Hokor again nodded just once. “If I put you in the game again, will you run the plays I call?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. You’re starting this week.”
Quentin stared, dumbfounded.
“Surely your backwater ears understand what I’m telling you. You’re starting this week.”
“But… but I lost the game.”
“Yes, you did. And you lost it because you didn’t do what I told you to do. But this week, you will do what I tell you to do.”
Quentin nodded.
“Pine is out this week and next,” Hokor said. “The broken bone ruptured an artery. I don’t think you’re ready, but you give us the best chance of winning. The Pioneers have a good secondary but only a moderate pass rush — your mobility should be enough to keep you from getting sacked. We’re 1-and-1, Quentin, we’ve got to win this game! The Pioneers are 2-and-0 and very tough. I need you to run a tight, ball-control offense so we can get a lead and chew up the clock.”
“Yes, sir,” Quentin said, wondering if a man could die from excitement.
“I need a strong week of practice from you. You’re going to lead this team to a win.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Good. We practice here today, then it’s a two day flight to Whitok. That gives us two days of practice on the ship, and two days at Whitok Stadium. There’s a big time change, we’ll be playing late at night our time, so we need to be extra sharp. Let’s have a good practice.”
Quentin stood and practically sprinted out of the room. Starting! His first GFL start! He’d thought himself out of a job, but Hokor was giving him the reins. He’d learned his lesson — this time he’d play it Hokor’s way.
As he headed towards the main tunnel, Denver came out of the Sklorno locker room.
“I speak please,” she said.
Quentin started to ignore the Sklorno receiver and keep walking, but something made him stop. “What do you want?”
“I shame myself when we speak last. I only offer help.”
“I didn’t appreciate Pine’s sense of humor.”
“Not understand,” Denver said. “I serve, run routes and catch passes so your greatness increase. Please forgive, I mean no sacrilege, only praise. Praise for Quentin Barnes. I help make you greater?”
She was asking him again, this disgusting cricket was asking him again if he needed her help. Quentin felt the flush of embarrassed rage start to spill over him once again — then something odd happened. His mind flashed back to the Hydras game, to the last play. The sheer speed of Wichita — if he’d just thrown to Hawick the second he saw her open, would he have completed the pass? He’d waited a half-second, and that had been too long. There was no getting around the fact that he’d lost because he still wasn’t used to Sklorno speed.
His anger faded away. Denver wasn’t being rude, Denver was being honest. Quentin’s game wasn’t as sharp as it needed to be. But still, he’d figure it out, and without help from a cricket.
“Thanks for the offer, but no thanks,” Quentin said, surprised to hear his voice come out normal, not snotty and hateful.
Denver backed away, slinking back into the Sklorno locker room. Quentin didn’t know much about alien behavior, but Denver seemed like she’d just been severely rebuked for some untoward behavior.
Quentin turned and ran out the tunnel. He didn’t have time to worry about it. He had a game to win.
FROM SPACE, Whitok’s upper atmosphere looked a lime green. As the shuttle sliced into the soupy air, Quentin saw the all-encompassing cloud cover was actually a sulphurous yellow. The blazing light of the blue star at the center of the Whitok system reflected off the yellow outer atmosphere, the two colors combining for a peaceful green. That peaceful sensation faded away as the shuttle dove towards the planet: the closer they came to the surface, the darker it became. Miles-long bursts of lightning rippled through the dark sky, illuminating the ubiquitous clouds in milky-yellow explosions of light. Within minutes of the descent, all sunlight faded away, the shuttle coursing through Whitok’s perpetual twilight.
“Is it always this dark?” Quentin asked Shizzle, who fluttered about the small cabin.
“Is, and has been for the last 145 years,” Shizzle said. The little creature fluttered to a stop on Quentin’s shoulder.
“Find your own seat, pal,” Quentin said as he gently brushed Shizzle away. The Creterakian fluttered twice, then landed on the seat’s armrest.
“The Sklorno navy used relativity bombs on Whitok in 2524. They fired about fifty dense projectiles at near-light speeds. At that speed, the projectiles literally punched right through the core and out the other side. The entry and exit points alone were the sources of devastation like nothing the galaxy had ever seen, the shock-waves destroyed surface life for thousands of miles in all directions. But the projectiles also mixed up Whitok’s inner molten nickel core, and the outer layer of molten iron. That caused huge shifts in the tectonic plates. Whitok suffered decades of massive quakes and volcanoes. Gasses from the core filled the atmosphere, killing any life that survived the initial impacts.
“Whitok’s climate was forever changed. It was seventy-five years before the tectonic plates settled into relative stability. The key word is relative, mind you, because the surface is still plagued with volcanoes that reach as high as five miles into the air. Some estimate it will be another five-hundred to a thousand years before the crust settles completely and the volcanoes become dormant.”
“How come Ionath isn’t like that? The Sklorno also sat-bombed Ionath, right?”
“They did, but they didn’t use relativity bombs, which caused so much damage to Whitok that they’ve never been used again. The results even scared the Sklorno, who wondered if such destructive weapons might someday be utilized against their home-world. For future wars, they instead developed the massive nuclear bombs that were used on Ionath and Gritchlik.”
“Wow,” Quentin said. “That was awfully nice of them.”
“They are a one-minded species,” Shizzle said. “They’re part of the reason we Creterakians took over. We feared that if left to yourselves, the warlike races of Human, Ki, Harrah and especially Sklorno might completely exterminate one another.”
Quentin looked out the window at the blank darkness. “Save me the lecture, Shizzle. I’ve heard it all before.”
“The amazing thing is that despite the almost complete destruction of Whitok, and the fact that the planet is among the most hostile places in the galaxy, the Quyth managed to successfully develop permanent cities. Ah, we’re coming out of the clouds now — behold, the Port of Whitok.”
Quentin pressed against the view port, eager to see his second alien city. As the lightless clouds thinned to nothing, however, he briefly wondered if he’d been tricked — it looked like a smaller version of his new home. The domed downtown looked the same, and the roads radiated out in the familiar spoke-like pattern.
“It looks like Ionath City,” Quentin said.
“The Port of Whitok was built well after the success of Ionath and Gritchlik,” Shizzle said. “The Quyth’s first pioneers landed fifty-one years after the relativity bombing, but the planet’s surface was still so violent they could barely survive. It was another fifty years before they built an actual port that allowed large-craft landings, so the city is really only about sixty years old.”
The shuttle swooped down towards the huge dome. Just like Ionath City, the dome’s surface seemed to open just for the speeding shuttle. Inside the dome, right at the city center, sat a perfectly round stadium.