The Starter

by Scott Sigler

  “Then take a language course. I’ll never understand your species’ shortcoming in learning the tongues of other cultures. I speak over three hundred languages.”

  Quentin stopped at the door to the baths. “Don’t give me that, Shizzle. This is what your race does. You guys can learn a language in a week. We’re not wired that way.”

  “Then your physiology is flawed.”

  Quentin did not need this, not now. Interpreting for the team was Shizzle’s job. The little bat was starting to make Quentin mad.

  “Tell you what,” Quentin said. “How about we make a deal — if I take a language class, then you come out and suit up for a practice. We’ll see how well your physiology works on a football field.”

  Shizzle stayed quiet for a second. “Point taken,” he said.

  “And why don’t you want to go in there with me? What are you, racist?”

  It shocked Quentin how liberating it felt to say those words, instead of having those words said to him.

  “It’s not racism,” Shizzle said, “it’s terror. When the Ki are in areas with the other races, I’m fine, but their baths? Where it’s dark, and no one is around? I feel like I’m going to wind up on their dinner table.”

  “So you eat with them, how bad can it be?”

  “Not at their dinner table, backwater, on it. I’m about the right size for a Ki feast. In fact, I think I’ll opt out. You don’t need me for this.”

  “Shizzle, you are going in there with me.”

  “No, backwater, I am n—”

  Quentin’s hands shot up and grabbed the football-shaped body. Bat-like wings flapped in panic. Six-eyed sunglasses clattered to the floor.

  “Stop!” Shizzle screamed. “Stop it! Stop it!”

  Quentin shook him to quiet him down. “You shut up. I’m trying to unify a team, and you will help me. Do you understand?”

  “Yes! I’ll go in! Please don’t hurt me!”

  Quentin looked at the disgusting creature, the race he’d hated his whole life, the race that had subjugated his people. He looked, and saw... fear. Shizzle feared for his life.

  Quentin let go. The Creterakian flapped away, started flying a circle around the ceiling, trying to stay out of Quentin’s reach. Another stressful moment, and Quentin had again reacted with violence. He put his hands over his face, felt that sensation of self-hatred well up in his throat. Yitzhak’s words echoed in his thoughts: you’re not on Micovi anymore.

  “Shizzle, I’m sorry.”

  “I will go in with you!” Shizzle kept circling around the ceiling. “Just don’t hurt me!”

  Quentin looked up, watched Shizzle flying. The Creterakian weighed all of ten, maybe twelve pounds. Quentin’s left foot probably weighed more. “Honest, I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

  Shizzle stopped flying, clung to a ceiling fixture. “Whatever you say, Quentin. Can we go in now? I will do my job, just don’t shake me again.”

  Quentin wanted to find a hole, crawl in, and not come out for a decade. But despite his horrible behavior, he didn’t have time for that. He had a job to do, a job that was in the Ki baths. He could try and make it up to Shizzle some other time.

  Quentin opened the door. Thick steam billowed out, catching the glow of purple lights from inside. He walked in, wrinkling his nose against the stench of mildew and post-game Ki stench, something that made him think of dead fish mixed in with rotting chicken entrails. The sound of hissing water jets and low-range Ki growls played off the black tile walls.

  His eyes adjusted to the low lights, revealing a scene most Humans would consider a nightmare. A large pool of black water filled with a wriggling, entwined pile of long, tubular bodies. Wet, orangish skin gleamed, as did the reddish-brown spots of enamel that dotted it. Add in staring black eyes, muscular multi-jointed arms, pinkish hexagonal mouths lined with black teeth, and you had a squirming, multi-headed ball of pure terror.

  Quentin tossed his towel, then dove into the water. Near-scalding temperatures scraped at his skin, initially shocking, then soothing, relaxing. He arched his back and rose. His head popped out of the surface only a few feet from the massive ball of entwined Ki.

  It was no small feat to hide his instinctive fear, his natural revulsion. He controlled it for two reasons. First, these were his teammates, and he would not disrespect them by acting like some backwater racist brat. Second, this activity, coming into their private area and showing no fear, it helped them bond to him — and to win a championship, you needed an offensive line that would follow you to hell and back.

