The MVP

7





A Meeting of Gods


IT WAS A HALLWAY. Nothing more, nothing less. It seemed to go on forever. The ceiling was one of those old-fashioned suspended kind, with tiles made out of some stringy white fiber. Five minutes into their walk, the hallway seemed to extend forever in front of them, forever behind, an endless, eight-foot-wide swath of white.

“Captain,” Quentin said, “what’s the deal with this hall? Why does it look different than the rest of the city?”

“This is the entrance to the Temple of Petra. It is a recreation of the place of genesis, the place where my kind was created.”


“Huh,” Quentin said. “You were created in a really, really long hallway? Not quite as impressive as the Garden of Eden.”

“Could anything be as impressive as a place that never existed? This isn’t a representation of make-believe, Quentin. The place where our creator brought us into existence looked like this.”

Rebecca ran her fingertips along the white wall. “Well, I think it’s pretty. Very clean and neat. How far do we walk? It looks like it goes a long way.”

“Not much farther,” Bumberpuff said. “We haven’t really walked that far. I don’t know how it works — something to do with an inter-dimensional phase-shift, I think.”

Quentin reached out and touched a wall. It felt smooth, cool. “We’re in another dimension?”

“That is what I’ve heard,” Bumberpuff said. “But just because you hear something doesn’t mean it’s true. Your Human religions aren’t the only ones that can employ misinformation to protect secrets, Quentin.”

The captain stopped walking. Quentin and Becca stopped as well. Bumberpuff reached out with both arms, his long fingers gingerly touching the white walls. “I think we’re here.”

The wall shimmered and wavered. A door appeared — wooden, with the silver numbers 931. It looked exactly like the door they’d entered back on the street.

On its own, the door slowly swung open with a slight squeak of the hinges. Bumberpuff walked inside. Quentin followed, Becca just a step behind.

Inside, Quentin saw a rectangular room. Same polished gray-stone flooring and white walls as the hallway. The walls were lined with black counters, wooden cabinets beneath them and mounted to the walls above. Here and there on the countertops, Quentin saw what looked like antique science equipment. In the middle of the room were several wide tables, apparently made from the same black material as the countertops. There were also a few desks and chairs. The desks had strange, gray rectangles on them, like flat clamshells open at the hinge.

Rebecca tapped his arm and pointed to one of the rectangles. “I saw a picture of one of those in an ancient history class I took in college,” she said. “I think that’s a pre-holographic computer.”

“Pre-holographic? Just how old is this place?”

A woman’s voice said: “It’s not that old.”

Quentin and Becca turned toward the new voice. It was a hologram of a five-foot-tall, purple-haired girl — the same girl from the giant statue atop the galaxy’s tallest building.

Captain Bumberpuff dropped flat on the floor, arms and legs curled up tight.

The hologram sighed. “I hate it when they do that.”

Quentin looked the hologram up and down. She seemed real enough to reach out and shake your hand, but was just a little bit translucent. Every few seconds, a part of her would glimmer in a way that wasn’t natural.

Becca cleared her throat. “Uh, are we supposed to … bow or something?”

Quentin crossed his arms over his chest. “If you think I’m going to lie on the floor and shake, you’ve got another thing coming.”

The purple-haired hologram walked closer, then looked up at him. “I can’t get them out of this whole prostrating themselves thing. That’s the problem with open communication. They read about other religions, some jet-age genius gets the idea that people need to do something weird in order to show the proper respect, said genius spreads the word and, boom, I’ve got people flopping on the ground like fish. But the answer is no, tough guy, you don’t have to kneel.”

Tough guy? If Quentin understood this correctly, he was looking at the Prawatt’s version of High One, and this god had called him tough guy? This didn’t feel like meeting a god.

He gestured to the room. “What is this place supposed to be?”

“Room nine-thirty-one,” the hologram said. “A room like this, in a university, on another planet far, far away in a time long, long ago, was where our kind came into being. We created this place to remember where we began.”

The Temple of Landing on Stewart was way better than this, as was the Grand Church of Solomon.

