The Starter Read online

  The Quyth Worker behind the desk wasn’t like the slovenly ones Quentin often saw in the bars and nightclubs, swilling gin, nearly drinking themselves into a coma. This one was dressed in a tidy green uniform. The Worker reminded Quentin of Messal the Efficient, the Krakens team manager.

  The Worker recognized John, and his one eye flooded with yellow. “Well, Mister Jo—”

  John held up a hand, cutting off the worker’s sentence. “I’m Mister Smith,” John said. “That person you thought you just saw? He was never here.”

  John pulled the pint of Junkie Gin out of his beerdoleer.

  The Worker looked at it greedily, then tapped a couple of buttons that probably turned off cameras somewhere in the lobby.

  “Well, Mister... Smith. That is a rather nice gift.”

  “Look at the label,” John said. The Worker did, then started to quiver.

  “This... this is actually signed by Yitzhak Goldman?”

  “The man himself,” John said. “I’m gonna head up, got some business upstairs. You’ll make sure there’s no images of us, right?”

  The Worker nodded violently, a difficult maneuver considering his relative lack of a neck. “No one will know you and your friend were here.”

  John rapped his knuckles on the desk twice, then walked around it, heading for the elevators. Quentin followed.

  An elevator hissed open and they got in. John pressed a button for the fifteenth floor.

  “John, what was that all about? An autographed bottle of gin?”

  “Stuff is like gold,” John said. “Really expensive, the Workers are crazy for it. And a signature from Yitzhak? That Worker will do whatever we ask.”

  “Yeah, but why wouldn’t you use my autograph? I’m the starting quarterback.”

  John pulled a fresh Miller from the beerdoleer and popped the top. The mag-can frosted up instantly. “Get used to it, Q.” He drained half the can. “The Quyth are going to root for you like crazy, but no matter what you do they will always like their own better. Yitzhak is the native son, and that’s that.”

  Quentin still found it odd the Quyth adored a Human that much. Yitzhak wasn’t even their species. Zak’s family had lived on Ionath going back something like three generations. He’d been born right here under the Ionath City dome. It seemed the Quyth didn’t see race — they only saw borders. You didn’t have to be a Quyth to be a Concordia citizen; you just had to want to be part of the Concordia. Learn the culture, learn the history, swear allegiance to the Concordia above all others — all others, including your original homeland — and the Quyth would welcome you with open pedipalps.

  The elevator stopped. Quentin followed John out. The lobby hadn’t looked new, but it had been neat and clean. Everything on this floor seemed damaged. The place smelled musty. The walls had once been smart-paper, but no longer had the ability to flicker images and patterns. Now the material just sagged.

  Splatters of dried brown covered one spot.

  “John,” Quentin said, and pointed to the stain. “Is that blood?”

  John finished his mag-can and tossed it down the hall. “Yeah, probably. A lot of private investigators in this building, some bounty hunters and the like. Everyone needs an office for tax purposes, you know?”

  Quentin nodded, although he really had no idea how taxes worked.

  John stopped in front of a door marked with a placard that showed one line repeated in fifteen languages. Quentin read the line in English: SUITE 1510 — GONZAGA INVESTIGATIONS.

  “Remember,” John said. “Don’t embarrass me.”

  He knocked on the door. Quentin heard a buzzing sound, then metallic clicks — which sounded like several big deadbolts sliding back. The door opened and John walked in. Quentin followed, glancing at the edge of the door as he did. Holes in the thick door were an inch in diameter. The door’s frame had matching, recessed circles. When the door was closed and the bars extended, a hover-tank couldn’t get through.

  The office was a long room with walls and floor made out of irregular, flat, red stones. At the end of the room sat a white desk. Behind the white desk, a man dressed in a business suit made out of some shiny pink material. In front of the desk, two white chairs. Above the two white chairs, something that looked like a stubby-legged horse all done up in a frilly green, blue, and yellow material.

  Quentin stopped in his tracks. The whole thing made him feel oddly uncomfortable. He pointed to the strange, frilly horse. “John, what is that?”

  “That’s a piñata,” John said.

  “What’s a piñata?”

