The Rookie

1. TALENT SHOW

Semifinals of the Purist Nation Football League (PNFL)

Outland Fleet Corsairs (7–2) at Mining Colony VI Raiders (9–0)

Micovi Memorial Stadium

7:25 pm PNST

Coverage:

Holocast: Channel 15 Promised Land Sports Network

Translight Radio: 645.6 TL “The Fan”

Third and 7 on the defense’s 41.

Micovi’s three tiny moons hung in the evening sky like pitted purple grapes. Their reflected light diffused into the night’s mist, making them glow with a fuzzy magnificence.

Smells of Human sweat, iron-rich mud and the saltwater-like odor of Carsengi Grass filled the frigid air. The endless hum of the atmosphere processor echoed through packed stands, but the players — and the crowd — had long since tuned out its ever-present droning.

Quentin Barnes slowly walked up behind the center, head sweeping from left to right as he took in every detail of the defense. Well, some would call it a “walk,” most would call it a “swagger.” A step left, a half bounce left, a step right, a half bounce right. He stood behind the center, his hands tapping out a quick left-right-left “ba-da-bap” on the center’s ample behind.

From his crouch, the center smiled — the ba-da-bap was the kind of thing other players would tease you for — that is, unless your quarterback was Quentin Barnes. The center smiled because Quentin only did that, did the ba-da-bap, when he saw a hole in the defense. And what Quentin saw, Quentin took.

Behind Quentin, the tailback and the fullback lined up an I-formation. Two wide receivers lined up on the left side, with a tight end on the right.

“Red, fifteen! Red, fifteeeeeen!” Quentin’s gravel and sandpaper voice barked out the audible. His breath shot out in a growing white cloud, which seemed to break into slow motion as the crystallized vapor rose almost imperceptibly into the windless night. Across the offensive and defensive lines, similar start-stop breaths filled the air like a thin fog of war, each puff illuminated by the powerful field lights.

“Watch that shucker!” the Corsairs’ outside linebacker called as he pointed to the tight end. The tight end had caught six passes on the day, four of them in third-down situations, racking up 52 yards and a touchdown. And it wasn’t even halfway through the third quarter. The linebacker’s jersey, once blazing white with royal blue numbers, was now a torn mess of brown streaks, green smears and splotches of red fading to pink. The linebacker moved to line up directly over the tight end.

From his stance, the tight end smiled. Now he saw it, now he saw the same thing Quentin had seen almost the second they broke from the huddle.

“Huuut… hut!”

The center snapped the ball into Quentin’s wide hands. The linemen launched into their endless battle, huge cleated shoes kicking up clods of tortured grass and well-worked mud. Quentin dropped straight back as the fullback and tailback moved to the left and to the right, respectively, ready to block. The tight end shot off the line, big legs pumping and big arms swinging. The linebacker backpedaled, eyes wide and angry — he wasn’t going to let the tight end beat him this time.

The linebacker watched Quentin’s eyes as they locked onto the tight end. The tight end stepped to the right, like he was breaking outside, his head looking up and his shoulders turning out in an exaggerated move before he cut sharply left, to the inside, and curled up at eight yards from the line of scrimmage. Quentin’s left arm reared back — the linebacker snarled as he jumped the route: it was payback time, an easy interception.

Quentin’s arm came forward as the linebacker closed on the tight end — but the ball never left the tall quarterback’s hand. Pump fake. Quentin reared back again, lightning fast, and lofted a smooth, arching pass. The linebacker leapt, but the ball sailed just a few inches over his outstretched fingers to fall perfectly into the arms of the sprinting tailback, who had come out of the backfield on a delayed pattern. The tailback turned upfield, never breaking stride.

The tailback threw a head-and-shoulders juke on the free safety, who couldn’t change direction quickly enough to catch the streaking runner. The tailback cut to the right, towards the sidelines, and turned on the jets — the strong safety had a good angle of pursuit, but there just wasn’t enough field to catch up. The tailback strode into the dirty end zone standing up. The record crowd of 15,162 roared its approval.

Micovi Raiders 34, Purist Nation Outland Fleet Corsairs 3.

Quentin Barnes reached down and plucked a few blades of the tough Carsengi Grass from the muddy, cleat-torn field, then held them to his nose. He breathed deeply, smiled, then rolled his fingers, feeling the grass’ rough texture before the blades scattered to the ground.

