Scott Sigler - The Rookie

Pine shook his head. “No, you don’t get it. They love blocking, they love tackling. Physical combat is a huge part of their culture. But they aren’t in control of this game. They’re not calling the plays, they’re just doing what they’re told to do. Someone has to lead them. And if they don’t respect that someone, they simply don’t try as hard.”

Quentin thought about Pine’s words. “So what you’re telling me, is that the big, mean, deadly Ki are kind of… sensitive?”

Pine smiled and nodded. “If you don’t respect them, they’re sure not going to respect you. And if they don’t respect you, they’re not following you, they’re just going through the motions.”

Quentin looked off in the distance. Yassoud flitted about Tom Pareless like a big mosquito. Pareless kept pushing him away, but Yassoud just buzzed back again — he obviously had run out of people to go gambling with, and Pareless was his last hope.

“Okay,” Quentin said, looking back at Pine. “So what do I do about it?”

“You really want to know? You’re not going to like it.”

Quentin waved his left hand in an inner circular motion, as if to say come on, come on.

“The Ki are a very tight species,” Pine said. “They send nerve impulses through their skin and vocal tubes. That’s why they cluster up like that all the time, on the sidelines and at night. When they’re touching, they can kind of talk without speaking. That also makes for closeness among them, gives them a sense of tribe, or of family.”

“So they’re not just sensitive ,” Quentin said in a deadpan. “They’re also touchy-feely ?”

Pine shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t cause their evolution, I just study it. You act like they’re revolting.”

“They are.”

“So what?” Pine said angrily. “So what ? So they’re revolting. Do you want to win games or not?”

Quentin nodded.

“Fine. You have to stop acting like they have the plague. Touch them. Hug them the way you would any Human player who did something good.”

“I, uh, don’t really do hugs.”

“You know what I mean, jerk. Get it in your head that you have to stop thinking of different races, and start seeing all of them, Ki, Quyth and Sklorno, as your teammates. ”

Quentin’s face wrinkled up in guarded suspicion. “I don’t know, man. This seems a little too, well, like Creterakian propaganda, that we all have to get along as one giant race of sentients. I mean, come on, does this stuff really work ?”

Pine smiled and held up his right hand, fingers outstretched. Glittering championship rings adorned his middle and ring fingers.

The point finally clicked home. Quentin nodded. Pine wasn’t his enemy. The man was trying to help him, probably had been all along. Quentin had trouble getting his thoughts around the concept — no one had ever helped him before, not without wanting something in return. And Pine not only wanted nothing, he had everything to lose by helping Quentin. The more Pine helped, the more likely he was to lose his starting job. It just didn’t make any sense.

And Pine was an expert on the subject, proof positive being his two Galaxy Bowl wins. Quentin realized he’d been a damn fool — he had one of the greatest players in the game trying to help him, and he’d treated that help like some kind of underhanded trick.

“Pine, why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Helping me.”

Pine looked confused. “Because you need it, why else?”

“Yeah, but, if you help me, and I get better… ” Quentin’s voice trailed off.

Pine nodded. “Oh, now I understand. I’m helping you because you’re on my team. You get that yet? I need a backup that can win games. Besides, my career only has a few years left, I know that. It would be nice to, well, have someone to teach. Someone to… to… I don’t know.”

“Carry on the Don Pine tradition?”

Pine smiled. “Sure, that works. Someone to carry on the Don Pine tradition.”

“Thank you,” Quentin said. He extended his right hand, which Pine shook. “I’ve got a good idea on how to take your advice.”

Pine nodded and hobbled away on his crutches. Quentin stood and finished removing his armor. He pulled on a robe, then hit the service button in his locker. Messal appeared as if out of thin air.

“You rang, sir?”

“Messal, I’ve had it with these nannite showers.”

“Is there a problem, sir?”

“No problem some steaming hot water won’t fix. Get Shizzle here immediately, then take me to the Ki locker room.”

“YOU SURE you want to do this?” Shizzle asked as he flew small circles around Quentin’s head. “They have been known to eat Humans, you know.”

“Just be quiet until I need you to translate.”

Messal led them into the Ki locker room. “Ki eyes take in a larger spectrum of light than Human eyes. Consequently, only a few purple lights provide any illumination. So watch your step.”

The Ki locker room was dark. And hot. And humid enough to compete with the geothermal steam baths back on Stewart. Goodwill or no goodwill, there was no denying that the place stank. He’d thought pre-game Ki odors were bad, but his nose let him know those were nothing compared to the post-game scents. Smelled like rotten fish mixed in with decomposed chicken guts. Quentin ignored the smell and followed Messal to the back.

Quentin heard the hiss of water jets, and his skin tingled in anticipation. He suddenly realized it had been weeks since he’d had a real shower.

Messal opened a door and bowed as Quentin passed. Steam billowed out of the open door and up onto the ceiling, making hazy purple clouds where it crossed in front of the dim lights. Quentin stood at the open door for one second, swallowed, and walked through.

One step inside the door, he stopped cold. If he had somehow accidentally stumbled upon a scene like this, he probably would have turned and ran. This was far worse than any Holy Man propaganda horror holo he’d seen back home.

A deep pool of water sat in the middle of the circular room. The low lights made the water look black. Dozens of showerheads ringed the ceiling, angling water down to the mass of creatures bundled up in the pool’s center.

They sat there, a giant, entwined ball of worm-like bodies, multi-jointed legs, pinkish mouths lined with black teeth, muscular multi-jointed arms, orangish skin without end and thousands of reddish-brown spots of enamel, each wet and glistening like a black ruby. They looked like a coiled, multi-headed dragon straight out of the Holy Book.

As a kid, Quentin had seen educational movies of snakes. There was a strange mating practice for some snakes, where hundreds of them twisted into a giant, writhing pile of skin and scales and mucus. That’s what the Ki cluster reminded him of, only these snakes were twelve feet long and could bench-press 1,300 pounds.

They didn’t turn their heads to look when he came in — they didn’t have to, their unblinking black eyes let them see everything at once. The ball of bodies seemed to move, to slide just a bit, and one figure slithered out of the pack. The long, thick body splashed water out of the pool and onto the tile floor as it moved slowly towards Quentin.

Oddly enough, he instantly recognized the oncoming Ki. Maybe they didn’t all look alike after all.

Great , he thought. Mum-O-Killowe as the Welcome Wagon. The temperamental rookie walked up until he was only a few inches from Quentin, then barked out words in his guttural language.

Messal translated. “He wants to know what you think you’re doing here.”