by Scott Sigler
Quentin stepped down out of the truck and onto the ship’s deck. There were dozens of ground trucks already aboard, dinged and dirty, parked in neat rows. The cargo hold itself looked filthy, speckled with rust, chipped paint and even globs of grease that seemed to serve no purpose.
Manny grinned. “A far cry from the Touchback’s spotless shuttle bay, eh, Quentin? The Burly Brown is a cargo container ship — not quite as fancy as you’re used to.”
Quentin looked around the dingy hold. Dirty, but orderly and efficient.
“I don’t care how it looks,” he said. “All I care about is that it’s punch-capable and can get us where we need to go.”
“Actually, the Brown isn’t punch-capable,” Manny said. “It will reach orbit around Wilson 6, where it will dock in an open slot of the Fast Prince Somdet, a cargo supercarrier, which has slots for forty-five cargo container ships. Somdet runs a regular route between planets. When a container ship reaches its destination, it disembarks, delivers its payload, picks up a new shipment, then returns to dock in another supercarrier for the next leg. It’s cheaper for the individual ships to pay a part of a punch recharge than to have punch-drives of their own.”
Manny gestured to the lines of tightly packed trucks. “The Burly Brown is delivering a fleet of used ground trucks, among other cargo, to Mason in the Purist Nation. That’s where Messal told me to send you.”
Quentin had been to Mason many times in his PNFL career. One of his home system’s four major planets, it was the farthest one away from the galactic core. If Bumberpuff wanted a rendezvous point on the edge of civilization, Mason fit the bill nicely. There were no known routes from Mason into the Cloud, at least none that didn’t take days and pass through the territory of multiple governments, but Quentin knew Bumberpuff must have a plan to account for that. Another route, perhaps — maybe one only known to the Prawatt.
“You and your friends must stay in this vessel for the entire trip,” Manny said. “I know you need to remain anonymous, so don’t let your people — especially the Tweedy brothers — exit onto the Somdet. I’ve paid the Burly’s crew to stay quiet about who is on board, but the Somdet crew is another story. They’ll recognize GFL players, and word will get out.”
Quentin nodded. If word got out, that word would undoubtedly reach Gredok.
Becca and George hopped down, stood next to Quentin. Denver and Milford also exited, graceful and light-footed as ever. They leaned forward, just about to start a sprint around the loading bay, when Quentin scooted in front of them.
“Hold on, ladies — you have to go to the Touchback with Choto, Tara and Mum-O.”
“Adventure?” Denver said. “Fun-fun-fun?”
“Kill-kill, fight-fight?” Milford said. “Go team?”
Quentin shook his head. “Not this time. Go to your home planets, enjoy the time off. I’ll see you in training camp when the preseason hits.”
Denver’s eyestalks twitched, two of them looking at Quentin, two at Milford.
“Ohhhhhhhhh,” Denver said. “I understand. The godling wishes us to return to Dynasty space to spread the godling’s gospel.”
Milford started prancing in place. “Yes! Love-love-love to spread the gospel of Quentin Barnes Quentin Barnes Quentin Barnes QuentinBarnes!”
Quentin didn’t need this, not now. Explaining what he really meant might take hours, and he didn’t have hours.
“Whatever,” he said. “I’ll see you when this is over.”
When the Sklorno got back into the truck, Tara the Freak got out. The Warrior ignored Quentin, walked to Crazy George Starcher.
“George, you should come back with me,” Tara said.
Crazy George smiled. “It’s okay. I’ll be fine.”
“This isn’t football,” Tara said. “This isn’t one of your ... your visions. Your life will be in danger.”
George nodded. “I know what it means, my friend. I’d be dead already if it wasn’t for Quentin and for you. Debts like that can only be repaid in kind.”
Tara shot a glance at Quentin. A distrusting, suspicious, one-eyed glance. Did Tara think Quentin was using the others? Maybe the only reason the Freak had come along was to protect George, not help Quentin find his sister.
Tara turned back to his friend. “Do what you have to do, George. And remember to take your meds.”
