Three Card Monte (The Martian Alliance)

by Gini Koch

  “Follow me,” Bullfrog said, as he leaped away.

  I did as requested. As a Polliwog, I enjoyed that the air didn’t really feel uncomfortable, the scent of fetid rot was quite pleasing, and the abundance of flies made my stomach rumble. Okay, I enjoyed two out of those three.

  We jumped for a good fifteen minutes, and then Bullfrog seemed to feel we were far enough away from danger that we could slow down. Or he was lost. I voted for lost.

  We were in a vast, unsettled area of swamp with no Pads anywhere, or dry land. The area had no scientific teams visible. It was, for Polliworld, quite desolate—meaning there were only about a million snakes and a quadrillion bugs along with the zillion flies enjoying the massive and plentiful foliage.

  “Where are we?”

  Bullfrog sighed. “The only place we’re safe right now.”

  “And where is that?”

  The look on Bullfrog’s face said that I wasn’t going to like the answer. “Probably the most dangerous spot on Polliworld. What we call No Frog’s Land.”

  “Why is it you know about this place?” Good, good. I was calm. At least I sounded calm. I resisted the desire to eat some flies to calm my supposedly calm nerves. Hey, I freely admit to being a stress eater.

  Bullfrog grimaced. “This is where I’m from—where I grew up.”

  I looked around. “Really? Because, I don’t see a lot of ‘from’ around here.”

  “Trust me.”

  “Doing my best. Why do you think the Underground called us Diamante scum? We don’t look like Diamante employees, let alone enforcers.”

  “My bet? Monte told them about me and they think I’m a Diamante spy.”

  The temptation to say that I doubted we were that lucky was strong, but I held it in. “Can Roy and the others come get us here?”

  Bullfrog shook his head. “We need to get underground.”

  “I thought we wanted to avoid the Underground.”

  He heaved a sigh. “I mean the real underground.” Bullfrog took my hand and led me into the swamp.

  “Ick. And I mean that in the most species-loving way possible.”

  “Close your nose and mouth.”

  “What about my eyes?”

  “If you did a full change, you should be fine, but you can close them if you want. I won’t lose you.”

  I ensured I had as good a grip on Bullfrog as he did me. We waded further into the swamp. I did my best to ignore anything and everything I felt brushing against my legs. “Are Polliwogs immune to venomous snake and bug bites?”

  “No.”

  “Fantastic.” I took a deep breath and slammed my nose, mouth, and eyes shut as we went under the swamp water.

  Bullfrog led me along to somewhere. I refused to look. It was probably stupid, seeing as if I had to run away, or swim really fast, I wouldn’t know where to run or swim to. I decided that ignorance was a lot better than the knowledge of exactly what I was swimming next to and through.

  We surfaced and I cracked one eyelid. A small patch of dry ground was ahead of us and we clambered onto it. I was never so grateful to feel terra-at-least-sorta-firma in my entire life. “Where are we?” I asked, trying to move my mouth as little as possible, lest I swallow something.

  “We’re on Longdaddy’s Land.”

  “Longdaddy?”

  “He runs No Frog’s Land.”

  “Longdaddy? I mean, I’ve heard of ensuring you advertise and all that, but, really? Longdaddy?”

  A throat cleared behind me. “Yes.” The voice was deep and old, but it didn’t sound weak in any way.

  I turned around slowly to see a very long-legged, very muscular Polliwog of indeterminate advanced age. I could tell he was old because his scales had the whitish tinge only older Polliwogs got.

  He held a thick walking stick that I was quite sure doubled as a handy, effective, and painful fighting staff.

  “I am Longdaddy,” he said, probably for effect, because it wasn’t like I couldn’t have guessed. “And you are not one of my people.”

  Self-preservation ensured that I kept my mouth shut even as I tensed to jump. Polliwogs jumped a lot faster and farther than they could run. Not that Bullfrog gave me time to talk, or jump, and he tightened his hold on my hand. “No, she’s not from our part of the pond, but she’s my friend.”

