The Champion (57 page)

Quentin felt a sinking sensation.

“The parade bombing,” he said. “Zak was sitting in the same car I was. They were trying to kill him, not me.”

Kimberlin nodded. “Same thing with that fighter attack on the
Touchback
. They wanted Zak gone.”

“And now he is,” Procknow said. “Thanks to
you
, Barnes.”

Something about Procknow held Quentin’s focus. Not
him
, exactly, but rather the dates involved.

“I’m only two years older than you, Jason,” Quentin said. “So in seventy-six, when Mike left, you were ... what, ten years old?”

Procknow said nothing. He just stared back.

“Mike, explain that,” Quentin said. “How can Procknow be a former member if he was
ten
when you and Zak got out?”

“He wasn’t in it then, obviously,” Kimberlin said. “The new blood recruited him as a paid courier, just like they did with me. Zak still has contacts in the ZG. Someone tipped him off about Jason. Zak talked to Jason about the big picture, and now Jason works with us.”

“
Paid
courier?” Quentin said. “So much for all that talk about rising up against the occupiers.”

“I have a family,” Procknow said. “I have to provide for them. I can be patriotic and still get paid for it. I make league minimum, Barnes, not millions like you.”

So much emphasis and intensity on the word
minimum
. Maybe Procknow’s words rang hollow when he spoke of fighting the Creterakians, but not when he spoke about his family, and not when he spoke about
money
.

“So why didn’t they just pay you to kill Zak, Jason? You could get to him anytime, right?”

“Because I’m not a killer,” Procknow said. “Especially not for a guy like Zak, who is trying to fight back.”

“And they wouldn’t ask him to do that,” Kimberlin said. “A Tier One player is probably the most valuable asset they can have. Either side, old blood or new, they wouldn’t ask an active player to do anything that might get them kicked off a team or out of the league.”

So Kimberlin was “old blood.” And Jason was, what...
both
? At any rate, neither of them were to be trusted.

“I still don’t understand the change,” Quentin said. “You said the schism happened within a year or so of the new blood coming in. If Zak was the leader of the Guild, how did he lose control so fast?”

“Money,” Kimberlin said, as if that word explained all of the universe’s unanswered questions. “The Guild always had a decent amount of money — donations from sentients who hated Creterakian rule, mostly — but the new blood? The money they threw around ... it changed everything. So much, and in untraceable formats.”

Quentin felt a sudden chill 111 his chest.

“Untraceable,” he said. “What do you mean,
untraceable
.”

“Gems, mostly,” Kimberlin said. “And precious metals. Highly valuable material that could be used anywhere in the galaxy to buy arms or equipment, or to bribe officials.”

Quentin felt weak, almost boneless, like he was cold, dead meat barely above the freezing point. His legs started to give out. He managed to turn so that he fell into his favorite chair — the sudden drop made one of the chair legs
snap
, left him sitting at an angle.

“Q,” Kimberlin said, “are you all right?”

Quentin heard but didn’t hear.

“High One,” he whispered. “It can’t be.”

Kimberlin leaned forward. “What is it, Q? Tell me.”

Quentin blinked a few times. The room seemed to dematerialize around him.

“Petra,” he said. “She came to me again, Mike. Through Bumberpuff, I mean. She said that the Abernessia had advance agents in our galaxy. They tried to buy off Prawatt with ... with precious metals, and
gems
.”

Kimberlin stared. Then he, too, sat heavily, the couch groaning under his weight.

“Jesus,” he said. “The Abernessia.”

Mike didn’t need to be told all the particulars. The look on his face made it clear: he’d put the pieces together and didn’t like the end result.

Procknow looked from one to the other. “Petra? You mean Petra Prawatt? Are you kidding me? And what the hell is an
Abernessia
?”

Quentin shook his head. He had to focus on one thing at a time. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter right now. Look, this is a lot for me to process. It’s all ... it’s way more complicated than I thought.”