“I will,” George said.
Tara returned to the truck. He stopped next to Quentin, spoke quietly so only Quentin could hear.
“Make sure he comes back in one piece,” the Warrior said quietly. “If you don’t, you’ll answer to me. And he never remembers to take his meds — you make sure that he does.”
Tara kept his cornea clear of all color, but Quentin sensed the anger pouring off him. The Warrior couldn’t hide all of his tells — Quentin had become too skilled at detecting emotions for that.
“I’ll make sure,” Quentin said. “Everyone is coming back safe. I promise.”
Tara’s long pedipalps twitched. He didn’t believe Quentin. The Warrior climbed into the truck.
Quentin turned to Manny. “I guess we’re all set. Thank you.”
“Then I’ll leave you to your folly,” Manny said. He pointed at the Tweedy brothers, who were busy scooping grease globs off the floor and flinging them at each other, laughing like little kids. Becca watched them, shaking her head in amazement.
Manny sighed. “Cargo container A-113 is full of beer. I hope it’s enough to keep those idiots occupied.”
“They’re my brothers,” Quentin said. “Don’t call them idiots.”
A voice over the cargo ship’s speakerfilm drew Quentin’s attention.
“This is Captain Nilson. If our fancy new guests could kindly make their way to the crew lounge, we’ll be underway. The loading deck is a working area, and we are working. Stay out of our way and we’ll have no problems.”
“The crew lounge is small, but it’s yours for the trip,” Manny said. He bowed. “I will take my leave. Whatever your quest, Quentin, I wish you luck.”
He closed the truck’s rear door, moving with a precision that showed he hadn’t always been a fat, rich man. Once upon a time, Manny Sayed had worked for a living. He walked to the truck’s passenger door, artificial foot clonking in time. He climbed in. The Burly’s loading ramp lowered only long enough for the truck to drive out, then rose again, sealing the ship tight.
Becca nudged Quentin.
“Come on, Q, let’s get to the lounge.”
He looked at her, at her heavy black hair, her broad shoulders and solid arms. She was all-in, ready to help him find Jeanine, ready to do whatever it took.
At six-foot-six, Becca Montagne towered over almost every Human man, even some HeavyG men, but she still had to tilt her head up slightly to look into Quentin’s eyes. His thoughts swam in those eyes, and for a moment, a sweet moment, he didn’t think about his sister.
But Becca had family, too, her mother and father, who had been at the Galaxy Bowl to watch their daughter’s crowning moment. Quentin felt a new wash of guilt as he realized she’d spent nearly every minute after the game with him, not with them.
“Did you get a chance to say hi to your mom and dad?”
She nodded. “A few minutes, sure.”
He winced. Her expression changed, from eagerness to sympathy.
“It’s fine,” she said. “Honest. It’s our way — if my parents knew why I had to leave so soon, they’d want me to go. They’d do the same for someone they ... for someone important to them. I’m here for you, Quentin.”
He had to tell her how he felt. He had to. She was putting her life on the line for him. But what should he say? How should he say it? He had to—
“This is the captain, making a second request for guests to move to the crew lounge. A second polite request. The third request involves stun guns and duct tape. Yes, you are all quite large, but there are more of us, and you will be unpleasantly surprised at the sheer volume of duct tape we have on board.”
Quentin looked around. Even the Tweedy brothers were gone.
Becca lightly pushed him toward the hatch that led out of the cargo bay.
“We can chat later,” she said. “Move, Q — I don’t know about you, but I’m not that fond of stun guns.”
Again, he’d lost his moment. He’d just have to bide his time. Surely, he’d have a little privacy with her on the trip to the Portath Cloud, and then — if he could gather up the courage — he would tell her that he loved her.
Excerpt from “Cloud of Mystery: The Portath”
by Zippy the Voracious
“To enter the Cloud is to die.”
That is the first communication ever received from the mysterious race known as the Portath. With very few exceptions, that promise has held true.
