The Starter (41 page)

From there, just like he had the first three outings, Quentin spent the rest of the game either running for his life or flat on his back. The To Pirates defense was just too good to not take advantage of the hole in the Krakens offensive line. Quentin started trying to force the ball, to make something happen, and that’s when the mistakes began. He finished with two touchdown passes (one to Crazy George Starcher, one to Scarborough), but also two interceptions and four sacks.

His counterpart for the Pirates didn’t have those problems. Quentin watched from the sidelines as Frank Zimmer showed why he was still considered the best quarterback in the game. Zimmer picked the Krakens defense apart, throwing for four touchdowns and 356 yards. The old man made it look effortless.

When the final gun sounded, the Pirates had doubled-up on the Krakens by a score of 42-21. Quentin quickly shook hands and even hurried through the chance to talk to his boyhood hero, Frank Zimmer.

He had to get back to the locker room and check on Aka-Na-Tak.

• • •

QUENTIN RAN INTO THE
visitor’s locker room, hoping for the best. His teammates’ mood told him he wouldn’t get it. He’d seen this before, seen the entire team packed together in a communal locker room, Coach Hokor in the center by the holoboard, waiting for the last of the Krakens to filter in. He held a messageboard in his pedipalp hands. He waited for everyone to arrive, because it was an announcement that no one wanted to make twice.

Messal the Efficient stood quietly by, a metal box in his middle hands. Quentin recognized that box. Inside was an engraving tool. The same one that Messal had used to carve Mitchell Fayed’s name into the carapaces of the Krakens’ Quyth Warrior players.

That was what the Quyth did when one of their teammates died.

“Krakens,” Hokor said. “We have lost one of our warriors. Aka-Na-Tak suffered a recurrence of the injury that had kept him out of the lineup this season. The injury was severe. Doc Patah said he could have saved Aka-Na’s life, but Aka-Na would have had paralyzed legs and would have been a sextapalegic. Aka-Na chose euthanasia.”

Messal opened the box and took out the engraving tool. The Quyth warriors lined up; Virak the Mean in front, Choto the Bright right behind him.

“Wait a minute,” Quentin said. “
Euthanasia?
What does that mean?”

Hokor looked at Quentin. “It means Aka-Na chose to die.”

“
Chose
to die? What are you talking about? If Doc Patah could have saved him, why would he want to die?”

Sho-Do-Thikit let out a long string of unintelligible Ki language. Coarse, guttural, proud, yet carrying the weight of tragedy.

Then Don Pine was at Quentin’s shoulder, listening to Sho-Do’s speech. Don’s uniform was immaculate, his jersey an unblemished, blazing orange. Quentin’s, on the other hand, was stretched, ripped, streaked with red both from the field and from his own blood.

Sho-Do-Thikit stopped speaking.

Quentin turned to face Don, waiting for an explanation.

Don started to talk, then stopped and looked down. He was fighting back tears. Don’s pause lasted a few seconds, then he nodded once and looked up, looked Quentin in the eyes.

“Doc Patah could have saved Aka-Na, even made him walk again,” Don said. “But it would have required prosthetics, artificial nerves, implants. The injury was bad, Quentin, it wasn’t just the legs, there was also damage to the digestive tract. Even with artificial implants, Aka-Na would have required constant care. He would have been dependent on doctors, nurses, his friends, his—”

“So
what?
So what if he would have needed help? What the hell is all this GFL money for if someone can’t get help when they need it?”

Sho-Do-Thikit let out another short burst. Quieter than the first, slower. Quentin could hear a tone in those words he couldn’t understand — a tone of patience.

The room’s only sound came from the chitin chisel. Quentin looked to that sound, saw that Virak was finished. Messal was now engraving Aka-Na’s name into Choto’s middle left forearm. Killik the Unworthy was next in line.

Don put his hand on Quentin’s shoulder. “Sho-Do said the Ki Warrior’s way is to not be a burden. They feel it is better to die in battle than live life as a cripple.”

Quentin felt his face turning hot again, tears blurring his vision. “But he could have
lived!
He didn’t have to die. It’s not right!”

“Quentin, Aka-Na didn’t want a life without football. He didn’t want to go from being a world-class athlete to an invalid. Right or wrong doesn’t matter here, it was
his choice
.”

