”
He dropped straight back, eyes following Hawick, over to Scarborough, then back to Hawick again. She already had a step on her defender. Quentin stepped up to throw, but the pocket collapsed almost immediately. A huge Ki lineman bore down on him from the left. Quentin dodged to his right, still looking downfield, but he sensed pressure on that side as well. He stepped up into the pocket, where Kagan met him head-on with a hit that knocked Quentin flat on his back. It was like being smacked with a wrecking ball. His eyes scrunched in pain. Quentin heard the continuing “ooohhh” of the crowd as the holo-monitors in each end zone replayed the hit.
With second-and-long, Hokor called another pass. Kagan blitzed again. Quentin didn’t have time to throw downfield and had to settle for a quick five-yard strike to Warburg. The Krakens tried a draw on the next play, and got nowhere. Defeated once again, the offense ran off the field as the punt team came on.
Quentin took off his helmet and threw it at the bench in disgust. He couldn’t make things happen if he didn’t have time to throw. He’d studied the Pioneers games over and over again — their defensive line wasn’t anything special. He had to get his O-line motivated. He stood and started walking down the bench to where the Ki linemen were huddled in their big ball, but stopped — Donald Pine was already in front of them.
Pine leaned heavily on his crutches, their tops digging into his armpits, leaving his hands free to flail about. He wildly gestured first to the linemen, then to the field, then up in the air, then back again. Pine looked furious, madder than Quentin had ever seen him. Pine was screaming them up one side and down the other, and Quentin didn’t have to wonder what for.
Why is he doing that? Quentin thought. That’s my job.
Why was he doing it? Because the linemen listened to Pine.
Once again, Pine seemed to be helping Quentin, not sabotaging him. Had he done the same thing in making Denver offer help for passing practice?
• • •
AT HALFTIME, the game seemed to have slipped away. The Krakens were down 21-3, their only score coming on a nice 52-yard field goal by Arioch Morningstar. Quentin saw possibilities on almost every play, or thought he saw them, but he wasn’t about to alter Hokor’s calls. Maybe it was like before, like in the Hydras game, and Hokor knew something that he didn’t. He’d made the most out of the few opportunities that came his way, hitting five of his eleven passes for 82 yards. The completions were nice, but he spent most of the first half flat on his back either knocked down after the pass or dragged down for one of the three first-half sacks. That was more sacks than he’d suffered his entire season with the Raiders. No touchdowns, and one interception when a Ki tentacle deflected his pass at the line of scrimmage. He had also scrambled for 22 rushing yards — far more out of necessity than choice. On the Krakens’ home field he could have ran for much more, but the Pioneer field’s slippery footing made it hard for him to make sharp cuts.
The visitors central locker room was filled with beings dressed in orange leg armor with black trim, and orange jerseys stained with streaks of oily yellow. Hokor stood in the middle of the circular room, his fur extended to its full length. He ranted and raved about the offensive line’s poor showing, but much like Pine’s lecture on the sidelines, nobody seemed to care.
• • •
THE PIONEERS WALKED away with the game, winning by an embarrassing score of 35-10. Fayed had managed one big play, breaking three tackles for a 24-yard run and the Krakens’ only contribution to the weekly ESPN highlight reel.
Quentin undressed at his locker, feeling neither happy nor sad about the outcome. He’d played as well as could be expected under the circumstances, the circumstances being that the offensive line didn’t really give a crap about protecting him. He’d finished the day 15-of-35 for 186 yards, with 37 yards rushing. His body felt like he’d gone ten rounds in the octagon with Korak the Cutter. He’d thought he’d taken some blows in practice, but now he knew that his own defenders had been holding back, if only just a bit.
The Krakens changed in almost total quiet. They had one win, two losses, and were already two games out of first. Their chances of moving up to Tier One seemed near nil. Nobody spoke, except for Yassoud, who went from player to player, asking who was up for a night in Port Whitok’s gambling district.
As Quentin pulled off his chest armor, Donald Pine hobbled over, the crutches making him awkward as he slowly sat.
“You played well out there, Q.”
Quentin shrugged. “Not that any of my so-called teammates would notice. Or care, for that matter.”
