“Interesting news from Roulette,” Dr. Wufren shared with us, his watery blue eyes twinkling, as we all sat down to dinner.

“And from Polliworld,” Bullfrog added, as he grabbed his plate from one of Tresia’s pincers.

“Is this paying news or just gossip?” Roy asked.

Doven’s feathers ruffled. “Why does the news need to be paying? Don’t we still have plenty left over from our last job?”

Our last job had been a complicated con for the Andromeda Royal Family. As far as I knew, we still had plenty left over.

Everyone looked expectantly at Roy. He grimaced. “You know, we’re not just supporting ourselves. We’re helping to run an underground resistance.”

Kyle rolled his eyes. “Here it comes, DeeDee,” he said to me in a stage whisper. “The ‘Martian Alliance Speech’ again.”

Roy gave his little brother a dirty look. “You, of all people, should care.”

I patted Roy’s knee. “It’s okay, oh captain, my captain. We’re all one with the cause.”

The others all nodded or murmured their assent, most with their mouths full. We were all focused on restoring the galaxy to what it had been before the Diamante Families had taken over, but empty stomachs were a more immediate need.

Bullfrog grinned, always unnerving because giant walking toads having lots of teeth made most of the other humanoid races nervous. Long tongues were one thing – teeth like any other carnivore in the galaxy were another. “I think the news might be both.”

“Both what?” Roy asked. He was really testy. I had no idea why. I ran through possibilities: he and I hadn’t had a fight, Kyle hadn’t done anything foolhardy, no one we liked had recently been listed as dead, maimed or incarcerated, and there were no Diamante cruisers anywhere in sight.

Sure, we were in the middle of nowhere, space-wise. We’d learned a long time ago to take our time between big jobs. Maybe it was boredom.

“Both gossip and potentially paying,” Bullfrog replied.

Dr. Wufren nodded. “But we can wait until after dinner to share.”

“No, go ahead.” Roy sounded resigned.

I checked everyone else out. No one else appeared upset. Until I looked at Doven. Because he was a Quillian, and so half-man/half-bird, it was hard to tell when he was emotional unless his feathers were ruffled. And ruffled they still were. Just a bit, and he flattened them when he caught me looking at him.

So Roy and Doven were fighting? This was unusual to say the least. However, Dr. Wufren’s next words moved the Roy and Doven issue down to second place for my attention.

“Monte the Leech has sold part interest in the Palace and is personally opening a new casino on Polliworld.”

It was hard to turn the crew of the Hummingbird speechless, but this news did the trick. We all stared, open-mouthed, at the good doctor—except Bullfrog and Dr. Wufren himself, both of whom looked smug about having been the ones to break this galaxy-shaking news.

Roy recovered fastest. “Why?”

“You want the official reason or the real one?” Bullfrog asked.

“Both.”

“Per the press releases,” Dr. Wufren said, “Monte’s done so well with the Palace on Roulette that he wants to expand and bring the excitement of live gambling to the world that likes it best.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Tresia said. “He could open one on Arachnius, too. I believe we’re second in terms of overall planetary adoration of games of chance.”

Bullfrog snorted. “The doc left out a key piece of information. Two, really.”

“Which were?” I asked.

Ciarissa smiled at Dr. Wufren. “You do like to make a statement, don’t you Fren?”

“When I can, my dearest. When I can. As our noble Bullfrog has pointed out, the press reports are avoiding two key pieces of information. First: Monte sold that part ownership of the Palace to the Diamante Families.”

“Willingly?” Roy asked tightly.

“Who knows, my boy? However, the second bit of information held back is that Monte’s co-owners on dear Bullfrog’s home world are the Polliworld Underground.”

We were all quiet again, thinking. Kyle broke the silence first. “So? What do we do?”

Roy grinned. “We go visit our old friend to congratulate him on his new business expansion and see where we can get in on the action.”

 

 

Once dinner was finished, Roy set a slow course for Polliworld. We’d jump to hyperspace after everyone had slept. Some spacers would let their crews sleep during a long jump, but not Roy. He wanted everyone awake and alert when we jumped, in case anything went wrong. It was one of the reasons he was a great captain and leader.

Standard procedure when we were simply cruising through space was that Roy would take one shift in the captain’s chair and Doven the other. On rare occasions, Kyle was allowed this honor. At least, Roy acted like it was an honor to be the only person awake watching a lot of nothing from the cockpit.

Doven took the first shift. I watched him and Roy closely—something was still wrong between them.

I waited until Roy and I were in bed, in part to ensure no one else would hear. The biggest reason was that I enjoyed seeing Roy naked, and didn’t want to risk triggering a “storm out of the room” reaction.

Not that anyone would blame me for wanting to see Roy, dressed or otherwise. He was tall, handsome, with blue eyes and light brown hair, and was all wiry muscle. He was dressed like normal, in tight pants and shirt, with a double-laser belt and high boots, which was what most spacers from Mars wore.

Roy radiated masculinity even when he was asleep—even more so as he undressed. I drooled a little, but that happened regularly. Seeing as he was ready and willing to again consummate our relationship, I decided the question could wait.

It waited a good long while, emphasis on long. And good. Really, great. As always.

“So, what’s going on with you and Doven?” I asked as we lay together in the afterglow.

“Nothing.”

“Right, pull the other one. I can tell. Doven’s giving off signs and so are you. I want to know what happened. And I’m willing to keep asking you for the foreseeable future.”

Roy sighed. “We’ve been arguing.”

“Gosh, I don’t need Ciarissa’s, or any other telepath’s, help to guess that. What about?”

“Funny you should mention her. Ciarissa, as a matter of fact.”

That was weird. “Why?”

“Doven thinks we’ve been working her too hard.”

“Have we?”

“Not as far as she, I, or the doc are concerned.”

I considered this. “Did Doven make a move on Ciarissa while I was on Andromeda?”

“No.”

“She knows he likes her. Doesn’t she? I haven’t talked to her about Doven, but I mean, come on, she’s one of the strongest telepaths in the galaxy, if not the strongest. Why doesn’t he just tell her he wants to be more than friends?”

“You know, you feel free to have this romantic discussion with my first mate and navigator. As far as I’m concerned, he’s questioning my command decisions without legitimate cause and I’m tired of it.”

I knew when to let something drop. I snuggled closer and stroked Roy’s chest. He relaxed and was asleep soon.

I was wide awake. Like me, Doven was one of the last of his kind. Not the last Quillian, but among the last Quillians with what they called Shaman Powers. If it flew, Doven could alter its shape, anytime, anywhere.

The Diamante Families had done their best to wipe out the Shaman branch of the Quillian population, just as they had with shape shifters like me. I wasn’t sure how many were left, but Doven and I were both high up on the extinction list.

Sleep wasn’t coming. I slipped out of bed and pulled on a flight robe. Calling it a robe was kind of a joke, since it was more like a baby sleeper, complete with feet. However, it was made out of absorbent, lightweight material that conformed to your shape, meaning Doven, Bullfrog, or Tresia could wear one if so desired. Flight robes made running to airlocks or to patch hull breaches a slightly more modest proposition.

I trotted up to the cockpit. Doven was in the captain’s seat, looking quite alert. He turned his head. “Can’t sleep?”

“Nope.” I settled into the first mate’s spot. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Nice to see he and Roy had both practiced that clever response.

“Right. Will it shock you that I already extracted the argument details out of Roy?”

“No.”

“Why haven’t you told Ciarissa how you feel about her?”

His feathers ruffled. “This isn’t your concern, DeeDee.”

“The captain and first mate of this vessel are both upset with each other. That affects me and the rest of the crew. We’re heading to Polliworld and I don’t want you and Roy not paying attention to something important because you’re both too busy being angry with each other.”

“We’ll deal with it.”

“I’m sure you will. You know, Ciarissa’s a telepath. You can’t seriously think she doesn’t know that you like her.”

Doven had wings as well as arms and legs, and his head was more birdlike than human. He clicked his beak and glared at me, in the way that birds of all kinds and from any planet seem able to manage—the “I could do terrible things to you if you only knew” look. Cats and birds, they really had it down in terms of glaring ability.

“I know how powerful she is.”

I took this admission to its fullest conclusion. “Ah. So you think, because it’s clear you’re madly in love with Ciarissa and she’s never said, ‘let’s snuggle in my cabin’ to you, this means she’s not interested.”

Doven’s feathers ruffled to the point where I wasn’t sure if he was going to flap his wings out or not. His wingspan was impressive, and it was far wider than the cockpit area. If he flapped, he’d hit me. And I was pretty sure a part of him wanted to hit me.

But he pulled himself together. Literally. The wings tucked back neatly behind him, the feathers settled down, and the glare was now directed at deep space. “Correct.”

“You know, sometimes a girl expects the guy to make the first move.”

“And sometimes ‘the guy’ understands that his love is unrequited.” Doven turned his head toward me again. “But even if all ‘the guy’ receives is friendship, he still cares about his friend and doesn’t want her harmed simply because she refuses to tell her captain no.”

“What is Ciarissa saying yes to that you don’t think she should be?”

Doven shrugged his wings. “Everything Roy asks her to do.”

 

 

I sat with Doven for a while longer. We didn’t talk about Ciarissa or Roy. Instead I asked him to tell me a story about his world and how it began. He was a good storyteller, and I liked hearing about each planet’s olden days, before the Diamante Families had decided the galaxy was theirs and the rest of us only got to play in it if they wanted us to.

A good story can give you many reactions, but if the teller wants you to go to sleep when the story’s done, well, if they’re good, you get sleepy. Doven finished. I yawned widely and trooped back to bed.

I considered my options and kept the flight robe on. It was unlikely Roy was going to have time to be amorous before his turn at the controls. I got back into bed and snuggled next to him. I woke up briefly when he got up for his shift, but otherwise, I slept soundly.

Everyone ate breakfast and dinner together on the Hummingbird. It was Roy’s rule, and I liked it. We were a family. Sure, we were put together from the cast-offs and fugitives of the galaxy, but we were a family nonetheless.

Either my bugging them had gotten Roy and Doven to talk, or they’d both moved past the issue, because they seemed at ease with each other today.

Which was good, because we had to jump to the Pollisystem. Not all solar systems were named for one of their worlds, but Polliworld was the only inhabited planet its sun had, so had scored the name.

We strapped in. Sometimes Ciarissa and I went to the cockpit with Roy and Doven, and sometimes we didn’t. Today we didn’t. I wasn’t sure if she’d picked up everything that had gone on yesterday and last night, but with the others around, it wasn’t the time to ask her. She was dreamy-looking and serene as always, as her white-blonde hair floated around her head. If there was a problem, Ciarissa wasn’t allowing it to affect her mood.

“Crew, prepare for jump,” Roy said over the intercom.

It’s great to say “prepare,” but no matter how many times we did it, the jumps to hyperspace were always tough.

The first few moments of a jump made you feel compressed, and all you could see was inky blackness, whether you were looking out a window or not. If Roy or Doven calibrated even a bit incorrectly this would be the last thing any of us would experience and we’d die in suffocating darkness.

Just when you thought you couldn’t take the feeling of suspended death any longer, your stomach turned inside out and back again. This fun feeling proved the jump was successful.

All windows, including that of the cockpit, were blacked out to prevent anyone from being able to see what we were flying past. It was great to say “no peeking” but, species nature being what it was, it was much harder to enforce.

Because of the ship’s rate of speed as it went into hyperspace, if anyone watched the star systems and gods alone knew what else go past, they’d either go blind or crazy. Someone in the past who’d possessed both technological know-how and a goodly helping of common sense had created a simple sensor that automatically blacked out all viewing portals once a spaceship jumped to hyperspace.

The rest of the flight was fairly nondescript. If I really concentrated I could feel a little extra compression—nothing like the initial jump, more like I was carrying an extra ten pounds on top of my skin.

There were a few species in the galaxy that were so delicate that they could never travel via hyperspace because of this pressure. Taking the sick or injured into hyperspace was also iffy—most of the time it wasn’t an issue, but because illness and injury made a being more sensitive, hyperspace could sometimes cause additional health problems.

Most of us shrugged it off and ignored it because the downsides of hyperspace were far outweighed by the advantages of being able to travel all over the galaxy without the trip taking entire lifetimes.

As with our sleep times, Roy insisted on either himself or Doven remaining at the controls. Today they both stayed in the cockpit. I decided not to wander up to see what was going on—hopefully things were fine and they were making up with each other. If they were fighting, we’d hear it sooner or later.

Instead, I headed for the engine room to see what Willy was up to. Willy was the only true Earther on board—Roy and Kyle were Martian, and so right up there on the popularity rolls with shape shifters and Quillian Shamans. Willy was also the eldest member of the crew—presuming Dr. Wufren was telling the truth, which was never a safe bet.