The hologram smiled at him. “The look on your face tells me you’re quite unimpressed.”

Quentin wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be impressed or not, so he just told the truth. “It’s just a room. It’s not even very big.”

Becca wiped a fingertip across a desktop and held it up. “It’s very clean,” she said, obviously trying to help the conversation along.

The hologram nodded. “It’s clean because no one ever comes here. I have different ways of speaking to the people. Rarely do I have direct contact —” the hologram nodded at the trembling Bumberpuff “— for reasons you can clearly see.”

She looked so normal, but Quentin wasn’t about to forget that this was a very old, very powerful being. She wasn’t a god, for there was only one true god, but it was still a big deal.

“Uh, what should we call you?”

“Call me Petra,” the hologram said. “That’s close enough to the truth.”

Quentin nodded. “All right, Petra. Why did you want me to come here? If you can do this hologram stuff, why not just project it onto the Touchback?”

“Maybe because I wanted you to see our city,” she said. “Maybe I wanted you to see this room. The Prawatt aren’t alien, Quentin, not to you. Your kind and my kind are closely related.”

He pointed at Bumberpuff. “Sure doesn’t look like any cousin of mine, if you know what I mean.”

“Not physically, no,” Petra said. “But mentally, we’re nearly indistinguishable. A Human created us. We act and think much like our creator.”

There was something about her demeanor, something about the way she was speaking. Quentin suddenly thought of Gredok the Splithead, the way Gredok analyzed everything and everyone around him.

She wants something from you, Barnes, the imaginary Gredok seemed to say. You can sense it, can’t you?

Quentin relaxed his face, made sure he had a blank expression. He willed his breathing to slow and his heart rate to stay steady — things he had taught himself through many dealings with the manipulative Quyth Leader.

“Petra, what is it you want from us? I mean really want from us?”

Becca looked quizzically at Quentin, but Petra understood. The hologram’s eyes narrowed. Artificial or not, the reaction was all Human.

“War is coming,” the hologram said.

War. The galaxy hadn’t seen war since the Creterakian takeover some four decades earlier.

“Between who?” Quentin said. “Between the Prawatt and the Sklorno?”

“Possibly,” she said, as if a rekindling of that planet-killing conflict was little more than a triviality. “Thousands of Sklorno ships have gathered at our borders. If they attack, we will retaliate. For every Prawatt killed, we will kill a hundred Sklorno.”

Quentin thought of his Sklorno teammates, wondered if their ancestors had fought against the Prawatt. The two waged war against each other in 2556, a conflict that ended in 2558 with the saturation bombing of Ionath, then a Sklorno planet, and Chikchik, which belonged to the Prawatt.

“I live on Ionath,” he said. “Every day I see the results of your war. The planet is still a radioactive wasteland.”

Petra’s holographic face hardened, her mouth thinned into a narrow line. “Ionath was ours. Billions of my kind lived there. Never again will we allow one of our planets to be harmed. You asked what I want from you — I want you to deliver a message.”


“Why me? I won a game, and that qualifies me to be your messenger?”

The hologram rolled its eyes. “The Game? Parts of me are six centuries old. I don’t care about games. You’re here because millions of Sklorno worship you, would do anything you asked. We’ve sent warnings to the Sklorno Dynasty and the Creterakian Empire. Based on what our outer fleets have seen, these warnings have been ignored. You will tell the Sklorno that if they do not leave our border, we will attack and destroy them all.”

The Church of Quentin Barnes, it was ridiculous and he wanted nothing to do with it. This “god” wanted a “godling” to preach her word.

“Lady, I’m just a football player,” he said. “I don’t want to be worshipped. I never asked for it.”

Her eyes softened. “Destiny finds some whether they want it or not. Parts of me still remember.”

She fell silent. Quentin wondered if he was supposed to speak, then her features hardened as she looked him in the eyes. “You didn’t ask to be worshipped? Well, I never asked to become the decision-maker for an entire race. What you want doesn’t matter anymore, Quentin — all that matters is what you are.”