  As the glowing Shizzle flew laps around the small pool, Quentin stared into a dozen sets of eyes, wondering if he’d recognize something specific, something familiar. All the Ki looked pretty much the same — he normally used jersey numbers to tell them apart.

  And then, shockingly, he realized one of the Ki’s eyes were a little more round than the others. It’s mouth, not perfectly hexagonal, but skewed a little. He saw those things and knew, without a doubt, that this one was Kill-O-Yowet. And there, the small, pink scar above the left-center eye, that was Aka-Na-Tak, the injured starting left guard. And that head, half-buried in the tangle, he saw an eyelid that was a little more droopy than the others — Shun-On-Won, the rookie he now recognized despite only knowing him for four weeks.

  “Shizzle,” Quentin said. “You can go.”

  The garishly dressed bat didn’t need to be told twice. He looked like a blur of foggy light as he shot away from the pool and back to the communal dressing room.

  Quentin looked into the eyes of the Krakens’ alpha-Ki.

  “Kill-O-Yowet. Thank you for protecting me today.”

  The Ki grunted a reply. Quentin didn’t understand the words, might never understand the vocally complex Ki language, but Don was right about one thing — you didn’t need to fully understand words once you got used to their tone. Kill-O’s grunt was the Ki equivalent of self-deprecating modesty. Had a Human expressed an identical sentiment, he might have said something like: “yeah, I protected you so well you were sacked five times.” Still, while football was a team game, an individual always knew when he or she had played well. Those five sacks? Not one had come from a sentient that Kill-O had been assigned to block.

  The packed ball of Ki slithered and writhed a little. Some heads slid in, some slid out. Water rippled across the pool, splashed against the sides. Quentin stared into many, many eyes... then recognized Sho-Do-Thikit, the left guard, and Bud-O-Shwek, his center. He nodded at each of these players in turn.

  Other black eyes stared at him. They seemed to be waiting... almost hoping. How about that? The big, bad Ki had accepted him as a war leader, and as such, they wanted his approval. Or, at least, his acknowledgment.

  Well, they weren’t going to get it. If they wanted recognition, they would have to earn it.

  Quentin swam to the edge of the pool, right under a stream of hot water that arced down from a spout high up on the black-tile wall. The water splashed on his head. He shut his eyes tight against the heat. He sank down to his chin, soaking in — as Don had said — not only his “filth” but the “filth” of his salamandery teammates.

  Aside from the sound of small waves and splashing fountains, there was no noise.

  Except for... crying?

  Quentin opened his eyes. Yes, it was crying. A woman’s crying, from the other side of the gigantic pile of tangled Ki. He swam around the pile. On the other side, he saw a thick Human head, fountain water splashing off of long, black hair.

  No, not a Human head, thicker, blockier... a HeavyG head.

  Rebecca Montagne.

  Quentin felt embarrassed. He was naked in front of a woman? Sinful! Apparently, it didn’t bother him to be naked in front of members of another species, but having a woman in here made him instantly self-conscious. He calmed himself — his body was underwater, water that looked black. She couldn’t see anything of his, nor could he see anything of hers.

  “Becca? Yo
u okay?”

  She looked at him briefly, a disembodied, black-haired head floating on a black, liquid surface. Her eyes looked very dark under the dim purple lights. Dark, and a bit... exotic. Then she shook her head.

  “No,” she said. “I’m not okay.”

  He swam closer, careful to keep a couple of yards between her and his nakedness. “Hey, didn’t anyone tell you there’s no crying in football?”

  He meant it as a joke, but she closed her eyes and started crying harder. “I didn’t... mean it,” she said, choking out the words. “I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

  Quentin nodded. He couldn’t leave; he had to talk his teammate through this. She was the same age he was, maybe even a little older. Don Pine would know exactly what to say, but Don Pine wasn’t here.

  “Becca, this is football. Beings are going to get hurt. Beings are going to die. It’s just the way it is.”

  “I know that,” she said between sobs. “I’ve been playing since I was twelve. I’ve hurt beings before, ended careers, I’ve seen beings die. I just...”

