The Champion (42 page)

Like all the lockers on the
Touchback
, there was no door, just two-foot-long dividers sticking out perpendicular from the wall, shelves, armor racks and clothes hooks between them. There was just enough space that if he scrunched his arms together, he could have slid between the dividers, a shoulder pressing against either side.

He started to dress. He was buttoning his shirt when the shimmer hit — he’d lost track of time, forgotten the schedule. He held onto the locker, shut his eyes tight, tried to stay standing as reality bent and warped and twisted around him. Just when he thought his atoms would spread to their original home in the stars, the shimmer vanished.

Quentin cautiously opened one eye. For a second, he thought he might not throw up, then his stomach told him he was wrong.

After, he used his towel to try and clean up what had been a rather excellent lunch. It quickly became clear that one towel wasn’t enough. Maybe he shouldn’t have had that third helping of beef stew. He found another towel and finished the job.

It was the first time that season he’d thrown up from a punch-out. So annoying — he thought he’d put that chronic motion sickness behind him.

Quentin heard the pitter-patter of little Quyth Worker feet.

“Elder Barnes, I... oh, that
smell
. Ah, I see you had an accident.”

“Sorry about that, Messal.”

“Why are you cleaning it?”

Quentin looked at the two ruined towels, at the vomit smears still streaking the floor, then back at the Worker. “Because I’m the one that threw up?”

Messal’s big eye blinked slowly.

“Elder Barnes, you are aware that you are a millionaire, are you not? We have sentients who will clean up after you.”

The galaxy revolved around the rich — sometimes Quentin forgot that he was one of them.

“I got most of it,” he said. “Tell whoever finishes the job I said
thanks
. You came here to talk to me about something?”

“Oh, yes, I did, Elder Barnes. There is a delegation here to see you.”

“A
delegation
? From where?”

“From your church.”

“Why would the Church of Purism come to the
Touchback
to see me?”

Messal’s eye swirled with a touch of pure red. That color wasn’t seen often in any of the Quyth castes; it best translated to
amusement
.

“
Your
church,” Messal said. “The Church of Quentin Barnes.”

It hit Quentin that the
Touchback
had just come out of punch drive but was only four days into the trip — nowhere near Neptune.

“Where are we, exactly?”

“We punched out near Capizzi in the Planetary Union,” Messal said. “Still a full day’s punch from Sol System and Neptune, Elder Barnes.”

“And this
delegation
contacted the
Touchback
as soon as we punched out?”

“They did, Elder Barnes. It appears they were waiting for us. They hailed Captain Cheevers and are requesting an audience with you. They said it is a matter of life and death.”

This was just
weird
. As far as he knew, no one from his church had tried to meet him at Yall. That was a Sklorno planet, so why not there?

“How many sentients in this delegation?”

“Six, Elder Barnes. A Human, a Ki and four Sklorno.”

A Human? A
Ki
?

“What are other species doing in the delegation? They accountants or something?”

“I do not know their roles,” Messal said. “Perhaps you have been busy preparing for football games, as you should be, Elder Barnes, but your church is—”

“It’s not
my
church, dammit.”

Messal bowed.

“Of course, my apologies. The Church of Quentin Barnes has spread to species beyond the Sklorno. It is growing quite rapidly. And I should also point out that one of the four Sklorno is Richfield.”

The name stopped him cold. It couldn’t be.

“Richfield.
Our
Richfield?”

“Yes, Elder Barnes.”

Richfield, retired from the team just six weeks back, was here as a member of the CoQB? She’d said she was going to Earth to preach. Had that not happened?

“What’s her role with the delegation?”

“Apparently, she is the new high priestess.”

“What happened to the old one?”

“I could not say, Elder Barnes.”

How could she have become the head of the church in just six weeks? Had she leveraged her position as his former teammate? Seeing as the Sklorno worshiped athletes, maybe Richfield was some kind of godling in her own right.

“Did Coach say they could come aboard?”