It had seemed so cut and dried, but it wasn’t. The new Guild was bad. Did that mean the old Guild was better, because they fought against the new Guild? Was Zak actually a
good guy
in all this? Could someone who blew up buildings and ships even
be
a good guy?

All of a sudden right and wrong weren’t quite so cut and dried. Quentin felt drained. He was done with all of it and just wanted to think about something else.

“You both need to leave,” he said.

Neither man did. They both stared at him, waiting for more.

“Oh, right,” Quentin said. “I’m not telling anyone about this. Froese squashed the story. No one is going to know about Yitzhak’s involvement in the Bord uprising, whatever that might have been. I’m not a cop and I’m not a soldier — If you both promise me it’s
over
, that you will never,
ever
communicate with the Guild again, I’ll let all this go. I can’t have your involvement screwing up our season. Give me your word, and we never have to talk about it again.”

Kimberlin glanced at Procknow. It was the look of an older man silently giving guidance to a younger one, Kimberlin urging Jason to accept the deal.

Procknow sighed and shook his head. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “Wasn’t as if I was all that involved anyway. That whole
schism
thing happened when I was like nine years old. I’d rather just play football.”

Kimberlin looked at Quentin, his face earnest. “I promise, Q. I’m done with all of it.”

Quentin pointed to the door. “Then both of you get out of here. I just don’t want to deal with this anymore.”

The two linemen left. Quentin stared at his holotank for a little while. It was off, showing nothing but blank gray.

He wondered if Becca had already shuttled down. He wanted her there with him, needed her, but things were broken between them. Since their talk at D’Oni, she’d avoided him completely.

Maybe he would call her. Later, though, because he realized there was someone on board who probably needed a friend far more than he did.

THE REST OF THE TEAM
had shuttled down to Ionath hours ago. Quentin didn’t feel like leaving, not just yet. Too much to process. He just wanted to stay on the
Touchback
for a while, have a couple of beers. And besides, he had company — someone who felt the same way he did.

Yolanda was sprawled out on Quentin’s couch, a portrait of defeat. Her right hand covered her face as if it were a shield that might hide her from the galaxy. Her left hand held a mag can of Miller Lager.

Quentin wondered if that was how he had looked shortly after the ’84 playoffs, when he’d thought he was on his way to a Galaxy Bowl title but lost in the opening round against the Wabash Wolfpack.

Quentin had never written a story, never been interested in being a journalist, and really had no idea what went into Yolanda’s job. Nor did he have any idea of how writers defined “success.” There were awards, probably, and popularity, but nothing as straightforward as a tournament bracket resulting in a clear-cut winner.

What he could relate to, though, was seeing years of work vanish in an instant.

“Yolanda, you want another?”

“I’m not some booze-swilling jock, Barnes,” she said into her hand. “A second beer isn’t going to help my mood.”

“Maybe not, but it sure isn’t going to hurt it.”

Her hand slid down a little. She looked at him guardedly. “Okay,” she said. “One more. Thanks.”

He walked to his tiny kitchen and came back with two more mag cans. He handed her one, then sat back down in his favorite chair — the leg was still broken, and he still sat at an angle. He would have to have Messal get that fixed.

They opened their cans at the same time, with a
hiss
of in-rushing air and the
crackle
of sudden frost.

Yolanda sat up and took a sip.

“That little
scumbag
,” she said.

“You mean Froese or Whykor?”

“Take your pick. They both screwed me over. You know what that story would have done for my career?”

He was having a hard time thinking his own career was all that important, let alone hers. Sandoval, Zak, the Guild, Kimberlin and Procknow’s involvement in what Zak had or hadn’t done, and — worst of all — seeing Petra’s claims of Abernessia corruption all but confirmed by Kimberlin. The future invaders were using the Guild to drive wedges between governments and races alike.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe there are some things more important than a news story, don’t you think?”

She paused mid-sip, lowered her can.

“Okay, I guess that’s fair,” she said. “Whatever this does to the ZG, at least Goldman isn’t using the GFL to help kill sentients.”

Quentin raised his beer. “And that’s due to
your
work. Cheers.”

