Хосе Гомес - A Planet for Rent

I turn around reluctantly. I’m not in the mood for rich, bejeweled fans, keen to console me and tell me that we’ll have better luck next time…

Surprise. He’s decked out in jewelry and he’s most likely a fan (what else would he be doing here?). But he’s no human.

Eight legs. Cold, multifaceted eyes. It’s a grodo.

“Modigliani is a scout for the League,” Gopal explains in a mischievous tone, behind which I think I can detect a little… sorrow? Envy?

I stare gaping at the insectoid. I still can’t believe it… This is too good to be happening to me…

“Mr. Modigliani, I am…,” I stammer, extending my hand to him. I would happily cover his grey chitin carapace with kisses.

Thank you, sweet Virgin, for hearing my prayers.

“Skip the mister,” the electronic voice crackles from a translator-synthesizer on the insectoid’s chest. He ignores my proffered hand, which I withdraw. “Just Modigliani. You know, Danny, you’ve got a tactical sense that I’ve rarely seen in any player.”

“Umm… Thanks, mis… Modigliani…”

“Well, now you’ve met, and since I can see you understand each other, I’ll leave you alone,” Gopal remarks, squeezing my shoulder. “I’m so happy you have a good future to look forward to.” He leans forward and whispers in my ear, “Don’t sell yourself cheap. Don’t accept his first offer.” And again, out loud, “See you around… Danny.” There’s a slight mocking tone in the way he says it.

He’s never called me anything but Daniel. Or “captain.”

I watch him. He walks away, whistling. To be forgotten. He has no future to look forward to. After ten years as a player and fifteen coaching the ever-losing Team Earth, his fifteen minutes are up. Mohamed Gopal, the Delhi Wonder, is retiring for good.

I wonder what he’ll live from now. For him, as for the Slovskys, Voxl is everything.

I’ll call him some day… For now, I have more urgent business to attend to. I turn my attention back to the grodo.

“Modigliani… You picked a very nice name. Do you know who he…”

“No, and I don’t care. We just like Earth names with four syllables. There’s a music to them.” The grodo gesticulates bluntly with two of his chitinous legs and places another pair on one of my shoulders, forcing me to walk at his pace. He’s as tall as me, and thinner, but much stronger. “Okay, Danny, I like to get straight to the point. I followed the match closely. I was interested in Arno Korvaldsen and you. We’ll make him the same offer when he finishes autocloning. But he’s not young, and if he’s lucky he’ll last one more season. As for you…” He paused.

I have my heart in my mouth. Let it not be a pittance, sweet Virgin. You know I’ll have to take it, no matter what…

“Three seasons with the Betelgeuse Draks…”—tell me how much, you repulsive bug, I don’t care if you’re listening in on me with your telepathy, I’ll beg all the forgiveness I need later on but for now, just tell me how much already—“for half a million credits a season. Medical expenses and training costs included, same goes for accidental death insurance. What do you think?”

What do I think? A swindle, that’s what I think. I hope you’re listening in on my brain this time. The Colossaur and the Cetian clones who played against us today must make ten times that much. It would be interesting to know how much Kowalsky, their captain, makes. Maybe less than me…

It doesn’t matter what I think, Modigliani, because I have to think it’s fine. I don’t have any other options. I’m going to accept, you know I’m going to accept, I know that you know that I know. So stop pretending.

After all, I can consider myself lucky.

“Perfect,” I articulate at last, my mouth feeling full of clay. “When do I start?”

“Soon as you pick up your gear. My ship is leaving from the New Rome astroport in two hours. Look for it, its name is Velvet. I’ll expect to see you onboard.” Modigliani walks and pivots. “I’m going to see Korvaldsen…”

“And the others?” I still dare ask him, before he’s too far away.

“Oh, yes… The others,” he says unenthusiastically. “Not interested. Too old, one of them. Too green, the rest. Those twins, however—maybe next year.”

A terrible scream at my back. I turn. A long gleam of burnished steel stained with blood spins across the floor of the court. The commotion of paramedics rushing to the scene. No point even looking. I know perfectly well what it is.

Seppuku…

Yukio, theatrical as ever. He swore he’d commit harakiri if they beat us. Dignity as light opera, honor as prop. As if he didn’t know that, worst case, his family would autoclone him. These samurais and their cult of blood…

I’m more worried about Jonathan. And Gopal. They’re perfectly capable of walking out of here calm as can be, and then, far away, jumping into a tank of acid. To leave no traces.

Poor guys…

I feel sorry for them, but life goes on. Some rise, some fall. Each to his own problems. I’m not the captain of Team Earth anymore.

Dear Virgin, I’ll light you a candle at least as big around as my thigh. For all you’ve done and will do for me.

And when Arno wakes up, we’ll go buy three cases of beer each. And find us a good pair of social workers, doesn’t matter how much they charge. Because this is worth celebrating.

It isn’t every day you have this sort of luck: a contract with the League. Now, to travel all over the galaxy. To live.

Now I’m really going to play.

I’m sure Arno thinks the same, he’s so pragmatic.

The pride of Earth, the hope of humans, the revenge of the oppressed…

Screw that.

No we are the champions.

On the best paid team.

The only one that’s really worthwhile.

My mother would be proud of me—I’m sure of it.

The Ussuri or Amur tiger, Panthera tigris altaica , is the largest feline on Earth. And, after the polar bear, the most powerful living terrestrial carnivore.

It is a tiger subspecies adapted to the cold taiga, its dense fur nearly white with pale brown stripes. It can weigh as much as 650 pounds and measure some ten feet from nose to tail tip.

A beautiful animal that had almost no natural enemies, it was the indisputable king of the taiga—until the advent of man.

Hunters and herders from the Yakut, Buryat, and other Siberian ethnic groups, who had no weapons but their bone arrows and spears, respected and admired the tiger as the ruler of beasts. To their shamans it was a sacred animal, both tutelary deity and demon, and the highest proof a man could give of his bravery was to hunt one alone.

Then the white man arrived with firearms and money and alcohol. The fur hunters.

Attracted by the high prices fetched by the valuable black-and-white coats of their gods, hired guns from all over the world joined the semicivilized sons of those very Siberian tribes that so revered the Amur tiger to decimate their numbers, never very large to begin with. Directors of zoos, in whose cages the immense felines played such an important role and attracted such large crowds, took care of the rest. No protective legislation could prevent the disaster.

By the turn of the twenty-first century, the fifty-four remaining Ussuri tigers were living in captivity in various zoos and private parks across the planet. Each was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Then came Contact…

As part of their plan for restoring the ecology, the xenoids skillfully crossbred and cloned the fifty-four survivors, and in a matter of twenty years the population of Siberian tigers had grown to several thousand. Though their genetic diversity had diminished somewhat, the subspecies could be considered rescued.