THE ALL-PRO (27 page)

Don’s eyes flicked to another painting. An older painting, brighter, with bolder lines. An abstract quarterback wearing silver, gold and copper. Don Pine back in his championship days.

Quentin realized he was breathing heavier, that his temper was rising. He calmed himself, tried to think. He had risked his career to save Don’s. Quentin had risked his
life
. That dark secret had been fine as long as it remained a
secret
, but now the story was out. Out and with the wrong man taking the rap. Don would snap out of this any moment, he would step up and do the right thing. He
had
to.

“Don, you’re going to tell someone, right? You’re not going to leave me hanging.
Right?
”

Don said nothing.

Quentin’s chest seemed heavy. It ached. He’d never felt anything like this before. He’d never really had friends back on Micovi. Other than Mister Sam, Don Pine was the first person Quentin had truly trusted. Don’s mentoring, his patience, those things had helped make Quentin the player he was today, the
leader
he was today. Yet this mentor, the man who had risen to the pinnacle of their profession, he was turning his back on real leadership — the leadership of responsibility.

“I don’t believe it,” Quentin said. “You’re not going to tell the truth.”

Don shook his head. “I can’t, Quentin.”

“You
can’t
? No-no-no, old man, you
won’t
. You’re really going to hang me out to dry?”

Don turned, the pain in his soul etched on his expression. “Quentin, you gotta understand. I’ve only got a year or two left. If this gets out now, my career is over.”

Was this level of betrayal even possible? “What about my career?”

“You’re the starting quarterback! Gredok is standing up for you. This is your team, man.”

“The galaxy thinks I’m a scumbag, Don. Sentients are saying—”

“They’ll get over it,” Don said. “You’re young, Quentin. You’re a star. As long as you keep throwing completions and scoring touchdowns, the galaxy could give a crap if you chop up babies and cook them in a stew.”

“That’s easy for you to say.”

“Look at Ju Tweedy. He’s actually wanted for
murder
and he’s going to line up on Sunday and play in the biggest sports league that history has ever known. Don’t you get it, Quentin? As long as you do what you can do, it doesn’t matter what people think.”

“It matters to me.”

Don stared at him, but couldn’t hold it. He looked away. “Sure, okay, I know it matters to you. But you don’t understand, you
can’t
understand until you’re standing where I’m standing. At my age, the way I’ve played the past few seasons, a scandal like this means no one will touch me.”

“But that doesn’t matter!
You’re the one
who did wrong,
not
me. Are you going to be a coward, or are you going to face the music?”

Quentin again waited for an answer, hoping that this time Don would see what needed to be done, that he would do the right thing.

But Don Pine didn’t waver.

“I can’t,” he said. “Not now. Not this season. I’m sorry.”

The coward. How could Don do this? “And what if I tell the media? What if I tell them all about your involvement with Mopuk, how your entire team smuggled drugs to pay off your debt so you could stop
throwing games
?”

Don closed his eyes and looked down. “I’ll deny it. And you won’t do that, Quentin. I know you. If you start a he-said, he-said thing, it will mess with team unity, which is already at a breaking point thanks to Tara the Freak. Right now the team is behind you. If you start forcing them to choose between you and me, the team will lose focus. That will cost us games. Not all of them, but enough to keep us out of the playoffs, maybe even enough to put us on the relegation bubble again. You won’t say anything, because as much as your integrity means to you, we both know winning means even more.”

Quentin’s temper rippled, simmered just below boiling. He wanted to hit Don, to smash the easel over his head, to tear down all these feel-sorry-for-myself paintings and rip them to shreds. And yet, Don was right — as awful as this was, Quentin would rather carry the weight of false accusations than free himself at the expense of the team.

“I wish I’d never helped you,” Quentin said. “I should have left you broken in that hospital bed, should have let them finish you.”

Quentin’s hands shot out, grabbed the painting off the easel. He threw it at Don. The wet canvas
fwapped
against Don’s head, then fell to the floor. Don stared, the dark paint of his self-hatred caked on his face.

Quentin’s hands balled into fists, but he kept them at his sides.

He walked out of the apartment, his heavy feet echoing off the entryway walls.

SEASON OPENER.

Home
opener.

A chance to not only kick off a new era in Ionath football, but to lay some retribution on a team that had ripped them 51-7 the year before. The Krakens had worked all off-season toward winning this game, using last year’s humiliatingly lopsided loss as fuel to work harder, to dig deeper, to get better.

Outside their locker room, the Ionath Krakens packed into the tunnel. Up ahead, Quentin saw forty-five Ice Storm players at the tunnel’s exit where it opened into the back of the black end zone. He stared at the massed collection of snow-white helmets, metal-blue sword-snowflake logo only on the left side, chrome facemasks catching the tunnel lights. The Ice Storm’s jerseys were white on the shoulders fading to a light blue at the waist, circled by chrome belts. Leg armor gleamed in that same light blue at the hips, gradually darkening in shade until it ended at navy blue shins and shoes. The blue-trimmed chrome numbers on their shoulder pads and backs seemed to dance with life.

The Ice Storm wore the mostly white jerseys when they played at home. Because the Krakens’ home jerseys were black, the Storm also wore their white gear when visiting Ionath.