Pine nodded. “Oh, they noticed. But you’re right, they didn’t care. I told you before, there’s more to being a quarterback than skill and talent.”
“Listen, gramps, I don’t need a lecture. Now take off.”
Pine didn’t move. “You do need a lecture, Quentin. So did the offensive line, but I already gave them one. Several, as a matter of fact.”
Quentin started to speak, then stopped. He remembered Pine on the sidelines, arms waving like a madman, yelling his head off at 3,000-plus pounds of offensive line. No one else had done that. Not Warburg, not Hokor, not Quentin himself. Just Pine.
“Okay,” Quentin said quietly. “Say what you’ve got to say.”
“Q, you’ve got all the talent in the world. It pours off you like stink from a skunk. Your brain works overtime — I see you come up with play adjustments that are almost as good as those of another Krakens quarterback I know.” Pine smiled with the joke. Quentin felt some of his stress fade away — Pine’s smile had a way making people feel comfortable.
“Yeah,” Quentin said, “that Yitzhak is pretty damn creative.”
Pine laughed. “Right, right. So you’ve got all the tools, but as you saw today, the greatest general in the world can’t win if the troops won’t go to war. The Ki linemen are not some random beings from their culture, they are soldiers. I’ve seen normal Ki citizens, have you?”
Quentin shrugged. “Just a few on the streets in Ionath.”
“And did they look violent? Did they look strong?”
Quentin thought back, then shook his head. They didn’t look violent at all, In fact, they were Human-sized, weighing probably 250 pounds or so, half the weight of a Kraken lineman. He hadn’t realized that fact until this moment.
“The difference between citizen and warrior isn’t as dramatic as it is in the Quyth culture, where there’s a completely separate sub-species built for fighting, but it’s there. Ki soldiers are selected from a very young age, like the equivalent of three years old in Humans. They’re trained from that time in how to fight, how to kill, how to endure pain and hardship that Humans couldn’t come close to handling. Most of our linemen have taken sentient life, Quentin, some with their bare hands. So to speak. All of them participated in ground combat at one point or another.”
“And that’s supposed to excuse them for piss-poor blocking?”
Pine shook his head. “No, you don’t get it. They love blocking, they love tackling. Physical combat is a huge part of their culture. But they aren’t in control of this game. They’re not calling the plays, they’re just doing what they’re told to do. Someone has to lead them. And if they don’t respect that someone, they simply don’t try as hard.”
Quentin thought about Pine’s words. “So what you’re telling me, is that the big, mean, deadly Ki are kind of ... sensitive?”
Pine smiled and nodded. “If you don’t respect them, they’re sure not going to respect you. And if they don’t respect you, they’re not following you, they’re just going through the motions.”
Quentin looked off in the distance. Yassoud flitted about Tom Pareless like a big mosquito. Pareless kept pushing him away, but Yassoud just buzzed back again — he obviously had run out of people to go gambling with, and Pareless was his last hope.
“Okay,” Quentin said, looking back at Pine. “So what do I do about it?”<
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“You really want to know? You’re not going to like it.”
Quentin waved his left hand in an inner circular motion, as if to say come on, come on.
“The Ki are a very tight species,” Pine said. “They send nerve impulses through their skin and vocal tubes. That’s why they cluster up like that all the time, on the sidelines and at night. When they’re touching, they can kind of talk without speaking. That also makes for closeness among them, gives them a sense of tribe, or of family.”
“So they’re not just sensitive,” Quentin said in a deadpan. “They’re also touchy-feely?”
Pine shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t cause their evolution, I just study it. You act like they’re revolting.”
“They are.”
“So what?” Pine said angrily. “So what? So they’re revolting. Do you want to win games or not?”
Quentin nodded.
“Fine. You have to stop acting like they have the plague. Touch them. Hug them the way you would any Human player who did something good.”
“I, uh, don’t really do hugs.”
“You know what I mean, jerk. Get it in your head that you have to stop thinking of different races, and start seeing all of them, Ki, Quyth and Sklorno, as your teammates.”
