Scott Sigler - The Rookie

Quentin swallowed. There was a whole room of them, and he was dressed in just a robe. He wanted to leave… but he wanted to win more. Two losses were enough.

“This is the only room with water showers,” Quentin said. Shizzle started translating before the second word was even out of his mouth, and he finished only a fraction of a second after Quentin stopped.

Mum-O-Killowe barked again.

“He says that you should go.”

Quentin stepped to Mum-O-Killowe’s right, gently shouldering past the huge Ki as he did. The boldness of the move seemed to surprise Mum-O, for it was a full second before Quentin sensed the lineman reaching out for him. Quentin avoided the multi-jointed arms by quickly diving into the water.

The water was almost scalding. It felt miraculous against his skin. He arched and swam upwards, his face breaking the surface only a few feet from the giant ball of alien linemen. Mum-O-Killowe roared something and started to splash towards Quentin, but Kill-O-Yowet, the left tackle, barked one short, definitive syllable.

Mum-O-Killowe stopped short of Quentin, stared at him for a second, then slithered back into the ball.

“Kill-O-Yowet says you can stay,” Shizzle said. Quentin kicked back to the pool’s edge. He draped his arms on the tile and his body sank in up to his chest. Water sprayed down on his closed eyes and smiling face. The wet heat felt wonderful on his bruised body. Maybe his effort to bond with the Ki linemen would work, maybe it wouldn’t, but at least he’d get a decent shower out of the thing.

THREE HOURS AFTER the game, the Ionath Krakens began shuttling back up to the Touchback. Yassoud had managed, somehow, to cram in two hours worth of partying. He and Tom Pareless showed up in time for the last shuttle, drunk enough that they could barely walk, but not so drunk that they couldn’t sing “My Girl from Satirli 6” at the top of their lungs.

Quentin felt sore all over, and he knew it was only a harbinger of things to come the next morning, yet the hot soak in the Ki pool had lifted his spirits.

It’s a game , he thought to himself. What goes on off the field is as much of a game as what happens on the field. He’d been thinking about it all wrong. He hadn’t needed to bond with his teammates back in the PNFL, because he’d been good enough to win games almost single-handedly. But in the GFL, even at Tier Two, everyone was good. These players were the best a galaxy had to offer. The game, his new game, would be making them play as a team.

He stood on the launch platform, gazing up at the twilight sky of Port Whitok. He sensed someone approaching. Quentin turned to find himself facing the squat, powerful form of a Quyth Warrior. Shayat the Thick, the backup right outside linebacker. He played behind John Tweedy, which meant that he didn’t play much at all. Tweedy rarely came out of the game, thanks to his skills at defending both the run and the pass.

“You played well,” Shayat said. It was, Quentin realized, the first time Shayat had ever spoken to him.

“Thanks,” Quentin said. “It wasn’t enough.”

Shayat’s carapace was a deep, silvery black. A painted unit insignia adorned his left shoulder. Under the insignia were horizontal lines, each of which, Quentin had learned, represented a combat mission. Shayat’s lines ran from his insignia almost to his wrist. Enameled graphics covered his carapace — the most prominent of which was a Krakens’ logo emblazoned across his midriff. On his back was an Earth crab wearing a crown and holding a football — the logo of the Yucatan Sea-Kings, a Tier Three team. A ring of white surrounded Shayat’s single eye, making him look even more bug-eyed than Hokor or any of the other Quyth. But they didn’t call him Shayat the Thick for nothing: layers and layers of powerful muscles graced his frame. His pedipalps were so heavy they looked like John Tweedy’s arms, and Shayat’s arms were so thick they might have been Tweedy’s huge legs. Shayat wore a backpack that looked to be completely stuffed.

“We need to win next week,” Shayat said.

Quentin nodded. “That we do.”

After a moment of silence, Shayat spoke. “Do you like money?”

It seemed a strange question, but straightforward enough. “I like money just fine.”

“Do you want to make more?”

Quentin said nothing, but he suddenly knew what was coming next. The dark underbelly of the GFL had avoided him — until now, it seemed.

“This is all juniper berries,” Shayat said, his left pedipalp reaching behind him to pat the backpack. “Worth a fortune on Ionath. Human races control gin production. They drive up the price. But Workers will pay big money for raw juniper berries. They crush them and mix them with fermented digestive acids from collowacks, a kind of insect back on Quyth.”

“I thought juniper berries were illegal,” Quentin said.

“They are. Very illegal. But the System Police can’t search us, remember? If they do, the Creterakians might pull Port Whitok’s GFL franchise rights. You know what would happen to the local government if that happened?”

Quentin shrugged.

“There would be riots. Beings love football. Basically, whatever we can carry on our backs is ignored.”

Quentin nodded, wondering what a bulging backpack of processed opium might be worth back on Stewart.

“I’ve got the berries, mesh, weed, heroin, sleepy, conot-root, you name it. Everything that’s selling back home.”

“So why are you telling me this?”

“I’ve got a nice pipeline going,” Shayat said. “Every away game, I bring out a load of money. My contacts bring me a load of juniper berries, which I buy and bring with me when we return to Ionath. On Ionath, berries go for five to ten times what I paid for them, depending on supply.”

Quentin whistled. “At least a five-hundred percent markup, eh? Not bad.”

“I want to make more. If you carry a shipment next time, you’ll get half the profit.”

“Why only half?”

“My contacts, my network.”

Quentin nodded. “I guess that’s fair enough.”

“So you’re in?”

Quentin shook his head. “I’m not in. I don’t want any part of your smuggling ring, you got that? And if you ask me again, you and I are going to go a few rounds.”

Shayat’s pedipalps twitched in laughter. “You think you could go even one round with me, Human?”

Quentin nodded. “Maybe, maybe not, but if you don’t get out of my face we’re sure going to find out.” He stared with cold-hearted disdain at the larger alien. Shayat turned and walked away.

BACK ONBOARD THE Touchback , Quentin walked through the Sklorno section of the ship. While the Human section was fairly spartan and decorated in subdued tones (when the decor wasn’t Krakens orange and black), the Sklorno section paraded a mind-boggling maze of electric colors. Blues, purples, reds, yellows, greens, oranges… all ranging from near-black to near-neon intensity. Patterns, colors and pictures covered the floor, the walls and the ceiling. It was intensely beautiful and disgustingly ugly all at the same time. He found it ironic that the species with no color on their bodies decorated with more colors than anyone else.