“Coach Hokor the Hookchest left that decision up to you,” Messal said. “Captain Cheevers has no problem with it, as long as the delegation departs the
Touchback
before the punch drive is recharged for the next leg. Since Gredok is back on Ionath, that means the decision is up to you.”

So much for counting on Coach as an excuse to avoid this.

“What do
you
think, Messal? Should I meet them?”

Quentin half expected the old Messal to answer, the wavering Messal who would say something like
oh, I could not possibly presume to offer advice on such a thing
, but instead, Messal thought for a moment, then gave his take.

“They seem to have gone through a lot of trouble to meet you at this precise location, Elder Barnes. It is in your best interest to find out why. If you choose to meet with them, take Choto with you. If there is trouble, and I do not think there would be, I am confident he can keep you safe.”

Quentin finished buttoning his shirt. “But I don’t want anything to do with my church. And I don’t want a misinterpretation of something I said to cause sentients, somewhere, to get hurt, or killed. I don’t want to do anything wrong.”

Messal fidgeted, thinking. “Elder Barnes, you are their
god
. Perhaps I am not an expert in primitive belief structures, but if you choose not to see the delegation, they will try to find meaning in that decision. If you suddenly become a one hundred-meter creature made of wind and lightning that destroys a Sklorno city simply because you have had a bad day, then they would try to find meaning in
that
. If there is any fun to be had in your role as a supreme being, it’s that the circular logic of your followers will make it impossible for you to be
wrong
about anything.”

Quentin didn’t follow all that, but one part stuck: if he didn’t meet the delegation, they might interpret that in a way that led to violence. So, he could see them and risk having his words be misinterpreted, or he could ignore them and risk them reading something bad into that. Great choice. If they thought he was angry with them, or that they had disappointed him somehow, who knew what they would do to get in his favor? For crying out loud, to
celebrate
him, they already
ate
each other, and ...

The columns of pink smoke. If Richfield was the new high priestess, he could tell her what he thought about sacrifices in his name. He could actually do something about it, and he could do it right now.

“I’ll meet them,” Quentin said. “Bring the delegation aboard.”

THE DELEGATION WAITED
on the
Touchback’s
50-yard line.

Quentin brought only Choto and Messal. John would just complicate things. Quentin knew he should have brought Kimberlin, but outside of games or the practice field, he didn’t want anything to do with that man.

Richfield wore the orange and black robes of the CoQB’s high priestess. Just seeing her familiar reddish-black hair brought warmth to Quentin’s soul, despite the incredibly strange situation.

With her stood three other Sklorno, also in orange and black robes, and — as Messal had promised — a Human in an orange and black business suit and a Ki wearing the equivalent orange and black clothing for his species.

Quentin and Choto walked to meet them. The white discs that kept the practice field’s nanograss cropped short skittered out of the way, then went back to their places once the two moved past.

The delegation saw him coming. Richfield was in front, waiting patiently. The three Sklorno behind her started to jump, overwhelmed at the sight of him. The Human trembled. The Ki closed all five of its eyes and stood there, motionless.

Richfield whipped around to face the others, extended her legs and stood at her full eight-foot, five-inch height.

“
Stop your grab-assing
,” she screamed at the other Sklorno. They instantly fell still, or at least tried to: the jumping stopped, but they shook as if the temperature was far below freezing.

Richfield faced Quentin just as he reached midfield.

“Godling, I tell them to be still because I know you do not approve of the grab-assing.”

Quentin thought briefly of explaining what
grab-assing
actually meant, but Richfield was in the general ballpark, so he let it go.

“It’s good to see you,” Quentin said. “When you took the white jersey, I thought our paths might never again cross.”

Richfield’s eyestalks undulated slightly.

“That was a sad day, but the Quentinbarnes works in mysterious ways.”

He winced at hearing his name used where most people said
High One
, or the name of some other deity.