Willy had done a lot and seen a lot. He’d traveled from one side of the galaxy to the other more times than the rest of us put together. He was our ship’s engineer and chief mechanic, though Bullfrog could also cover if needed, and Kyle was learning how to do these jobs as well.

I was unsurprised, therefore, to find Kyle with Willy in the Hummingbird’s belly.

“Hey, DeeDee, what’re you doing here?” Kyle asked from under what might have been a carbine, might have been a drive shaft, or might have been something else entirely. I didn’t shift into inanimate objects, so I’d never given the ship’s mechanics much attention. That’s what Willy, Bullfrog, and, apparently, Kyle were for.

“I can’t visit the engine room?”

He was lying on a rolling board that allowed him to slide under engine parts without having to crawl. Willy said the idea came from Old Earth, in the ancient days before space flight. Willy liked using something that had been used by mechanics for millennia.

Kyle rolled closer to me, though he remained on his back. He was a mini-Roy—smaller all the way around, but no one could ever mistake them for anything other than siblings, even with grease over half of Kyle’s face. “You almost never come down here,” he pointed out. “So, why’re you here now? Not that it’s not great to see you. My big bro being a pain?”

“No, he’s busy and I’m just sort of bored.”

“You mean you don’t want to find out if Roy and Doven are still fighting.”

“You’re so much smarter than Roy thinks you are. I’m impressed.”

Willy peered over the whatever-it-was they were working on. “Yeah? Then why’s the kid covered with grease?”

“Because he idolizes you.”

Willy laughed. “You’re so good with the flattery, little girl.”

“Only when it’s deserved.” Roy had a great crew, and Willy absolutely belonged with the rest of us. To date, he’d never come across anything mechanical he couldn’t figure out, fix, and improve.

Willy walked around to me, wiping his hands on a rag. He was one of those lean men who got a little more sunken and a lot more wiry with age. His hair was still mostly black, though there was, as he put it, a little bit of snow on the mountaintop. “Sure, sure. Kyle, go fetch the magnosensor repair kit. The one I have stored under my bunk.”

Kyle scrambled to his feet. “You sure? I thought we had it all fixed.”

“You know there’s no such thing as thinking out in space, kiddo. You have to be dead sure, or you just wind up dead.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know, I know. And I’m going,” he added as Willy flicked his rag at Kyle, who trotted off with a laugh.

I waited until I knew Kyle was out of earshot. “So, what’s going on?”

Willy grinned. “Can never fool you, can I? I don’t know if this is such a good idea.”

“Having Kyle get the magnosensor repair kit?”

“Don’t play cute with me. You know what I mean.”

“Maybe. Going to Polliworld or seeing what’s going on with Monte the Leech?”

“Both.”

“You love gambling. Actually, I might be understating it—you adore gambling.”

“Not more than life itself, little girl.”

“We’ve dealt with Monte for years, I doubt he’s going to give us too much trouble.”

Willy snorted. “Little girl, if he’s made this deal, Monte’s already in trouble. And Roy’s heading us right into the thick of whatever that trouble is. The last place we want to be is caught between the Diamante Families and the Polliworld Underground.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that would be the proverbial rock and a hard place situation.” I considered this. “Do you think Roy knows something?”

“No, I don’t. The news caught him as unawares as the rest of us. No, I think Roy’s heading us to Polliworld to distract everyone from the fight he’s having with Doven—especially himself and Doven.”

“Could be. Should I talk to Ciarissa?”

“Nah. No point. Either she’s interested or she’s not. Besides, that’s not the problem. The problem is that Doven and Roy are having a fundamental disagreement.”

“Doven told me he thought Roy was working Ciarissa too hard and that he didn’t like anything Roy was asking her to do. I know I was gone for three months, but nothing I’ve seen since I’ve been back would make me think Ciarissa’s at the point of collapse.”

“Right. I don’t think that’s the real reason they’re fighting.”

“Why would Doven lie to me?”

“Oh, I’m sure he was telling you the truth. He’s been sweet on Ciarissa for as long as she’s been with us. But I think there’s more to it.”

“Any guess as to what? Because I don’t have any idea.”

“No idea either.” Willy cocked his head at me. “But you’re the one most likely to get the truth out of Roy. And I suggest you do so, before we all end up caught in the middle of whatever’s really going on.”

 

 

Kyle returned and I wandered off. It didn’t take Ciarissa’s telepathy to know Willy didn’t want to continue our discussion with Roy’s little brother present.

I headed for the galley, in part because I was a little hungry and in part because I wanted to get some other opinions. Tresia and Bullfrog were both there—her cooking, him eating—which meant I could get fed and get information at the same time.

“Snack time, DeeDee?” Tresia asked cheerfully. She was busy prepping our next meal, arms going every which way, pincers snapping, stirring, or grabbing depending. Since Arachnidans had eight limbs, this wasn’t as hard as it sounded—until you realized she wasn’t looking at anything other than me.

“I could be convinced.”

Bullfrog grunted as I sat down across from him. “I have some fly pie left.”

“Hilarious. I haven’t gagged at that one for a long time. Trying out the oldies but goodies to prep for a home world visit?”

Bullfrog shook his head. “I’m hoping to stay on the ship.”

“Seriously?”

“Very.”

“Why? You were the one who brought the whole thing up.”

He grunted. “Yeah. I’m an idiot.”

Tresia put a plate of sautéed sandworms in front of me. I hadn’t gagged at these for a long time, either. Despite the name, and unlike fly pie, Quillian Sandworms were succulent and delicious, and the way Tresia prepared them made them even better. The sandworms were plump, perfectly browned—crisp on the outside, tender on the inside—with a buttery finish and a hint of cinnamon.

“Yum.” Information could wait. I dug in.

“Bullfrog’s worried about his cover,” Tresia said as I tried not to slurp or shovel the entire plate into my mouth at once. I really loved sautéed sandworms.

“Oh, why?” I asked with my mouth full.

Bullfrog heaved a sigh. “I’m worried that things have…gotten around.”

“What things? Tresia, are there any more sandworms?”

She piled more onto my plate. “We have plenty. I stocked up.”

“Things like my cover,” Bullfrog said as he finished his fly pie. “It’s one thing to say I’m part of the Polliworld Underground when we’re not there.”

“It’s never bothered you before. We’ve gone to Polliworld a lot and this is the first time you’ve mentioned this worry.”

“Yeah, but we’ve never visited when someone who thinks I’m part of the Polliworld Underground has taken up residence there.”

I froze, mid-slurp. “Oh. Would Monte say anything, do you think?”

“I think the Leech would do or say whatever he had to in order to protect himself or give himself an edge. I know he likes us, but I wouldn’t trust him as far as you could throw him.”

“Since I don’t want to touch him, that wouldn’t be far.”

“Exactly. And I really wish this had occurred to me before I opened my mouth and told Roy what was going on.”

Tresia slid a few more sandworms onto my plate. “That’s it for you or you won’t want any dinner.”

“The way everyone’s acting, I think I want more, in case it’s my last meal.”

Bullfrog shook his head. “No joke. If the Underground finds out I’ve been pretending to work for them, we’re going to be in big trouble.”

The Polliworld Underground wasn’t as bad as the Diamante Families were. No one was. But Polliwogs were exceptionally strong for their size, territorial, and tended toward taciturnity. This hid the fact that they were a lot smarter on average than anyone would think a walking toad could be. The fact that the Underground survived and thrived after the Diamante Purge said a lot about their own cunning—and brutality.

We’d managed to stay pretty clear of any Underground entanglements. So far. But Bullfrog had a good point—if we were about to visit Monte, then we were asking for Underground interaction.

“Do you think Roy’s considered this?”

Bullfrog grimaced, an interesting sight on a Polliwog. Somehow, it made his mouth look even larger than it was, which was saying a lot. “I mentioned it to him. He said I was worried for nothing and should take a nap.”

I finished my last sandworm and put my plate into the sink. “Yesterday at this time nothing was wrong. I get one good nap in and somehow everything’s all messed up.”

“That’ll teach you to sleep on the job.” Bullfrog stood up. “Back to work for me. Maybe if you take another nap everything will go back to normal.”

“It never works that way,” Tresia said.

“Let’s pretend it does. I don’t want to give up naps forever.” Though I didn’t think a nap was a good idea right now. Snooping, not sleeping, was my plan.

“We’re coming out of the jump,” Roy said over the intercom. “Everyone strap in.”

“So much for that,” Bullfrog said as he sat back down, pretty much speaking for both of us. Tresia and I joined him as Kyle and Willy confirmed that they were staying in Engineering and were already strapped in. Ciarissa wasn’t with us. I didn’t know if that meant she was with Roy and Doven or elsewhere, but she didn’t check in.

The jump ending wiped thoughts of anything but my stomach out of my mind. I didn’t want to revisit my sandworms.

Coming out of hyperspace was always easier than going into it, though your stomach flipping was a given. It just didn’t flip as badly.

“Okay, we’re at the edge of the Pollisystem,” Roy said over the intercom. “Should reach Polliworld in an hour or so. Let’s get prepped.”

 

 

Despite the average being’s desire to breathe without snorting down a throat full of flies, Polliworld ran a brisk business in scientific exploration and experimentation. Some came to prove that every world had started like Polliworld, as primordial swamps. Others came to disprove the same theory. There were always some cross-species proponents or opponents around, trying to prove or disprove that the Polliwogs were related to amphibians on other planets.

All of these were outnumbered by the geologists, oceanographers, herpetologists, entomologists, and their ilk who swarmed over Polliworld at all times. Basically, the planet was a scientific playground, and because those scientists were around, Polliworld was almost as popular a destination as Roulette.

Most of the science teams didn’t stay long, but they made up for short stays by coming back frequently. And when they went home, the various scientists talked about Polliworld, if only to explain why they’d spent so much money to learn whatever they had, and why they wanted more money to go back and learn even more.

All this somehow translated into the denizens of their particular planets wanting to see Polliworld up close and personally, if only to see if it was really as awful as it appeared to be. Unless you lived for flies, it was, at least if you were outdoors.

Polliworld was a swamp planet. Everything on it had that kind of damp that never goes away. Mold, mildew, and mud were everywhere, and Polliwogs liked it that way. They felt it kept their planet lush and lovely. It also ensured other races weren’t going to try to move in and take over. Swamp living was hard on beings who didn’t have water-repellent skin and the ability to close their nostrils and still breathe.

The air was technically breathable for all of us, but it was thick with flies and all available surfaces were covered with things that attracted flies and helped them to make more flies. The smell was exactly what you’d expect for a huge, active swamp that doubled as a fly-making factory—fetid. The air quality redefined the term “humid.”

The few areas with solid ground went for a premium price—most Polliwogs lived in raised communities, called Pads, which hovered over their particular part of whichever section of swamp their family had claimed generations ago, supported by strong, water-resistant stakes and specialized grav-generators that ran on water power.

Prepping for landing wasn’t that big a deal. Polliworld was an older planet and possessed an excellent spaceport that was run efficiently. The risk of crashing existed, of course, but due to the swampy nature of the planet, the risks of injury from a crash landing were minimized.

Well, if we didn’t have a Quillian Shaman with us, landing would have been a big deal because we rarely liked to identify who we all really were and most planetary systems liked to know who was dropping by for a visit. Having Doven on the crew meant we could land on most of the planets we visited regularly without worry. Because of this, most of landing prep was on him and Roy.

Doven changed the ship’s identifying call numbers on the outer hull of the Hummingbird while he also altered a few exterior characteristics of the structure, which changed it into a different ship as far as anyone else would know.

Per Roy’s rules, once the call letters were changed, we all stopped calling or thinking of the ship by its real name. For the rest of our time in the Polliworld system we were members of the crew of the Stingray.

As far as anyone at Polliworld Mission Control was concerned, the Stingray hailed from Oceana and was a science ship, meaning it was a great cover for this world.

So while prepping for landing wasn’t that big a deal, prepping for exiting the ship and actually going onto Polliworld was quite a big deal.

“Bullfrog to the cockpit. Everyone not from Polliworld to the hold,” Roy said over the intercom.

“Enjoy,” Bullfrog said as he left us.

For Bullfrog, the flies in the air meant nothing other than that he could snack any time he wanted simply by putting his tongue out. For the rest of us, it meant wearing the Polliworld equivalent of a space suit, complete with helmet. The suits were the only things that ensured you wouldn’t be eaten alive by flies, suffocate from the smell or flies in your nose and mouth, or melt due to the humidity.

“Oh, how I’ve missed the suit,” Tresia said under her breath as she quickly cleaned up the galley. I couldn’t blame her for being underwhelmed—Polliskins were hard enough to get into with only four limbs. Eight arms and legs along with an Arachnid body made getting a Polliskin on a galaxy-class sporting event for Tresia and those helping her.

Because we had a Polliwog on crew and visited this world with a certain amount of frequency, we all had our own Polliskins. Doven and Tresia always needed assistance. Sometimes the rest of us did, too. So we’d learned long ago that we all had to get into the suits together.