The hologram lifted off the ground, floated up and forward until her five-foot image was nose to nose with Quentin.

“You’re a god to them, Barnes. The millions that follow you will listen, and they will talk to millions more. If you get enough of them to pay attention, maybe I won’t have to exterminate that miserable race once and for all.”

Exterminate? He shook his head — how in High One’s name was something like this his responsibility? He knew how to throw a football, not how to be a diplomat.

“I’m twenty years old,” he said. “You’ve been around for six centuries? How about you grow the hell up and handle your own business.”

The hologram’s face wrinkled in palpable anger. “This is how we handle our business. Since the day we were created, my kind has been hunted, hated and slaughtered.” She stabbed a finger at his chest with such emphasis he could almost feel it.

“Your kind killed our creator,” she said. “Your kind tried to exterminate us and almost succeeded. Five hundred years after that, when the rest of the galaxy should have grown up, the Sklorno tried to wipe us out forever. They killed billions of my kind. Do you understand that? Billions.”

Quentin didn’t know what to say.

Becca moved to stand at his side. “Your billions didn’t die alone,” she said to Petra. “Billions of Sklorno died when your people sat-bombed Chikchik — there’s plenty of blame for both sides.”

The hologram waved a hand dismissively. “They destroyed Ionath, and we retaliated in kind. We had to show strength, or the other races would have come for us next.”

Becca crossed her arms. “What about your unprovoked attack on the Rewall Association in 2440? And you want to talk of extermination? You exterminated the Kuluko race, Petra.”

Becca wasn’t saying the Prawatt or the Jihad, she was placing the blame on Petra. If Petra really was the decision-maker for her race, then Becca was right — this girl, or whatever this girl represented, had given the orders to make those horrors happen.

The hologram sneered at Becca. “The Kuluko aren’t extinct.”

“Only because the League of Planets kept a few of them hidden from you,” Becca said. “The Kuluko once numbered in the billions. You’ve destroyed planets, started unprovoked wars, wiped out entire cultures — that makes your complaints about persecution ring pretty hollow, don’t you think?”

Quentin still didn’t know what to say. Becca sure knew her history. He felt the stress, the seriousness of what this god was asking of him, and there was Becca, pushing back when he didn’t know how to.

The hologram pointed at the HeavyG woman. “We’ve killed billions, yes, and we will kill billions more if that’s what it takes. Believe us when we say that war is coming. When it arrives, the Sklorno had best think carefully about who their real enemies are.” The purple-haired girl looked at Quentin. “What you want, what you think, none of it matters, Barnes. You will deliver our warning to the Sklorno. If you fail, any and all deaths are on your head.”

His chest felt tight. He just wanted out of there. He didn’t want this responsibility, but what choice did he have? If war erupted and he could have done something to stop it, then she was right: all that death would be his fault.

He felt his breathing increase, felt his pulse in his eyes and his temples … and then, he once again thought of Gredok.

What would Gredok do if he were in my place?

Quentin knew the answer: if this living god wanted something from Gredok, Gredok would demand something in return.

Quentin took in one long, slow breath. He brought his body under control and let the stress fade away.

“I can try to talk to the Sklorno,” he said. “But if I do, what’s in it for me?”

Becca turned fast to stare at him in disbelief.

The hologram’s eyebrows rose. “You want something for avoiding war and saving millions of lives?”

Quentin nodded. “That’s right. What’s in it for me?”

Becca shook her head as if he didn’t understand the situation. “Q, we’re talking about sentient life, here, we’re—”

He held up a hand to cut her off. “The Old Ones aren’t asking you to do something, Becca. They’re asking me.”

Becca took a half-step back. She fell silent.

Coming at it this way felt instantly better — he wasn’t being commanded anymore, now he was negotiating. As strange as it seemed, that calmed him.

The hologram crossed its arms. It looked … disappointed?

“What do you want, Barnes? Money? Fine. What’s the price for saving a billion lives?”

What would Gredok do? Gredok would never take a first offer. He’d wait, he’d bait, he’d find out what was truly near and dear to his negotiation counterpart.