SMILES SEEMED LIMITLESS that day, particularly to players and fans of the black-and-silver Mining Colony Six Raiders. And for Stedmar Osborne, the Raiders’ owner, the smile was so big it looked almost painful. He sat behind the smoked glass of his luxury box, enjoying an illegal Jack Daniels on the rocks and smoking an illegal Tower Republic cigar. Normally he was down on the field, as any young owner should be, but this week he was entertaining a visitor — a Quyth Leader, forbidden both because of his rap sheet and his species. Not that it was legal for any species other than Humans to stand on Purist Nation soil. But out here on the fringe colonies, such things were often ignored if you had enough influence.

“What did I tell you, Shamakath,” Stedmar said, respectfully using the Quyth word for ‘leader.’

Gredok the Splithead nodded quickly, his three sets of foot-long black antennae bobbing like dreadlocks. Gredok had to look up — he was tall for a Quyth Leader, but at three feet, two inches, he was exactly half Stedmar’s height.

Out of all the galaxy’s known species, Humans and Quyth shared the most similar body plan. Most similar, which was actually not very similar at all. Both species had evolved from primitive quadrupeds into bipeds, giving them two legs and two arms. From that point on, however, any similarity broke down. The average Human stood at twice the height of an average Quyth Leader, and weighed three times as much.

The Quyth Leader’s body looked as if a sculptor had taken a Human child’s arms and moved them down to just above the hips. Both arms and legs ended in three-pincered claws, which provided solid footing but were incapable of manipulating any tool. The proximity of legs and arms meant the Quyth could move with equal ease as a biped or a quadruped, although no respecting Quyth Leader would ever be caught walking on all-fours. Such behavior was fine for Warriors and Workers, but never for a Leader.

The trunk continued up from the arms, a long, smooth, furry body that ended in a head dominated by one softball-sized eye. A small, vertical mouth sat under the eye. A set of pedipalps extended from the sides of the Quyth’s vertical mouth — what were once tools for killing and eating had evolved into long, dexterous appendages the Quyth used like Human hands.

“I don’t know why he hasn’t thrown deep more,” Stedmar said. “With that kid’s arm, they should be going for the bomb on every play, you know?”

Gredok looked back at the field and rolled his eye, marveling in the Stedmar’s idiocy. Gredok caught himself in the act, then stared straight ahead — rolling one’s eye was an expression of derision he’d picked up from hanging around Humans for far too long. Any neophyte could see that the quarterback had been setting that play up for at least the last two offensive series.

Gredok looked to his left, at Hokor the Hookchest, also a Quyth Leader. Hokor had forgotten more about football than Gredok would ever know. Hokor’s single eye glowed slightly yellow with an internal light. The tips of his three sets of flexible, foot-long antennae spun in tiny circles — there was nothing Human about that expression. Hokor’s stubby legs were the only things that stayed still: his tan-striped yellow fur raised and lowered with subconscious excitement, his tiny three-pincered hands flexed involuntarily, and his pedipalps twitched, as if they were searching for food to stuff into his small mouth. Gredok reached over and gently nudged Hokor. Hokor’s antennae immediately stopped circling, and the yellow light faded until his big eye was perfectly clear.

Hokor was a great coach, but he had little of what the Humans called a “poker face.” Gredok, on the other hand, remained calm and collected. His antennae and pedipalps sat perfectly still, while his own fur, silky-black and impeccably groomed, lay smooth and undisturbed.

It might have been a casual outing of three business acquaintances, not much different than what went on in the stadium’s other luxury boxes save for the fact that there were probably no other non-Humans in the stadium, nor were they packed with lethal-looking bodyguards: four Humans, who belonged to Stedmar; and two thickly muscled, six-foot-tall Quyth Warriors, their furless, hard-shelled carapaces showing battle scars and the hand-painted emblems of combat tours and various war campaigns.

“Greedy, I’ve got to hand it to you on this football team stuff,” Stedmar said as the kicker knocked through the extra point to make the score 35-3. “I had no idea how lucrative this could be, but you were right — I’m moving at least five hundred keys of smack every road game, and coming back with a bus full of money. I never dreamed smuggling could be so easy. Local customs officials barely look at a team bus. Even the shucking bats don’t bother.”

“The Creterakians introduced football,” Gredok said, noting how Stedmar still called to the ruling race as ‘bats,’ a reference to some Human animal Gredok had never seen. “Football supposedly reduces interspecies violence. They don’t want to rock the boat over a little thing like smuggling.”

Stedmar lifted his glass. “Well here’s to interspecies cooperation,” he said, then took a drink as the ice cubes rattled wetly.

“And you have a Tier Three team,” Gredok said. “Imagine how valuable it becomes with a Tier Two team, and you’re moving across entire systems, or even a Tier One team, and you’ve got complete immunity across all governments.”