The experience was always interesting. Usually fun, sometimes fractious, but ultimately bonding.

Once Bullfrog was in the pilot’s seat, Roy joined the rest of us in the portion of the hold where we stored our dangerous elements gear.

“Time to get ready for top world diving,” Willy said as everyone started to struggle into their Polliskins.

“You say that every time,” Kyle said as he helped Doven get his wings into their covering.

“One day we’ll go sea diving and you’ll have to wear a wetsuit,” Willy said with a grin. “They’re the only things worse to get into than Polliskins.”

“So you’ve always claimed,” I said. “But I don’t know how that can be true.”

“You’re the only one besides Bullfrog who could avoid using the suit,” Kyle pointed out.

This was true. I could shape shift into a Polliwog and go in without issue. However, I didn’t shift if it wasn’t necessary. Polliskins adapted to the person wearing them, so going in with my Polliskin on meant if I had to shift into something other than a Polliwog, I’d still be protected.

Besides, I didn’t want to eat flies, and if I shifted into a Polliwog and went outside, I’d have to or I’d stand out as a fake immediately. I’d eaten flies before and probably would again, but there was no reason to do so before it became absolutely necessary.

“She could,” Roy said. “But there’s no reason for her to be anything other than my cute little redhead right now.”

Everyone started teasing Roy, even Doven. It felt like things were back to normal. I hoped this was so, because after talking to Willy and Bullfrog, I had a bad feeling about this particular trip.

 

 

As usual, Roy’s landing was perfect. The discussion with Bullfrog wasn’t customary, however.

“I want to stay on the ship,” Bullfrog said for the third time.

“Monte will expect to see you,” Roy replied. “It’s going to raise more questions for him if you don’t show than if you do.”

“I’ll monitor as well,” Ciarissa said.

“If you can,” Bullfrog countered. “Just because it’s a new casino on a world that doesn’t normally require Espens to identify, that doesn’t mean Monte won’t have installed the usual tele-surveillance.”

Shocking absolutely no one, casinos and similar weren’t excited to have beings with telepathic and telekinetic powers hanging around. Espens were required to wear complicated head and body gear whenever they left their ships on Roulette and before going into casinos on other planets with gaming establishments, and on some planets without gaming but with a high privacy factor.

Tele-inhibitors had never been required on Polliworld. The Underground wasn’t concerned about Espen powers, for whatever reason. However, Bullfrog’s point was well made, because Polliworld had also never had a casino before.

Ciarissa closed her eyes and leaned her head back. “I sense no problems, at least within the spaceport. I’ll be able to test when we’re closer to our destination.”

I checked Doven’s reaction. Feathers weren’t ruffled –Polliskins being what they were, I could still see his feathers and all other features – but I could tell he knew I was watching him, so that didn’t mean anything.

“We need to have someone guarding the ship,” Bullfrog said, trying a new tactic. “And in this case, I’m the best option.”

“Monte will ask questions you don’t want us to answer if you’re not with us,” Roy said patiently.

“Yeah? Well I’ll bet he asks some questions we don’t want to answer if I am along. Starting with ‘do you know my friends here?’ and ending with ‘so you’ve been lying to me all this time?’ I think our best course is me staying on the Stingray.”

“We have her locked down. I’m the captain, and you’re coming along. This is a social call. We’re not doing a job—we’re visiting a friend.”

“Job or not, this is a bad idea, Roy.” Bullfrog shook his head, but he stopped arguing. And on that cheerful note, we locked down the Stingray and headed for the Spillway.

Polliworld’s Tourism Bureau, which was unofficially run by the Underground, had two distinct branches: Scientific and Respite. For first-timers it was easier to get through the Spillway, which was their version of customs, if you were coming through via the Respite side.

However, we’d been here often enough that the Stingray’s crew and mission were reasonably well-known, and scientific missions were rarely searched because their equipment tended to be fragile and expensive to replace. On Polliworld, whoever broke it bought it, and that rule extended to Polliworld Underground employees. As Bullfrog liked to say, Polliworld Underground was firm but fair.

We arrived to a short line and were up at the head of it in no time. “Business on Polliworld?” the Polliwog working our line asked.

“Crew of the science vessel Stingray,” Roy said. “Here to continue our research on the habits and lifecycles of leeches.”

Ironically, this really was our mission. We’d created it in honor of Monte, but without his knowledge, of course.

“Where’s your equipment?” the clerk asked.

“On our ship,” Roy replied. “We want to determine where we’ll be studying before we haul it all out.”

“And we want to see your new gaming establishment,” Ciarissa added with a beaming smile.

The Polliwog nodded. “Good. We’re very proud of it.”

“We heard about it from six solar systems away,” Dr. Wufren said. “Made us get ready in a hurry.”

The Polliwog smiled. “Length of stay?”

“Unsure,” Roy said. “Let’s request the maximum, if we may, just to be on the safe side.”

“One Polliworld month,” our clerk said as he stamped nine bright green leaflets and handed them to Roy. They really were leaves, from one of the sturdier and abundant trees that grew on Polliworld like weeds. Polliwogs preferred to use natural products whenever possible.

Roy handed us each one. They were stamped for a month’s stay with full access. I wondered if Ciarissa had helped the Polliwog to be amenable or if we’d just caught him on a good day. Normally we had to work a little harder to get this kind of all access pass.

Once you’d landed at a spaceport and made it past the Spillway, Polliworld was fairly lax about everything else. The Underground tended to protect itself, and therefore its planet, quite well. The positive of being thought of as scientists here was easy and reasonably unhindered access. The negative was that all our weapons were still on the Stingray. It was an unpleasant but necessary tradeoff.

We left the Spillway area, unmolested and basically ignored. It was a nice feeling – experience said this level of casual disinterest wouldn’t last.

“Ready to get to work?” Roy asked me.

“Sure. Let’s head off to study the habits of Monte the Leech and to determine if his lifecycle is in danger.”

 

 

Monte had taken up residence in Amphibia, the capitol city of Polliworld. The Amphibia Space Center was huge and had anything and everything you could want: a museum, a theme park, the Swampland Zoo, restaurants, gift shops, and more. Anything made on or about Polliworld—including Polliskins and various transportation methods—were for sale or rent. Some visitors to Polliworld never left the Space Center and still felt they’d really seen the planet.

Enclosed buildings were fly-, humidity-, and fetid-odors-free. I could see the wisdom in never leaving the Space Center.

I was somewhat surprised Monte’s establishment wasn’t attached to the Space Center. I had no clue whether this was a sound idea or not, or if the casino was elsewhere because the Underground wanted Monte elsewhere. Either way, I planned to find out.

“Can you tell if it’s safe?” Roy asked Ciarissa.

“Especially for you and Dr. Wufren,” Doven added.

“Not yet. We’re too far away.” Ciarissa could read minds from space if necessary, but spotting electronic and mechanical surveillance and related equipment required closer proximity. Dr. Wufren was telekinetic, not telepathic, so he normally needed Ciarissa to know what items might need to be moved, shut down, tampered with, or broken—and when.

“We’ll go along and if we have to take public transportation to return to the safety of the Space Center, we will,” Dr. Wufren said. “Don’t worry, my boys, we can take care of ourselves.”

“The Underground taking care of all of us is what worries me,” Bullfrog muttered under his breath. If Roy heard him, he ignored Bullfrog’s fretting.

We rented a planet flyer and headed for The Polliwog Palace. Monte was all about keeping the theme if the original had worked out well.

Amphibia, like the other Polliworld cities, was on dry ground. But the swamp-and-flies motif was in full force anyway, making visibility sketchy. All this caused a first-time visitor to assume that Polliworld ground transportation went slowly and carefully and was well-controlled at all times.

Which is why so many first-time visitors ended up in the hospital.

Polliwogs made good pilots in space, and even in the air, but they were awful flyers on the ground for whatever reason. Maybe it was because the more flies they could smash onto their windshields meant the bigger, better meal later, but “chaotic” was the kindest description I could ever come up with for how they flew.

“They all drive like little old ladies with a death wish,” Willy said as Roy dodged the first, but certainly not the last, near crash. “It’s like they can’t see and have the accelerator pressed down to the floorboards.”

He was right and I was glad Roy was driving—even Doven would have had difficulty avoiding the planet flyers going every which way at reckless speeds with no obvious directional goals in mind.

“You say that every time,” Kyle mentioned through clenched teeth.

“It’s true every time,” Willy replied with a hiss as a flyer missed us by a hair’s breadth. “This place is like running a gauntlet—bad all the way through with death likely waiting for you at the end.”

“Cut the chatter,” Bullfrog said. “Roy needs to concentrate.”

This was true and we all shut up, other than group and individual gasps of fear as we ran the traffic gauntlet and prayed to our personal gods for safe passage.

Proving again that he was the best at any kind of piloting, Roy got us to the Polliworld Palace unscathed. He went to self-parking, and no one argued. The walk was longer, but you didn’t have to wait for someone to bring your flyer around if a fast retreat was necessary. And fast retreat was frequently necessary for us.

“What do you get here?” Roy asked Ciarissa.

She closed her eyes and tilted her head back again. “Nothing. There is no telepathic surveillance or telekinetic inhibition I can detect.”

“That’s odd,” Willy said.

“Scary,” Bullfrog suggested.

“Good for us,” Dr. Wufren offered.

“I’m with the doctor,” Roy said. “Let’s go. But everyone be ready for anything.”

“You know,” Kyle said. “Business as usual.”

The downside of using general parking was that it wasn’t enclosed. Thankfully, we had our Polliskins. However, we were either going to have to keep them on inside or leave them at the spacesuit check, which was never a good plan for us.

Bullfrog’s unease convinced Roy to have us keep our Polliskins on. However, as we entered the antechamber that connected self-parking with the casino’s lobby and took a look around, everyone who had a ’Skin was checking it.

Bullfrog was looking elsewhere. “Is there really no tele-surveillance of any kind around?” he asked in a low voice.

“I sense none,” Ciarissa reassured him.

“Nor I,” Dr. Wufren said. “Nothing seems to be inhibiting me in any way.”

Roy looked at Ciarissa. She nodded. “We will do as the others,” she said in our heads.

We waited for a contingent of Polliwogs with bad attitudes to descend on us, but nothing happened.

We heaved a collective sigh and struggled out of the ’Skins. Dr. Wufren used his powers to help Doven and Tresia out of their ’Skins. No one took any kind of interest in us.

“Don’t get cocky,” Bullfrog warned. “Just because you can’t spot it and no one’s come to slap you two into tele-restraints doesn’t mean they’re not monitoring.”

“Bullfrog’s right,” Roy said. “Only use your talents for what’s necessary for the job, not for anything else.”

Dr. Wufren sighed. “You do like to remove all the fun out of life sometimes, my boy.” He grinned as Roy and Bullfrog glared at him. “Not to worry. We’ll be the souls of discretion.”

The Polliwogs working in coat check were younger females. Kyle and Bullfrog checked our suits in—Kyle flirted, Bullfrog blew his cheeks out, the females giggled and promised to keep our gear very safe. Two of them passed their cards to Bullfrog. One passed hers to Kyle. “I like off-worlders,” she said, loud enough for the rest of us to hear.

Kyle grinned, Bullfrog looked pleased with himself, and Roy blushed. Roy’s extremely old-fashioned reactions toward the variety of come-ons he, and to an extent Kyle, always got was always endearing.

“Nice to see your charm is still working,” I said to Bullfrog as we walked along the enclosed corridor.

“I’m the best there is at cheek puffing.”

“That’s what it says on the bathroom stalls,” Willy said.

I managed to refrain from comment, or laughter, but only because I’d known Bullfrog a long time. Every species had their own special mating rituals.

The reminder that I no longer had the option to practice the rituals specific to my species slithered up from the part of my mind where I’d shoved those regrets. I had Roy, and really, I didn’t need someone who could shape shift to make me happy. Even if I met another shifter—an unlikely possibility since the Diamante Purge—I’d want him to shift into a copy of Roy anyway.

I enjoyed that particular sexual fantasy, because the idea of having two Roys making love to me was only supplanted by the idea of having three.

“What are you smirking about?” Kyle asked me.

I quickly shoved regrets about the loss of my entire race and sexual fantasies about his big brother out of my mind, but not before Ciarissa giggled. I figured my fantasy had been particularly “loud” in my mind and did my best not to blush. “Nothing, nothing. Where the heck is Monte’s office in this place, do you think?”

“No idea,” Roy said with a shrug.

Ciarissa’s eyes narrowed. “We must go through the casino, I believe.”

“Never a problem, my dear,” Dr. Wufren said cheerfully as he offered his arm to Ciarissa, and they led the way. The rest of us followed.

 

 

The Palace on Roulette was large, loud, and flashy. Monte had done his level best to ensure the Polliworld Palace was larger, louder and, galaxy gods alone knew how, flashier.