  Her voice trailed off. Quentin finished the sentence for her. “You just never killed one yourself.”

  She nodded. The mist and the splashing fountain water hid her tears. Quentin wondered what the ball of slithering Ki were thinking of this, of watching a teammate crying over the death of an opponent.

  “Look, Montagne, you’re going to have to deal with this. You can’t let this affect your play.”

  “Affect my play? A sentient died today, Quentin. Died because I killed her.”

  “Because you did your job. Because you executed your position.”

  “My position?” Rebecca shook her head, again staring at Quentin like he was some kind of ghoul. “North Branch is dead, and you’re talking about executing a position? Is that all you think about? Football?”

  Quentin blinked a few times, then gave her the honest answer. “Yes. That’s pretty much it.”

  She said nothing, just cast her gaze back to the black water’s surface.

  “Montagne, you’re in Tier One now. If football isn’t all you think about, then make it all you think about. We don’t have room on the roster for someone who doesn’t.”

  Her eyes snapped up again, glaring at him like he’d said something completely unbelievable. She turned, put her hands on the tile sides of the pool and pulled herself out of the water.

  Quentin’s eyes went wide as he saw a glimpse of her naked behind before he quickly turned away. He heard her feet slapping against the wet tile surface, then the hiss of the door as she left the pool room.

  He wondered if he had ever felt as embarrassed as he did at that moment.

  • • •

  QUENTIN, JOHN TWEEDY AND YASSOUD MURPHY walked out of the locker room and into Isis Stadium’s private landing bay. It was much larger than the Touchback’s landing bay, and needed to be — there were fifteen shuttles just from broadcast companies alone, all lined up neatly along the bay’s edge. Shuttles and streamlined personal cars moved across the wide space, stopping on top of yellow-lined platforms mounted flush in the black grate deck. Every twenty seconds or so, one of the platforms would lower, dropping those cars into the shadow below, or rise up, delivering a new car dripping with water.

  Yassoud was still limping. The normally outgoing, loud running back seemed uncharacteristically subdued. Quentin wasn’t surprised. Yassoud had carried the ball twenty-three times for a whopping forty-seven yards, an average of two yards per carry.

  John seemed despondent that his life-of-the-party drinking buddy was not being the life of the party. “Lighten up, ’Soud,” John said. “It’s a long season, we’ll do better next week against the Dreadnaughts.”

  “Whatever,” Yassoud said. “If I don’t get some blocking, it won’t matter who we’re playing.”

  John and Quentin said nothing. Better blocking would help, certainly, but Yassoud was no Mitchell Fayed. Sometimes a running back had to go beyond just hitting the hole, had to make things happen on his own. Quentin knew that Yassoud would improve. What did they expect out of him in his first Tier One outing? A game or two of poor production was almost to be expected.

  “So, John,” Quentin said. “Where are we going?”

  “Out,” John said. “I’ve only been on Isis once, and I can describe it in two words — awwwwwwwwwe-some. Ionath City has the one big dome, right? Well, Isis is so big they couldn’t fit it all under one dome, so there are hundreds of domes with businesses and residences inside. And there’s thousands of buildings that are self-contained, outside of the domes. They even have some bars that are right down on the ocean bed, man! And there’s a crapload of party-subs that float around the city. If you don’t know their current coordinates, you can’t find them, let alone get in.”

  Quentin saw that look in John’s wild eyes, that look that said the man would be out all night and wouldn’t go home without at least one bar fight.

  “What about curfew?” Quentin said. “We have to be back on the Touchback for the trip back to Ionath.”

  It had taken six days to reach Tower, and would take the same to get back for next week’s home opener against the Themala Dreadnaughts. Hokor wanted a full practice at Ionath Stadium before the game, which meant the Krakens departed that night.

  “Don’t worry about it,” John said. “I promised Coach I’d have you back by midnight Isis time. Trust me, I will not let you miss the bus.”

  “Why?”

  John grimaced. “Coach mentioned something about castration. I’m not sure of the details, but suffice to say I don’t really want to find out if he’s joking or serious. I hired us a private sub, Q. Trust me, I’ll have you back in time.”