Quentin’s face wrinkled up in guarded suspicion. “I don’t know, man. This seems a little too, well, like Creterakian propaganda, that we all have to get along as one giant race of sentients. I mean, come on, does this stuff really work?”
Pine smiled and held up his right hand, fingers outstretched. Glittering championship rings adorned his middle and ring fingers.
The point finally clicked home. Quentin nodded. Pine wasn’t his enemy. The man was trying to help him, probably had been all along. Quentin had trouble getting his thoughts around the concept — no one had ever helped him before, not without wanting something in return. And Pine not only wanted nothing, he had everything to lose by helping Quentin. The more Pine helped, the more likely he was to lose his starting job. It just didn’t make any sense.
And Pine was an expert on the subject, proof positive being his two Galaxy Bowl wins. Quentin realized he’d been a damn fool — he had one of the greatest players in the game trying to help him, and he’d treated that help like some kind of underhanded trick.
“Pine, why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“Helping me.”
Pine looked confused. “Because you need it, why else?”
“Yeah, but, if you help me, and I get better ... ” Quentin’s voice trailed off.
Pine nodded. “Oh, now I understand. I’m helping you because you’re on my team. You get that yet? I need a backup that can win games. Besides, my career only has a few years left, I know that. It would be nice to, well, have someone to teach. Someone to ... to ... I don’t know.”
“Carry on the Don Pine tradition?”
Pine smiled. “Sure, that works. Someone to carry on the Don Pine tradition.”
“Thank you,” Quentin said. He extended his right hand, which Pine shook. “I’ve got a good idea on how to take your advice.”
Pine nodded and hobbled away on his crutches. Quentin stood and finished removing his armor. He pulled on a robe, then hit the service button in his locker. Messal appeared as if out of thin air.
“You rang, sir?”
“Messal, I’ve had it with these nannite showers.”
“Is there a problem, sir?”
“No problem some steaming hot water won’t fix. Get Shizzle here immediately, then take me to the Ki locker room.”
“YOU SURE you want to do this?” Shizzle asked as he flew small circles around Quentin’s head. “They have been known to eat Humans, you know.”
“Just be quiet until I need you to translate.”
Messal led them into the Ki locker room. “Ki eyes take in a larger spectrum of light than Human eyes. Consequently, only a few purple lights provide any illumination. So watch your step.”
The Ki locker room was dark. And hot. And humid enough to compete with the geothermal steam baths back on Stewart. Goodwill or no goodwill, there was no denying that the place stank. He’d thought pre-game Ki odors were bad, but his nose let him know those were nothing compared to the post-game scents. Smelled like rotten fish mixed in with decomposed chicken guts. Quentin ignored the smell and followed Messal to the back.
Quentin heard the hiss of water jets, and his skin tingled in anticipation. He suddenly realized it had been weeks since he’d had a real shower.
Messal opened a door and bowed as Quentin passed. Steam billowed out of the open door and up onto the ceiling, making hazy purple clouds where it crossed in front of the dim lights. Quentin stood at the open door for one second, swallowed, and walked through.
One step inside the door, he stopped cold. If he had somehow accidentally stumbled upon a scene like this, he probably would have turned and ran. This was far worse than any Holy Man propaganda horror holo he’d seen back home.
A deep pool of water sat in the middle of the circular room. The low lights made the water look black. Dozens of showerheads ringed the ceiling, angling water down to the mass of creatures bundled up in the pool’s center.
They sat there, a giant, entwined ball of worm-like bodies, multi-jointed legs, pinkish mouths lined with black teeth, muscular multi-jointed arms, orangish skin without end and thousands of reddish-brown spots of enamel, each wet and glistening like a black ruby. They looked like a coiled, multi-headed dragon straight out of the Holy Book.
As a kid, Quentin had seen educational movies of snakes. There was a strange mating practice for some snakes, where hundreds of them twisted into a giant, writhing pile of skin and scales and mucus. That’s what the Ki cluster reminded him of, only these snakes were twelve feet long and could bench-press 1,300 pounds.
They didn’t turn their heads to look when he came in — they didn’t have to, their unblinking black eyes let them see everything at once. The ball of bodies seemed to move, to slide just a bit, and one figure slithered out of the pack. The long, thick body splashed water out of the pool and onto the tile floor as it moved slowly towards Quentin.