Everyone inside seemed to be having a fabulous time. The noise level was high, with a lot of whooping and excited squealing. There weren’t just Polliwogs in here, either—a variety of beings from other systems had come by to check out the new game in town. The Polliwog Palace was packed.

Normally I enjoyed the flashiness that casinos created—it was fun to be around and the glitz, and constant activity made it easier to shift without being spotted.

However, shape shifters were, among our other talents, really good at spotting fakes. We had to be, in order to learn and protect ourselves. I took another good look around. Under the circumstances, it felt like everyone was trying just a little too hard.

Dr. Wufren and Ciarissa led us on a winding path through the casino. We looked like we were just wandering, which was wiser than heading directly for the heart of the operation. Beings who appeared to be storming the place where the surveillance feeds and money were housed tended to be removed bodily.

We finally reached a hallway at the back of the casino, set off from the main floor in such a way that it was easy to miss unless you were looking for it or, in the case of our group, had a telepath along.

We trotted down the corridor until we reached a doorway at the end of the hall. A doorway with guards. Big Polliwogs who made Bullfrog look puny. Clearly, we’d arrived.

Roy stepped to the front. “Here to see Monte the Leech,” he said to the two huge, stone-faced guards. Of course, Polliwogs looked stone-faced frequently, but it was clear these two practiced in the mirror every morning.

“Who wants to see Mister Leech?” one of the guards asked.

“Roy.”

“Roy who?” the other guard asked. They both seemed willing to wait a long time for the answer.

“Doctor Roy Evans.” Roy wasn’t a doctor and Evans certainly wasn’t his last name, but using his last name would be the height of stupidity here. It would be the same as us waving a banner saying “Look! It’s the Last of the Imperius Bloodline!” in front of the entire Diamante hit squad.

“And why would Mister Leech want to see a doctor?” the first guard asked.

“Routine checkup,” Roy said, sounding bored. “Here to ensure that Mister Leech’s parts don’t fall off.”

The stone-faces remained stable, but the door opened. “Roy baby, how’re they hangin’?” a familiar voice called from inside. “You and the rest of my favorite crazy crew should come on in.”

We did as requested. The Polliwogs looked disappointed for a moment and then went back to practicing for their second jobs as statues.

The room was large and lavish, decorated in what I thought of as Bad Guy Impressive. Lots of large, dark, heavy, obviously expensive furniture, thick rugs, a heavy reliance on gilt and deep reds. Monte liked style, even though it was hard for him to achieve it personally.

My gaze landed on Monte, and I managed to hide my involuntary shudder. I’d known Monte a long time, but seeing him was still repulsive, at least at first blush. He wasn’t called “the Leech” only because he drained your money.

Monte undulated over. He did some intricate hand slapping with Roy, Kyle, Willy, Bullfrog and, even more impressively, Tresia. I focused on his hands. They hadn’t been his originally, but it’s amazing what some people had to give up when they lost more money than they actually had access to. And the medical advances on Roulette were legendary. Another reason Monte moving to Polliworld was odd.

Doven and Monte did a wing-butt thing that never failed to make me want to gag. For whatever reason, Monte didn’t ever try to touch Dr. Wufren or Ciarissa. Lucky them.

Monte looked at me. “What, no hug for your Uncle Monte?” He looked expectant, at least as much as a giant leech with hands and other, thankfully covered, parts could.

I sighed to myself. I knew the drill. If I didn’t come across, we didn’t get our money, information, or cut of the action. Monte was a traditionalist, when you got right down to it. And while he was untrustworthy in many things, he was one of the few beings I knew wouldn’t turn me in as a shifter any more than he’d turn Roy and Kyle in as the last of the Imperious line. As long as I humored him.

I shifted and was now a female giant leech, also with hands, but no other parts Monte could conceivably feel. I undulated to him, and we sort of lolled into each other.

Most disgusting species greeting in the galaxy over, I shifted back to me, and Monte beamed. “Lord of the flies, it’s been too long. What brings you out my way? Can’t wait to test your luck on my lovely new tables?” He directed this remark specifically to Willy and Dr. Wufren.

“No.” Roy shot the two of them a very meaningful glance that plainly said “behave.” He looked back to Monte. “No, we wanted to know what’s going on.”

“New scenery’s good for the soul, Roy baby.”

“Right.” Roy looked around. “This place bugged?”

“Of course not!” Monte said with just a little too much enthusiasm. “I’ve got free rein here. Best setup in the galaxy.”

“Fren has disconnected the audio and visual surveillance,” Ciarissa shared. “I believe we will have a few minutes before company arrives.”

“Fine,” Roy said, more to Ciarissa and Dr. Wufren than to Monte. “So, for the short time we’ll be able to visit with you, why don’t you tell us why you sold part interest in the Palace to the Diamante Families?”

“Business, Roy baby. Business. They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

“What were they going to do to you if you did refuse?” I asked.

Monte shrugged, which meant his whole body rippled. I managed not to gag again, but only barely. “They’re business-beings, I’m a business-being. It’s not like I’m in bed with Roman the Redeemer or something.”

The Redeemer had been one of the political leaders on Convent—a religious, peaceful planet. Until the Diamante Purge, anyway. Roman had given up on peace and fought back, very publicly, and in a variety of dirty ways, ultimately becoming a guerilla fighter with a good sized fleet. By then, he’d become a fanatic and had perpetrated atrocities on more than the Diamante Families—he’d attacked worlds unwillingly under Diamante control. Not to free them, but to do his own kind of purge.

But the Diamante Families were too much for even Roman and his fanatical followers. The Redeemer’s fleet was destroyed, and the story went, he’d been run underground.

These days, the Redeemer was used as a boogeyman, someone to mention to show that while you might be bad, you weren’t that bad.

“If he came by with a deal, you’d think about it,” Roy noted. Accurately.

Monte shrugged and rippled again. I again controlled the gag impulse while hoping we’d have no more shrugging from him for a while. I wasn’t sure I could continue to keep my sandworms down. “We reached a mutually satisfying arrangement. Which meant I could come here.” Monte beamed. “I’m on the ground floor of what’s going to be a huge industry.”

“Speaking of which, why are you in bed with the Underground?” Roy asked.

“As if you’re not?” Monte said, nodding toward Bullfrog.

“Not the same thing,” Roy said. “And you know it. Look, Monte, we want in on the action.”

Monte’s beaming smile faltered. “No can do, Roy baby. No can do.”

“Why not? Since when have you ever cut us out?”

I could think of plenty of times, but now wasn’t a good moment to bring them up. Roy was mostly correct—when it had mattered, Monte had always cut us in. Not so much because he wanted to support the Martian Alliance—Monte didn’t care all that much about restoring the galaxy to its former, and rightful, rulers as some did—but because he was smart enough to want to always stay in good with those currently in power and those who might one day have power again.

Monte sighed. “Since I don’t have a choice. I have plenty of partners already. I don’t need more.” He dropped his voice. “And you don’t want in on this, trust me.”

“Why not?” Roy asked.

“It’s…complicated.” Monte pointedly looked at the wall behind us.

I took a look. The wall wasn’t exceptional in any way, but there was a rendering of a lot of large, flashy buildings. I stepped closer. “Casino City” was written at the bottom. “Why wouldn’t we want in on an entire Polliworld city dedicated to gambling?”

“Look closer,” Monte said. “Look very close.”

The others joined me and we all stared at the big picture. “Where’s Orion’s Light?” Kyle asked finally. He pointed to a small legend in the lower corner of the rendering—Casino City looked to be taking up half of an entire globe.

“Ah, good eye!” Monte said heartily. “It’s a moon at the outskirts of the Betelgeuse system. It’s been colonized by those of an…understanding bent.”

“You mean they don’t have a lot of laws,” Roy translated.

“Exactly, baby, exactly. Perfect place for the next Palace.”

“You just opened this one,” I pointed out. “Why are you looking to expand again before this place could have possibly turned a profit?”

“DeeDee, you wound your Uncle Monte. We were in the black within the first day’s opening.”

“I’ve been all over the galaxy and I’ve never heard of this particular rock,” Willy said, before I could mention that I found it close to impossible to believe that Monte had covered all the startup costs of a huge casino in one month, let alone in a day. The overly happy people on the casino floor said differently as well. Shills cost money, especially shills being asked to do the level of acting those in the casino were putting forth.

“Newly colonized,” Monte replied nonchalantly.

“When?” Roy asked. “We keep track of the inhabiteds. And Willy’s right—I’ve never heard of Orion’s Light, and it hasn’t come up on our schematics or maps.”

“The decision to colonize was made quickly,” Monte said. “The Betelgeuse system’s allowed the pleasure of gambling close to home, just like the Polliworld system.”

“Who’s invested in Orion’s Light?” I asked. “Besides you, I mean.”

“You all should take some time and enjoy the gaming,” Monte said, more than obviously ignoring my question.

“We should leave, immediately,” Ciarissa said in our heads. “We have company coming, and they are equipped to make life very painful for Fren and myself.”

“We’ll talk more about this later,” Roy said.

Monte nodded. “Feel free to leave via the owner’s entrance. It’s very private.” He nodded his head toward a dark corner of the office. I couldn’t see any door there, but looking there was better than looking at Monte undulate to the doors we’d used to enter the room.

Ciarissa nodded and Roy headed for the part of the room Monte had indicated. Dr. Wufren put his hand out and a panel opened silently. “Nice work, Mister Leech,” he said as he stepped aside to let Bullfrog go through first.

“Thank you, sir,” Monte replied. “Don’t be strangers.”

We hurried through the hidden doorway. Roy and I were last. As the door closed behind us I heard Monte. “Gentlemen! What a lovely surprise.”

“Nice to see he’s covering for us,” I said softly as we followed the others down a very sturdy, very non-flashy corridor.

“If he really is,” Roy replied as we reached an intersection.

“To the right takes us outside,” Ciarissa said. “To the left returns us to the casino.”

“Well, we need to go back to the casino to get our ’Skins,” Kyle pointed out.

“A large number of Polliworld Underground personnel are on premises,” Ciarissa shared. “They are looking for Fren and myself.”

“Because I blocked surveillance, my dear? I did my best to make it look like equipment failure.”

Ciarissa shook her head slowly. “You did a good job with that, Fren. No, I believe we tripped another form of surveillance. One none of us spotted.”

“We need to know what spotted us,” Roy said, “or else we can’t counter it next time, let alone as soon as we walk through the door back into the casino.”

Ciarissa shook her head. “I don’t know. I can pick up nothing untoward.”

“Maybe Monte did it,” Kyle suggested.

“It’s as likely a possibility as any other,” I agreed.

“I knew this was a bad idea,” Doven said under his breath. There’d been a lot of muttering on this trip, which wasn’t really normal for our crew.

“Fine, let’s get out of here and worry about who tripped what another time. We need a distraction,” Roy said, “that’s all.”

“What do you propose?” Bullfrog asked. “We walked in here without a plan for getting out, and they’ve got us on holographic for sure.”

“They don’t know who we are,” Roy said. “We’re scientists here on a mission, remember? We even told the Spillway clerk we were going to check out the new casino. We have every right to be here.”

“But we don’t,” Ciarissa said, indicating herself and Dr. Wufren.

Everyone’s expressions were stressed and worried. I had no idea why. The solution seemed obvious. I heaved a sigh. “Everyone, just calm down. We need those ’Skins and Ciarissa and our good doctor need to get back to the Stingray. So, not to worry—one Underground distraction coming up.”

With that, I concentrated and shifted.

 

 

“Nice job,” Roy said. “Now we have two of Ciarissa. How is that helping?”

“They’re looking for something that an Espen triggered, but it’s likely that all they have to go on is holographic feeds of the people who went down the corridor to see Monte.” I spent the time I was talking modulating my voice to sound as close to Ciarissa’s as possible.

I’d shifted into a likeness of her before. I’d ensured I knew how to shift into any one of us, just in case. Modestly speaking, I was the best shifter around, even before the Diamante Purge. It was one of the reasons I was still alive and able to shift.

Internal shifting was as important as external in many cases, and I knew this would be one of them. This was one of the areas I excelled at, but even for the best, there were limits. Ciarissa and Dr. Wufren presented a challenge I had yet to surmount—telepathic brains were distinctly different from non-telepathic, in part because they were in a constant state of subtle flux. So far I’d been unable to come even close to recreating the same inner workings as Dr. Wufren possessed, let alone Ciarissa. But in this situation, that lack was the strength of my plan.

“You want to be arrested?” Roy looked worried and protective. It was sweet, but I was a little worried myself. He wasn’t usually this slow on the uptake.

“No. I can’t imitate an Espen mind. They’re too complex even for someone with my level of shifting skill, you know that.”

“So?” Roy got a lot of worry into that one syllable.