“I already have money,” Quentin said. “More than I could ever spend. What else you got?”

The hologram paused. She seemed a little confused. “A ship, then? Something to see the galaxy with?”

He shook his head. “I already have a ship. And I already travel the galaxy.”

Petra frowned. “What then?”

Now he wasn’t accepting her terms, he was dictating his own. That’s exactly what Gredok would have done. The only problem was, Quentin didn’t have any terms to dictate. He already had everything he’d ever wanted. Still, he’d taken things this far, he had to get something out of it.

“Petra, are you familiar with the term a player to be named later?”

She smiled. “What are you saying, Quentin? Are you saying that if you do this thing for me, someday you’ll ask me for a favor?”

Oh, he liked the way that sounded. “That day may never come, but yes. I haven’t agreed to help you, but if I choose to do what you ask, then you will owe me.”

Becca just stared and shook her head. “My god, Quentin. You sound like Gredok.”

That should have made him feel disgusted with himself, but it didn’t — it made him feel proud.

Petra floated back down to the floor. She looked up at him. “I offer you a chance to save lives and you ask for something in return. Humans have changed little in the past six centuries. Fine, Quentin. If you choose to sully yourself by becoming an agent of peace, I will give you whatever you ask as long as it is in my power. Any other questions for me?”


Quentin nodded. “Just one. What’s up with the names?”

“What names?”

He pointed at the prone captain. “Names like his. I mean, Bumberpuff? Jenny Twoshoes? And Smooklegroober? You guys talk like Humans, but those names are ridiculous.”

“This coming from a guy who plays quarterback and whose initials are Q.B.?”

“That’s what my parents named me.”

The hologram shrugged. “Just as I name all Prawatt that become self-aware.”

“Yeah, but … I don’t know, the names sound like they come from the mind of a teenage girl or something.”

The hologram smiled. She held her fingers near her face, then moved them down, a gesture that said just look at me.

“As I told you,” she said, “parts of me remember. Don’t judge us, Q.B. Names are meaningless. Only true intentions matter, and you’ve shown yours. Now, go back to your ship and get the hell off of my planet.”

The hologram blinked out, leaving only the white room and the strange, old-fashioned computers.

Quentin stared at nothing. She was gone. His self-control evaporated. He’d just made a deal with a god, and living up to his end meant, what, that he had to tell the most violent race in history to be nice?

Becca’s hand rested on his shoulder. “Quentin, are you okay?”

He shook his head. “No. I don’t even know what all of that was just now. I don’t want any of this, Becca … I just want to play football. What do I do?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ll help you figure it out, if you’ll let me.”

Bumberpuff suddenly stood on his long legs. “Holy crap! Did you see that? You talked to the Old Ones!”

Quentin rubbed his eyes. As if being responsible for stopping a war wasn’t enough, he had to deal with an X-Walker that sounded like a star-struck teenager.

“Captain, get us out of here,” Quentin said. “Please, just take us back to the Touchback.”

? ? ?



THE BLACK MATERIAL had once again flowed into the shuttle bay, spread across the deck and sprouted up to form the racks upon which the Krakens would sleep. The entire team had gathered, stripped down to each species’ version of the bare essentials.

Quentin and Captain Bumberpuff stood next to one of the racks. Doc Patah fluttered around the top bunk, talking to an X-Walker wearing a white armband with a red cross on it.

Doc’s body rippled in agitation, the cartilaginous ribs beneath his skin flexing in and out. His mouth-flaps slapped a clear plastic pipe that ran along the bunk’s black frame. “You are pumping so many chemicals into my players. How do we know it’s safe?”

The white-banded X-Walker kept working as he answered. “No one died on the way here. No one will die on the way back.”

Doc’s backpack let out the mechanical equivalent of a disgusted huff. He dropped down to Quentin’s level.

“Young Quentin, talk some sense into these creatures. No one died on the way here is not a valid response to inquires of procedural safety. It is dangerous to keep sentients sedated for three months.”