  Longdaddy studied us. “A special friend?”

  “Very,” Bullfrog said firmly.

  Every time I went undercover Roy worried that I’d have to make out, or more, with someone other than Roy himself. I always managed to avoid it, but the thought occurred that I might not be able to avoid sharing tongue with Bullfrog, at least if we wanted to survive. This was an unappealing thought on so many levels I lost count.

  Longdaddy continued to study us. I wasn’t sure if I should attempt to cuddle with Bullfrog, say something, or jump like hell, and Bullfrog wasn’t giving me any clues to work with, either.

  “What is your ‘friend’s’ name?” Longdaddy asked finally.

  “DeeDee,” Bullfrog replied.

  “I would like her to speak. Especially because DeeDee is not a common name among us.”

  This was true enough. “It’s a nickname,” I said which was also true.

  “And what is the name you were given when you were a tadpole?” Longdaddy asked me. “I would like you to answer this, not Bullfrog.”

  “My tad-name is Deciduous. Everyone else always gets called Deci or Dous. I wanted to be different.”

  Longdaddy seemed thrown, possibly because he hadn’t expected me to use a common Polliwog name, let alone know what the standard shortenings of said name were. You didn’t survive as long as a hidden shifter as I had without doing a great deal of planetary homework.

  “You are Bullfrog’s friend?”

  “Yes, his very good friend, and he’s my very good friend. I don’t know that you’re our friend, though you may be more friendly than the ’Wogs we just escaped.”

  Longdaddy’s eyes narrowed. “You have angered the Underground?” he asked Bullfrog.

  “In a way,” Bullfrog replied. “We’re…investigating the new casino.”

  “Ah.” Longdaddy appeared to reach a decision. “Come with me. We will discuss your predicament at greater length in better private.”

  That there were Polliwogs hidden and watching us to protect Longdaddy was a given. I wasn’t sure that going into a private meeting with Longdaddy was an improvement.

  Bullfrog tugged on my hand, and we followed Longdaddy. He walked off the small patch of land, and we followed into another part of the swamp, with me keeping my Polliwog stone face on and going strong.

  We didn’t submerge. We walked for quite a ways through swamp, onto small patches of land, back into swamp, and on, wandering in various directions in what felt like a very aimless manner. I had no idea where in the swamp we were, which was, I was sure, the entire point of this particular swampy constitutional.

  We finally reached yet another small patch of land, but this one had a reed hut sitting on it. It resembled the standard Polliwog Pads in the same way the Stingray resembled a Diamante cruiser—there were similarities, but Longdaddy’s hut wasn’t giving off the Happy Home kind of aura.

  Longdaddy indicated we should precede him inside the hut. I wasn’t a fan of this idea, but Bullfrog didn’t hesitate. He ducked his head and walked through, dragging me after him.

  Sadly, the interior wasn’t somehow more huge and palatial inside. It was still a grungy reed hut. However, what it lacked in ambiance it made up for with a stairway going down. Naturally, the stairway was dark, because the cosmos didn’t allow it to be any other way.

  Longdaddy joined us, then shocked me to my currently-amphibious-core and headed down the stairs in front of us, instead of making us go first into the dark and likely dangerous unknown, stabbing us in the backs, or shoving us down the stairs. Bullfrog heaved a sigh of what was either relief or terror, and headed us down as well.

  The walk was long, smelly
, and dark. I was glad I was in full Polliwog form, because if it smelled to me in this form, I’d have probably passed out from stench overload as my normal self.

  We’d gone down a lot of steps, and my eyes adjusted to the dark before we ever reached the end. It was a safe bet that we were underneath the swamp, which meant I needed to focus on the fact that I could swim to the top should the tunnel we were in collapse on us. This was easier said than done.

  After what seemed like a good day’s worth of walking—but what I was sure was probably only a couple of miles—we hit another stairway and went up and exited into another reed hut, this one no better than the one we’d left earlier, but containing two staircases. We went down the other one, and did the whole fun thing all over again. And then again.