Stedmar nodded. “Tier Three is good enough for now. It’s going to take me a few years to buy out a Tier Two team. But hey, if I can hold on to Barnes, I’ll be competitive from the start.”

“Don’t be sure Barnes can carry your team,” Gredok said. “There’s a reason no Nationalite quarterback has ever led a team to a championship. It’s one thing to be great in an all-Human league. It’s a very different game when Barnes has to throw past eight-foot-tall Sklorno defensive backs and dodge 400-pound Quyth Warrior linebackers.”

Stedmar shrugged. “The boy thinks he can handle it.”

“The rest of your team can’t. Your repressive government barely allows non-Human trade let alone bringing in other races to play football. In Tier Two ball, you need Quyth Warriors, Sklorno and Ki. It would be fun to watch your puny 400-pound linemen try and block a 600-pound Ki nose tackle.”

“I’m working on it, Shamakath,” Stedmar said. Stedmar did an admirable job of pronouncing the word correctly, no small feat considering his Human vocal cords were only half as versatile as the Quyth voice chamber. It was a clear sign of his respect towards the leader of his syndicate. Hokor genuinely liked Stedmar, and had big plans for his lieutenant. Assuming, of course, that Stedmar lived to see the end of this game.

“Football is becoming too popular, even in the Purist Nation,” Stedmar said. “You know how the Holy Men are, how much they hate the Planetary Union and the League of Planets. It drives the Holy Men crazy to know those two heretic systems have fielded so many championship teams over the past twenty-five years.”

“Heretic?” Gredok said. “Is that what you believe?”

Stedmar laughed. “How can you ask that? I don’t follow this system’s damned religion.”

Gredok pointed to the infinity symbol tattooed on Stedmar’s forehead. “You seem to have all the trappings of a Church member.”

“The cost of doing business in this system.” If you’re not a confirmed member of the Church, you can’t get near most of the business. Corruption abounds, and is quite profitable.”

Gredok let out a rapid click-click-click of disgust. “Still, the Purist Nation is not going to allow non-Human races inside its borders, and you need other races to win in the Galactic Football League. Governments have been working on that for three centuries — the GFL has only been around for twenty-three seasons, and three of those were suspended.”

Stedmar shrugged again. “The bats have been here for forty years.”

“That’s different,” Gredok said. “They conquered all the Human planets. Your people don’t have a choice.”

“The scriptures also say no non-Humans on any Purist Nation planet, but you know the Holy Men — when they want something, the Book is always full of loopholes. If it wasn’t for out-system smuggling the border colonies couldn’t even survive. Our economy is a disaster and everyone knows it. Things are going to change, and soon.”

“You forget I’ve been alive three times as long as you. I’ve always heard about ‘coming changes’ in your system, yet it’s one fundamentalist coup after another. If it wasn’t for the Creterakians, the Purist Nation would have torn itself apart long ago.”

“Look at Buddha City,” Stedmar said. “They’ve got every race in the galaxy on that station, and it orbits Allah, the very seat of the Purist Nation. But that’s allowed, because the aliens can’t set foot on Allah itself. That policy has survived through the last three regimes, because even the radicals know the economy can’t sustain itself without at least some official out-system trade. There’s even talk of allowing a limited non-Human presence on outlying food and research facilities, space stations and, you guessed it, mining colonies.”

“And you think you’ll still have Barnes when that happens?” Gredok leaned forward, the football game forgotten, his game, the power game, now fully underway.

Stedmar shrugged. “The Holy Men might not open things for another ten years, so who knows. Besides,” Stedmar said as he turned to look straight into Gredok’s big eye, “I’ve got offers on the table for Barnes’ contract.”

Gredok showed no emotion, he kept his antennae still, but inside he felt a combination of disappointment and a rush of excitement. Of course the Human knew why Gredok had come.

Gredok turned back to the game. The Corsairs were driving, using their fast-passing game to move forward five or ten yards at a crack. Both teams wore simple uniforms: pants with no stripe, jersey decorated with only the player’s number, front and back in block-letter style, a helmet decorated only with the first letter of the team name. Every team in the Purist Nation Football League wore uniforms that were identical save for the team colors. The Raiders had silver-grey pants and helmets with black jerseys, while the Corsairs wore royal blue pants and helmets with white jerseys.

“Who would want Barnes?” Gredok said with disgust. “Purist Nation quarterbacks can’t handle the Upper Tiers, it has been proven time and time again.”

Stedmar’s thin smile returned. “Kirani-Ah-Kollok.”

