Scott Sigler - The Rookie

Even though he’d seen Sklorno heads a few times on the Web, they still took some getting used to. Two curled raspers hung at the top of the body-stalk, just below the head, partially covered by a chitinous chin-plate. When unrolled, the raspers reached to the floor. Hundreds of tiny teeth coated each rasper — they could tear through most anything. Back in the Wartimes, stories abounded that the Sklorno ate their enemies. Humans were supposed to be a particular favorite.

The head itself was nothing more than a softball-sized block of oily, coarse black hairs. Sklorno heads didn’t require a lot of volume, as the brain was located in a long column on the back of the trunk. Four boneless eyestalks, each a pebbly, deep magenta, jutted from the furry black ball. The eyestalks moved independently, like intelligent snakes on the head of the mythical Medusa.

Boss Seven shouted something in the high-pitched click-and-squeal Sklorno language. The Sklorno walked up to the blue line, eyestalks waving as they examined every angle of the flight deck. Quentin fought down a wave of revulsion. He felt grateful the two wore jerseys — otherwise, there was no way to tell them apart.

Number 81 stood on Quentin’s right side, and Number 82 stood to the right of Number 81. Number 81’s raspers rolled out, wet with saliva. A thin strand of drool dangled from the left rasper, wetly swinging down the eight feet to the floor.

“You are Quentin Barnes?” Its voice sounded like a combination of bird whistles, but Quentin had no problem understanding the words. He nodded in acknowledgement. It lowered itself; rear legs folding up like a grasshopper’s. In that position, it stood just under six feet tall, and actually looked up at Quentin.

“I am Denver,” the Sklorno said. It used its tentacle-arm to point at the other. “This is Milford.” Another string of drool dripped down from Denver’s left rasper. Quentin fought the urge to turn away.

“You are great thrower,” Milford said. “The Sklorno people watch you on the net. I am looking forward to catching many passes thrown by you.”

“No, I am looking forward to catching many passes thrown by you,” Denver said. “I will catch majority of passes.”

Milford turned suddenly and stood tall, extending to a full nine feet. “No! I will catch majority of his passes!”

Denver also stood, eyestalks waving wildly, tentacle-arms whirling in a threatening pattern. “No! You will be on the sidelines watching me catch passes!”

Milford’s body began to shake, sending streamers of drool flying across the flight deck. The boneless arms stretched back, as if to strike at Denver, then suddenly five Creterakians brandishing entropic rifles flew between the two Sklorno.

“Cease hostilities!” Boss Seven said loudly. “Cease or you will be deported before you can report to your team.”

As quickly as the flare-up started, it ceased. Denver and Milford sat down on their tails. They twitched and moved and squeaked, just a little, as if neither was capable of sitting perfectly still or remain perfectly quiet. Their ever-moving eyestalks flittered in all directions.

“You must be one sexy guy,” Yassoud said quietly. “The girls are fighting over you.”

“Girls? They’re females?”

Yassoud rolled his eyes. “Don’t they teach you backwater Purist idiots anything? You never took basic multi-species biology?”

Another nursery rhyme jumped into his brain.

The crickets have eyes on top of their head

Grab them and pull them they’ll soon be dead.

With Satan’s soldiers don’t ever be kind

They can’t see to sin if they are made blind.

Quentin shrugged. “I know how to kill them. That’s all the biology the Nation is concerned with.”

Yassoud laughed. “Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard. Sklorno females are the athletes, the soldiers. The males are these little two-foot-high things, kind of like a furry black ball.”

Quentin’s face wrinkled in surprise, remembering broadcasts showing the small creatures that seemed to throng around the tall Sklorno he now knew to be females. “Those things? There’s hordes of those. Those are the males? I thought those were pets. ”

Yassoud shook his head. “Ah, the wonderful education system of the Purist Nation.”

Quentin again felt very stupid and hickish. The feeling made him want to hit someone. “Hey, wait a minute,” he said. “I’ve heard the word Denver. Isn’t that a city on Earth?”

“Yeah. The Sklorno are football crazy. Once they start playing the game, they take the name of an Earth city or region because Earth was the birthplace of football.”

“I didn’t know Sklorno could speak English.”

“English is the language of football,” Yassoud said. “You either understand it or you won’t get to this level. The Sklorno players spend several hours a day working on it, but it’s very difficult for them. Quyth have no problem, of course, and the Ki can understand it well enough even though they can’t speak it for crap.”

The ten-foot by eight-foot door hissed open, and a nightmare crawled out.

Like the Sklorno, Quentin had seen Ki only on the net. Ki were often cast in Purist Nation movies as bloodthirsty monsters, or tricksters out to collect Human souls. With movie-making technology that could make any imagined creature as real as a Human, however, everything on the net took on a sense of fantasy. This Ki looked like the movie creatures, but a holocast simply didn’t do the species justice.

Its twelve-foot-long, tube-shaped body bent upwards in the middle, giving it a six-foot long horizontal piece and a six-foot-high vertical piece. Bright orange skin covered with small dots of reddish-brown enamel covered the body. Six legs stuck out from the sides of the horizontal segment, each leg thick and just over four feet long. Two more limbs protruded from each side of the vertical body — these were shorter but thicker, with muscle rippling under the pebbled skin. Each upper-body limb ended in four stubby fingers.

Five glossy black eyespots surrounded the vertical body’s tapered point. Ki were well known for their 360-degree vision. At the very top of the tapered point was the vocal spout, a small cluster of wormlike tubes. Between the top sets of vertical arms was the thing that gave Quentin nightmares as a child — the Ki “mouth.” The mouth consisted of six short, thick, sharp black hooks in a hexagonal pattern. Inside the hex was a pinkish hole lined with row after row of triangular black teeth. He’d seen many movies where the upper arms would drag Human prey to the mouth. The hexagonal hooks dug into the screaming victim, pulling it tight, while the triangular teeth ripped out chunk after chunk after chuck — bite, swallow, bite, swallow.

What do I do if a Ki should attack?

I get behind him with my foot in his back

I bend him hard, his back gives a crack

Because the High One loves me, and I love him back

The Ki’s orange and black, four-sleeved jersey ran from the bottom of the vertical body to just under the horrific mouth. There was just enough room for a small number “93” on the chest.

Quentin shuddered as he pictured the creature tearing through an offensive line, multi-jointed arms wrapping him up and taking him down. This Ki had to weigh at least 580 pounds. The smell of rotting meat filled Quentin’s nose. His face wrinkled in disgust, and he waved his hand to clear away the odor.

“What is that stench ?”

Yassoud laughed. “Better get used to it, that’s how Ki smell.”

Boss Seven barked out a command. The Ki language sounded hoarse, gravelly, guttural, and Quentin didn’t understand a word of it. The hulking Ki scuttled towards the blue line, its horizontal legs moving like a cross between an insect’s and an the oars of an old Greek warship.