  The one thing I was sure of was that we weren’t backtracking. I examined the insides of the huts. They were similar but not exact, and I hadn’t seen the same one twice.

  Five more times and this time when we exited into the latest reed hut, while it had another staircase leading down, we didn’t use it. Longdaddy stepped out of the hut.

  Bullfrog was following, but I pulled hard on his hand, which I still had tight hold of. “What’s going on?” I asked in the lowest but sternest voice possible.

  “We’re getting help,” he said quietly.

  “Really? Other than being exhausted, what’s the point of all of this?”

  “Not being followed by enemies.”

  I decided refraining from comment was probably my best choice and let Bullfrog lead me out of the reed hut.

  We exited onto a much nicer patch of land than we’d been on when we’d first entered this hut pathway. It was large enough to have held the Polliwog Palace. But there were no buildings here.

  Thick, tall trees encircled the land, overrun with vines in a way that looked natural at first glance, but under closer examination were just a little too regular in places to be growing randomly. The vines wound tightly around and between the trees, which were close together in the first place. No one was going to get in, or out, through this living wall, unless they could climb really well.

  What was here in place of a building or anything else, for that matter, was a nice little communications set up. It wasn’t up to what a Diamante battle cruiser would have installed, but it looked at least as high quality as what we had on the Stingray—well, if you could get past the fact that everything seemed to be organically created.

  Which I could because I’d been around the galaxy more than once.

  It was just the three of us here that I could see. But again I figured there were plenty in the trees, watching.

  What there weren’t, though, were flies. None anywhere. I looked up. I wasn’t positive, but it looked like there was a kind of fine netting connected to the tops of the tress, creating a lid on the area.

  Another close look at the trees creating the walls of this place, and the same kind of netting or covering was on the inside “walls” of this very large room or facility or whatever Longdaddy considered it.

  I looked at the communications center and revised my opinions. There weren’t any Polliwogs in the trees, because the trees and vines were part of the overall organic computer system. This didn’t mean there weren’t guards of all kinds somewhere close; it just meant they weren’t in the heart of the communications center.

  Someone else came out of the hut we’d just left, presumably using the other staircase because I hadn’t heard anyone behind us during our trek, and I’d been listening. I recognized her—one of the coat check girls from the Palace, the one who’d given Kyle her number. I tried not to worry about Roy and the others, let alone about Bullfrog and me, and failed utterly.

  She bowed to Longdaddy. Once she straightened, he nodded. “What is the news, Lily?” he asked.

  Lily grimaced. “Not much more than before. Based on today’s events, the Leech is doing just as you suspected.”

  “And the others who went to visit the Leech today, how do they fare?”

  “They’re back on their ship, Longdaddy. Waiting.”

  “Waiting for what?” Bullfrog asked quietly.

  Lily smiled at him. “Waiting for the two of you to return. Longdaddy, what else do you require?”

  “Just remain watchful,” he said as he put his hand on her head. “And remain faithful to our true ways.”

  “Always.” Lily bowed, Longdaddy nodded, and she went back into the hut.

  Longdaddy went to the main console and started fiddling with twigs and leaves and such, which altered the picture on the large screen that was made out of what I was pretty sure was spider silk.

  Thinking about it, the “walls” and “ceiling” were probably lined with tight spider webbing. It was one of the more expensive of Arachnius’ exports, meaning Longdaddy had more going on than being some sort of Swamp Swami.

  There were a variety of options. I could stay quiet. I could try to run. Or I could ask the obvious. “What is it you suspect Monte the Leech of doing, Longdaddy?”

  The screen came to life. It showed a solar system, or at least part of one. What was on the screen was rather desolate and seemed remote.

  “Behold Orion’s Light,” Longdaddy said.

  “That’s the rock the Leech wants to build his Casino City on?” Bullfrog asked. “It doesn’t even look like it’s a moon.”

  I studied the space around Orion’s Light. “I don’t think it’s a moon. It looks more like a giant asteroid that got lost from its belt.”

