THE ALL-PRO

by Scott Sigler

  NEXT PHASE – TIER ONE EXPANSION?

  Commissioner Froese may have halted Tier Three expansion, but he has his sights set on Tier One growth. For the 2685 season, he is proposing the addition of two more franchises. This would bring the T1 total to 24 teams.

  Tier One is currently organized into two 11-team divisions: the Solar Division and the Planet Division. If Froese is successful in adding two T1 franchises, he will likely re-organize Tier One into six conferences of four teams each — three conferences in the Planet Division and three in the Solar.

  The six conference champions would make the playoffs, as would two “wildcard” teams, one from each division. The end result would be an eight-team playoff, the same as we have now. Also similar to the current structure, the winner of the Planet Division playoff would face the winner of the Solar Division playoff in the Galaxy Bowl.

  Froese feels this new structure would create more rivalry among the four-team conferences, as well as remove the confusion of multiple tie-breakers that are often used to fill out the current playoff structure.

  THE NEEDS OF TIER THREE

  Froese’s restructuring plan runs even deeper. He may connect Tier Three and Tier Two in a promotion/relegation structure identical to that of the T1/T2 relationship.

  The current upper tier interaction means that the two teams finishing last in Tier One are relegated to Tier Two, while the two teams that finish at the top of the T2 Tourney are promoted into Tier One. Froese proposes also relegating the worst team in each of the eight Tier Two conferences. Those teams would drop down to Tier Three, while the top eight teams in the T3 tourney would be promoted to Tier Two.

  “This interconnected reward and punishment system has been used on Earth for over seven centuries,” Froese said. “If it works for soccer, it can work for gridiron. We need to ensure competitive play at all levels and provide the best franchises with an opportunity to advance.”

  If implemented, this change would unify the promotion/relegation strategy for all three levels of professional football. Teams from the smallest markets could fight their way from Tier Three up to Tier One, while Tier One teams could tumble from the pinnacle of accomplishment to the lowest levels of football in just two seasons.

  GROWTH TRACKING

  2679: 350 franchises

  (Rob Froese’s first year as Commissioner)

  2681: 356 franchises

  2683: 386 franchises

  2684: 389 franchises

  JANUARY 15, 2684

  MICHAEL KIMBERLIN HELD the messageboard. He read over Quentin’s answers. Quentin had spent two hours the night before studying for this test. After reviewing the Isis Ice Storm roster for the thousandth time, of course, but he had studied.

  They sat in Quentin’s living room aboard the Touchback. He was committed to educating himself, but still felt inexplicably embarrassed when his other teammates teased him about Kimberlin’s tutoring. Kimberlin knew this and didn’t seem to mind keeping the studies as quiet as possible.

  The massive offensive lineman looked up. “Excellent work, Quentin.”

  “I get it all right?”

  “Not all,” Kimberlin said. “You’re still having trouble with angular momentum, but it’s safe to say you now know more about basic physics than seventy-five percent of the sentients in the galaxy. Your countrymen back on Micovi wouldn’t even know you.”

  Quentin nodded. That was the truth, although physics had little to do with it. He had changed so much in the past two years.

  “Time to move on to other subjects,” Kimberlin said. “First, though, what happened on the Regulator? I am dying to know. Are you suspended? Is Ju?”

  “I got a fine,” Quentin said. “Just watch the Galaxy’s Greatest Sports Show. I’m sure they’ll give all the details.”

  “And Ju?”

  Quentin shrugged. “Gredok got him out of the meeting. As of now, Ju is still cleared to play. No suspension.”

  “Does Froese have more information on the murder?”

  “Maybe,” Quentin said. “All I know is we have our starting running back lining up in Week One against the Ice Storm.”

  Kimberlin nodded. “That is excellent news. Well, you’ve done a good job at learning about your fellow football-playing species. Now we shall learn exobiology basics on the other races.”

  “I’ll pass,” Quentin said. “We’re into the season now. I have to focus on football and football alone.”

