“Shayat,” Quentin said. “How much merchandise can you get your hands on?”
“I’ve already got my load,” Shayat said. “All I can carry.”
“I didn’t ask that. What if you had more carriers? Say, forty-three other carriers, how much could you get then?”
Shayat looked at Quentin, then around the room, his eye shifting to a translucent red of surprise. “A lot. Enough for everyone.”
“What is this?” Virak said. “You want us to smuggle drugs?”
Quentin nodded. “That’s right. All of you. As much as you can carry.”
A cacophony of shouting questions filled the room. Virak and Choto’s eyes turned deep blackish-green.
“Shut up!” Quentin’s voice exploded in the small room, creating instant, stunned silence.
“Pine owes money,” Quentin said. “That’s why he was beat up, because he can’t pay. We’re his teammates. We’re going to pay off his debt. Everyone does it, no exceptions, and no one talks.”
The statement left a sea of stunned faces.
“This is serious,” Virak said. “Gredok ignores individual efforts. It’s one of the benefits of being a player. The amount is insignificant compared to what he ships on the team bus. But the whole team smuggling? That’s not something you ignore, Quentin. That’s not being enterprising, that’s being competition. Gredok doesn’t like competition.”
“We don’t do it, Pine’s a dead man,” Quentin said.
“That’s no reason to lie to Gredok,” Virak said. “He is our Shamakath.”
“He’s your Shamakath,” Quentin said. “Donald Pine is the Shamakath for the rest of us. He’s the team leader. So you’ve got to make a choice.”
Virak’s eye swirled from blackish-green to purple, a visible mark of his confusion.
“Virak,” Quentin said, “do you want to be a bodyguard or a Tier One football player?”
Virak said nothing. Quentin continued. “Without Pine, our chances of making the playoffs are pretty dim. Even if we don’t make it, it doesn’t matter, he’s our teammate and we’re going to help him. We either do this, all of us, together, or Donald Pine is dead. We can’t go to Gredok, you all just have to trust me on this. Now, does anyone want to back out?” He asked the question, but his eyes and demeanor clearly said that no one would be allowed to back out.
And no one did. Except Rick Warburg.
“Forget this,” Warburg said. “I’m not putting my career on the line for Pine.”
Quentin glared at him. “Yes you are, Warburg. You’re in.”
“No way. I’m not going through this for a blue-boy, and neither should you. It’s a sin to help Satan’s children.”
“He’s not a blue-boy, you idiot. He’s your teammate.”
“I collect a paycheck. I don’t have teammates, not from other races. I thought you were my teammate, but I guess I was wrong.”
“Yeah,” Quentin said. “I guess you were.”
Warburg stared at him for a few seconds, then walked out of the bar, head held high.
“Anyone else?”
None of the other players said a word. Maybe it was their love for Pine. Maybe it was Quentin’s will. Maybe it was both.
“Good,” Quentin said. “We’ve got three hours before the Touchback leaves. Shayat, make it happen.
QUYTH IRRADIATED CONFERENCE STANDINGS
THE SHUTTLE BANKED DOWN to the customs platform and into the express lane reserved for diplomats and foreign dignitaries. The team filed out and stood single-file on the yellow waiting line. Three Quyth Workers dressed in the white uniforms of the Quyth System Police slid hoversleds into the shuttle. The hover-sleds were loaded with the typical weapon- and explosive-scanning suites.
Kotop the Observer walked down the line of Krakens players. It was a performance they went through each time the shuttle returned from out-system.
“The food must be very good on Orbital Station One,” Kotop said with disgust. “You’ve all gained weight.”
Quentin, like the other Human players, wore a baggy sweat suit — with a bulging, rounded belly. All the players had some new bulky area on their body: the Ki linemen had bulging backs, Sklorno tails were fatter and longer, and even the Quyth Warriors thighs seemed far thicker than normal.
Kotop stood in front of Virak.
“This must be a very proud day for a warrior like yourself,” Kotop said. “I wonder who will be hurt by your newfound wealth.”
Virak said nothing, simply stared straight ahead so he didn’t have to look down at Kotop. His eye showed no color. Moments later, the technicians exited the ship.
“No weapons, no explosives,” one of them said to Kotop. The Quyth Leader clapped his pedipalps together once, then gestured to the ship.
“You football players think you’re so special,” Kotop said. “You flaunt the law right in front of us, and there’s nothing we can do. Someday… someday things will change.”
“YOU SURE THIS IS the right way to do this?” Quentin sat in the back of a cramped hovercab. Virak the Mean sat on one side, Choto the Bright sat on the other.
“Do you want Pine’s debt cleared?” Virak asked.
Quentin nodded.
“Then we have to show strength. A Leader like Mopuk will not let go of a choice debtor like Pine. Not easily. You need to convince Mopuk it’s in his best interest.”
Quentin nodded again. He’d started this, and he’d finish it, but he hadn’t expected anything like what was about to go down. Virak, Choto, Shayat and John Tweedy were well versed in violence. Real violence, the kind where beings died. Quentin could hold his own in any fight, but this was something different.
He looked out the side of the open cab. They were in Ionath City’s club district, a seemingly endless row of bars and dance halls, the street lit with brightly colored holosigns. Beings of all shapes and sizes crowded the streets. At least two fights were already in progress, one down the street to the left, one just off to their right. Quyth Warrior constables casually worked their way through the crowd to break up the altercations.
“We move now.” Virak slipped over the cab’s edge and onto the street. Choto hopped out the other side. Quentin followed suit, walking behind the two Quyth Warriors towards a club called the Bootleg Arms. A holosign above the bar showed a Quyth Worker using his pedipalps to repeatedly pour a gin & tonic. A line of beings, mostly Quyth Workers although all kinds were represented, extended out the door and down the street.
A Quyth Worker and three Ki — large, but not as large as GFL linemen — stood near the door. The Quyth Worker instantly recognized the three Krakens players and gestured for them to walk past the line. Virak and Choto entered first, moving in front of Quentin like the blades of a snowplow. They ignored the Quyth Worker and the Ki.
“Elder Barnes,” the Quyth Worker said, perfectly pronouncing the respectable Purist Nation title. “Welcome to the Bootleg Arms. If there is anything you need, I am Tikad the Groveling, and I assure you I will tend to your needs.”
“We want to see Mopuk,” Quentin said.