The sight of those white, blue and chrome uniforms, of those players, it filled Quentin with a cold rage. The Ice Storm had finished the 2683 season with eight wins, four losses and a trip to the playoffs. They had lost in the first round to eventual GFL champion Wabash Wolfpack, but that didn’t matter; Isis had made the playoffs — therefore, the Ice Storm players were among the league’s elite.

To be the best, you have to
beat
the best.

Out beyond the tunnel in the huge, open-air stadium, Quentin and his teammates heard the Ionath faithful. Over 185,000 sentients screaming a unified pre-game chant.

“Let’s go KRAK-ens!” clap, clap, clap-clap-clap. “Let’s go KRAK-ens!” clap, clap, clap-clap-clap.

Quentin shook with anger, with excitement. The ceremony was about to begin, the affirmation of life, of all he was and all he was born to be. High One had created him for this
and
this alone.

The announcer’s voice echoed across the field, filtered into the tunnel. As always, announcements came first in the Quyth language, then in English.

“Hello everyone and welcome to Ionath Stadium. Please give your warmest greetings to today’s visiting team, the Isis Ice Storm!”

The white-jerseyed team rushed out of the tunnel to the overpowering sound of
boos
and the sound of some 50,000 Quyth workers scraping their bristly forearm fur together — a chorus of sandpaper on rough wood. There were enough cheers to show Quentin that plenty of Isis fans had made the six-day trip across the galaxy to support their heroes.

The Krakens moved up the tunnel. Now Quentin could see out into the stadium. One hundred eighty-five thousand fans, beating their feet in place. A rhythmic war-drum that demanded blood. Quyth Workers filled the higher rows, the upper decks. Humans, Quyth Warriors and Leaders packed the lower seats.

While not as numerous, he couldn’t miss the Sklorno females in the stands, covered head to toe and wearing replica jerseys — Hawick’s number 80, Milford’s 82, Halawa’s 13. Some even wore 84 and 81, the numbers of Scarborough and Denver, who had both been traded to Jupiter. Unlike last year, however, most of the Sklorno fans wore the number of a Human player.

Number 10. Quentin’s number.

And the special section, a smaller area enclosed in clear crysteel, packed with bouncing black balls of fur. The Sklorno males, driven so mad by watching the females on the field that they had to be separated from the other spectators.

All of this, Quentin’s
home
.

“Let’s go KRAK-ens!” clap, clap, clap-clap-clap. “Let’s go KRAK-ens!” clap, clap, clap-clap-clap.

He looked at the field itself. Deep blue, the color of the Iomatt plant’s small, circular leaves. Leaves that smelled like cinnamon. White lines blazed, reflecting the sunlight filtering through the city dome high above.

The Krakens pressed tighter, waiting for the announcer to call them out. Quentin breathed deep through his nose, savored the moment, tasted the emotions.

John Tweedy on his right.

Michael Kimberlin on his left.

The lust for that first snap, that first throw, that first hit.

His teammates filled the air with palpable aggression, with the glorious promise of heavy violence and primitive release. Finally, after a long off-season, after a brutal practice schedule, after putting his teammates through hell to get ready for this game, Quentin heard the words that sent a charge through his chest all the way down to his armor-covered toes.

“Beings of all races, let’s hear it for ...
your
 ... Ionath,
KRAAAAAA-KENNNNNNNS!
”

Quentin sprinted into the sun’s blazing light and the crowd’s concussive roar. His feet bounced off the orange-lettered black end zone that matched the uniforms of he and his forty-four teammates. As a unit, they shot across the white-striped blue field toward the Krakens sideline.

The team gathered around Quentin, pushed in and around him like an accreting planet. HeavyG, Ki, Quyth Warrior and Human pressed together. Sklorno jumped on the outside edges or arced back and forth over the entire pile. The players screamed, grunted, chirped, snorted and barked, not with words, but rather the noises of battle, the sounds of war and excitement and the thrill of feeling so utterly
alive
. The second Quentin started talking, the cacophony dropped to a subtone, a murmuring buzz as the Krakens leaned in to hear their leader.

“New year,” Quentin said. He took his time, turning to look directly at each teammate. “New year, new destiny. You all know how hard you worked.”

The soft noises of his teammates grew louder as each of them acknowledged this fact.

“You paid the price. You paid it with tough wins to end last season. You paid it in practice. And every one of you remembers what the Ice Storm did to us last year.”

The noises grew louder. So did Quentin.

“But now these bastards from Isis have come to
our
house. Our
temple
. They came here expecting an easy win, but they will leave knowing that we are the
law
, that we are the champions in the making.”

The teammates jostled closer, bumping him to and fro. There was no feeling like this anywhere in the galaxy, like the pre-game sensation of so many elite athletes uniting as one.

Quentin raised his left fist high. His teammates reached in and up to that fist. Their noises grew so loud Quentin had to scream his next words to have them answered by a chorus of Krakens.

“Whose house?”

“
Our house!
”

“Whose house?”

“
Our house!
”

“What law?”

“
Our law!
”

“Who wins?”

“
Krakens!
”