  “There is more to life than football, Quentin. You have come so far. Do you not trust my ability to teach?”

  “Well, yeah, but come on — extra biology?”

  “Exo-biology.”

  “Exo-schmexo,” Quentin said. “Why don’t you just give me random story problems? I don’t need busy-work like biology and history.”

  “All of this would be easier if you didn’t complain like a child at every small task. Don’t you believe in setting goals?”

  Quentin sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. “Of course I believe in setting goals.”

  “Fine. My goal is to turn you into a Renaissance man. A beerswilling, primitive-belief eschewing, violent one, to be true, but a Renaissance man nonetheless.”

  “That sounds awesome.”

  Kimberlin smiled. “Really? It does?”

  “Yeah, really fantastic. By the way, what does eschew mean? And what’s a Renaissance man?”

  Kimberlin sighed. “Quentin, do you feel like you’re a better person for learning what I have taught you thus far?

  Quentin bit his lip and looked at the ground.

  “Well? Do you?”

  Quentin nodded.

  “And I ask you again — do you trust me as a friend?”

  Kimberlin was going to play the friend card? Damn. “Yeah, Mike, you know I do.”

  “Then just go through this lesson with me. It won’t take long. Our first road game takes us near the Prawatt/Sklorno border. So if I teach you about the Prawatt, one could argue that it is related to football.”

  “Prawatt is to football as John Tweedy is to eloquence.”

  Kimberlin laughed. “Did you just use an analogy and the word eloquence?”

  “Is that Renaissance enough for ya?”

  “It is,” Kimberlin said. “But you still need to learn some of this. In known space, the only place more dangerous than Prawatt territory is the Portath Cloud.”

  “Why is Portath more dangerous?”

  “Because at least we know that most sentients who stray into Prawatt territory wind up in a fight for their lives. The ships that go into the Portath Cloud, however, are never heard from again. I have a text you need to read. One chapter a night.”

  “Homework?” Mike was asking too much. “The regular season is a week away, man. I have to study football at night.”

  “For a professional athlete, your voice squawks like that of a little girl. One chapter a night, Quentin. I do not think this will fracture your intellect. And it’s not good for you to focus on only one subject. Studies show that retention rates drop considerably when one stimulates only a specific region of the brain and that—”

  “Fine,” Quentin said. “Anything to avoid one of your longwinded explanations. What’s the name of the damn text?”

  “The Biology of Our Enemies,” Kimberlin said. “Sub-title: Structures of the Threat Races.”

  “Sounds like a real page-turner.”

  “You might be surprised. Did you know that the Prawatt originated on Earth? At least, that’s the theory.”

  Quentin automatically started to repeat what he’d been taught as a child, that the Prawatt were spawned in hell by Low One, but he caught himself in time. Gaining knowledge had an annoying drawback of exposing just how ignorant he used to be. Whatever the Prawatt were, they were no more a demon than the Ki, the Quyth or the Sklorno.

  “I’ve never heard that they came from Earth. That’s ... what’s the word you use ... illogical?”

  Kimberlin smiled and nodded. “Tell m
e why.”

  “The Prawatt are these shapeshifting machines. They’re monsters. If they came from Earth, why wouldn’t they just cut out the middle man and take the Earth over?”

  Michael crossed his massive arms over his massive chest, then nodded. Quentin had learned that body language meant something to the effect of: your thinking is correct, even though your answer is wrong.

  “In the eyes of the Prawatt, Humans like you are the monsters,” Kimberlin said. “The Prawatt supposedly originated on Earth but were wiped out in a genocide around 2015 or 2016 Earth time.”

  “They escaped?”

  “Some of them, possibly. Or perhaps they were recreated somewhere. It is not known. What is known is that they made their first detectable punch-drive flight in 2424. A little-known sentient race, once thought extinct, had returned from the grave.”

  “We have a word for that in the Nation.”

  Kimberlin raised his eyebrows, waiting for the answer.