She hesitated, then raised her own. “Cheers.”

Yolanda was relaxing a little. That was good. She’d busted her butt on that story, and he had no end of respect for that. Still, if Kimberlin was telling the truth, Zak had been trying to
stop
attacks, not start them. Did that excuse what he’d done in the past? No, not really, but it made things damn complicated. The older Quentin got, it seemed, the more he learned that there were no easy answers, that black and white were thin strips bordering a wide swath of gray.

The football field had rules. Life did not.

“I wonder what will happen with Zak,” he said.

Yolanda shrugged. “I don’t know. Bad things happen on the
Regulator
. I can’t prove that, though. Froese has that ship locked up right.”

She took another sip, sagged deeper into the couch.

“I worked so
hard
on this,” she said. “Now I’ve got nothing.”

Quentin nodded, wishing he could help her in some way. When he lost a game, the only thing that made him feel better was winning the next one. She’d lost a major story; to get over it, he imagined she needed a new one that was just as big.

Could he tell her about the schism in the Zoroastrian Guild? In-fighting among that group would not only make a great story, it might be an early alert to what the Abernessia were doing. But if told her about that, he would reveal that he knew more about the ZG than he’d let on.

He wished he could tell her about Jonathan Sandoval’s blackmail, about the reporter’s double-life as a CMR spy. What a story
that
would be, probably as big as the ZG schism. Quentin took a long pull at his beer. As long as Sandoval was threatening to tell the CMR the actual size of the CoQB, then Quentin couldn’t ...

... Sandoval ...

... the CMR ...

...
schism
 ...

“Barnes!”

Her shout and a sensation of cold wetness spreading across his chest snapped him out of it. He’d spilled beer all down his chin and onto his shirt. He stood up, first thinking he had to grab a towel, then forgetting about it in the same instant.

It will work ... it will work!

“An exclusive,” he said. “For you, the story, an exclusive on Jona ...” he barely caught himself from saying the full name.

“On John Tweedy?”

“No, forget that part,” he said. “But an exclusive for you and it’s about sports and ... I ... and ...”

He was stammering, sloshing beer onto the floor. That was no way for a calculating leader to act. He took a deep breath, controlled his emotions and embraced the calm.

“I have a story for you,” he said. “About me, sort of, to replace the one Froese took.”

She shook her head. “My coverage of you on this trip didn’t produce any
news
. I hate to tell you, but other than your quirky habit of throwing up all the time? All you do is focus on football. No disrespect intended, Barnes, but you’re kind of
boring
.”

“Not that,” he said. “Something else, something
really
big. I need to get you some information, and I need to do it now. So I’m sorry, but—” he gestured to the door with his beer hand, inadvertently spilling a little more “—do you mind taking the shuttle down yourself?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Is this how football players usually console their buddies after a bad game?”

“Well, no, but—”

“It’s all right,” she said. She stood, set her mag can on a side table. “I’ll go. And thank you for the beers. I can’t wait to see what your story is, Barnes, but I have a feeling it’s not quite as significant as you think.”

Quentin fought to keep still until the door hissed shut behind her.

“Computer, tell Messal the Efficient I want to see him in my quarters, immediately.”

[RIGHT AWAY, QUENTIN.]

If Messal could get Quentin and the others all the way to the Portath Cloud and back without anyone knowing, the Worker could assuredly set up a secret meeting on Ionath.

“Oh, and computer?”

|YES, QUENTIN?]

“Is the
Regulator
still in direct communication range?”

[THAT SHIP HAS NOT YET ENTERED PUNCH-SPACE. IT IS STILL IN RANGE.]

“Get Froese on the line, immediately. Tell him it’s urgent. Oh, and tell him he
better
take this call, because he owes me. Use those words exactly.”

[RIGHT AWAY, QUENTIN.]

All the pieces clicked, and clicked
hard
. The commissioner wasn’t the only one who could put a plan together. Quentin had team practice, sure, but things would be a little laid back during the bye week — he had enough time to make his plan happen.

GFL WEEK EIGHT ROUNDUP