A recessed button sat under the right ear-hole. Quentin pushed it: a holographic test pattern hovered just in front of the facemask. Once again, state of the art — he’d tried to talk Stedmar into springing for the in-helmet holo display, but Stedmar balked at the half-million credit price tag. The display would let a quarterback see the playbook, live statistics, and the coach in case coaches used hand signals, lip-reading or some other secretive play calling method. He pushed the button again and the test pattern disappeared.
Quentin headed for the sim-room, cleats clacking against the metal floor. The lights blinked on as he walked in. As he’d suspected, the place was empty. Everyone else was still sleeping.
“Ship,” Quentin called as he walked to the center of the room. “Do you have a sim for the Krakens’ practice field?”
The dome flickered briefly, then Quentin found himself in a dead-on simulacrum of the practice field.
“Ship, give me first-string defense for the Grontak Hydras.”
The semi translucent players appeared out of nowhere, a combination of Human and other species, all dressed in the red-and-yellow checkerboard Hydra jerseys.
“Ship, call out the names of each defensive player before each play. Give me X-right formation, double-streak left, Y-right.”
Krakens players materialized. The Ki linemen scurried up to the line and lowered themselves for the snap. The computer started calling out the names of the defense as Quentin approached the line. He’d practice and study at the same time, and would show them all what the Purist Nation had to offer.
THE 7 A.M. POSITION MEETING didn’t take more than ten minutes, just enough time for Hokor to outline the day’s practice. They would focus on route passing: no offensive line and no defense. The three quarterbacks walked to the lift.
In the center of the field stood seven Sklorno receivers dressed in orange practice jerseys. Sklorno’s orange leg armor was thin and light so as not to hamper their speed. For the upper body, they wore a black, metal-mesh armor that protected but also allowed for the full range of motion needed by boneless tentacles and the flexible eyestalks. The black helmet with the orange patch and the white stripes looked like a small bowling ball, with four finger-holes on top, one for each armored eyestalk, and a gap in front that let their raspers hang free.
Even before the lift reached the field, the Sklorno looked up at the oncoming Humans and began to visibly tremble.
Their raspers rolled out, almost to the ground, and each of them began to shout various Sklorno words, all of which sounded like gibberish.
“What’s their problem?” Quentin asked. “They afraid of Coach or something?”
Pine shook his head, and Yitzhak laughed.
“Not exactly,” Yitzhak said. “The Righteous Brother Pine here is somewhat of a religious figure in the Sklorno culture.”
“Religious? What, like he’s a preacher or something?”
Yitzhak laughed louder. “No, not exactly.”
“Oh give it a rest,” Pine said, his blue-skinned face turning a strange shade of purple.
Yitzhak put his hand to his chest, his expression that of mock pain. “Oh, forgive me, Great One. Don’t strike me down with your Godly quarterback powers.”
Quentin looked back to the Sklorno receivers — the closer the Humans got, the more the Sklorno shook. It reminded him of the truly devout back home during noonday prayers, how they would shudder and shake, their blue robes rustling with sudden movements, often times speaking in tongues, their eyes rolling back into their heads. As a child, such behavior had scared the crap out of him. When he grew older, he learned that those people were supposedly in deep communion with the High One.
The similarities clicked home.
“They worship Pine? You mean like a god or something?”
Yitzhak nodded. “Something like that. As a Human it’s kind of difficult to understand, but from what we hear there are at least thirty-two confirmed houses of worship dedicated to The Great Pine spread throughout Sklorno space.”
“Cut it out,” Pine said. “It’s not like I encourage this.”
“There’s actually a statue of The Great and Glorious Pine on the Sklorno’s capitol planet. How tall is it again, Pine, 100 feet or so?”
“Get lost, Yitzhak.”
“Why do they worship him?” Quentin asked.
Yitzhak shrugged. “Something about the quarterback position, that and great coaches, strikes a chord with their culture. Sklorno aren’t as independent as Humans, they tend to blindly follow their leaders. Coaches and quarterbacks get the most media attention in football, and the Sklorno are insane football fans. The nature of the game and their culture just kind of combine. Who knows, Quentin — you put together a couple of good seasons, and there might be a church or two in your name.”
Quentin felt his own face turning red. The idea of someone worshiping him, not as a fan-to-player, but as a subject-to-God, made him deeply uncomfortable. He felt sacrilegious just thinking about it.
They reached midfield. Quentin heard the burble of a small anti-grav engine, and he looked up to see Hokor flying towards them in a hovercart, the kind people used to move around on a golf course.
“What the hell is that? Coach can’t walk all of a sudden?”
Pine laughed. “Hokor likes to watch from above, get a full view of the field, but he wants to come down to offer his own special brand of encouragement.”
The hovercart slowed and floated about ten feet off the field.
“I hate that damn golf cart,” Yitzhak said quietly. “Just wait, you’ll see — he’s got a loudspeaker in it and everything.”
As if on cue, Hokor’s amplified voice bellowed across the field.
“Okay, that’s enough of that crap,” the yellow-furred coach said. “You will cease this shivering thing immediately!”
As a unit, the Sklorno instantly stopped shaking, raspers quickly rolling back up under their chin plates. They stood as still as they could, but kept twitching, little chirps escaping them every few seconds.
“That’s better,” Hokor said. “Pine, line them up and run hook routes.”
They all stood on the 50-yard line, the eight Sklorno fifteen yards to the right of the Human quarterbacks. It surprised Quentin that he immediately recognized Denver and Milford — he’d always thought all Sklorno looked alike, but Denver had more red in her eyestalks, and Milford’s oily head of hair seemed to be thicker and longer than any of the others. If it weren’t for jersey names and numbers, however, he wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference between Scarborough, Hawick, Richfield, Mezquitic and the other Kraken receivers.
Pine grabbed a ball from the rack and squatted, just as he’d done in the VR practice field. The first Sklorno bent down into their strange starting stance — legs folded up like a grasshopper, tail sticking straight back to balance the forward-leaning body. The back of her jersey read “Hawick.”
“Hut-hut!”
Pine took a three-step drop, planted, and fired — far too high. In the millisecond after the ball left Pine’s hand, Quentin figured it would sail forty yards downfield. But Hawick was already fifteen yards down field and turning. She didn’t just stop and turn, like a Human receiver would do on a hook route, she stopped, turned and jumped. Quentin’s jaw dropped as Hawick sprang ten feet into the air, like a 280-pound flea — the ball hit her square in the numbers. She landed and turned in the same motion, sprinting all the way to the end zone before stopping.
Quentin stared, barely able to believe what he’d seen. Such speed. Pine and Yitzhak hadn’t been screwing with him in the VR room, Sklorno really were that fast. And that leap. It was one thing to see it on the net, quite another to see it in person.