His voice trailed off. Quentin didn’t want to look at Manny’s leg, but he had to, then looked up again.
“The rifle take off your leg?”
Manny smiled, a sad smile with no humor as his eyes looked into some faraway memory.
“No, my son, I did that myself. I was hit in the shin. I don’t know why I didn’t go into shock, like most of my friends did when they were hit. I looked down and my leg was just disintegrating, down towards my foot and up my leg as well. Those entropic rifles, if you don’t get to the wound fast, there’s nothing left of you. I got out my hatchet and just swung it.”
Quentin winced at the thought of such horror.
Manny’s eyes refocused, and he looked at Quentin. “Well, anyway, we beat off that initial attack. My friends, the few that were left alive, managed to stabilize my wound. But the bats came again. There had to be at least 200,000 in that wave. I watched every one of my friends disintegrate within thirty seconds. That’s how fast it was over. Thirty seconds. Did your history books tell you that?”
Quentin shook his head. “The history books tell us the fight went on for days.”
“Right,” Manny said. “Figures. It was over just like that. For some reason the High One spared me, and they just shot everyone around me while I stood there, firing away, killing a few, as they ignored me. The funny thing is when I got back home, all the Holy Men called my survival a miracle. They said the High One was watching over me. I guess there were only a few miracles to go around that — there weren’t any available to all my friends, or the 490,000 men that died that day. When everyone else was gone, the bats surrounded me and told me to surrender or die. Regardless of what I’m told awaits me on the other side, I’m not that partial to dying. They drugged me up and shipped me off to what’s now known as the Combine.”
Quentin waited for more of the story, but Manny said nothing.
“What was it like,” Quentin asked finally. “What did… what did they do to you?”
Manny shook his head and forced a practiced businessman’s smile. “I don’t talk about that anymore, my son. High One saw fit to see me through. But don’t you worry about it. It’s a different world now. The Creterakians run everything, and they’re very fond of the GFL, so they won’t hurt the players. I know a lot of Nationalites think you’re a race-traitor for leaving, but I hope you do well. Just try not to get killed in the first season. That’s always embarrassing.”
“I’ll do my best.”
A flock of five Creterakians flew onto the observation deck in a sudden blur of motion. Just as quickly, they perched on any available surface. Manny, Quentin, and the three other Humans on the observation deck froze in place, a reaction bred from thousands of stories of Creterakians shooting anyone who moved too fast or in a threatening manner. The five-pound, winged creatures all wore the tiny silver vests that marked them as security forces, and each held a small entropic rifle. Manny started to sweat and the fat on his chin quivered — but he stayed perfectly still.
The Creterakian body consisted of, ironically, a football-shaped trunk, one end of which tapered off into a flat, two-foot-long tail — like the body of a tadpole, but with the tail flat on the horizontal plane instead of the vertical. Their bodies were different shades of red, some a solid color, some with splotchy patterns of pink or purple. Thin, short legs ended in feet with three thin, splayed toes that curled up around anything available. Two pair of foot-long arms reached out from either side of the body. The upper pair were webbed with membranous, patterned wings that ran from the tip of the arm to the base of the tail. The bottom pair looked just like the first, but without the membrane.
The bottom arms held the deadly entropic rifles.
Quentin had always found Creterakian heads rather revolting. Three pairs of eyes lined the round head: a pair looked straight ahead, a pair sat a bit below those and on the outside looking out to the left and right, and a pair that pointed straight down.
“Quentin Barnes,” two of them said in unison, their brassy, high-pitched voices sounding almost as one. The other three simply sat, feet shuffling back-and-forth. “You will come with us.”
Quentin let out a slow breath and tried to calm his heart rate. Not since he’d been a child of eleven had a bat actually spoken to him. There had been a riot at the mines. When the bats came to break it up, they killed fifteen men.
“Good luck, my son,” Manny said as he bowed twice in the respectful manner of the Church. He handed Quentin a small plastic chip. “My card. I’ll be at Emperor One for a week, so if you need anything give me a call. And think about my offer — you’d look very photogenic at the helm of a luxury yacht.”
Quentin slipped the chip into his pocket. “Thanks,” he mumbled, then walked out of the observation deck. The Creterakians whipped into a hovering formation around him, surrounding him like an honor guard.
An honor guard or a prison escort, Quentin thought. I’ve got armed military guards leading me to a former prison station. Great, just great.
Somehow, his introduction to the Galactic Football League wasn’t quite as glamorous as he’d expected.
3. THE COMBINE
THE COMBINE WAS much smaller than Emperor Two. A featureless grey orb devoid of any color, the Combine looked the part of a prison station. The shuttle docked and the Creterakian escort led Quentin out. More Creterakians were waiting inside — many more. Quentin tried to count them, but they flew so quickly and were so numerous his eyes couldn’t lock on. It was like being in the middle of a swarming flock of birds. He shuddered as he thought what it must have been like for Manny and the other Human ground forces that tried to fight the Creterakians some forty years ago.
Quentin walked down the hall. It seemed as if the small flying creatures would slam into him at any moment, but they always banked left or right at the last possible second, just missing him. He walked forward, trying to ignore the little creatures that seemed to fill the tight hallway like a gas.
He walked past a row of small pressure doors. His escort stopped in front of an open one. A Creterakian perched on the doorframe, seemingly waiting for them.
“You are Quentin Barnes,” it said, a statement more than a question.
“Yes.”
“You are now number 113. You will answer to that number while you are at the Combine. Inside you will find Human clothes. Wear them. You have five minutes to prepare, then we will begin testing.”
Quentin walked into the room. The door shut behind him. It took him only a second to realize he was in a prison cell. The only furnishing was a Human-length metal shelf that stuck out from the wall at waist level. A metal toilet hung from the back wall. On the floor next to the toilet was a two-foot diameter circle of fine metal mesh. He recognized the mesh as a nannite shower — he’d used them at some of the opposing teams’ locker rooms in stadiums that didn’t have large water supplies like Micovi. On the shelf sat a yellow, form-fitting body suit labeled on the chest with the number “113.”
Quentin looked on the back of the suit, expecting to see “Barnes” written in the typical block letters, but there was no name — just another “113.” The suit seemed heavy. The material felt slightly lumpy, as if it were filled with micro-wires and various tiny electronic devices.