This time, Gredok couldn’t control his quivering antennae. Kirani-Ah-Kollok, Shamakath of the Ki Homeworld Syndicate. The very being that Gredok hoped to someday replace.

“Kollok? Why would he want Barnes when he’s got Frank Zimmer at quarterback?”

“Zimmer’s getting old,” Stedmar said. “He’s 33. I know that’s not much to you, Shamakath, but for a Human that means he’s only got four or five good years left. Barnes is only 19. Kollok figures that by the time Zimmer starts to fade, Barnes will be in his mid-twenties, just hitting the peak of his abilities.”

Few bosses were as ruthless and clever as Kollok, who was not only a shrewd businessman but also a great judge of football talent. Kollok’s team, the To Pirates, had won the GFL championship in 2681, and followed up with a trip to last season’s title game, where they lost to the current champions, the Jupiter Jacks.

On the field, the Corsairs’ quarterback dropped back and threw deep downfield. The ball hung in the air for far too long, giving the Raider’s strong safety time to make a well-timed leap. His outstretched hands snagged the ball before the receiver dragged him down. The crowd roared in approval.

“That’s the quarterback’s fourth interception,” Hokor said quietly. “He should be shot.”

Stedmar laughed at what he thought was a joke, but Gredok knew it was no laughing matter. Hokor was a demanding coach, to say the least. Back in his days as a Tier Three coach in the Quyth Planetary League, he had executed more than one ineffectual player.

A flock of Creterakian soldiers flew over the field, moving from perches on one side of the stadium to the other. As their small shadows zipped across the near stands, then the field, then the far stands, the crowd noise fell to a hush. The tiny creatures always made their presence felt during football games, where radicals were fond of deadly terrorist acts. Each one of the twenty or so winged beings carried an entropic rifle, capable of killing a man with even a glancing shot. Like any other public gathering, even ones with only a hundred or so people, the local Creterakian garrison wanted to see and be seen.

“I hate those little shuckers,” Stedmar said quietly. “They do those flyovers on purpose, you know, to make sure the crowd doesn’t get too wild.”

Over the years, Gredok had seen several ‘wild’ crowds of repressed Purist Nation citizens. Just during the drive from the spaceport to the city center and the football field, he’d seen two minor riots and one lynch mob. The lynch mob ended when a flock of soldiers flew in to break it up, then some Purist genius started throwing rocks at the ugly little flying creatures: the lynching originally intended to kill one man for an unknown crime ended in at least twelve deaths when the Creterakians opened fire. Mining Colony VI, or “Micovi” as the locals liked to call it, was little more than a barely controlled, overpopulated border outpost of a Third World system.

The Raiders’ offense ran onto the field, led by the swaggering Barnes. The crowd noise picked up once again as hometown fans cheered for their star player.

“He’s awfully big for a quarterback,” Gredok said.

“Seven feet even,” Stedmar said. “Seven feet tall, 360 pounds.”

So big, Gredok thought. Big enough, possibly, to stand up to the punishment that Upper Tier quarterbacks took week after week. Frank Zimmer was 6-foot-9, 310 pounds, and was one of the biggest quarterbacks in the league. “It’s amazing how players keep getting larger and larger. Fifteen years ago a Human that size could have been a small tight end.”

Barnes barked out the signals, looking up and down the line as he did. He paused, stood for a moment, and his hands did a ba-da-bap on the center’s behind. Barnes screamed out an audible. Behind him, the tailback went in motion to the left, lining up in the slot between the tight end and the wide receiver.

“Here we go again,” Stedmar said. “He sees something!”

Gredok and Hokor also leaned forward, although they knew what was coming — any fool could see the Corsairs’ defensive backs were in man-to-man while the tailback’s motion revealed that the linebackers were in a short zone. Barnes now had three targets to his left — the wide receiver, the tailback, and the tight end.

“Roll out?” Gredok asked. Hokor nodded.

Barnes took the snap as the line erupted in the dirt-churning mini-war. He ran to his left, down the line, as the three left-side receivers sprinted straight downfield. But Hokor and Gredok weren’t the only ones to see what Quentin had seen — the much-maligned linebacker tore up field, blitzing just inside the sprinting tight end. Quentin and the linebacker seemed to be on a direct collision course. The 360-pound linebacker closed in and launched himself, at which point Quentin calmly sidestepped towards the line of scrimmage. The linebacker sailed through the air, not even laying a finger on the deft quarterback.