Doven chuckled. “They’ll spend their time on DeeDee who won’t trigger the right things because her mind isn’t actually capable of any form of tele-talent, and the rest of us will get our ’Skins and get out of here. Good plan.”

“Terrible plan,” Roy snapped. “Espens look like regular humanoids. If they can figure out that Ciarissa and Doctor Wufren are tele-capable without our being able to spot their tele-surveillance that means they have equipment we’re not familiar with. And that equipment might show them what DeeDee really is.”

“Do you have a better idea with a higher chance of success?”

Roy’s expression told me he didn’t. I squeezed his hand. “I’ll be fine. Just get into those ’Skins, take mine with you, and get the flyer ready and waiting for me. I have no idea which exit I’ll be coming out of, but I think it’s a safe bet and even odds that when I leave the building I’ll be running.”

Bullfrog seemed to be struggling with something. “You can’t go alone.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re going to need backup, and that backup needs to understand how the Underground works as well as how to get to the Space Center in case the others can’t wait. Only one of us can do all that, and that means I’m going with DeeDee.”

Roy grimaced. “Fine, you both win on this one. Anyone else going to decide to be a renegade or tell me what we’re doing?”

“No,” Tresia said, as she snipped part of the lining of her cloak. Pincers were really useful appendages. “However, I believe Ciarissa needs to wear a head covering.” She wrapped the lining around Ciarissa’s head in the same way that religious adherents from Convent wore their head coverings.

“Sure, since you asked.” Kyle grinned. “I think I should be in charge from now on. And I think we need to ensure Bullfrog and I get to take those coat check girls out.”

“We need to go in teams to the coat check,” Roy said. “Worry about dating later.”

“Great idea, Tresia. The rest of you can all fight this out while Bullfrog and I go start our distraction. But hurry it up, and save the real arguments for when we’re back on the Stingray.” With that, I headed off down the corridor that took us back to the casino floor.

 

 

Interestingly enough, the door at the end of the corridor wasn’t being guarded. Either Monte had covered really well, or he’d sent them after us and the Underground enforcers were actually behind us.

“What’s your plan, DeeDee?”

Since Bullfrog had said he was coming with me, I’d been revising my plan to utilize all the options now available.

“We’re going to head into the casino, in the opposite direction from the coat check. Either they’ll go after us and our distraction will evolve naturally, or I’ll pick a suitably big being and bump into them, and you’ll act like a drunk, jealous boyfriend.”

“I can do that.” Bullfrog opened the door carefully. “Huh. No guards.”

“Does that mean we’re lucky or that this entire thing is some kind of huge trap?”

“No bet.”

Bullfrog took my hand, and we sauntered down a short corridor that led to a bank of flashing machines. The people at them were, to a one, having the time of their lives. It still rang as overacting to me, but I’d worry about it when we were somewhere safer than we were right now.

We weaved nonchalantly through this section and back onto the main casino floor. Despite Ciarissa having telepathically spotted people after us, we were still amazingly unmolested.

I took a casual look around. It was easy to do, because of the floating hair. As I moved my head, the hair moved more slowly, so I could look through it without appearing to be able to see.

And what I saw was Kyle, Willie, and Dr. Wufren wandering calmly through the casino. Roy, Ciarissa, Doven, and Tresia were behind them, but not looking like they were together. They filtered through the casino toward the main entrance.

A group of Polliwogs wearing suits were hovering around the main entrance. Polliwogs rarely wore suits, because they were heavy and confining. However, in the Underground, wearing a suit indicated you were a high-level enforcer of some kind.

Another group of suit-wearers came out of the same dark corridor we’d gone down to visit Monte, not the one we’d left through, which was good. They were looking around, which wasn’t. Time to put on the show.

We were near a pair of roulette tables. Their wheels were spinning, the balls were dropped, and there was a lot of money on both.

“Going with Plan B,” I whispered to Bullfrog. Then I laughed loudly. “You’re crazy – I have not had ‘too much’!” Announcement of my lack of inebriation made so that anyone nearby could hear, I “tripped” and slammed into one of the roulette dealers.

He might be a Polliwog, but he was unprepared for me to body slam him. He lost his balance, falling onto his wheel.

I “bounced” off of him and hit the other dealer back to back. This one had been no more prepared than her co-worker, and she went over, too.

This all happened quickly. Clearly this wasn’t in the script, because the shills at the tables all gaped. A couple shrieked.

“Oooh, I’m so sorry,” I said. “Did I mess up all the chips?” The dealers were recovering themselves, and the Polliwogs in the suits were taking an interest in us.

“You’re drunk,” Bullfrog said flatly.

“But there’s all that money on the tables,” I said plaintively, but loud enough to carry. “I want some.”

“We’re going home,” Bullfrog said sternly. He took my hand and pulled me to him. I “stumbled” and shoved him into several beings behind him, which caused a domino effect. They were knocked over, and they knocked the blackjack table they were at over. There were now chips and money all over the place, and some of the shills realized that chaos meant they could possibly grab some extra money.

I heard a few squeals, and then some of the Arachnidans started using those extra limbs to grab money. Seeing this, the others at the tables decided not to miss out. The dealers tried to protect the chips and money, and the scramble started. It went chaotic quickly, which was my goal.

Bullfrog and I extracted ourselves from the growing mob as the Polliwogs in suits decided that whatever was going on in our section was more important than finding the tele-talented. They were joined in this by a goodly contingent of Polliwogs working security.

“We have our Polliskins,” Ciarissa said in our heads. “The people looking for Fren and myself have all been distracted by the two of you.”

“Time to run,” Bullfrog said quietly. He took my hand again, and we headed for what a tiny sign proclaimed to be the rear exit.

We reached the exit door just ahead of the Polliwogs after us. The door was made of tinted glass, so you could see who was coming in or who was outside if you were up close. The area outside this door looked clear.

Unfortunately, the door happened to be locked.

 

 

Conveniently, the first Polliwog to reach us grabbed Bullfrog and threw him against the glass door.

“We don’t like your kind in here,” the Polliwog shared.

Bullfrog was big and the glass wasn’t strong enough to withstand a big Polliwog body being flung against it. The glass cracked. “What kind? I’m from here, just like you,” Bullfrog said as he kicked the guy who’d grabbed him in the gut.

Several of the suits jumped on Bullfrog. He was good, and kept most of them occupied enough that he didn’t go down.

“Stay out of our business, Diamante scum,” another Polliwog snarled as he reached for me. I dodged. Now wasn’t the time to question who they thought we were working for. Now was the time to get away.

Ciarissa wasn’t the strongest being in the galaxy. However, the benefits of being a shifter were many times without number, and this was one of those times. I kept my external self the same, but altered my insides to match the strength and internal structure of the Troglodytes from Rockenroll, who were similar to the trolls of ancient fairy tales. They lived in caves. Lavish and elaborate caves, but caves nonetheless.

They were also hella strong.

I grabbed the nearest Polliwog in a suit and slammed him into the breaking glass door as hard as I could. I was quite small for a Troglodyte, but even though I was the height of a little child on Rockenroll, I had more than enough strength to use the Polliwog as a battering ram.

The door shattered. I kicked the various suits away from Bullfrog, grabbed him, and ran. Troglodytes weren’t fast. All that heavy body with bones and muscles the consistency of rock meant moving fast wasn’t in their game plan. However, it was in mine.

I shifted internally again, this time I took on the characteristics of the Naynek from Paradise. As with the Troglodytes, my size meant I was at the level of a child in terms of Naynek abilities, but since they were among the fastest runners in the galaxy, even their young moved swiftly.

This helped us to get away from the casino, but without a Polliskin, I wasn’t going to be able to keep up my pace too long.

Bullfrog knew. He lifted me up and flipped me onto his back. “Hold on.” Then he took off in the manner all Polliwogs can, but which he rarely did—he jumped. Bullfrog kicked off with his strong back legs, and we soared into the air. He landed on all fours, his hands helping to keep us balanced. Then he jumped over and over again. He covered a lot of ground this way.

The Underground chased us for a while, but suits aren’t well equipped for the kind of leaping Bullfrog was doing, so we lost them. Or they gave up. Or both. I chose not to worry about whether we’d outpaced them or they’d gotten tired of running after us. I was too busy trying not to scream or breathe.

I thought Bullfrog would stop leaping once we lost the Underground, but he didn’t. He headed instead for what I knew was the poorer district of Amphibia. After a few minutes, Bullfrog leaped us into some thick, tall reeds that provided an illusion of privacy for those Polliwogs who needed to relieve themselves and couldn’t make it to, or be bothered to find, an actual bathroom.

“You need to change into a Polliwog,” he said urgently. “Now.”

“Gladly.” I shifted and was now a female Polliwog. Sure, I was a female Polliwog covered with the remains of what seemed like a million flies on me, but as a Polliwog, it didn’t bother me as much as it could have. Which is to say I could wait to throw up until we were back on the Stingray.

“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, well, 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.”

Bullfrog cleared his throat again. He didn’t do that often, so I figured he was at least as nervous as I was, maybe more so. This wasn’t a comfort. “You think the Diamante Families will blame Polliworld? And…take action?” Which was a very diplomatic way of asking if Longdaddy felt the Diamante Families would declare another purge, focused solely on Polliworld. It certainly wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.

“I believe this could happen, yes. Which is why I want you to fix it.”

“Excuse me?” I managed to keep my voice somewhat level.

“I want you and the rest of your ‘scientific team’ to figure out a way to ensure that things stay…roughly the same.”

“What if, despite the evidence, Monte’s actually doing a legitimate business deal?”

Longdaddy gave me one of those “you’re kidding, right?” looks. “What, in your experience with the Leech, would give you the impression he’s not pulling a Jumping Game?”

I sighed. “Nothing. Look, before you threaten us with all the things you’ll do to us and the rest of our team if we say no, I’d like to get some more information.”

“What makes you feel you’re in a position to bargain?”

“Really? We’re going to play this game? Fine. We’re in a position to bargain because you need us. If you didn’t, we’d be dead in some way or another already.” I glanced up at the sky again. “From the distance we traveled and the fact that you have this place insulated really well, and also based on when I know Monte’s casino shifts normally change, we’re a lot closer to Amphibia than you want us to know. My guess is that we’re somewhere between the Space Center and the main part of town.”

“Well done.” Longdaddy turned to Bullfrog. “If I believed she was really a Polliwog, I would tell you to marry her.”

“She’s a Polliwog,” Bullfrog said. “Just not from around here.”

“No, I understand she is not from around here.” He turned back to me. “You may ask your questions.”

“Lucky me. So, why did the Diamante Families take part ownership in the Palace on Roulette?”

“Rumor has it that they were displeased with the Palace making more money on average than the Diamante Families casinos.”

“Sounds like them. Why was the Underground willing to let Monte come here to open the Polliworld Palace?”

“Money.”

“No other reason? You’re sure?” Money seemed so…ordinary. Then again, who was I to complain about a simple goal?

“Yes, I’m quite sure. The Underground sees the casino as a way to allow them to expand off our planet.”

“And Orion’s Light is supposed to be their first expansion point, right?”

“Yes.”

Time for the Big Question. “Who’s aware that the Polliworld Palace isn’t really in the black?”

Longdaddy appeared mildly impressed. I didn’t know why. He’d shared this already, by confirming Monte had hired a lot of shills without the Underground’s knowledge. “Only a few. The Leech has done a good job convincing the Underworld that things are going well.”

“But you have people in the casino who know differently. Do you know how the Palace on Roulette is doing without Monte there?”

“The Palace was more profitable when it was being run by the correct being.”

“Makes sense.”

“Why isn’t the Polliwog Palace doing well?” Bullfrog asked. “We Polliwogs love gambling.”

Longdaddy shrugged. “We apparently love to travel to another world that is very different from our own when we are gambling. There is no allure to a casino that anyone and everyone can visit.”

Interesting. I’d never have guessed that, and clearly Monte and the Underground hadn’t guessed that, either. “Maybe over time it’ll have an allure. How many spies do you have in the Underground?”

“Enough. Just as I have enough in the casino.”

“And some in the Diamante Families, too, right?”

“Yes.”

I took the logical leap. “The Diamante Families are also going in on Casino City, aren’t they?”

Longdaddy smiled. “I would be willing to consider interspecies marriage.”

“Flattery’s a lot nicer than threats, so let’s stick with that. Can we trust him?” I asked Bullfrog. “After we do what he wants, I mean.”

I didn’t expect an honest answer from Bullfrog. We were standing in front of Longdaddy, in his secret communications lair, without a lot of easy exit options. But I was very interested in Longdaddy’s reactions to the question.

He laughed. And seemed unperturbed by the question and unworried about Bullfrog’s reply.

Bullfrog shrugged. “Yes.”

Longdaddy nodded. “Truthfully, you can trust me because I need to ensure that this problem is solved, and in the solving, that no blame can come back onto me and my people.”

“Okay. Who are your people?”