In this day and age of faster-than-light travel, cities so large they cover the entire surface of planets, and the regular interaction of over a dozen sentient species from all over the galaxy, it seems unbelievable that there are races we still know almost nothing about.
We know almost nothing about the Portath.
In fact, there is not a single credible sighting of a member of that race. To quote the lingo of ancient Earth, the Portath are the “Loch Ness Monster” of sentient species. Unverified tales abound, describing the Portath as gray Humanoids with large black eyes and oversized craniums, as creatures made from pure electricity, as an offshoot of the Ki race that has six arms instead of four, and so on and so on. Every sentient who claims to have seen the Portath describes them differently.
We don’t even know if the Portath are biological creatures, like Humans, Sklorno and Ki, or if they are artificial in origin, more akin to the Prawatt. And, we may never know — every scientific expedition into that region has been lost, never to be heard from again.
A ZONE OF SILENCE
The Portath Cloud is a nebula. Dense gas contained within generates significant interference across the electromagnetic spectrum. Due to this “interference zone,” ships that enter the Cloud are unable to communicate with ships outside it. No signal has ever been received from a ship that was lost in the Cloud. In addition, not a single beacon from a lost ship has ever been recovered, including punch-space beacons. It is unknown if beacons malfunctioned due to the Cloud’s interference, if they were destroyed in transit, or if whatever befalls ships that enter the Cloud happens so fast that ships don’t have time to send a distress call.
THE SURVIVORS
The one exception to the long list of lost ships came in 2539, when a fourteen-vessel fleet from the League of Planets entered the Cloud in hopes of avoiding a vastly superior Purist Nation force that numbered seventy-eight ships. The Purists pursued the League of Planets fleet into the Cloud. Of those fourteen League vessels, only seven escaped. All seventy-eight Purist vessels were never heard from again, bringing the total to eighty-five ships lost in that single encounter.
Of the seven League ships that escaped, not one encountered anything within other than dust and gas. That means, unfortunately, that the only sentients to enter the Cloud and survive to tell about it saw nothing at all.
SCANT HISTORY
Punch-drive signatures were detected near the Cloud’s outer edges in 2530, marking the first indication that a sentient race might exist within. However, no signatures of early punch-drive testing or pre-punch technologies were detected as coming from that area, leading scientists to speculate that the Portath may have evolved deep within the Cloud’s interference zone. Or, possibly, that the race did not evolve within the Cloud at all, but rather arrived there from some other location — a location possibly outside of our own galaxy.
If the Portath are an extra-galactic culture, it would mark only the third known species to have not originated in the Milky Way, following the Givers and the Collectors (see the standard historical timeline for more information on those species).
The three systems that border the Cloud — the Tower Republic, the Leekee Collective and the Planetary Union — have combined their signal-analysis efforts to gather information on this mysterious race. Those efforts have detected regular punch-drive activity and some stray communications that escaped the interference zone. Analysts agree that there are at least two planetary bodies in Portath space. Little is known of these planets other than their names: Thew and Faskah.
TRAVEL WARNINGS
The Portath Cloud is considered the most dangerous place in the galaxy, even more so than Prawatt Jihad territory. Over one thousand military vessels — including a Creterakian fleet some nine hundred ships strong — have entered the Cloud. Only seven have escaped. An estimated forty other vessels — including missions of scientific, religious, exploratory and capitalistic nature — have also entered the Cloud, never to be heard from again.
5
Rendezvous
THE BURLY’S DINGY ACCOMMODATIONS were far more suited to Quentin’s days as an orphan miner on Micovi than his current, glamorous status as the GFL’s top quarterback. No five-star hotel, no luxury yacht, no private room aboard the immaculate Touchback — here, all six Krakens and Doc Patah stayed crammed together in the small crew lounge.
Even before the cots had been brought in, the lounge would have comfortably held only about six Humans. Six normal-sized Humans. The room smelled — partially because the temperature seemed ten degrees too high, enough to make everyone constantly tacky with sweat, and partially because of Ju Tweedy’s digestive system. It was a mystery how Ju’s body processed the same food they all ate into some of the most noxious farts Quentin had ever experienced.