The defensive end had separated from his block. Quentin’s cut inside the linebacker took him right into the defensive end’s reaching arms. Quentin cut back to the outside at the last second as the 400-pound end grabbed him with cannon-sized arms. The quarterback kept his feet pumping and pushed hard with his right arm. The end’s feet chopped at the ground as he tried to keep up, but Quentin’s stiffarm had knocked him off balance. The end fell, both hands wrapped in Quentin’s jersey, pulling the smaller quarterback down. Quentin stumbled, leaned, then seemed to take a step towards the defensive end and twisted his shoulders as he pushed out with his right arm yet again. The end fell to the ground, his big hands slipping free of Quentin’s jersey. Then the quarterback popped upright, like a stiff spring that had been bent to the ground then released.

So strong, Gredok thought. I’ve never seen a Human quarterback so strong.

Already moving upfield and now free of the clutching defensive end, Quentin tucked the ball and ran. The defense shifted from their pass coverage to come after him, but in the two seconds after his initial cut he was already ten yards upfield and cutting to the outside.

“Hikkir,” Hokor said quietly — the Quyth equivalent of “oh my.”

The crowd roared as the cornerback streaked towards Quentin, but the defender came in too fast. Quentin juked to the right, to the inside, but in the same second was moving back to the left. The cornerback stumbled and started to fall — he reached out for Quentin, who slapped his hands away like an angry parent scolding a spoiled child.

“Hikkirapt,” Hokor said, a little louder this time, the Quyth equivalent of “that’s quite impressive.”

Quentin sprinted down the sideline. The free safety closed with a good angle of pursuit. There was nowhere to cut this time, so Quentin lowered his right hand, and brought it up hard just as the free safety reached for the tackle. Quentin’s thick forearm caught the free safety under the chin, lifting him off his feet. The free safety seemed to float for a second, moving downfield at the same speed as Quentin, before crashing into the ground and skidding clumsily across the torn Carsengi Grass.

“Joro jirri,” Hokor said loudly. That loosely translated into “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Stedmar jumped up and down and screamed nonsensical syllables, his drink spilling onto the floor. His bodyguards had lost discipline, straying from their posts to get a glimpse of the sprinting quarterback. Hokor leaned forward so far his neon-bright yellow eye pressed against the luxury box’s glass windows.

It boiled down to Quentin and the strong safety, who closed in as the quarterback passed the 30-yard line. Quentin looked back once, then turned his head upfield and seemed to take off, as if he had booster rockets. Quentin strolled into the end zone for a 52-yard touchdown run.

Raiders 41, Corsairs 3.

“Just how fast is he?” Gredok asked quietly.

“Yesterday in practice they timed him at 3.8 in the 40-yard dash.”

Gredok simply nodded. Of course. Why not? Why shouldn’t the nineteen-year-old huge quarterback, with a plasma rifle for an arm, the eyes of an aerial predator and the mind of a general run a 3.8 second 40-yard dash? That was faster than most Human running backs and definitely faster than the typical 380-pound Human tight end. It wasn’t nearly as fast as a Sklorno wide receiver or defensive back, but it was about equal with a Quyth Warrior linebacker. A Tier One linebacker — Quentin would leave most Tier Two linebackers in the dust.

Hokor still leaned forward, his eye and both sets of his hands pressed against the glass, his antennae quivering like drug-addled snakes. Gredok poked him again — hard. Hokor looked up and saw Gredok’s eye clouding over with just a touch of black. Hokor swept a pedipalp over his head, submissively pushing his antennae back, then sat quietly in his seat.

Gredok stared at his coach. Hokor had come across a holo of Barnes, and had instantly insisted the boy was Tier One material. Gredok had argued — there were reasons no Nationalite had ever quarterbacked a championship team. Most Nationalite quarterbacks, in fact, washed out within two seasons. Despite the boy’s skills, he had no experience dealing with other races, let alone leading them. There was more to quarterbacking than pure football skill. Far more.

But Gredok believed in his coach. He’d already leveraged his entire organization’s finances to create the team Hokor wanted, the team that would make the leap from Tier Two to the big time… to Tier One. Hokor wanted Barnes, but to get Barnes, Gredok needed to make a play that could have serious business consequences.

Gredok’s wide eye asked an unspoken question: Are you sure? Is this kid really worth it?

Hokor stared back with an unspoken answer: Absolutely.

“I think Kollok is going to pay through the nose for this kid,” Stedmar said quietly, a smug smile on his lips. “Don’t you think he will, Shamakath?”

The time had come to formally open up the power game. Gredok wasn’t taking any chances.

“Actually,” Gredok said, “Barnes might do well on my team.”