“All those who hide in shadows. As you do.”

“I don’t hide in shadows.”

Longdaddy smiled again, but this one was rather sad. “You do. Some shadows are transparent. But I understand that in order to survive you must lie to yourself. Oh, and since you asked before, I know you are not a Polliwog because one Polliwog went in to see the Leech…but two came out to No Frog’s Land.”

He turned back to the screen. I was still the main thing on view. Though, because I did excellent work, Ciarissa was still the main thing on view.

“I was on lookout at the rear entrance.” I ensured I sounded bored. “Your spies must have missed me.”

“Oh, they believe they missed you. In part because you count a very strong telepath as one of your friends.”

This was getting creepy and spooky both. I wondered if Bullfrog had told Longdaddy about all of us, somehow.

“No idea what you’re talking about.”

Longdaddy shook his head. “We are having this conversation here because, as you noted, it is well insulated and protected. As you and so many others with you are hidden, so am I hidden, even from those who have known me all their lives. I am hidden until things will change so that I need not hide anymore.”

He was giving me a clue, I was sure of it. Longdaddy was no longer talking about me, or even Ciarissa, because he’d said so many others. He was right—out of our crew, we had all of one being who wasn’t hiding something in some way, and that was Willy. Sure, Bullfrog wasn’t hiding that much, but he was pretending to be Underground in order to keep all of us safe. And get us jobs.

But Bullfrog wasn’t the one Longdaddy was talking about hiding until things changed. Longdaddy had been here too long to be a hidden shifter, at least, that was my impression, and no hidden shifter would be offering another hidden shifter these kinds of clues. We had our ways of spotting the few of us who remained, and nothing Longdaddy had done was in line with those ways.

He wasn’t a telepath or telekinetic, because Ciarissa had taught us how to tell if we were being read, and we weren’t, and no one had tried to make our bodies do something we didn’t want. Sure, he could be hiding either trait, but I just didn’t think he was. So, did that mean he was referring to Roy and Kyle?

Polliworld, like most of the inhabiteds, had a long history. It had gone through turmoil several times before the Diamante Purge, but had survived because the Underground were already in power.

The answer came to me. “Polliworld used to be ruled by kings. But the Underground preferred a propped-up democracy over a monarchy because that gave them more ways to have power, especially if the current ruler was against them. The royal family disappeared. The general story is that they were smuggled off-world. But that’s not the truth, is it?”

Longdaddy wouldn’t have been born, or maybe was a tadpole, when the Underground took over Polliworld, because that had happened well before the Diamante Purge. Meaning he had a grudge against the Underground and the Diamante Families both. Just like Monte did. But unlike Monte, Longdaddy apparently had more to think of than himself. Just like Roy.

Longdaddy smiled. “It’s good that we understand each other. You have proven yourself trustworthy to those in hiding,” he said to Bullfrog. “I hope for the same trust for myself.”

Bullfrog had lost his Polliwog stone face—awe and shock had taken over his expression—but he nodded. “Yes…sire.”

Longdaddy shook his head. “Not now. Not officially. And not until such time as what your ‘scientific team’ truly works for is done.”

“You’re why we were able to come in so easily undercover!”

Longdaddy chuckled. “It helps to have friends in low places.”

“And high ones. Okay, we’re all on the same side, at least in grand, general terms. But if we’re going to fix what’s going on, we need more information.”

“What else do you need?”

“A better understanding of just what’s been going on, especially what Monte’s done and promised. And safe passage back to our ship.”

“Anything else?” Longdaddy asked.

“Yeah. Any suggestions you might have for how to solve your problem without getting exposed or killed, either you or us.”

Longdaddy’s smile widened. “I sense the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

 

 

Getting back to the Stingray involved more long walks through the underground hut path, but I’d been right—we were much closer to the Space Center than when we’d first entered No Frog’s Land.

Bullfrog and I left Longdaddy well before the Space Center and were handed off from one Polliwog guide to another until we were back at the Stingray. Sure, we came into the docking bay via the employee’s entrance, but otherwise it was a relatively normal return.

We were only going to be alone for a few seconds. “Bullfrog, did you tell Longdaddy about us? I won’t be mad at you if the answer’s yes, by the way.”

“No, I didn’t. I didn’t know who he really was until we both found out today.” Bullfrog rarely bothered to lie, and I was pretty sure he wasn’t lying now.

“Huh. Okay. Well, good.” Longdaddy knew who we were and what we were working for. And while all royalty knew or knew of each other somewhere and somehow, I doubted that King Oliver of Andromeda had been the one telling tales out of school.

Which meant someone else had told Longdaddy about us.

I considered this as we walked casually on board and were greeted with a lot of relieved expressions.

“Ciarissa said you two were okay, but I wasn’t sure,” Roy said as he hugged me tightly, even though I hadn’t changed out of my Polliwog form.

“We’re fine. We don’t have a lot of time. Some big things need to happen, very publicly, in a short time from now.”

“What?” Roy sounded ready for action. Pity.

“We can’t actually tell you. Well, we can tell you some of what’s going on, but not all. Not yet. I need Ciarissa, and you need to be ready to leave Polliworld the moment the two of us are back on the ship.”

“What? You just got back and we weren’t sure what we were going to have to do to retrieve you both safely. You are not leaving this ship without me, and that’s final.”

I heaved a sigh. “Come help me get into my Polliskin while we argue and you don’t win. Oh, and Ciarissa, please get into your Polliskin, too.”

She smiled serenely. “Of course, DeeDee.”

We went to our quarters, and I changed back into me. Because it hadn’t been necessary, I hadn’t done a complete shift at any time. I hadn’t moved my mind to the place where I didn’t know who I was, because I knew I was someone else. The shifts had been short enough that I hadn’t needed to. My mind was still fully my own, and therefore I didn’t need to complete a full shifting ritual or use my Mantra of Self to return to being me.

Which was good, because despite the fact he was upset, Roy managed to kiss me deeply and remind me again why it was great to be his woman.

“Thanks for getting the taste of fly out of my mouth.”

“I’d gag, but I know you didn’t eat any. They have a distinct tang.”

“And you know this how?”

Roy grinned. “You’ve had to eat flies before.”

“Okay, you get to keep your special parts intact.” I began struggling into the suit while Roy helped me.

“Good. What’s going on?”

“I can’t tell you. Yet. I can tell you once we finish helping Monte live up to his name.”

“You don’t mean you’re going to be sucking someone’s blood. Do you?” He sounded just a little worried. Too bad I didn’t have time to laugh about this.

“No. I mean he’s pulling the ancient three card monte routine, or as they call it here, the Jumping Game—but with land, not cards. And he’s doing it with the biggest players around, thusly endangering everyone if things went wrong. Which they were, until we showed up.”

“We’re being played?”

“I don’t think so. I think we’ve been recruited to be the third card, so to speak. And we’ll be getting paid. You just have to trust me and do exactly what Bullfrog and I tell you. And you have to let me and Ciarissa leave the ship. Alone. I promise we’ll get back safely, and if we’re in trouble, you’ll know.”

“Great. I hate it when you don’t tell me what you’re doing.”

“Oh, I can tell you what I’m going to do. I’m rigging Monte’s Jumping Game to ensure that it works and leaves everyone thinking they’re the winners.”

 

 

Ciarissa and I left the ship and headed into the Space Center. She was still wearing the head covering that made her look as if she was from Convent. I’d shifted to human male, big and imposing enough, without any clear planetary distinctions, in the kind of suit favored by both Underground and Diamante Families enforcers. However, this look was also fairly common on Convent.

We passed through the Spillway and went through customs via the Respite section. The clerk barely looked at us.

Once in the Space Center, we headed to the Swampland Zoo. “Why are we going here?” Ciarissa asked quietly.

“You know.”

“You know I don’t…access…anyone on the crew without their permission. Some strong thoughts reach me, yes, but I don’t search for them. Speaking and reading are not the same things.”

“I know.” I paid to get in and headed us to the Wild Nature of Polliworld section. It was crowded with beings from all over. Good. I noted where the exits were, as well as which door said Employees Only. “So, we’re going to admire the wild nature and you’re going to tell me the nature of your relationship with Longdaddy.” I watched her out of the corner of my eye. “Girl to girl.”

There were enough people around, and we were speaking softly enough that it was unlikely we’d be overheard. Longdaddy had assured me that this section of the Swampland Zoo had its surveillance curtailed regularly.

“Ah. What do you think you know?”

“You’re the one who told him about us.”

“This is true.” She moved off a few steps, as if we were honestly here to enjoy the exhibit. “He is trustworthy,” she said when I was beside her again.

“I guessed. I don’t think you’re a traitor, because we’d all be dead already.”

“No. I fight for what all of you fight for. He does as well.”

“Yeah, I picked that up. How did you meet?”

“The usual way, I suppose.”

“There are no usual ways anymore.”

She chuckled. “True enough. I met him in the same way you met Roy. I was in over my head and he helped me.”

“He’s why you haven’t given Doven the remotest go-ahead sign, isn’t he?”

It was a rare thing, but I did get to bear witness to Ciarissa blushing. “In a way. We are only close friends.”

“You and Longdaddy or you and Doven?”

“Both. While I would wish that circumstances were different, Longdaddy, as you call him, needs to ensure that his line, his pure line, continues. We both accepted that a long time ago.”

“And Doven?”

“Why is this relevant?”

“Because it’s the only time I’m ever going to get to ask without Roy or Doven or someone else overhearing. Because he’s worried about you being worked too hard, but Roy’s dismissed the idea, meaning that Roy doesn’t think he’s overtaxing you. But Doven feels you’re overtaxed. Meaning you’re keeping at least one being not on our crew advised of our activities and it’s draining your strength.” I looked straight at her. “I want to be sure of who you’re telling what, when, and why.”

She didn’t turn toward me. “Much goes on while you are on assignment. The stirrings of what you and I are both trying to fix began well before your trip to Andromeda.”

“How are you talking to Longdaddy when we’re out of this solar system?”

“There are…ways.” Now she did turn to me, and I could see the exhaustion in her eyes. I was sure Doven had seen this, and I was equally sure no one else had, because both Roy and Dr. Wufren would have put Ciarissa onto medical rest if they’d caught a whiff of this. “They can be quite…taxing.”

“How many others are involved in those ways?”

“Fewer than you would think. It would be easier if there were more, but we are very spread out. All trustworthy. For the same reasons you are trustworthy.”

“I want more than your word. I want the full explanation. I’m sorry, but under the circumstances, I can’t trust you like I once did.”

Ciarissa nodded sadly. “I understand. Once trust is lost…” She heaved a sigh. “Espen was spared destruction during the Purge because we have always taken the side of noninterference, of neutrality.”

“You have laws about it, yeah. And, I’d assume, the Espen government has some way to control all of you.”

“It does, other telepaths screening for overt activities mostly. But there are some of us who do not feel noninvolvement is always the ethical choice. During the Purge, we worked with many resistance fighters, trying to help them. For the most part, we failed.”

“For the most part, everyone failed. But, how did you avoid anyone knowing about your involvement? Especially the Espen government?”

“The same way we avoid detection now. Longdaddy has some very advanced scientists who are quite loyal to him. They created a living organism that combined organically with those of us who continue to strive against the Diamante Families. The tad-biotic enhances our powers exponentially. It allows us to reach each other across the vast distances of space while helping to mask our activities and mental trails.”

I’d seen Longdaddy’s living computer system. It wasn’t hard to believe that the beings responsible for that could create an organism that did what Ciarissa described. “Doctor Wufren, is he part of this, too?”

She shook her head. “Fren opposes the Diamante Families for the same reasons the rest of you do, but he was never a part of the Espen Resistance. He self-exiled from Espen well before the Purge.”

Interesting. Yet another fact I hadn’t known. Roy might not know, either. “How many of you are there?”

“Not enough, but we do what we can. We are placed within certain organizations, on specific planets, within groups where our assistance is most needed.”

The light dawned. “That’s why you fly with us.”

She smiled. “I would fly with you even if I was not part of the Espen Resistance. I requested to be given the chance to join with Roy and his loyal retainers.” Her expression saddened. “I have lost many things because of the Purge and my planet’s refusal to help fight against obvious evil. I don’t want to lose your trust, or lose the family I have joined and love.”

Had to give one thing to the Diamante Families—they really brought a galaxy together, united under the banners of loathing, hatred, and revenge.

Maybe I should have continued to be suspicious, but I’d known Ciarissa a long time now. Having met Longdaddy, it was clear that we were all on the same side. Besides, I didn’t want to lose anyone or anything else because of the Diamante Families.

I hugged her. “I understand.”

Her body relaxed against mine, and Ciarissa hugged me back tightly. “I would prefer not to tell the others about any of what we have discussed.”

“Let’s get out of this situation first, and then worry about who gets to know what.”

“What situation are we in, exactly?”