  “Who’d want to go there?” Bullfrog was asking the pertinent questions too.

  Longdaddy turned and looked straight at us. “No one.”

  “So, why did you bring us here, to what I have to guess is the center of your operations, whatever they may be?”

  Longdaddy looked at me for several long seconds. “I know what you really are.”

  Years of training to stay alive and safely hidden meant that instead of tensing, panicking, thinking thoughts that would give me away, or running like crazy, I remained calm and shrugged. “And what’s that?”

  Longdaddy smiled slowly, ensuring all his teeth showed. “You are, in some ways, like me. Hiding what you truly are.” He turned back to the screen. The view moved out. It was clear Orion’s Light had nothing much to recommend it—like a star close enough to warm it, for starters.

  I decided to let his insinuation slide. “How did you get these pictures?”

  “When Monte the Leech made a deal with the Diamante Families, that did not concern me much, even though I have people who travel to Roulette. When Monte the Leech came here, however, and then made another deal with the Underground, then I took an interest.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “When Monte the Leech hired many citizens to have an extra-good time at the Polliwog Palace ‘undercover,’ so to speak, I became very interested.”

  “Can’t blame you. At all.” Nice to have my suspicions confirmed.

  “Thank you. However, when Monte the Leech proceeded to start discussing a new planetoid that would house yet another gambling world, I chose to take a much closer, more personal interest.”

  “The pictures on the screen indicate a pretty long range interest.”

  He shrugged. “We have more means and abilities than the Underground and the government might be aware of. And I used some of those means to send a trustworthy team to the coordinates being bandied about as the next gambling paradise.”

  “He might be terraforming it,” Bullfrog offered, though he didn’t sound like he’d bought into this idea. “Though it seems very far from anything that could warm it.”

  “It is too far away from Betelgeuse to receive much light, let alone heat.”

  “This is very interesting, but why are we here, specifically?”

  Longdaddy turned again to us. “When a group of ‘scientists’ came into the Polliworld Palace, went to visit Monte the Leech, and then had to create a distraction of large proportions to escape, we
ll, then I knew for certain the Jumping Game was on.” He seemed just a little expectant.

  “The Jumping Game is on” was an old Polliwog phrase. The Underground didn’t use it, feeling it represented a more archaic time for their planet. However, old or not, it was still used whenever something smelled, appeared, or felt off.

  “We didn’t create a distraction,” Bullfrog lied. “We were attacked by the Underground.”

  Longdaddy gave him the kind of look a parent will give to a small child who’s trying to blame something on the family pet—the “oh please, you expect me to fall for that one?” look. “Perhaps you are unclear about my abilities.”

  He fiddled with some twig knobs, and the picture on the screen changed. It showed the interior of the Polliwog Palace. Point of fact, it showed Bullfrog and me, imitating Ciarissa, causing havoc in the blackjack area.

  “I wonder, Bullfrog. Where is the young lady you escaped the casino with? Surely you did not forget your upbringing and leave her alone and defenseless.” Longdaddy zoomed in on me. Or, rather, me appearing to be Ciarissa.

  Bullfrog cleared his throat. “Ah, no. I hid her…where DeeDee works.”

  Longdaddy rolled his eyes at me. “Let’s see if you can do better.”

  I wanted to get us off the topic of what had happened to the “other girl.” So I ran everything we’d experienced so far through in my mind and tried to think like Roy. “Monte’s pulling a major land scheme, isn’t he?”

  Longdaddy’s lips quirked. “I appreciate your attempt to distract.” He nodded. “I believe the Leech is indeed trying to perpetrate a very risky scheme.”

  “Why do you care?”

  Longdaddy cocked his head. “Why would you care?”

  “I’d care because he’s kind of our friend. He’s playing the Diamante Families and the Polliworld Underground against each other. I get that it’s a dicey game. But if they turned Monte into tomorrow’s canapés for Oceana’s Sharkfolk, why would you care?”

  “Because the Leech would not be the only one affected.”