Quentin held up his index and middle finger. “Just two months, Doc. Captain Bumberpuff here says that’s enough travel time to protect the location of Sanctuary. Then we wake up, you check us out, and we get a month of practice on the Touchback’s field before the preseason starts.”

Three months before they hit the Sklorno border. By then, hopefully, maybe the diplomats and politicians would have done their jobs and he wouldn’t have to talk to his “followers.”

Doc Patah sighed. “Young Quentin, do you really think two months of sedation is that much safer than three? Anything over a few days brings risks. You seem to be friends with these creatures, so do something.”

Quentin turned to Bumberpuff. “How about it, Cappy? Can we cut down on the nap-time?”

“No,” Bumberpuff said. “We must protect ourselves. Two months is the best we can offer.”

Quentin shrugged. “See, Doc? I tried my darndest.”

Doc Patah let out his heaviest sigh yet, then flapped off. Quentin wasn’t worried — after seeing cities that swayed and streets that flowed, he had no doubt the Prawatt knew what they were doing.

“Quentin,” Bumberpuff said, “are you sure I can’t tempt you to join the Harpies? With your arm, I’m sure we could win the All-Jihad Tournament championship.”

Bumberpuff captained a monstrous warship, and he had just seen the face of his God, but — like Quentin — the sentient couldn’t stop thinking about his team. A true athlete’s heart pumps to the beat of competition. In that way, at least, Quentin and the captain were very much alike.

“Sorry, Cappy, but I have my own championship to win. How about if I get you tickets to a Krakens game?”

“It is illegal for us to leave Jihad space,” Bumberpuff said. “We can’t leave the system without permission, or the Old Ones would have us put to death.”

The universe was so full of rules.

Bumberpuff offered a long-fingered hand. “My life is better for having met you, Quentin Barnes.”

Quentin looked at the hand but didn’t shake it. “I can’t really forgive you for the loss of Stockbridge. That didn’t have to happen.”

“It did,” the captain said. “I won’t apologize for our ways. I understand if you hate me for the loss of your friend. But I would ask that you remember we saved all of your lives.”

Quentin hadn’t forgotten about that. He tried to push it away, but Bumberpuff was right — the way things played out, it was either lose one player or the entire organization.

Quentin’s jaw clenched. Things hadn’t ended perfectly, but in life, things never did. He shook the offered hand. Bumberpuff’s long, thin, gnarled fingers felt surprisingly firm and comfortable considering their different physiologies.

“Travel well,” the captain said. “I know I will never again see you in person, but I will watch your games. You don’t feel the same way, but I would like to think that while you lost one friend, you gained another.”

Friends? Was that even possible? Quentin quickly looked across the shuttle bay. He looked at his Ki, Sklorno, HeavyG, Human and Quyth Warrior teammates, all of whom were climbing into bunks, being tended to by X-Walkers. Once upon a time, those teammates had been strangers, demons, aliens. Now, his life revolved around them.

Stockbridge died because the Prawatt played as hard as they could, the same way he did, the same way any top-level athlete did. That kind of intensity was more than just competition — it generated respect.

Quentin nodded. “I’d like to think that, too, Captain.”

“Good,” Bumberpuff said, “And besides, I am curious to see how you play your sissy sport now that you’ve played a real game.”

Quentin laughed and shook his head. He climbed up to the top bunk. The X-Walker there waited for him to lie down, then tapped a finger tip against the inside of Quentin’s right elbow.

“Are you ready, Mister Barnes?”

Quentin nodded. “Go ahead.”

Quentin felt the tiniest pinching sensation, then, seconds later, a feeling of warmth spreading up his arm, into his shoulder and through his chest. The room began to blur — just a little bit, at first, then everything he saw softened into unrecognizable blobs of color.

His eyes felt heavy. He relaxed, let the back of his head rest against the bunk. He turned to look out at the curved shuttle bay roof and the holographic letters that always floated there. Before sleep took him, he was able give those words one last read.


THE IONATH KRAKENS ARE ON A COLLISION COURSE WITH A TIER ONE CHAMPIONSHIP — THE ONLY VARIABLE IS TIME.