  Despite the lop-sided loss and throbbing head, Quentin could barely contain his excitement. Another foreign planet, another exotic city. Isis was rumored to be among the most beautiful places in the galaxy. John led them out onto the busy landing bay. He seemed to be counting off the yellow numbers next to each platform. When he found the one he wanted, they waited.

  They weren’t waiting long before the platform lowered, creating a rectangular opening thick with shadow. Moments later, a streamlined, deep-blue ship rose up out of the opening, lifted by the elevator platform below it. Water dripped off the vehicle, which was about the size of a large grav-car.

  The driver’s side door rose up on a hinge. A fat, bearded Human stepped out. He nodded at John. “Are you Mister Tweedy?”

  “That I am, governor! Call me Uncle Johnny. This is our ride, boys, let’s hit the town.”

  The fat man walked around, opened a rear door for them and they climbed in. Quentin marveled at the spacious interior — it reminded him of Stedmar Osborne’s limo, the vehicle that had taken him to Micovi’s lone spaceport. The vehicle windows looked out onto the bay’s other ships and empty stalls. The vehicle’s roof was also clear, showing the bay’s high ceiling.

  The driver closed the door. As soon as he did, music filled the vehicle. Quentin instantly recognized the song: Combat Bats by Trench Warfare.

  “Nice! That’s my favorite band.”

  John and Yassoud laughed.

  “Wow,” John said. “What a coincidence.”

  Quentin looked at them for a second, then looked away. There was always a joke he didn’t get.

  He felt the vehicle lower. The windows went dark as the elevator platform dropped the ship into the hole. Quentin heard various machinery humming, the clank of metal-on-metal, the hiss of air, then the burbling of water.

  Acceleration pushed him back into his seat. Instantly, the windows filled with light, filled with a view that took his breath away. The underwater city of Isis sprawled out before him. Buildings and domes littered the ocean floor as far as he could see, clear and bright when near, hazy and darker in the distance. The water looked slightly murky. There were also floating spheres covered in lights both steady and flashing. Billboard signs glowed brightly, advertising Human products as well as products that mu
st have been of use only to Leekee. Most of the latter seemed to be things catering to the health of their spindly symbiotes. And it wasn’t just the buildings and floating spheres — a hundred feet or so above the tallest buildings, Quentin saw the hulking shapes of massive, streamlined submarines, some as large as the Touchback, some even bigger.

  The limo banked. Quentin saw the spectacular design that was the Fishtank, home of the Isis Ice Storm. The beautiful stadium reminded him of ancient football temples back on Earth: a white cylinder rising up out of the ocean floor, capped by a clear dome. He could see through the dome to the empty stands and the sapphire-blue field below. Above the stadium, an enormous, shimmering, slowly spinning hologram of the Ice Storm’s sword-snowflake logo.

  The limo banked again, revealing the sprawling grandeur of Isis. Lights and shapes as far as the eye could see, personal ships whizzing through the water at all depths, each leaving a stream of thin bubbles that slowly floated toward the unseen surface. The ships seemed to follow a traffic pattern, but they were packed in so tightly and moving in the same directions that they looked like schools of strange fish.

  “Wow,” Quentin said. “This is madness.”

  “Nope,” John said. “This is Isis. Enjoy the ride, Q.”

  “Oh, I am. Where are we going?”

  “Never mind where we’re going and eat your broccoli,” John said.

  The ship shot toward a thick stream of traffic, banked at the last second, then melded into the school. Quentin felt his hands squeezing the seat — some of the ships were only inches from his window. Particulates shot past the window, blurring things even more, making the buildings and domes outside waver, shimmer. Quentin sat unmoving, mesmerized by this city of water until the vessel suddenly broke free from the school and banked to the right, diving toward a canyon between tall buildings.

  Down near the ocean floor, Quentin saw hundreds of streamlined bodies swimming in all directions — Leekee, he realized, the Isis equivalent of pedestrians. He saw groups of Dolphins, smooth skin modified with bright colors and designer patterns. Harrah, too, as at home in the water as they were in the air.