The bunks were the worst part of it, though. They were too small for pro football players, to say the least. Quentin couldn’t get comfortable in them. When he could sleep, he woke with pain in his hip from being pressed into the small space. Not that pain was all that unusual — the many hits he’d taken during the season had added up.
The only good part of the trip was that Messal had, somehow, managed to provide everyone with several changes of clothes. Quentin was grateful for the pants, shirts, socks, underwear and work boots he found in his duffel bag. Everyone’s clothes fit them perfectly — how Messal had pulled that off on such short notice, Quentin had no idea.
The Burly’s crew worked in three shifts, and the ship was always busy. The captain insisted the Krakens stay confined to the crew lounge, so they wouldn’t get in the way.
That meant Quentin couldn’t get Becca alone. She was always around someone: Ju, Kimberlin, Doc Patah, Crazy George ... anyone but John, who stayed as far away from her as the limited space would allow. Maybe that was for the best. Quentin kept flip-flopping between the need to talk to Becca and the need to stay focused on Jeanine and Fred; at the moment, that flip landed purely on the side of his missing sister.
It took a day to punch to Loppu Waypoint in the Planetary Union, another day to reach the planet Home, also in the Union, a half-day to reach Solomon in Purist Nation space, and finally a half-day to hit Mason. All that time, the Krakens players were kept cooped up, trying to find things to do to humor themselves. George risked the wrath of the crew to wander the ship. John watched old movies on a messageboard. Ju slept (and farted, oh High One how he farted).
Quentin, Kimberlin, Doc Patah and Becca, however, spent their time studying. They sat on benches made for smaller bodies, hunched over a dirty, scratched table that was little more than a rail, and studied everything they could about the Portath Cloud — not that there was much to study.
Quentin sighed, gave his messageboard a little toss. It clattered against the table.
“This can’t be the best book on the Portath Cloud,” he said. “The Cloud of Mystery? That’s all the big-brain types have on the place?”
Kimberlin shrugged. “Without observations, scientists can only speculate. There have been few observations where the Portath are involved.”
“Not few,” Becca said. “Try none. No one has even seen a Portath.”
Quentin picked up
the messageboard. He scrolled through the text again, looking for something he’d missed.
“There’s got to be more,” he said. “Mike, you sure there aren’t other books?”
“There are always other books,” Kimberlin said. “That is the beauty of science versus religion. In this case, however, the problem is that all texts on the Portath contain basically the same limited information.”
Doc Patah’s wings gently undulated, slowly flipping him upside down so his lighter-skinned belly faced the ceiling. Quentin hadn’t known Harrah could do that. It struck him as something Doc did absently, to relax, maybe — similar to a Human putting his feet up on a table.
“Perhaps Bumberpuff will have more information,” Doc said. “He has probably seen more of this galaxy than all of us combined.”
Quentin still wasn’t sure if Bumberpuff was a he, or a she, or if the Prawatt even had gender, but he hoped Doc was right.
Captain Nilson’s voice sounded over the speakerfilm.
“Passengers, report immediately to the shuttle bay. Your ride is here.”
Bumberpuff had arrived. Not that long ago, Quentin had been terrified to see the massive Prawatt ship known as the Grieve. Now he found himself looking forward to it — perhaps a dreadnaught of such size could offer some protection against the Cloud’s unknown dangers.
Quentin turned off his messageboard.
“Pack up quick and let’s go,” he said. “Time to see if our captain-turned-cornerback-turned-captain came through for us.”
COMPARED TO THE TIGHT CONFINES of the cargo shuttle, the crew lounge they’d left behind seemed downright spacious.
“Ow,” John said. “Ju, your butt is on my leg.”
“Your leg is in my butt,” Ju said. “And don’t be such a mega-baby.”
Kimberlin groaned in pain. “Forget your butts and your legs ... Crazy George, can you take your elbow out of my ear?”
“Sorry,” George said.
“Ow,” John said. “George, now your elbow is in my eye.”