The Champion (19 page)

Quentin’s hand shot out, pushed John hard in the chest, forcing the linebacker to take a step back.

Becca stepped between them.

“Quentin,
stop it
” she said. “John is trying to help.”

John held up his hands, palms out — he had no intention of pushing back.

“Q, you said this isn’t a game, and you’re right — that’s why it should be me in the pit.”

Jeanine’s freedom was on the line, and John wanted to talk about who was tougher? Quentin could win GFL titles, cut off his own damn finger to do so, but he supposedly couldn’t handle this?

“My family,” he said. He thumped his fist against his chest. “My fight.”

John bit his lip. He nodded. He didn’t look mad — he looked worried. Worried
for
Quentin, and that made Quentin even angrier.

Quentin turned back to Hulsey.

“I challenge the Gouger.”

She looked him up and down. She paused for a moment, as if considering that his massive size might give him an advantage. Then she shook her head, dismissing that thought. She looked at Jeanine.

“If your brother does this, he is going to die. Please, talk him out of it. It isn’t that bad here, you’ll see. You can marry, have kids if you want. You can’t leave, but at least you’ll both be
alive
.”

Jeanine squared her shoulders.

“My brother will win,” she said. “And if he doesn’t, I’ll take my own life shortly after he loses his. I’ve lived in a gilded cage before, Hulsey, one far nicer than this. I wanted for nothing, but I wasn’t
free
. I was a possession, a toy. I killed to escape that place, swore to myself that no one would ever collar me again. I didn’t have the will to keep that promise until now, until my brother came for me. It doesn’t matter what kind of a life you think I can have, Hulsey — I will live free, or I will die.”

Gilded cage
? Jeanine had killed someone? Quentin didn’t know what she was talking about. What secrets were in her past? He knew almost nothing about her, something he desperately wanted to change. But before that could happen, he had to win her freedom — he had to climb into the pit.

“I’ll say it again, Hulsey — I challenge the Gouger, I challenge for Fred and Jeanine. I’m not going to change my mind. I’m not going to back down.”

Hulsey closed her eyes. Her head drooped.

“Very well,” she said. “I will deliver your message. If the Gouger accepts, you will fight within the hour.”

21

The Pit

QUENTIN AND JU STEPPED OFF
the black stone ring and into the bowl. They were examining every detail, anything that might help with the upcoming fight. Ju had fought professionally. Quentin needed his counsel.

John, Kimberlin and Becca remained on the spectator ring, Doc Patah floating nearby. They stared down, grim and resigned, knowing their friend might not live through the hour. Becca, in particular, was clearly struggling to keep her composure.

Quentin was also struggling to keep his: he was just doing a better job of hiding the effort.

Hulsey stood on the opposite side, hands tucked away in the sleeves of her red robe. Jeanine and Fred had been taken elsewhere. Bumberpuff had returned to Rosalind to prep for departure. George had gone with him.

Ju slid the toe of his shoe against the bowl’s yellow-flecked red stone, leaving a spotty streak of black rubber sole behind.

“Rough texture,” he said. “The bowl shape is hard to manage, but the traction is excellent.”

Quentin slid his foot forward, gradually increasing the downward pressure. He made it only a few inches before the stone bit into his shoe sole and the foot scuffed to a stop.

“Yep,” he said. “Good traction.”

Was this stone pit where he’d kill another living creature? Or, was this where he would die himself, doom his sister to a lifetime of slavery? Not that she’d live long — that look in her eye, her promise that she wouldn’t serve another, that was as definitive and unquestionable as Quentin’s own will to win.

Ju kept walking, his left foot higher up on the bowl’s concave slope. He rushed forward, stopped suddenly. He leaned left, right, acclimating himself to the change in balance required by being on a nonflat surface.

“The slope, it really pulls at you,” he said. “When the fighting starts you might forget that, and it will take you where you don’t want to go. Be careful.”

“Sure thing, Ju,” Quentin said.

They kept walking, pointing out divots and small cracks in the red rock. It was no different from the pre-kickoff ritual of examining the host field on away games. That familiarity both comforted and disturbed Quentin.

He moved to the bottom of the bowl, then saw a detail he hadn’t noticed before — a drain.