Either she was faking it really well, or Ciarissa truly hadn’t been reading me and Bullfrog while we were gone, other than at a very high level. While I was ready to forgive her, there was information I needed to have in order to ensure our crew’s long term health and happiness.

“We’re here to save the day again. Per my intel, it should pay well. If we can pull it off. But we’re not going to pull it off until you tell me if Doven’s interest in you really is or isn’t returned.”

Ciarissa stared at me for a few long moments. “You would endanger an entire world for this information?”

“Yeah, I would. But I don’t think you would.”

She shook her head. “That is not like you.”

“Based on what I’ve learned today, you aren’t like you. Not the you we thought you were. So why does it surprise you that I might be different than you’ve thought?”

“Because I’ve seen your true heart, as I’ve seen the true hearts of all who fly with us. It is why I fly with all of you. And because of this, I know you will not risk the lives of innocents on a whim.”

“It’s not a whim. Doven and Roy are fighting because of you, and we can’t afford to have that. I need to know, right now, where your loyalties—romantic and otherwise—really lie.”

“My loyalties are with the Martian Alliance. I believe bringing back the true galactic emperor, especially as personified in Roy, will be what the galaxy truly needs. The Espen Resistance agrees with this—they want a return to the former rulerships, kingdoms, democracies, theocracies, and such that existed before the Diamante Families took over.”

“Good to know. And your romantic loyalty—is it to Doven, Longdaddy, someone else, or no one else?”

“Ah. You fly with the man you love, so you need to know if it’s the same for me?”

I rolled my eyes. “I’d fly with Roy even if I didn’t love him, and vice versa. You’re stalling, waiting for someone to come and interrupt us. But I have a guarantee of privacy, because Longdaddy understands what my price for participation is. So, stop dancing around the question and answer me—do you have romantic feelings for Doven like he has for you?”

She looked straight into my eyes. “No.”

“Fair enough.” I stepped closer to the Employees Only door.

Ciarissa joined me. “That’s it? No protests, no pushing me to give Doven a chance? No coercion in any way?”

“No. I just wanted to know. So I won’t encourage him to actually bird up and ask you out. I thought he was reading you wrong, but I guess he’s right—his love is unrequited.”

A quick look around showed that no one was really paying attention to us. I went to the Employees Only door. As promised, it opened right up. I stepped through, motioning to Ciarissa to follow me.

She did and we started down a hallway that looked a lot like the hallway in the Polliwog Palace that led to Monte’s office.

Ciarissa put her hand onto my arm. “You misunderstand me. I answered your specific question. I don’t have romantic feelings for Doven like he has for me. Our differences mean we can never feel exactly the same way about each other.”

“Oh, good grief. Stop being coy. I need to focus. Do you want to date and potentially mate with Doven or not?”

“I…would be willing.”

“Great.” There was supposed to be a hidden entrance somewhere around here. It was really well hidden. “Then, when we’re done with this, make the first move. He’s never going to. I realize you’ve probably been waiting for him to actually talk to you about this. I also realize, having met Mister I Advertise, that Longdaddy undoubtedly made a move within the first five minutes of meeting you. Doven’s not like that. He’s got all that rigid morality up in his feathers and he’s convinced himself you’re not interested. He’s as likely to make a move on you as I am to come on to Monte.”

“Oh. Uh, thank you.”

“Any time. We’ll worry about how to get you more rest so Doven stops stressing out about your exhaustion later. Right now, we need to roll on our part of the latest plan I wanted no part of, and I can’t get us out of this stupid hallway. There’s a hidden door around here. Any guess as to where it is?”

“Yes.” Ciarissa walked us a few more feet and then pointed down. “There is a stairway here.” She pushed what looked like a screw, and a portion of the floor raised just enough to be able to lift it.

“Of course there is. What a world, what a world.”

Ciarissa headed down the dark stairs. I went after her, ensuring the trapdoor was securely closed behind us.

“How many times have you used this path?” I asked.

“Never. I just knew what to look for.”

We reached the bottom. This walk wasn’t nearly as long or steep as those Bullfrog and I had taken during our Swamp Walk. I was going to sleep for a week once this caper was over. And demand that Roy give me leg rubs…so, maybe I wouldn’t sleep the entire time.

We came to a three-way fork in the path. A small arsenal was piled onto a wheelbarrow. Per what Longdaddy had told me, I knew to take the rightmost path. The curiosity to see where the other paths led almost overwhelmed me. Then I remembered that all roads led to either flies or Longdaddy’s lair, my legs hurt in any form I shifted into, and I didn’t want to stay on Polliworld any longer than we had to. I grabbed the wheelbarrow and made the hard right.

When we came to the next set of steps leading up, I shifted again. This time, I ensured that I was very recognizable.

Ciarissa’s eyes, like mine, had adjusted to the dark – I knew because she jumped. “Is this a wise gambit?”

“Yes. It helps that you’re disguised to look like you’re from Convent. We need to have someone to blame, and that blame can’t come back on any of us, on Longdaddy or Polliworld, and not on Monte, either. This is the best option.” Plus, I was fairly sure Monte was betting on us using this gambit or something close to it. He wasn’t a stupid being in any way, and he knew us pretty darned well.

“They’re going to try to kill us the moment they see you.”

“That’s why you’re along. Feel free to exhaust yourself. I can carry you back to the ship if needed.”

“I didn’t hide my past relationship to keep something from you or Roy or the others. Roy doesn’t announce who he truly is and what organization he supports to just anyone, either. But until one of you met Longdaddy, there was no reason to advise that another monarch was closer to his throne than the Diamante Families might realize.”

“I’m not upset with you.” Anymore.

Ciarissa shook her head. “Yes, you still are, at least a little bit. I thought we’d already made our peace.” She sounded sad and worried.

“We have.” I sighed. “I need to be angry, because it’s going to help me stay in character. So, let me stay angry with you for right now, because it’s a fresh anger, so it’s easier to tap into and maintain. Once we’re back on the Stingray, I’ll be back to me. In all ways. Deal?”

“Deal.”

“Great. Then let’s go show everyone that the boogeyman is alive and well and seriously pissed.”

 

 

We took the various armaments Longdaddy had provided. We were both weighed down with a lot of firepower—me more than Ciarissa, but then, I could carry a lot in this form. And we were going to need to put on a very effective show for this to work.

The stairs led right to the back hallway behind Monte’s office, just as Longdaddy had said they would. I had to give it to him—he’d really set things up well. I wondered how much Ciarissa had told him about us, and figured a lot. So, Longdaddy and Monte were both counting on us doing exactly what we were about to do.

By now, Bullfrog should have told Roy what was going on, other than about Ciarissa, because I didn’t think he’d made the connection about her relationship with Longdaddy, or if he had, he hadn’t shared it with me. But either way, it was safe to assume the Stingray had left Polliworld very officially and that the Redeemer’s Will was going to return shortly, guns blazing.

It was dangerous, so dangerous, for me to do this particular shift. But there didn’t seem to be any other way. At least not a way that would leave everyone I cared about safe. Roy had no idea how dangerous a shift this would be for me, either, but I knew he wouldn’t like it, just on general principles. Which was why I’d ensured Ciarissa and I were already too far away to alter the plan before Bullfrog explained what we were doing.

Roy wasn’t really like Roman. Maybe a little like Roman—very male, very captivating, and a great leader. Okay, so Roy was a lot like Roman in those ways. But Roy would never intentionally kill an innocent, no matter what the cause or the cost. And should that happen, he’d never wave it away as the cost of war. Roy understood the cost of war, but he didn’t enjoy spending the money. Roman, on the other hand, felt quite differently.

For Roman, it was his way or the highway to Hell.

Longdaddy’s people were already in place and ready, he’d assured me of that, and I’d watched him send the message, which was why we had to ensure we timed everything right. Longdaddy had also verified there was no life on Orion’s Light. And I’d shared what I’d do to him if I discovered that was a lie. So all was set.

Ciarissa nodded. “Monte is alone, but all the surveillance is active.”

“Showtime,” I said quietly. In this form, my voice was deep, low, and had a very charismatic quality. I’d ensured I’d shifted everything, including matching Roman’s mind. I was able to do so because I’d known him personally. I’d known him better than anyone, and certainly better than anyone still alive.

Being angry with Ciarissa was helpful because Roman had been a very angry person. His voice hadn’t been the only charismatic thing about him, either. Hopefully I radiated his machismo, because if I didn’t put on a believable show, we were all dead.

But the time for doubts was over. I finalized the shift in my mind.

 

 

I looked around, taking in the scene. I wasn’t that old a man, but sometimes my life’s experiences made me feel ancient. My memory liked to disappear occasionally. It was a test—of my faith, my strength, and my conviction. I closed my eyes and centered on the beating of my heart. Ah, yes. I never failed this test. Because my cause was righteous and I could not, would not, be stopped.

Memory flooded back, as it always did. I was Roman the Redeemer, here with one of my loyal adherents to stop anyone from overtaking yet another defenseless world against its will. Orion’s Light would not fall into the hands of Diamante scum. Better they should burn in righteous fire than fall to the most evil and godless of empires.

“Tell our allies to begin.”

Ciarissa nodded. An explosion rumbled – the sound, and the screams, confirmed it was close by. More explosions, more screaming, both within the building and outside. The Redeemer’s Will must have made itself known.

We went to the office’s rear door. I contemplated knocking, but that wasn’t a frightening enough entrance. And this fool needed frightening. At the very least. I kicked the door in. The wood splintered in a satisfying manner.

I shoved Ciarissa back and to the side as I jumped out the way. Sure enough, lasers fired at us. I was used to guerilla fighting, however.

I tossed in a gas bomb, courtesy of our local allies. It was non-lethal, which was something of a disappointment. But agreements had been made and compromises were sometimes necessary.

I strode in to see a variety of Underground personnel on the ground and Monte the Leech gaping at me. Due to his nature, he was unaffected by the gas—his kind could simply absorb it through their skin and eject it later as excrement. “You…you’re alive?”

“You won’t be for too long.” I nodded to Ciarissa, and she concentrated. The bodies convulsed then went still. Enforced comas. They’d recover in a few days. If we didn’t blow this den of iniquity sky high first.

“What have I done?” Monte asked, looking around wildly.

“Guards are coming, as are both more Underground and Diamante Families enforcers. I have alerted the Redeemer’s Will.”

“You will not defile Orion’s Light. There is enough sin in this galaxy already.”

“S-Sorry. But, the plans are set. Casino City will be beautiful to behold.”

“Can you see Orion’s Light from here?”

Monte nodded.

“Show me.”

“The Redeemer’s Will has created a disturbance, adding to the existing explosions and chaos. There is panic in the streets, which has spilled into the casino. Guards and enforcers are delayed.”

He undulated over to the wall with the drawing of Casino City and pushed a button. The picture slid up, revealing a holoscreen. The rock named Orion’s Light floated in the center. “There it is.”

“Some guards and enforcers have made it through and will be here momentarily.”

I could hear the sounds of destruction coming closer. There were a lot of beings causing quite the ruckus. Good.

I set myself between Ciarissa and the door, guns ready. “You will agree to cease all plans for your defilement of Orion’s Light, or I will remove the temptation for you.”

The first of the Diamante Families personnel breached the doorway. I shot him dead, and the three behind him. “Toss your weapons into the room, or I’ll send you all to the fire!”

Some weapons were tossed in. So was a grenade. I picked it up and tossed it back. Because of my size, everyone always underestimated my speed and agility. To their detriment. The explosion was muffled by the bodies. No loss. No one in this den of iniquity would be worth redeeming, other than by blood and fire.

“If any of you still live, send a message to your employers—I will not allow Orion’s Light to be defiled. I will burn this world if you continue trying to extend your sin to others.”

“A few still live, and they are running away. They know who you are, and their terror of you is much more than their terror of what their own masters will do to them. They will share your message.”

I turned back to the Leech. “You will cease all your plans with Orion’s Light.”

“Hardly. Look, Roman, can I call you Roman? Roman, this is a business deal.”

“Burn your contracts before me.”

“They’re in a safe place, Roman. I can’t access them at this precise time. Especially since I think you blew up my storage area.”

This I knew to be a lie. However, there were other ways. “Then prepare to have those contracts declared null and void.”

“No can do, Roman. They’re ironclad.”

I shrugged and looked at Ciarissa. “Then we go with Plan B.”

“Plan B?” Monte asked nervously. “What’s Plan B?”

Ciarissa was concentrating. I could tell by her expression and the look in her eyes.

“You’ll see.” Ciarissa nodded and closed her eyes. I picked her up in my arms. “I will let you live today, Leech, because there is a chance, however slim, that you may be redeemed. But if you try to claim another planet or moon as you have Orion’s Light, I will return and feed you to the fire.”

“Plan B is you leaving?” Monte asked hopefully.

I nodded toward the holoscreen. “That is Plan B.”

Right on cue, Orion’s Light exploded into a million tiny pieces.