Stedmar raised his eyebrows in a Human expression for surprise. Gredok sensed Stedmar’s body heat — very steady, only a hair above normal. Stedmar concealed his emotions very well, which was just one of the reasons Gredok liked him. Stedmar was also smart and ruthless. But for all his strong points, he should have known better than to play the game with Gredok the Splithead.

“You’ve got Don Pine,” Stedmar said. “Why would you want anyone else?”

“Pine is not what he used to be.”

Stedmar nodded. “But I’ve already got a considerable offer from Kollok.”

“You should just give me Barnes’ contract as tribute.”

Stedmar smiled. “Now come on, we both know tribute doesn’t cover something like this. You wouldn’t want me in your organization if I’d do something as stupid as give up this kid for free.”

Gredok thought for a second, then nodded. Stedmar played it smart: polite, respectful, and logical. “What is Kollok’s offer?”

Stedmar walked to the bar and poured himself another drink. “Well, Barnes’ contract is negligible,” he said. “I have him signed for another year at one million credits.”

Such a low number for such talent, Gredok thought.

“That is impressive, Stedmar. Barnes is worth three times that amount, even for a Tier Three team. How did you manage it?”

Stedmar shrugged and smiled. “Technically, I don’t have to pay him at all. He’s an orphan, like about a million other Nationalite kids his age. Pogroms, coups, fundamentalist revolutions, power struggles — thousands of people die or just disappear every year. Quentin never even knew his parents. They disappeared when he was one, maybe younger. He had a brother, got hung for stealing food when Quentin was only five. That was all the family he had.”

“How old was the brother?”

“Nine or ten, Quentin doesn’t remember for sure. Anyway, in the Purist Nation, family members are responsible for crimes committed by other family members, up to three generations. Since Quentin was the only one left in his family, they put him to work in the forced-labor mines.”

“A five-year-old Human, working in the Micovi mines?”

Stedmar nodded. “Happens all the time. Makes for a very cheap labor source.”

“Slave labor is always the cheapest.”

“The nice term is ‘honor worker,’ as in working in the forced-labor camps clears your family honor, you know? Only takes twenty years.”

Gredok’s antennae circled slowly. He didn’t like Human systems to start with, and the Purist Nation was by far the worst of the lot. “So if he was an honor worker in a mine, how did you discover him?”

Stedmar laughed. “It was the craziest thing. I was driving out to the mines to conduct some business. So I’m driving by in my limo when the workers are on break. There’s a crowd built up like it’s a fight. Well, I love to watch a good fight, especially on this planet — did you know if you kill a man in a fair fight here, you don’t go to jail?”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“Anyway, so people really go at it. So I pull up to see what’s going on, only there’s not a fight, everyone is laughing and clapping, looking at each other in amazement. There’s this giant-sized shucker, must have been 425 pounds, built like an air-tank with legs, you know? Anyway, this guy looks pissed. He heaves back and chucks a rock, maybe the rock is a pound or two, chucks it about sixty yards, really impressive throw. Some guy runs the rock back, and that’s when the workers start flashing money back and forth — they’re making bets. Then this scrawny kid steps up, he’s about six feet tall, but you can tell he’s real young. The big guy has a look on his face like he could eat a bat whole, entropic rifle and all, you know? He’s looking at this kid like he wants to kill him. And the kid is just laughing. The kid takes the rock, pretends like he’s lining up under a center and actually barks out some signals. He’s looking left, looking right, then takes a five-step drop like he’s quarterbacking the Rodina Astronauts or something, and he heaves that rock. I mean the thing flew eighty-five, maybe ninety yards. I just about crapped myself.”

Gredok nodded. He was always amazed by Stedmar’s fascination with fecal euphemisms. “And that’s why you signed him?”

“Partially. So this kid won the bet, obviously, the big guy hands him a wad of bills, and the kid starts doing this dance, really rubbing it in, you know? Well, the big guy, he just loses it. He throws a big sucker-punch that knocks the kid on his butt. The kid pops up like nothing happened, except he’s not laughing now, he’s pissed.”

Gredok nodded again. Urine was also a key element of Stedmar’s stories.

“So the big guy comes after this kid, and this kid lays into him. I mean he took this big guy apart. Three straight jabs and then a big left hook, and the guy goes down. But the kid isn’t finished. He jumps on the guy and starts blasting him with big haymaker lefts, over and over again. There’s blood all over the dirt, in a couple of seconds the guy’s face looks like hamburger. The workers are laughing and having a grand time, but you know what I’m thinking to myself, Shamakath?”

“No.”