  “We call that being undead,” Quentin said. “Zombies, vampires, stuff like that. Monster machines coming back from extinction? Gimme a break.”

  “Again, you are the monster to them. And they are not machines. They breed, they reproduce, they create art.”

  “Blah-blah-blah. Art is for pansies, anyway.”

  Kimberlin’s mouth opened and his eyes narrowed as if Quentin had insulted his mother. “Art is for pansies?”

  “Or, as John might say, super-mongo pansies.”

  Kimberlin sighed and shook his head, as if Quentin were the saddest sentient in all the land. “Well, fine. The Prawatt also have their own forms of dance.”

  “Oh, wow, they dance? Why didn’t you just tell me that in the first place, on account of how much I love ballet.”

  “You love ballet?”

  Quentin closed his eyes and held his hands over his heart. “Oh, yes, I so love it. Sometimes I skip practice so I can watch ballet holos and wear my three-three.”

  Kimberlin closed his eyes. “Tutus, Quentin. Ballet dancers wear tutus.”

  “Mine is one better than theirs, I guess. You know, because I love dance just that much.”

  “Oh,” Kimberlin said. “You’re being sarcastic.”

  “Who, me? Look, I’m just not interested in Prawatt culture, okay?”

  “Are you interested in their sports?”

  Sports? Quentin had a sudden vision of devil’s rope playing volleyball with a severed Human head. “Okay, I might be interested in that.”

  Kimberlin rubbed his eyes. “The greatest cultural achievements of the millennia could be there for you to discover and you — of course — only hear the word sports.”

  “Sports are the greatest cultural achievement of the millennia. Come on, what do they play? Hoops? Football?”

  Kimberlin reached for the messageboard. “It is somewhat more gladiatorial than that. The Prawatt body structure allows them to take damage in a different way, so the game is not lethal for them. For the other races, however, it’s quite deadly.”

  “Other races? I thought the Prawatt kill anything they see. What other races want to play with that?”

  “Adventure seekers,” Kimberlin said. The messageboard cast up a holo, something that resembled a walled Dinolition pitch: oblong, with a small circle in the center. But this stadium seemed strange. The stands seemed to ... move ... like waving sea anemones.

  Kimberlin reached out, closed his thick hand on the floating holo, then made a throwing motion at the living room’s holotank. The room computer turned on the holotank and played the same image.

  Low resolution and static made for horrible image quality, but the holotank’s larger picture explained the anemones-like motion — tens of thousands of jittering, spindly, curved arms of the repulsive Prawatt. The creatures were packed in tight, as tight as Purist pilgrims marching around Landing Site. The Prawatt horde’s glossy black arms waved with the same reverence as those swaying, flagellating Pilgrims. Quentin couldn’t make out individuals, although he could see that there were many different, vague and indistinct shapes in that mix.

  The jittery, low-quality holo zoomed in, showing Prawatt down on the pitch.

  “The devil’s rope,” Quentin said in a whisper. His people had good reason to think the Prawatt were demons — they looked like no other living species. From a distance, they resembled a fourlegged spider. Long, two-sectioned arms/legs led back to a tiny body. As the camera closed in, he could see that the leg sections weren’t rigid, like a insect’s, but more flexible, like two springy tubes. Even in the low-quality footage, Quentin could see through the legs in some places.

  “Michael, are you sure that’s not a demon? ‘Cause if you ask me, I would say a demon probably looks a lot like that.”

  “The Prawatt are unique in the galaxy. Tiny machines link together to form larger structures.

  The holocam image pulled back. Three elevated rings stood on either end of the oblong pitch. On the pitch itself stood fourteen beings — seven wearing ribbons of red, seven wearing ribbons of green.

  Two teams.

  But not all the players were Prawatt.

  Quentin squinted, as if that would help bring resolution to the holographic image. “On the red team, is that a Ki? And that, a Sklorno?”

  Michael nodded. “Adventure seekers. Or captured merchants, we don’t know. The Prawatt consider any violation of their borders as an act of war. If sentients enter their space — intentionally or accidentally — those sentients are usually executed.”