  “A piñata,” the man in pink said, “is fabulous. Uncle Johnny Boy the Awesome, walk your muscles over here and bring that de-licious quarterback with you.”

  Quentin stared at the man. Something... off about him. Something that made Quentin nervous.

  John walked to the left-side chair and sat, leaving Quentin standing alone and feeling like an idiot. Quentin walked to the right-side chair and sat, looking up as he did — whatever a piñata was, he was sitting directly under its green, blue, and yellow horse ass.

  “Quentin Barnes,” John said, “meet Frederico Esteban Giuseppe Gonada.”

  “Gonzaga,” the man said. “But that was very close, John.”

  Tweedy nodded.

  “Fabulous to meet you, Mister Barnes. Or should I call you Elder?”

  Frederico seemed overly excited about the whole situation. And the way he’d said Elder — all smiles, but the word was laced with hatred.

  “Quentin is fine, thanks.”

  “Well, Quentin, you certainly are a big boy, aren’t you?”

  “Uh...” Quentin said. Well, he was much bigger than Frederico. Hard to tell while the man was sitting, but Frederico might be six foot even. If so, that made Quentin a full foot taller. Frederico looked athletic, but couldn’t have been more than two hundred pounds. Next to Quentin, he looked anorexic.

  “Soooo,” Frederico said, drawing out the word. “Uncle Johnny tells me you’re just a lost little lonely heart.”

  “I’m... what?”

  “You need help finding your parents, your family,” Frederico said. “I think you came to the right place. At least your pretty eyes came to the right place.”

  Quentin stared at the man, then at John. John shrugged.

  “Uh, yes,” Quentin said. “That’s right, I want to find my parents.”

  “So you can kiss them with that big, pouty mouth of yours?”

  Quentin leaned back. Had this guy just called his mouth pouty? Why would a guy say that... unless...

  Quentin grabbed John’s arm. “Tweedy, can I have a word with you?”

  John nodded. Quentin led him back to the back of the office.

  “What is this?” Quentin said in a hard whisper. “Why is he talking about my eyes and stuff?”

  “He said he thinks they’re pretty,” John said, matching Quentin’s volume. “It’s like you don’t listen or something.”

  “Yeah, but... he’s a guy. Why would a guy think my eyes are pretty?”

  Tweedy sighed. “Maybe, backwater, because he thinks guys are prettier than girls.”

  Quentin stared and blinked, the words hitting home. “You mean he’s gay? Like... a homosexual?”

  Tweedy dug the heel of his right hand into his right eye. SOME MEN YOU JUST CAN’T REACH scrolled across his forehead.

  “Yeah, Q,” John said. “Maybe he’s gay. Are you going to tell me that after all you’ve been through with big scary aliens and working in the mines and gangsters and roundbugs you’re afraid of a little gay guy?”

  “I’m not afraid,” Quentin said. “It’s just that... well, you know, it’s a... a...”

  “A what, Q? Is being gay a sin?” DID HIGH ONE MAKE STUPIDITY, OR DID IT EVOLVE ON ITS OWN? scrolled across his face.

  Quentin felt his temper rising. “Listen, jerk, don’t ridicule my culture, you got that? I was raised to believe certain things.”

  “Certain things. You mean thin
gs like all aliens — including your teammates — are actually the spawn of Satan and should be killed on sight?”

  “Well, no, that part was ridiculous.”

  “Why?”

  “Because now I know aliens.”

  “And how many gays do you know?”

  Quentin blinked. He looked across the room at Frederico. “Including this guy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well... one.”

  Tweedy nodded. “Look man, you asked for help and I delivered. Frederico is the best. You need someone found? You need to sneak into a system? This is the guy. And he’s ex-Planetary Union Navy or something. Can fly any ship. If you want to find your parents, hire Frederico — unless you’d rather go to Gredok with your troubles?”

  Quentin automatically shook his head. “No way. I’m not giving him any more leverage on me.”

  “Such wisdom from such a primitive screwhead,” John said. “You’d be an idiot not to use Frederico. But then again, Purism produces a butt-load of idiots.”