“I’m thinking, ‘What if that kid hurts his hands?’ Swear to High One, that’s what I’m thinking. So I send my Sammy and Dean and Frankie over there to pull the kid off. But he’s like a wildcat — doesn’t know who my boys are or what they want, so he lays Sammy out with that same left hook.”

Stedmar turned to look at one of his bodyguards, a thick Human with a nose that looked as if it had been broken a dozen times.

“You remember that punch, Sammy?”

“Yeah, boss,” Sammy said, laughing. “And he weighed about two hundred pounds less back then.”

“I didn’t want the kid hurt, but you can’t expect the boys to take that, you know? But the more they hit him, the madder he gets, and he just won’t stay down. Finally, Sammy gets up and he whips out a stun stick and puts the kid out. They drag him over to me. I ask the kid if he knows who I am. You know what he says to me?”

“No,” Gredok said, patiently waiting for the end of the story. Humans always took so long to get to the point.

“Through a split lip he says to me, ‘You’re the new owner of the Raiders.’ Not ‘You’re Stedmar Osborne, notorious gangster,’ or ‘You’re that guy that shakes down the mine owners’ or anything like that. Just ‘The owner of the Raiders.’ That was it for me, I knew the kid lived and breathed football. So I ask him, ‘How old are you?’ And he tells me ‘Fifteen.’ Fifteen. You know what I almost did?”

“Crapped yourself?” Gredok said.

“Yah! I almost crapped myself! I paid off the kid’s family debt. That’s why, technically, I don’t have to pay him at all, I sort of own him. And just to let you know, a million a year is probably more than his entire family saw going back three generations, if not four or five. He thinks he’s rich. So I signed the kid and put him on the team. He’d never played organized ball before, and the next year, at sixteen years old, he’s the backup quarterback.”

At this, Hokor looked away from the field and listened attentively. Gredok knew why — this quarterback already had four years of professional experience, albeit in the lowly PNFL.

“At seventeen he started for me,” Stedmar said. “We went 5–4 that year, he won his last three games. The next year, this eighteen-year-old kid wins it all for me, 9–0, and two more wins in the playoffs to give me my first championship. This year, we’re 9–0 again, we’ll obviously win today, and that’s 21 games in a row for him. Next week the championship game should be a cakewalk.”

“All because you were driving by and happened to see him throw a rock.”

Stedmar laughed, he obviously relished telling this story. “Yah! Crazy, isn’t it?”

“You still haven’t told me Kollok’s offer.”

“Kollok will hand me fifteen million,” Stedmar said, that same self-confident smile on his lips. “Plus smuggling rights for any pyuli he wants to unload in Purist Nation space.”

Gredok nodded, sensing Stedmar’s body heat increase just a bit. He was lying about the fifteen million, but not about the Kigrown narcotic pyuli, of which some Humans just couldn’t get enough — a year’s worth of rights to that stuff was worth far more than fifteen million. But Micovi belonged to Gredok. Most of it, anyway. Was this Kollok’s first move to cut into Gredok’s territory? Was Stedmar to be trusted?

“You should never take a deal with another syndicate without consulting me,” Gredok said, the anger building within him.

Stedmar ran his left hand over his head, brushing his hair back — while he had no antennae, the motion perfectly mimicked the Quyth sign of fealty. Gredok felt his anger subside a little, an involuntary, instinctive reaction to the gesture. His lieutenant was very good at this game. Gredok would never again underestimate Stedmar Osborne.

“But I have not taken the deal, Shamakath, nor would I ever do so without your blessing.”

“I will give you ten million for Barnes’ contract,” Gredok said. “Plus, I’ll give you Muhammad Jorgensen’s territory on Allah.”

Stedmar’s face wrinkled. “I suspect you were going to give me Muhammad’s territory anyway. He’s getting run over by the Giovanni syndicate — they want to expand their Purist Nation territory in a bad way.”

Gredok nodded again. Stedmar was correct. And yet, the offer had been placed on the table — to change it now was a sign of weakness, and any Shamakath could not admit weakness in front of his vassals. Stedmar had made his first mistake — instead of simply trying to add options, he insinuated that Gredok’s offer was no good.

“I have offered you a deal,” Gredok said quietly, his antennae pinning down flat against the back of his head, like a dog’s ears just before an attack. “You will now accept.”

Stedmar’s eyes widened slightly when he saw the antennae go back, and his temperature spiked almost a full degree. He quickly glanced at Gredok’s two bodyguards, who showed no sign of emotion.

