“Kill yourself? Are you nuts? Come on Gredok, he didn’t know you’d be this mad, he was just trying to help the team!”
Gredok said nothing.
“I knew exactly what would happen if we were discovered,” Virak said quietly. “I knew the consequences, and I am prepared to pay the price.”
Quentin stared, first at Virak, then at Gredok, then back. Virak had known helping Pine might bring about his own death, yet he helped anyway.
The temper starting to burn at the back of his brain, Quentin turned to Gredok. “And what about Pine?”
“Pine will suffer a fate similar to Mopuk.”
“No,” Quentin said.
Gredok looked at him. “Are you refusing my orders?”
“Yes,” Quentin said. “I am a football player. Donald Pine is a football player. Virak is a football player.”
“Those two betrayed me.”
“I don’t give a crap what they did. They are my teammates.”
“Did you not hear me?” Gredok said. “I said you’re the starter. These two don’t concern you.”
“Virak stays on the team,” Quentin said. “Pine stays on the team. No one dies.”
Gredok leaned forward. “Who do you think you’re talking to? I’m your Shamakath, you insolent Human.”
“You are the team owner,” Quentin said. “You are not my Shamakath.”
Gredok’s fur ruffled out to full length. He looked like a little black puffball.
“Don’t bother getting all pissy,” Quentin said. “You do anything to Pine, or Virak dies, and I walk. Do you understand what that means?”
“You walk? You quit? Do you think I can’t get another quarterback?”
“Not like me you can’t, baby,” Quentin said, slowly shaking his head from side-to-side. “There isn’t anyone like me and you know it. Never was. Never will be. And I walk now, Greedy, right this second. That means your starter against the Quyth Survivors is Yitzhak. You think Yitzhak can win that game?”
“Yes he can,” Gredok said. “The Survivors are 3–5, we can beat them without you.”
Quentin nodded. “Maybe. But can he win in the playoffs? Can he beat the Texas Earthlings? Can he beat the undefeated Chillich Spider-Bears?”
Gredok’s eye turned a deep, iridescent black.
“You remember the playoffs,” Quentin said. “That thing we need to win to reach Tier One? Don’t you want to win Tier One?”
Gredok’s pedipalps trembled. “You smelly Human. You don’t even really understand who you’re talking to.”
“Sure I do,” Quentin said. “I’m talking to the team owner. I’m not in your mob, Gredok. I’m a football player. I’m not disrespecting you in any way, I promise you that. I’m telling you the way it’s going to be with my team, or I catch the first liner back to Purist Nation space.”
“And what if I put you inside this table right now?”
Quentin shrugged. “I would die a miserable death, but you know what? You still lose. You don’t reach Tier One. It’s that simple. So here’s the deal. Pine plays. Virak plays. In fact, Virak is so good, why don’t you get some of the other monkey-boys to do your muscle work? He needs to concentrate on the Survivors, and on the tournament. It’s your call, Greedy. What’s it going to be?”
Gredok’s eye swirled black-hole black, then slowly faded to clear. He stared for another full minute, then finally spoke.
“Hakat, Jokot,” he said to the guards on either side. “See these football players out. But know this, Quentin — your deal lasts only as long as you keep winning. If you don’t make Tier One, you and I will settle up.”
Quentin winked. “We’re going to the top, boss. You can bank on it.”
If only he felt as confident as he sounded.
ALONE, GREDOK SAT in the Bootlegger Arms for several minutes. He contemplated the scenario, unlike any he’d been through in a long, long time. Gredok had controlled countless sentients over the years, everything from Ki to Sklorno to Leekee, even a Dolphin or two. And hundreds of Quyth Leaders, the most intelligent, controlling beings in the known universe. And, of course, Humans. Many Humans.
Humans were often the easiest to control, because they were so poorly trained at hiding their emotions. Quyth Leaders had the obvious “tell,” their ever-shifting eye color. But Quyth Leaders aspiring for power quickly learned how to repress those color changes, or even consciously manipulate them. Those who didn’t, well, they didn’t last long. Human “tells,” however, were much more difficult to control — body heat, heart rate, pupil dilation, alpha waves, respiration. A trained Quyth Leader could read all of these tells.
Knowing your opponent’s true intentions, that was the game. Knowing what was important to them, knowing what they could and couldn’t live without. Knowing when they were lying.
Quentin Barnes had not been lying.
The young Human had been willing to walk away from the Krakens, from the GFL. To protect a Quyth Warrior he barely knew. To protect a man that had thrown games, a man that had betrayed the team, the entire sport. And nothing was more important to Quentin than the sport of football. That fact was obvious in every tell. With Pine out of the way, Quentin became the permanent starting quarterback, the thing he claimed he’d wanted all his life. But he’d put all that on the line until he got his way. What could compel a Human to do something that was so contrary to his own best interests?
The answer seemed obvious — loyalty. Quentin Barnes was loyal to a fault, loyal to the point he’d throw his own future away to protect a friend. In Gredok’s world, loyalty often went to the highest bidder, or at least to the Shamakath that provided the most opportunities for advancement and wealth and power.
Gredok looked at the shriveled shape of Mopuk, drained of fluid. His fur lay in ugly clumps at the bottom of the glass table. Fat shushuliks, newly bloated with Mopuk’s blood, moved lazily through the piles of fur. Mopuk had claimed to be loyal. That brand of loyalty, the brand with which Gredok was most familiar, lasted only until the next potential payday. Quentin’s loyalty, well, that was another story.
That kind of loyalty Gredok could put to good use. If the Krakens could win two more games, if they could reach the elite ranks of Tier One, Gredok would find a way to use that loyalty indeed.
THE TOUCHBACK SHUDDERED out of punch-space. Quentin let out his long-held breath in a slow, steady exhale. He’d made it yet again. The anxiety was the same, but this time he wasn’t hiding in his room. He stood on the viewing deck, next to Virak the Mean.
“Flying scares you?” Virak asked calmly.
“It’s not the flight,” Quentin said. “It’s the punch-out.”
He looked at the view screens, amazed at the sight of the Quyth homeworld. They’d arrived on the nighttime side, yet there wasn’t one dark patch to be seen. Every last square mile seemed covered with the soft glow of civilization.
“High One,” Quentin said. “Is the whole thing covered?”
“There is no more open land,” Virak said. “Nor much open water.”
“Seventy-two billion,” Quentin said in amazement. The population of Quyth seemed so staggering he had to say it out loud to appreciate it.
“Now you understand why we expand. We either find new worlds or stop breeding, and that is not an option.”
They said nothing more, simply stared at the overpopulated planet. The Purist Nation planets were relatively unpopulated. Earth, however, was at 18 billion and counting. He wondered how long it would be until the Earth, like the Quyth homeworld, was just one big city without boundaries or borders.