Quentin tried to talk, but his throat locked up. Another teammate, dead. He roughly pushed past Pine, part of his mind hoping that Pine would take offense, start something, give Quentin something to
hate
, something to
hit
. Don just let him go. Quentin’s thoughts melded into something incoherent, something that spun in all directions at once. He walked to the holoboard, lifted his helmet and started smashing it into the device. Plastic and glass shattered. He hit it over and over again until the helmet split against the harder machinery inside and a jagged piece of something drove into the base of Quentin’s thumb.

Strong arms grabbed him, stopping him. Quentin turned, ready to do the one thing he knew well,
to fight
. Sho-Do-Thikit was there, black eyes staring, hexagonal mouth opening and closing to alternately expose then hide the pointy, back-slanting teeth. The Ki held Quentin with two of his arms. The other two arms lifted something, offering it.

Quentin looked down. A cup of black liquid. He didn’t have to ask — it was Aka-Na-Tak’s blood. Ki tradition, to mark yourself with the blood of your fallen comrade. Quentin dipped his left fingers into the cup, put them on his right shoulder and dragged diagonally to his left hip. Aka-Na’s black blood streaked across the beat-up numbers “1” and “0” on the front of his jersey.

Quentin heard someone crying. He looked for the source and found it — John Tweedy. John’s big head sat heavily in his big hands. The epitome of violence seemed unashamed of his tears. Through the fingers, Quentin could see letters flashing across John’s face —
IT WAS AN HONOR TO PLAY WITH YOU.


Seeing that message was the final straw. Quentin felt the tears pouring down his cheeks, dripping off his chin. The crowd broke up — there was nothing more to say. Quentin walked to the Human locker room, the weight of a galaxy making his cleated feet drag. He stripped off his armor and headed for the Ki baths.

• • •

WITH A HEAVY HEART,
Quentin walked through the insane colors of the
Touchback’s
Sklorno section. He’d heard that the Sklorno saw a wider range of the spectrum than Humans, and also saw far greater detail in each color. A jersey might look “red” to a Human, but to a Sklorno, that single shade could look like twenty or thirty unique colors. The Sklorno knew they saw more than the other species, and were constantly trying to communicate the splendor of their natural vision to the other races. That was the reason, presumably, for the atrocious uniforms of the Sklorno League in Tier Two, as well as those of the Alimum Armada, the Yall Criminals and the Chillich Spider-Bears.

This part of the ship looked vastly different than the simple, subdued tones and/or orange-and-black patterns of the Human, HeavyG and administrative sections. Maddening patterns of electric colors covered everything: blues, purples, reds, yellows, greens, oranges. Some colors were so thick and dark they looked nearly black, others were so bright you couldn’t really look right at them without squinting. Such was the oddity of the Sklorno — clear bodies with no color, yet they surrounded themselves with a living and incestuous palette.

The colors did little to lift Quentin’s mood. Yesterday, he’d had to say goodbye to a teammate. Today, time to say goodbye to two more. Aka-Na-Tak was dead. Shun-On-Won was a bust. The Krakens had no running game. Something had to be done.

Quentin walked to Scarborough’s room. He’d called ahead, asked Denver to be there. Denver, of course, had squealed with delight — as an official member of the “Church of Quentin,” Denver would probably do just about anything Quentin asked.

He reached the oblong door to Scarborough’s quarters. Quentin hung his head and closed his eyes. It wasn’t too late to let Coach Hokor handle it. Just five minutes ago, Coach had said it wasn’t Quentin’s job to deliver such news. But Coach was wrong — Quentin’s voice was the final decision, he would live with the consequences.

He lifted his head, squared his shoulders, then took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. He knocked on the tall, narrow door. He meant to knock three times, but the door opened after only two and his knuckles whiffed on empty air.

Scarborough stood there, shaking. Behind her, Denver bounced up and down, left and right, emitting unintelligible
chirps
of glee, or, maybe, of rapture. At least Scarborough could stay mostly still. The maturity of her age, perhaps.

“Quent... Quent... Quent...” Scarborough said. She was too excited to pronounce his name. Her desperate intensity made him feel even smaller, even more like a backstabbing scumbag.