Where Quyth Leaders were small and sleight, Quyth Warriors were so much larger they looked like a different species altogether. They shared the same body style of two legs, two arms with three-pincer hands and two pedipalps on either side of the vertical mouth. But while a Leader’s pedipalps were two feet long and slender, a Warrior’s were usually about three feet long, thick with muscle and heavily armored. Warriors did not have silky fur. Instead, thick chitin covered their bodies. The last difference was perhaps the most pronounced — a Leader’s softball-sized eye glowed like window to the soul’s emotions, while the Warrior’s cold eye was smaller, like a baseball, surrounded by a heavy ridge of chitin and hooded by a thick, tough, leathery eyelid.

Crazy red and orange designs — the marks of Quyth commandos — decorated the bodyguards’ upper carapaces. Warriors wore pants, usually grey and devoid of color, but rarely wore anything that would cover their enameled markings. Stedmar’s bodyguards, four densely muscled 400-pound Humans, tensed up, ready for action.

“Shamakath, please understand,” Stedmar said calmly. “With all due respect, Kollok’s deal is better. It’s bad business not to take it.”

“You will take my offer, Stedmar,” Gredok said. “And you will take it now.”

“Perhaps we could add some money to the offer — ”

“The offer is tendered. There will be no changes.”

Stedmar’s eyes narrowed. He looked down at the diminutive Quyth Leader. “Shamakath, I respectfully invoke my right to decline Kollok’s offer, and therefore am not obligated to take your offer. Barnes will play for me next season.”

Gredok’s antennae rose slightly. Stedmar had quickly taken his only way out. By keeping Barnes and not selling his contract to anyone, Stedmar could turn down Gredok’s offer without Gredok losing face.

But proper etiquette or no, Gredok wanted Barnes. And that was all that mattered.

Gredok clapped his pincers together and gestured to one of his bodyguards, who walked over as he reached into his belt. The Human bodyguards immediately went for their weapons, but Stedmar held up a hand to still them.

“Virak,” Gredok said to his bodyguard. “Show Stedmar the screen.”

The 375-pound Virak the Mean struck a rather imposing figure, but Stedmar never flinched. Despite the fact that everyone in the room knew Virak could kill Stedmar in the blink of an eye, the burly bodyguard looked at the Human and brushed back his one set of retractable antennae just before looking at Gredok and doing the same. He then produced a small holo-projector from his belt and switched it on.

The image flared to life. A dangerous stillness filled the luxury box. Stedmar looked at the image, eyes widening with rage. He glanced down to the stands, to the first row, then back again. Gredok sensed the skyrocketing stress level of the Human bodyguards. They reached for their weapons again, but Stedmar’s curtly raised hand stopped them for the second time.

The holoscreen showed a smiling, blonde Human woman holding a baby, both warmly dressed against the evening’s cold. They sat in the stadium’s front row, the woman laughing with two other Human women, all of them surrounded by alert bodyguards. The image shook slightly, obviously due to a long-range focus.

“Your mate and offspring,” Gredok said.

Stedmar swallowed. “Where is this picture coming from?”

“From the scope of pulse cannon, manned by a sniper sitting in one of the atmosphere processors overlooking the stadium.”

Stedmar looked across the field, up to the skyline, at the endless line of atmosphere processors that towered thirty stories high. The big machines were filled with platforms, grates, pipes, blocky compressors… there were a hundred places a sniper could hide unseen.

“I’m sure you’re thinking you can kill me now and save your mate and offspring,” Gredok said. “But if the sniper doesn’t hear from me in the next five minutes, he’ll fire. The pulse cannon will incinerate that entire section, killing everyone in a twenty-yard radius. So I suggest no sudden moves on her part — if she should rise to relieve herself, for example, she’ll be the epicenter of a rather large crater.”

“Frankie,” Stedmar said to one of his bodyguards. “Call down to Stefan, tell him to make sure everyone stays put, especially Michelle.”

“Very good,” Gredok said. “The deal is tendered. You will take it now.”

Stedmar nodded, his face a narrow-eyed visage of barely controlled rage. That disappointed Gredok — Stedmar would have to improve his self control if he wanted to move even farther in the syndicate’s hierarchy.

Virak produced a contract box and handed it to Stedmar. The Human read through the contract, nodded, then placed his thumb in the slot on one end. Gredok placed his middle left pincer in the box’s other slot. The machine quickly recorded their genetic makeup, linked up to the Intergalactic Business Database, verified their identities, then gave a low “beep” to indicate the transaction had been recorded.

Gredok’s antennae rose to their normal angle. “Very good, Stedmar. I will now take my leave. Shall I remove Muhammad for you?”

“I’ll take care of it,” Stedmar said in a cold voice.

Gredok nodded, then left the luxury box, Hokor and his two bodyguards close behind.