  Quentin felt his fingers curl up into fists. “John, I am warning you. You keep insulting my religion, and it’s going to go somewhere neither one of us want it to.”

  “You don’t even like your religion.”

  “I like it enough to defend it.”

  John rolled his eyes. “Fine. Give Frederico a chance, and I’ll lay off. Just talk to him. If you don’t think he can cut the gig, we take off, okay?

  Quentin looked at Frederico, shiny pink shoes up on the desk, big smile on his face. Frederico saw Quentin looking, put his fingers to his mouth, kissed them, held his hand in front of his face and blew.

  “He just blew me a kiss,” Quentin said.

  “Better than him giving you the finger.”

  “Yeah, but he just blew me a kiss.”

  John sighed. “Quentin, aren’t you a professional athlete?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s two hundred pounds, tops. You weigh twice as much as him. Do you think he’s got a homo stun gun or something? Maybe a magic spell of gayness that makes you want to dance and sing show tunes?”

  “Well... no.”

  “Then stop being you. You come sit down with me now, or I’m heading to the bar to watch Dinolition. Which is it gonna be?”

  Quentin looked up at the ceiling. He knew he was being ridiculous, but it was hard to get past a lifetime of rhetoric. He had once thought the Sklorno, the Quyth, and the Ki were Satanic. He’d gotten over that. Maybe he’d get over this as well.

  He walked to Frederico’s desk and sat in the chair on the right.

  John sat in the left-side chair. He pulled a mag-can of Miller from the beerdoleer. “Sorry,” he said, and reached across the desk to offer Frederico the can.

  Frederico took it, popped the top, and sipped. He put the can down and stared at Quentin. “So, you’re okay with me doing this job?”

  Quentin took a deep breath. “Look, I may have reacted, uh, poorly. I, uh, I’m not used to... to this.”

  Frederico shrugged. “That’s fine, you’re the client. Pay the bill on time and you can act pretty much any way you like. But please answer my question — are you okay with me being gay? You’ll still hire me?”

  Quentin nodded. “Yeah, sure. I’ll hire you.”

  “Wow.”

  “You didn’t think I would?”

  Frederico shrugged. “You’re from the Purist Nation. Everyone from the Purist Nation is a racist homophobic hate-monger.”

  “Millions of people are from the Purist Nation. Don’t judge me as a stereotype. We’re not all the same.”

  “I suppose not,” Frederico said. The over-the-top exuberance had left his voice. He didn’t sound girly anymore, he sounded like a regular guy. “Now, you know I charge a lot, right?”

  “Not really spending my money on anything else,” Quentin said. “I mean... this is my family, you know?”

  Frederico nodded slowly. “I hear you. Well, as long as your money is good, that’s what matters to me. I hate you Nationalites, but I’m doing this as a favor for John.”

  John raised his mag-can in salute and belched.

  Frederico laughed and shook his head. “You’re one of a kind, Uncle Johnny the Awesome.” Frederico waved both hands over his desk. Lines of light flared to life in front of him — a holo-interface. The middle of the desk changed appearance, going from white to clear. Quentin couldn’t see from where he was sitting, but there was likely a recessed screen inside the desk. Frederico’s fingertips poked at icons made of nothing but light.

  “Okay, Quentin,” he said. “Tell me what you know.”

  “Their last name was Barnes.”

  Frederico entered that. “First names?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know? They were your parents.”

  “I was really little,” Quentin said. “They were just Mom and Dad to me.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “I don’t know. They disappeared when I was two, maybe three. I’m not sure.”

  “So, probably seventeen years ago? About 2666?”

  “Yeah,” Quentin said. “How’d you know that?”

  Quentin felt an elbow hit his left arm. “‘Cause he’s good,” John said. “That’s why.”

  Frederico shook his head and reached under his desk. “I am good, John, but this one was easy.” Frederico tossed a paper magazine on the desktop. Quentin turned it so he could read the cover — KRAKENS INSIDER: KRAKENS VS. WALLCRAWLERS.

  “Game program,” Frederico said. “Has your age right in there.”

  John’s eyes widened in stunned admiration. “That’s amazing. See, Q? I told you this guy was good.”