“Guards!” Monte screamed. “Guards!”

“They are dead or gone.” I heard the sound of coordinated marching coming closer. The Diamante Families must have gotten themselves in order. “As are all who oppose their Redeemer.”

I strode from the room. Once out of the Leech’s sight, I ran the way we’d come. We reached the trapdoor and were down it quickly, even with my having to carry Ciarissa. We raced down the stairs, her still in my arms, and then down the dark tunnel.

Lily was waiting for us at the fork. “Come this way.” She turned and ran down the leftmost fork, and we followed.

After a long run we slowed to a walk. “I can stand,” Ciarissa said. I put her down and we continued on after Lily.

About an hour later we reached another set of stairs. Lily stopped. “You need to stay here. The Redeemer’s Will has been run off by several Diamante Families cruisers, but it did escape destruction. Wait until dawn, then you can go up. Once there, we will shuttle you to your ship.” She bowed. “Thank you for your help, Roman the Redeemer.” She handed Ciarissa a small bag.

I nodded and she left the way we’d come. Ciarissa and I sat on the steps.

“You should change back,” she said softly.

“To what?”

“To your true self. There will be no shuttle. The Redeemer’s Will is long gone.”

“Get out of my head.”

Ciarissa looked worried. She rummaged through the bag and relief washed over her face. She pulled out a small mirror and handed it to me. “Look at this.”

I did. I looked tired. Leading a resistance took a lot out of a man.

“Your name is Danielle Daniels. Your friends call you DeeDee. You were born on Seraphina and carry part of it within your body and soul. You’re part of the crew of a ship known only to said crew as the Hummingbird. Your life is your own, your loyalty is to those you love and those you serve.”

As I looked and listened to the words in my head, I remembered that she was right. A part of me didn’t want to, but I shifted back into myself. A redheaded woman in a Polliskin who looked tired—but not as tired as the man—stared back at me.

Ciarissa put her arm around my shoulders. “You’re safe to say it aloud.”

“How did you know it?”

“Roy asked me to memorize it in case you ever…forgot…when he wasn’t nearby.”

Staring at the mirror, I repeated the Mantra of Self, and my mind shifted fully back to what it should be. “It was a short shift. It shouldn’t have been this hard to come back.”

“Ah. How well did you know Roman?”

“Why do you assume I knew him?”

“You couldn’t have imitated him so well if you didn’t know him. And…at least a part of you didn’t want to come back from being him.”

I stared at myself. It was so easy to be Roman. He never had any doubts. Even when he was wrong—horribly, terribly, evilly wrong—he never doubted himself, his actions, or his choices. There was a kind of peace in that kind of blind belief. But that was only part of why I hadn’t wanted to come back.

“You’re right. I didn’t want to come back.” I leaned my head against hers. “But I’m happy to be back, so thank you.”

“It’s what friends are for.” Ciarissa hugged me again. “What was he to you?”

“Oh, I guess he was my Longdaddy. In a way, at any rate.”

“Will you tell me about it? One day?”

“Yeah, but only if you tell me about Mister I Advertise.” We sat there for a few minutes in silence. “Roy is a better man than Roman ever was. Because Roy questions his motivations. And because Roy would never kill an innocent intentionally, even if he was trying to prove a point.”

“Just as you wouldn’t. Which is why I fly with the same crew you do. I have my own Mantra of Self. So does Fren. So do all the others. In our own ways.”

“Was anyone hurt?”

“No one innocent. Longdaddy’s people ensured that the civilians were protected and ushered to safety. The bombs blew up areas with no one there. As planned.” She pointedly didn’t mention the grenade and I pointedly didn’t ask about it. Those who worked protection for the Underground and Diamante Families weren’t innocent.

“Good. I want to go home.”

“I as well. Our home is currently waiting for the time just before dawn, when no one is truly alert and it’s very difficult to see well.”

“Did Lily lie about the shuttle?”

“No. There will be a shuttle waiting to take Roman the Redeemer to his ship. Only he will not come and so his legend will grow. Again.”

“How are we going to get off this rock?”

Ciarissa stood up and offered me her hand. “We’re going back the way we came. You won’t need to shift again. The late night shift at the Space Center isn’t manned with the most alert personnel.”

We held hands all the way back. It was good to feel the connection to someone, and I needed it. That Ciarissa knew, too, was a given.

The stairs finally appeared, and we climbed them. We walked out the Employees Only door and wandered through the Zoo. We had a little time to kill. The Zoo was open around the clock, because while Polliwogs had regular sleep schedules, they weren’t against visitors spending their currency the moment their ships docked.

Once we’d stared at the exhibits enough, we left and headed back to the Spillway. I had a moment’s worry that someone would ask us what ship we were going to, but we sailed through without any interest from anyone. Either Longdaddy had a really long reach, Ciarissa was doing something to everyone’s minds, or the staff were as lax as advertised. I decided not to care.

To my pleasant surprise, the Stingray was waiting for us. It looked as if it has just landed.

The ramp lowered and Roy came out. “About time. I hope us leaving you here has taught you two a lesson. You two need to spend less time gambling. You might have been killed in that attack. If we’d waited any longer for you, we might have been blown up.”

Ciarissa looked down. “Sorry, sir.”

I followed suit. “Sorry. We’re okay. We were at the Space Center when it started. We were frightened, so we stayed until it seemed safe and we knew you were back.”

“Oh, just get in. We need to get our samples home as quickly as possible,” Roy snapped.

We trotted inside. Roy closed the ramp, grabbed my hand, and headed us for the cockpit. “Crew, strap in!”

Doven had the engines running, and as soon as Roy was in the captain’s seat, we took off. I almost fell, but Doven reached back, caught me, and helped me into my seat.

We made escape velocity, and after a great deal of Roy and Doven muttering back and forth about the appropriate jumps to take to ensure no one was on our tail, they calibrated and we did the jump.

My stomach turned inside out and over, and shared that if I’d had any food in it, said food would be in the cockpit. “I don’t feel so good.” The extra pressure of hyperspeed was pressing down on me more than normal.

“I knew you wouldn’t,” Roy said. “That’s why we’re going to fly at regular speeds once we come out of this jump. Which will be right about now.”

Sure enough, my stomach flipped again, and then the pressure was gone. We were in the middle of nowhere, space-wise, which sounded just fine right about now.

“You have this?” Roy asked Doven, who nodded. Roy got up, got me out of my seat, and carried me to our room. “You did a lot of work on this one, babe. You could have let us back you up more.”

“No, you did what we needed. I’m just glad the ship wasn’t damaged.”

“Well, if Doven couldn’t do what he does, it would have been a near thing. But the laser shots went wide. We’re good. You look exhausted.” Roy started to get me out of my Polliskin—help I didn’t object to at all.

“Yeah. I feel that way, too. Ciarissa probably does as well.”

“I hope it was all worth it,” Roy said worriedly. “I know you said we were getting paid, but there’s no proof we can trust our ‘employer’ to follow through. Though, thankfully, from what we were able to glean, no one was hurt, other than minor things like cuts and bruises.”

“Trust me, some were hurt.”

He grinned. “Well, no one innocent. I know that a few Diamante enforcers took some damage, at the hands of some Underground enforcers, who also took some damage from the Diamante enforcers.”

“I enjoy a good, especially a fight where everyone getting hit is someone I dislike.” I considered telling Roy about the enforcers I’d killed, but that could lead to questions I wasn’t ready to answer. “But, trust me, we’re getting paid. We know things about our employers they don’t want spread about.”

“Employers plural? I thought we were just getting paid by that Longdaddy guy.”

So Bullfrog hadn’t told Roy who Longdaddy really was. Fair enough. Secrets could destroy, but they could also protect. As long as we got paid, I was willing to protect Longdaddy’s secret. Preserving that secret meant we’d keep him as an ally. I’d learned long ago that you could never have too many allies.

“Employers plural, yeah. We should hear from them shortly.”

“What do you want to do until then?” Roy asked as he helped me into a flight robe.

“Honestly? I’m starving.”

He grinned and picked me up. “Then let me take you to the galley.”

“I love you.” I kissed him deeply, all the way to the galley, which wasn’t nearly long enough.

 

 

Everyone other than Doven was with us in the dining room. Tresia had made up a great breakfast, sandworms included. Ciarissa and I were eating like we’d never seen food before, but no one else was making Tresia doubt her cooking skills either.

“It was dicey,” Willy said, “using Roman the Redeemer.”

“But always effective,” Dr. Wufren countered.

“We needed blame to fall on someone and it had to be someone who wasn’t innocent,” Bullfrog explained. “Can’t think of anyone better than the Redeemer.”

“As long as he doesn’t know we’re impersonating him,” Willy muttered.

I chose not to mention that this particular worry was a moot point, and Ciarissa didn’t add that, either. Another secret, now known by more than just me—Roman the Redeemer was dead. I’d referred to him in the past tense and Ciarissa had noted that slip. But she didn’t know the full truth about Roman or his death. I wasn’t ready to share that with anyone, not even Roy. In some ways, least of all Roy. Roy wouldn’t understand why a part of me still loved Roman, even though I’d had to kill him in cold blood.

Doven’s voice came through the intercom system. “Roy, we just received two coded transmissions, both from Polliworld.”

“What do they say?”

“Not much. One’s just a deposit confirmation for our account on Espen. To the tune of fifty thousand galaxy credits. No depositor is listed.”

There were the usual gasps and whistles. I spent the time eating more sandworms.

So Longdaddy had some serious financial reserves. Good to know. I didn’t figure we’d drained his account, but I did figure he wanted us happy with him in case he needed us again. Plus I was sure he wanted to take care of Ciarissa.

“What’s the other message?” Roy asked.

“Copies of some contracts. I downloaded them to the dining room’s reader.”

Roy got up and looked at the screen on the wall that separated the galley from the dining room. “Huh. These are Monte’s contracts with the Underground and the Diamante Families.” He started to laugh.

“What?” Kyle asked. “Tell us.”

I swallowed my last sandworm. “Longdaddy’s people hacked Monte’s system ages ago, so they’ve seen these contracts…therefore, Bullfrog and I got to see them, too. There are Act of Galaxy, Act of Gods, and Act of Terrorism clauses in those contracts. Should all or part of Orion’s Light be destroyed or so damaged by any of those Acts, then all monies paid are forfeited. In other words, if the Diamante Families paid Monte a million credits for their part of Casino City, since Roman the Redeemer’s people destroyed Orion’s Light, those monies are forfeit. And Monte keeps them.”

“DeeDee’s right,” Roy said. “There’s a ten percent good faith return clause, which means Monte gives them ten percent back and pockets the rest.” He turned around. “We were always part of the scheme, weren’t we?”

“Yeah, I think so. You need three cards to play three card monte, after all. And Monte knows us well.”

“You took a real risk, though, little girl.” Willy looked worried. “Monte knows you shifted into the Redeemer. What if he finds a way to tell the Redeemer about that? Could put the Redeemer after you.” Nice to know that Roman’s boogeyman reputation was alive and well everywhere.

“No,” Ciarissa said. “Monte now believes we call Roman the Redeemer an ally. He also believes the only reason he still lives is because we asked the Redeemer to spare him.”

We all looked at her. She shrugged. “I can talk in anyone’s mind, you know.” She cleared her throat. “I also told him that if we didn’t get twenty percent, then we were going to have to tell the Redeemer that Monte had reneged on his part of the deal.”

“We just got another deposit notice,” Doven shared. “Four hundred thousand credits, yet another anonymous donor.”

“But twenty percent of a million is two hundred thousand,” Roy said.

I finished my drink. “Yes, but Monte had a deal with the Underground, too. Now he can buy out their shares of the casinos as another goodwill gesture. He owns both casinos free and clear and he’s out from under both the Underground and the Diamante Families.”

We all sat there quietly for a few moments. “Well,” Roy said finally, “if we’re going to be used in someone else’s con, at least the payoff was worth it.”

I stood up and stretched. “Truly. Now, I’m really tired. Roy, take me to bed. And, Ciarissa, why don’t you keep Doven company, just in case he’s feeling sleepy.”

She smiled, back to her usual serene demeanor. “Absolutely, DeeDee. Willing to have some company, Doven?” she asked.

“Certainly,” Doven replied. “Turning intercom off now.”

“Good choice,” I said under my breath as Ciarissa headed for the cockpit, and Roy and I headed for the bedroom.

“What?”

I looked up at him. “I said I made a good choice when I met you, Roy.”

He smiled. “Then let me make sure you still think so.”

We went to bed a lot richer in money, knowledge, and secrets. It wasn’t enough to take down the Diamante Families yet, but every successful job got us closer—even jobs we didn’t know we were taking.

Roy slid under the sheet next to me. “Now, babe, let me show you how I play three card monte. I do it a little differently from everyone else.”

True enough, and as with everything else Roy did, it was the best.