“High One,” he said.

Ju bent forward, peered down at it.

“Booger-blood removal,” he said. “Efficient. Kind of gross, though.”

Ju didn’t seem fazed by the fact that it might soon be Quentin’s blood coursing down that very drain.

“Yeah,” Quentin said. “Kind of gross.”

Ju crossed his arms over his wide chest, squinting thoughtfully.

“Q, you’ll do fine. You know how to fight. Hell, you beat
me
. Know how many sentients in the whole galaxy can say that? Four. Including you. You’re badass, brother. You’ll carve that booger-bag into littler booger-bags.”

Quentin nodded. Yes, he had beaten Ju, but that hadn’t been a fight to the
death
. And there was the small fact that Quentin had cheated.

He looked up to Hulsey, who stood on the edge of the bowl, watching him.

“Why is this thing stone? Everything else on this whole ship is steel.”

“Platinum-iridium, actually,” she said. “The bowl is ancient. All ark-ships have one for the settling of disputes and for trial by combat. The stone is from the Portath homeworld. I am told this pit was carved from the side of a mountain some five thousand years ago.”

Five
thousand
years old? The Portath had been killing each other on this very surface back when Earth was still in pre-history.

Quentin saw a little flake of something stuck to the bowl’s rough stone. He poked at it with his toe. The bit came free, and he realized what it was: a dried piece of Portath skin.

It finally hit home, made every ounce of his being shiver with a metallic chill — this wasn’t a gridiron, a basketball court or a baseball diamond. This wasn’t even the Prawatt arena. Sentients died in those games, but death wasn’t the specific
objective
.

This, however, wasn’t a
game
at all.

He felt sick. Maybe he should have let John fight. No ... John had his own life to live. He had to provide for Ma Tweedy. No matter what happened to Quentin, John and Ju would return to Ionath and to their careers with the Krakens. Jeanine was family: the responsibility for this fight fell to Quentin and no one else.

Hulsey called down. “Barnes, it’s almost time. I’ll take you to the room where you will prepare yourself and say your final prayers.”

Ju gripped Quentin’s shoulder.

“Q, you sure you’re okay to do this?”

Quentin was not okay. His stomach felt sour. His skin tingled.

“You bet,” he said. “Ma Tweedy’s third son will whip that ass.”

Ju smiled. “That’s the spirit. And remember, Q, when you kill this thing? Don’t feel bad, because it was eventually going to die anyway — you just speeded up the process. Keep that in your head and everything will be fine.”

They stepped out of the bowl and followed Hulsey into the ship’s steel — no,
platinum-iridium
— corridors. Ju sounded so at ease; Quentin was anything but. The “process” was going to be speeded up for someone, all right, but would it be for the Portath foe?

Or would it be for him?

22

Prelims

THE SMALL PREP CHAMBER’S CURVED CEILING
flowed into curved walls, which themselves melded into the floor without a single hard line or seam. The oval door opened to a corridor, where Kimberlin, John and Doc Patah waited. Ju had stayed at the pit in case the Gouger showed up early. Ju would analyze anything he could, look for any strategic advantage he could call out to Quentin once the fight began.

In the center of the room, the floor extended up into a small, round, flat table. On that surface, a double-sickle knife. Quentin had tested the edge, found it to be sharper than anything he’d ever handled. It would slice through his skin as easily as air. If the Gouger was strong enough, it would also probably cut through bone.

Quentin put his hands against the curved wall, rested his forehead against the cool metal. He was about to fight to the death. No rules. No refs.

“That’s not a game face, Q.”

He turned. Becca stood in the oval doorway, hands awkwardly at her sides as if she didn’t know where they were supposed to go.

“I’m working up to it,” he said. He faked a smile. “It’s going to be okay, Becca.”

She stared at him. Stared hard. Her mouth tightened. She seemed to realize she was doing that, pressed her lips into a thin line instead.

“It
better
be okay,” she said. “I didn’t follow you across the universe so I could go home without you.”

He shook his head. “You won’t...”

You won’t have to
were the words he wanted, but he choked on them, because those same lips she’d fought to control started to quiver — she was fighting back tears, and seeing that ground him up inside.

