Warburg stared. “What do you want?”
“Perhaps we are worthy to catch passes while running at full speed?” Denver said in her chirping voice.
Quentin and Warburg looked at each other in confusion, then back at Denver.
“What are you talking about, you stupid cricket?” Warburg said. His racial slur stopped all conversation — the players remaining on the flight deck turned to watch.
“Holy Pine said perhaps we could assist in Holy Quentin’s passing. We run full speed, he blesses us with direct passes.”
Quentin’s face turned red, while Warburg started laughing.
Pine, Quentin thought. How could he embarrass me like this?
“Can we help?” Denver asked again.
“I don’t need help!” Quentin spat. “Especially not from the likes of you!”
Denver’s raspers rolled back up behind the chin plate. She leaned back a bit, her posture changing, but Quentin didn’t know what that meant and he was too furious to care.
“Oh, Pine really knows how to rub it in,” Warburg said.
“Holy Quentin is angry?” Denver said. “But we are here to help.”
It was too much to bear. Quentin turned and stormed away, heading out of the landing bay and back to his room. Help? From a damned unholy Sklorno? As if Quentin were some bush league quarterback who needed to work on his route passing? Pine. He’d show that jerk, one way or another, he’d show him!
QUENTIN HADN’T calmed down much by the time the shuttle, loaded up with the rookies, eased out of the landing bay and into space. It didn’t help that Denver and Milford, the perpetrators of Pine’s little practical joke, sat only a few feet away. At least this time they kept their distance.
The wasted red landscape of Ionath filled the front view screens. Plants colored orange, red, and yellow seemed to flourish, but there was no plant large enough to hide the planet’s war scars. Just over an Earth century had passed since Sklorno’s 25,000-megaton bombs exterminated all life on the planet. The ten-mile-wide bomb craters remained clearly visible. Ionath City, in fact, was built inside one of those craters.
The clear dome gave off brilliant reflections from Ionath’s sun. The sprawling city looked like a reddish egg, sunny-side up, with the dome being the yolk. As the shuttle approached the city, Quentin could see how Ionath Stadium got it’s nickname — the round stadium sat right under the dome’s center, and from this far up looked like an iris to the dome’s cornea. The Big Eye. His new home, at least for this season.
Circular streets surrounded the dome in ever-widening bands, like flash-frozen ripples from a pebble dropped in a pond. Straight streets also radiated outward from the dome. Or more accurately, Quentin noticed, all streets led into the city center — straight to the stadium.
“I hear they really know how to party in Ionath City,” Yassoud said, a wide smile on his face. “I can’t wait to get out on the town.”
“Isn’t it a bit radioactive out there?”
Yassoud rolled his eyes. “Come on, hick — I’m not going into the outer city, I’m talking about nightlife under the dome. There’s hundreds of bars and restaurants. And women. Lots of women.”
Yassoud cast a glance back at the staring Sklorno receivers. “Human women,” he said, giving Quentin a friendly elbow. “Unless you’re committed to your harem over there.”
Quentin’s face turned red again, a feeling to which he was unfortunately becoming accustomed.
Red was also the predominant color of Ionath City. From outside the dome, buildings looked rugged and somewhat organic, more like they’d been grown than built. The tallest ones topped out at around thirty stories.
The shuttle dove straight for the dome. The clear surface seemed to open like a living thing, and the shuttle passed through without slowing. Once inside the dome, the buildings looked more like what he’d seen in the Purist Nation’s largest cities: towering, hexagonal structures with sides of smooth crystametal. The tallest buildings, thirty to forty stories high, seemed to surround Ionath Stadium as if they wanted to peer down and watch the games. Only buildings at the dome center could hit such heights — the buildings farther out grew progressively smaller as the dome sloped down to meet the ground.
Quentin saw a huge holo ad running down the side of the city’s tallest building — a quarterback dropping back for a pass, some words in Quyth. At first he thought it was Pine, but the player wore number seven — Yitzhak’s number.
“Is that who I think it is?”
Yassoud nodded. “Yes indeed.”
“What is that ad for?”
Yassoud stared for a moment, his lips moving slightly as he sounded out the Quyth writing. “Oh yep, now I remember, it’s an ad for Junkie Gin.”
“Junkie Gin? But it’s the biggest ad in the city, and it’s Yitzhak.
Why not Pine?”
“Because Yitzhak was born here, my friend. The Quyth Workers just love him, and they’re the biggest market in any Quyth culture because there’s so many of them. He doesn’t see much playing time, but he makes more endorsement money than anyone else on the team. Pine included.”
The shuttle dove towards the roof of a hexagonal, ten-story building attached to the stadium. Closer into the city, Quentin saw holo ads everywhere — on buildings, on sidewalks, floating above the streets. The innumerable ads gave the city a garish, carnival feel. At least half of those ads featured Krakens’ players.
Even before the shuttle fully touched down, a pack of Quyth Workers swarmed out, ready to unload the players’ baggage. Quentin and the other rookies stepped off the shuttle into the heat and high humidity of Ionath City.
Hokor was waiting for them, already sitting in his stupid flying cart. Next to the cart stood a Quyth worker wearing a neat blue jacket. Quentin thought the Worker looked rather like a bellboy or a doorman at some of the fancier Purist Nation hotels.
“This is Messal the Efficient,” Hokor said to the rookies. “He will lead you to the locker room. Suit up and get your worthless asses to the field. Our scrimmage starts in thirty minutes. Remember, in two days at noon we kick off against the Woo Wallcrawlers. We must win this game. Tomorrow’s practice will be a no-contact walk-through, so today is your last chance to show me what you’ve got.”
With that, Hokor’s cart lifted up from the roof and flew off the edge, gently descending to the field. Quentin saw the veterans and the other players, just specks from this far, already on the field. He knew Pine would be down there, probably planning his next humiliating joke.
We’ll see, Quentin thought. We’ll just see.
QUENTIN SUITED UP quickly and ran out of the arching gate in the orange end zone. The seats, all 185,000 of them, sat empty. The quiet, massive structure reminded him of the Deliverance Temple in Landing City, built where Mason Stewart’s scout craft had first touched down on new, holy soil. That historic moment marked the end of the Exodus from Earth, where Stewart and his four million surviving followers founded the Purist Church colony that would grow into to the four-planet Purist Nation. Quentin didn’t have to be a convert to appreciate the powerful feeling of awe inspired by Deliverance Temple, just as he suspected someone didn’t need to be a football fan to admire Ionath Stadium.