  “Wow,” Quentin said. “Makes you think people would pay attention to their maps.”

  “Space is a fluctuating thing. It is easy to lose one’s bearings, even with the complex navigational technology most ships possess.”

  “So, some players are forced to play?”

  “That’s what experts think,” Kimberlin said. “Apparently, some sentients have earned their freedom by winning.”

  “What about the others? The adventure seekers?”

  “Those that value excitement more than life have been known to intentionally cross into Prawatt space, just to play this game.”

  Quentin saw a Quyth Warrior on the green team. Something about that one, something ... familiar. “Hey, wait a minute. Holy crap, Mike! Is that Leiba the Gorgeous?”

  Kimberlin nodded. “That’s how we have this holo. This is the only known recording of the sport.”

  “What’s it called?”

  “No one knows,” Kimberlin said. “Until Leiba somehow made this recording, the game was the stuff of legend and rumor.”

  The contest began. The holo’s terrible quality made it hard to understand, but the object seemed clear — put a ball through the rings on either end. A goalie defended the rings. The teams tore into each other, hitting hard and trying to advance the ball, passing it around like a nonstop form of football. Or maybe this was a kind of soccer where you could use your hands and actually hit people, not the sissy game where you couldn’t touch anyone. Through the static and the jiggering images, Quentin thought he saw more balls in play. Soccer with three balls where you could use your hands and actually hit sentients?

  The red team seemed to break through the green team’s defenses. One Prawatt, red ribbons streaming behind it, took the ball forward and jumped. The green goalie also jumped, an insane leap that brought the two alien machines together some twenty feet off the pitch. The red player took the hit, but twisted, throwing the ball through one of the rings. Both competitors fell to the ground, landing as lightly as cats.

  “Wow! Did you see that?”

  “Just wait,” Kimberlin said. “I don’t think you’ll be quite as excited about the next part.”

  Quentin squinted again, trying to make out the action on the field. So hard to identify anything with this horrible image quality, but there was more than one ball. The two extra balls seemed to fly around randomly — it made no sense.

  The first ball, the one that they’d used to score the goal, bounced free.
The two teams converged. The red-team’s Sklorno player leapt to wrap her tentacles around it, but she was met in the air by two green-team Prawatt. They tackled her, the three of them falling hard to the ground. The Sklorno landed head-first. Even through the scratchy image, Quentin knew a fatality when he saw one.

  The ball bounced free. Just seconds later, Leiba the Gorgeous closed in on it. A Prawatt came at him from behind, diving at his legs. Leiba’s lower-left leg snapped at the shin, blood spraying onto the pitch.

  “High One,” Quentin said. “This game is, uh, violent.”

  Seconds later, one of the randomly flying balls slammed into the Ki’s face. The big creature fell to the pitch, twitching madly.

  And then the holo blinked out.

  “Hey,” Quentin said. “I want to watch the rest of it.”

  “That is all there is. The only known recording.”

  Quentin stared at the blank holoscreen, his heart racing. It didn’t seem to matter what the sport was — if it was a game, it excited him like nothing else in life. He let out a long breath, calming himself, dealing with the fact that he would never know if that Ki lived or which side won the game.

  He turned to face Kimberlin, whose big arms were once again crossed over his chest. Quentin’s eyes flicked to Kimberlin’s right ring finger. As always, there was no ring. Quentin had ignored this question last season, but he could restrain his curiosity no more.

  “I gotta ask you something,” Quentin said. “You were with Pine when the Jacks won two Galaxy Bowls. Why don’t you wear your rings?”

  Kimberlin looked down. “Because I did not earn them.”

  “Because you didn’t start? You were still on the team, man.”

  “You don’t understand, Quentin. I ... I could have started. Back then, I was not as level-headed as I am now.”

  Quentin tried to imagine Michael Kimberlin as anything other than the hulking-but-calm force that he was, anything other than a rock of reason. That image refused to crystallize.