Oddly enough, he instantly recognized the oncoming Ki. Maybe they didn’t all look alike after all.
Great, he thought. Mum-O-Killowe as the Welcome Wagon. The temperamental rookie walked up until he was only a few inches from Quentin, then barked out words in his guttural language.
Messal translated. “He wants to know what you think you’re doing here.”
Quentin swallowed. There was a whole room of them, and he was dressed in just a robe. He wanted to leave ... but he wanted to win more. Two losses were enough.
“This is the only room with water showers,” Quentin said. Shizzle started translating before the second word was even out of his mouth, and he finished only a fraction of a second after Quentin stopped.
Mum-O-Killowe barked again.
“He says that you should go.”
Quentin stepped to Mum-O-Killowe’s right, gently shouldering past the huge Ki as he did. The boldness of the move seemed to surprise Mum-O, for it was a full second before Quentin sensed the lineman reaching out for him. Quentin avoided the multi-jointed arms by quickly diving into the water.
The water was almost scalding. It felt miraculous against his skin. He arched and swam upwards, his face breaking the surface only a few feet from the giant ball of alien linemen. Mum-O-Killowe roared something and started to splash towards Quentin, but Kill-O-Yowet, the left tackle, barked one short, definitive syllable.
Mum-O-Killowe stopped short of Quentin, stared at him for a second, then slithered back into the ball.
“Kill-O-Yowet says you can stay,” Shizzle said. Quentin kicked back to the pool’s edge. He draped his arms on the tile and his body sank in up to his chest. Water sprayed down on his closed eyes and smiling face. The wet heat felt wonderful on his bruised body. Maybe his effort to bond with the Ki linemen would
work, maybe it wouldn’t, but at least he’d get a decent shower out of the thing.
THREE HOURS AFTER the game, the Ionath Krakens began shuttling back up to the Touchback. Yassoud had managed, somehow, to cram in two hours worth of partying. He and Tom Pareless showed up in time for the last shuttle, drunk enough that they could barely walk, but not so drunk that they couldn’t sing “My Girl from Satirli 6” at the top of their lungs.
Quentin felt sore all over, and he knew it was only a harbinger of things to come the next morning, yet the hot soak in the Ki pool had lifted his spirits.
It’s a game, he thought to himself. What goes on off the field is as much of a game as what happens on the field. He’d been thinking about it all wrong. He hadn’t needed to bond with his teammates back in the PNFL, because he’d been good enough to win games almost single-handedly. But in the GFL, even at Tier Two, everyone was good. These players were the best a galaxy had to offer. The game, his new game, would be making them play as a team.
He stood on the launch platform, gazing up at the twilight sky of Port Whitok. He sensed someone approaching. Quentin turned to find himself facing the squat, powerful form of a Quyth Warrior. Shayat the Thick, the backup right outside linebacker. He played behind John Tweedy, which meant that he didn’t play much at all. Tweedy rarely came out of the game, thanks to his skills at defending both the run and the pass.
“You played well,” Shayat said. It was, Quentin realized, the first time Shayat had ever spoken to him.
“Thanks,” Quentin said. “It wasn’t enough.”
Shayat’s carapace was a deep, silvery black. A painted unit insignia adorned his left shoulder. Under the insignia were horizontal lines, each of which, Quentin had learned, represented a combat mission. Shayat’s lines ran from his insignia almost to his wrist. Enameled graphics covered his carapace — the most prominent of which was a Krakens’ logo emblazoned across his midriff. On his back was an Earth crab wearing a crown and holding a football — the logo of the Yucatan Sea-Kings, a Tier Three team. A ring of white surrounded Shayat’s single eye, making him look even more bug-eyed than Hokor or any of the other Quyth. But they didn’t call him Shayat the Thick for nothing: layers and layers of powerful muscles graced his frame. His pedipalps were so heavy they looked like John Tweedy’s arms, and Shayat’s arms were so thick they might have been Tweedy’s huge legs. Shayat wore a backpack that looked to be completely stuffed.