“Quentin Barnes!” Denver screamed from behind Scarborough. The younger wide receiver — just nine years old — started bouncing off the left wall, then the right wall. “Quentin Barnes Quentin Barnes
QuentinBarnes!
”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Quentin said. “Denver, please calm down.”

“Calmdowncalmdowncalmdown!” Denver said.

“Scarborough,” Quentin said. “Can I come in?”

“Quent...” she said, then turned and grabbed Denver, shoving the younger player further into the apartment. Quentin followed them in. The door shut automatically behind him.

He looked around, realizing that this was the first time he’d been
inside
a Sklorno’s quarters. It had been such an accomplishment just to practice with them, to let them help him grow as a quarterback — actually socializing with them? Well, that would have been too much, too soon. Once again his mind reeled at how much he’d changed in such a short time, and how those few short months actually felt more like a dozen years.

A mad amalgamation of colors coated the apartment walls. Patterns, textures, solids, stripes, dots... there was no beginning and no end. Combinations ran from the wall to the floor, or the ceiling to the walls. Some of it might have been art, Quentin didn’t know. Whatever the thought process behind the colors, the insane combination gave him an instant headache.

The high ceilings made him feel short, a nice break from many parts of the ship where he had to duck his head. He followed Scarborough through the hall into what must have been a living room to find not only Denver waiting, but also Milford, Mezquitic, Richfield, Stockbridge, Tiburon and even the massive Awa sisters, Wahiawa and Halawa. None of the Sklorno could sit entirely still. The younger ones didn’t even bother trying, just jumped up and down, bodies with transparent skin showing the black skeletons and fluttering hearts beneath.

He’d come to have a talk, and wound up at a church revival. His soul shriveled up a bit more. For the Sklorno, anything he had to say held the importance of life or death. Denver and Scarborough’s friends had come to watch, to celebrate whatever glorious piece of information that Quentin was to bestow on the two.

But he wasn’t here to bestow glory.

“Ladies,” Quentin said. “I appreciate you all being here, but I need to speak to Scarborough and Denver alone.”

Milford fell to the floor, maybe passed out, Quentin didn’t know. Tiburon shook so violently that her raspers unraveled and started flinging drool all over the apartment. Quentin turned his head and held up his hands to block the spray.

“Okay,
okay
,” he said. “That’s enough. Everyone but Scarborough and Denver, out now, please.”

The muscular, long-legged bodies started filtering past him down the hall and out of Scarborough’s quarters. The Awa sisters carried Milford. Tiburon managed to make it on her own power.

Quentin heard the door hiss shut, leaving him alone with Scarborough and Denver, alone with a legendary receiver and the talented youngster that Quentin had met at the
Combine
. Here it was, not even halfway through his first Tier One season, and he had to say goodbye to both. They waited, each looking at him with four eyestalks that twitched in anticipation. He wanted to change his mind, but he couldn’t — the future of the franchise rested on this decision. Time to get it over with.

“I have some... bad news,” Quentin said. “You’ve both been traded.”

Quentin would always remember that moment, remember the instant that through Scarborough’s translucent skin he saw her blood
stop flowing
. The All-Pro receiver swayed for a second, then slumped to the ground.

Denver’s four eyes looked at her, then swung back to Quentin.

“Quentin Barnes Quentin Barnes,” Denver said, her big feet prancing in place. “We have been trained in what?”

Quentin watched Scarborough, wondering if he should call Doc Patah.

“QuentinBarnes!” Denver said. “Trained in what QuentinBarnes
QuentinBarnes
.”

There, a flutter. He actually
saw
Scarborough’s oddly shaped heart restart, translucent blood once again course through her body. Her tentacle arms pressed against the floor and she slowly pushed herself up to a kind of sitting position, folded legs all askew.

Denver looked from Scarborough back to Quentin. “Trained in what QuentinBarnesQuentinBarnesQuen—”

“Stop,” he said. Denver froze stiff, her only movement coming from the eyestalks that swayed like Medusa’s living snake-hair.

“Not
trained
,” Quentin said. “
Tray-ded
.”

Even the eyestalks stopped moving. “Traded?”

Quentin nodded. “Yes, both of you. To the Jupiter Jacks.”