“Quentinbarnesquentinbarnes,” Richfield said. “When Gredok told me I was not good enough to receive your holy blessings, I knew my life would change. And it has! Now it is I who can
give
your holy blessings!”

She lost control for a moment, jumped up and down twice. When she did, Quentin saw a gold pendant flopping from a metal chain around her narrow neck — there was something odd about that pendant.

Richfield forced herself to stop jumping. She stood perfectly still.

“Godling Quentinbarnes, I have come to humbly announce my new position as the leader of your holy house of holiness.”

He’d played alongside this sentient, been on the field and in the locker room with her more times than he could count. And now she was the leader of this insane church; life never ceased to surprise him.

Still, having her in charge made him feel better about the whole affair. He didn’t know her well, but he
did
know her, and that was more than he could say for all but a handful of her species.

“Richfield, when you were still on the team, the church had another high priestess. What happened to her?”

“She was unworthy,” Richfield said. “She was killed, she was cooked, she was—”

“I get the picture,” Quentin said, wishing he hadn’t asked at all.

Richfield had killed the former priestess to take over the CoQB? That seemed barbaric, but Kimberlin had taught him long ago that Sklorno culture couldn’t be judged by Human standards. And besides, was the way to the top in this church really all that different from the way to the top of Purism? Except for the eating part, of course.

The golden object around her neck caught his attention again. It was thin and lumpy, like a gilded bit of tree branch.

He pointed at it. “The former priestess didn’t have that. Is it significant?”

Richfield bounced in place.

“Oh, yes-yes-yes, Godling. It is the holy relic of the Church of Quentin Barnes. With this in my possession, I was able to rally support in my bid to become high priestess!”

Her tentacle tip curled under it, held it up the way a Human would put something on a palm and offer it for inspection.

“It is from the Galaxy Bowl,” she said. “Your right fifth-finger metacarpal.”

Quentin stared at it.

“My pinkie? You wear my
pinkie
around your neck?”

“Coated in gold!”

Quentin’s severed finger had become a holy relic. At her retirement ceremony, she told him she had
magic
to help her. His finger had to be the magic she was talking about. Quentin had asked Doc Patah to cut it off; he hadn’t asked what happened to it. Had Richfield just snatched it in the madness of the victory celebration?

It didn’t matter. She had it now, it gave her some kind of power in the church, and that was that. He certainly didn’t want it back.

Sklorno followed him, worshiped him, and while he didn’t understand or approve of it, he understood that idolatry was part of their culture. The Human and the Ki, however?

Quentin looked at the man in the orange and black suit.

“What’s your name?”

The man turned ghost-white. “My name? The godling wants to know my name?”

“Yes,” Quentin said. “Today, while we’re young.”

He was maybe six feet — a little shorter than most, but normal. The man glanced at Choto, who was the same height but with 400 pounds of pure muscle compared to the man’s 250 pounds of mostly flab.

“Choto isn’t going to hurt you,” Quentin said. “He’s here to protect me. Now, what’s your name?”

“Hoyt Bogard,” the man said in a rush.

“Hello, Hoyt,” Quentin said. “Answer me something. The Sklorno following me, I get that. Sort of, anyway. But you? You’re
Human
— don’t you already have a religion?”

“Oh, of course, Godling, of course,” Hoyt said. “I was a Catholic. Then a Hindu. Then a Philminer. Then a Jew for a while, but that required too much studying, so I kept searching.”

Quentin looked at Richfield. “And how much studying is there to be in the CoQB?”

“None!” Richfield hopped twice, caught herself doing it, then stopped. “All one must do is see the truth that the godling Quentinbarnes is a holy creature. Does the godling demand that sentients study to join the church?”

Quentin wanted to say:
yes, make them study math and science, so they don’t get lured into this crazy religion the way so many of my uneducated countrymen got lured into Purism
. But why should he bother? Math and science had been around for thousands of years, yet still sentients followed countless religious doctrines and superstitious ideologies.

“No studying,” Quentin said. “There’s no point.”