Becca sniffed once, a short, sharp intake of air.

“I know that — someday — I’ll have to say goodbye to you,” she said. “But it won’t be today. You’re the best there is, Quentin. Do what you have to do. Do what you
always
do — win.”

She sniffed again, then turned quickly and was gone.

Quentin stared at the empty doorway. She believed in him, in a way that went beyond football, beyond titles. As scared as he was, her belief mattered.

If only he believed as much as she did.

She was right about one thing, though — it was time to get his game face on. He walked to the table and picked up the weapon. The center was a polished metal ring: no handhold, no finger-notches, no texture ... the thing might as well have been greased for all the grip it provided.

He bent at the knees, held the weapon out in front of him, feeling the weight. He tried a slash, getting a sense for the inertia. How would he attack? Was it better to jab or to slice?

John entered the chamber.

“Hey, Q. Becca give you a pep talk?”

“Yeah,” Quentin said. “Sort of.”

“Good. You feel peppy, then?”

Quentin shrugged, tried a forehand slash followed by an immediate backhand. “Peppy-er than I was before, at least.”

“Good,” John said, nodding. “Good. Becca knows words. That’s helpful right now, seeing as you’re in a duel to the death and all.”

PUT SOME PEP IN THAT STEP, SOLDIER
scrolled across his forehead in bright blue letters.

Quentin stopped slashing. He looked at John. This might very well be the last time he spoke to the man.

“Look, John ... just in case I don’t make it, I’m sorry about you and Becca. I didn’t mean for ... you know.”

John smiled, shook his head. “Q, your timing is awful. Right now you might want to pay attention to the job at hand.

“I know, but I—”

“It’s done,” John said. “I’ve moved on.”

Apparently he had. He’d lost that air of constant animosity. Quentin wasn’t sure when that had happened, but it
had
happened, and he felt immense relief.

John pointed at the knife.

“Let me see what you can do with that.”

Quentin again squatted into a fighting stance. He focused on his motions — thrust, slash, spin, slash.

John frowned. “Hell but that’s an ugly weapon. How’s the balance?”

“Awkward. This ring-handle thing...I’m afraid it’s going to slip.”

He tried palming the ring, thumb wrapped around the bottom, his fingers curling over the top. That was a little better. When he held it that way, it looked like he had eight-inch curved blades coming out the sides of his fist.

“Thing is so damn sharp,” he said. “If my grip slips at all, it could spin in my hand — I might cut myself before the Gouger does.”

FIGHTS TO THE DEATH ... AIN’T THEY GRAND?
played across John’s face.

“Q, you sure you want to do this?”

Here it came again, John trying to talk him out of it.

“Don’t start,” Quentin said. “If they had Ju instead of Jeanine, you know damn well you’d be the one in that pit, and no one would be able to tell you otherwise.”

John’s jaw muscles twitched. For once, nothing scrolled across his face. He was just a normal man who didn’t want his friend to die.

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess I’d do just about anything for my brother.”

Quentin tried another thrust, basically throwing a punch with one of the platinum points leading the way. That felt good.

“You’ll have to watch out for their reach,” John said. “Looks like those booger-bags can stretch their licorice arms a long way. You need to close in fast. If you stay at a distance, that thing will cut you to pieces.”

John was right. Those boneless extrusions gave the Portath a reach advantage of several
feet
. With blades this sharp, the Gouger could keep Quentin at bay with little nicks and cuts, then just wait for blood loss to take its toll.

“But what if I keep my distance and make the Gouger really
reach
for me? I could dodge and cut behind the blade, try to slice the arm off like Bloodletter did to Taker of Souls.”

“Sure, sure,” John said, nodding. “If you’re faster than it is.”

“I’m plenty fast,” Quentin said. “And if it attacks at a distance, I have more reaction time. When it strikes, I can spin out of the way—” he held the blade close to his chest as he planted his left foot and spun his right shoulder in a reverse arc, a move he had made countless times on the football field, his whole body whipping around so quickly he might as well have teleported a foot to the left “—then close in fast—” he landed on his right foot, his spin momentum moving him forward, lunging ahead with his left foot, blade extended “—and then ...”