  Frederico laughed to himself and entered more info. “How about sisters, Quentin? Brothers?”

  “Just one brother. They hung him when I was five.”

  The detective shook his head and made a tsk-tsk sound with his mouth. “Right. Let me guess. A really awful crime, like... stealing food?”

  “Yeah. How did you know?”

  Quentin felt the elbow hit his left arm again. He turned to see John, nodding slightly, eyebrows raised. I TOLD YOU THIS GUY WAS GOOD scrolled across his head.

  “You’re not my first Nationalite client,” Frederico said. “You’d be surprised how unoriginal your story is. They hang people for all kinds of things. They save burning at the stake for heretics, though. Heretics, and what else, Quentin?”

  Quentin felt his face flush red.

  “Come on,” Frederico said. “Who else do they burn at the stake?”

  “Homosexuals,” Quentin said.

  Frederico nodded. “You ever see someone burned at the stake?”

  Quentin nodded slowly. He had seen that. Many times.

  “So have I,” the detective said. He shook his head quickly, like he was chasing away an annoying memory. “Right, and your brother’s name?”

  “Quincy,” Quentin said. “I think. I called him...”

  Quentin’s voice trailed off.

  Frederico stopped entering data and looked at him. “I need all the info I can get, Quentin. A nickname is just as valuable to me as the real thing. What did you call him?”

  John sat patiently, also waiting. Quentin knew he wouldn’t hear the end of this.

  “Fine,” Quentin said. “I remember calling him Kin-Kin, ‘cause I couldn’t pronounce Quincy.”

  Frederico nodded and tapped icons. Quentin tried not to look at Tweedy, but he couldn’t help himself. He turned to see John staring at him with a stone-straight face, the words WE’LL FIND KIN-KIN, DIDDUMS scrolling across his forehead.

  Quentin sighed and turned his attention back to the detective.

  “What else?” Frederico said. “Aunts? Uncles? Who took care of you after High One smote your brother for the horribly sacrilegious crime of murdering bread?”

  “I was an orphan,” Quentin said. “I was on my own. Should I tell you about the orphanage system?”
r />   “No,” Frederico said. “I know quite a lot about that subject, unfortunately. Let’s talk money — I charge ten thousand a week, plus expenses. If you don’t pay within a day of getting the bill, I drop the case and don’t come back no matter what you do. Understand?”

  Quentin nodded.

  “Good,” Frederico said. “Now, listen carefully. Just because I’ve handled cases like this before doesn’t mean I want you to get your hopes up. I’ll be honest with you. Odds are that your parents died in a pogrom, that they were incinerated in a mass grave and there was no record keeping of their death. They’re just gone, and you’ll never know different. If they did get out of the Purist Nation, they probably changed their name, abandoned their religion and assumed you were dead. Or more likely, they knew that if they contacted you, an enemy of theirs still in the Nation might find you and kill you to avenge some debt of family honor. The odds of just finding out what happened to your parents are about one in a million. The odds of actually finding them? Let’s just say you can’t find a bookie anywhere in the galaxy that would take that bet.”

  Quentin stared at the pink-suited man for a second, weighing the words carefully before speaking. “So what you’re saying is that I’m wasting my money. Wasting ten grand a week, on you. Why should I do that?”

  “Ten grand plus expenses,” Frederico said. “Don’t forget that important little caveat. You should hire me because if your parents can be found, I’m the guy to find them. Quietly. I’m assuming you’re here because you don’t want Gredok the Splithead to know about your family?”

  John sat forward quickly, beer sloshing out of his mag-can. “Unbelievable! Is this guy good, or is this guy good?”

  Quentin smacked Tweedy in the shoulder. “Give it a rest, John. It’s obvious that I don’t want Gredok to know.”

  “Yeah,” John said. “Sure it’s obvious, now that Fred has gone and said it out loud. I didn’t see you figuring that one out before.”

  “I said it on the way here!”

  John nodded, eyes wide. “Yeah... yeah, you’re right. It’s like Fred knew what we were talking about, like he’s psychic.”

  “I am psychic,” Frederico said. He put his fingers to his temples and stared at John. “Right now you’re thinking... this guy is really good.”