At long last, Carter's shuttlebus settled to the spaceport tarmac with a rough jolt, thanks to the brilliantly mediocre flying skills of the pilot. The whine of the magnetic lift declined and faded out altogether and the pilot came over the intercom. In a tired voice that made it clear he had recited this spiel a thousand times before, he intoned, "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Blue Lake, jewel of the Serene continent. Enjoy your stay, and thank you for flying Ogopogo Airlines." The intercom clicked off and the shuttlebus door cracked open.
Having been seated nearest the hatch, Carter was the first off the shuttle. She stepped down the debarkation ladder and onto the surface of the planet and took a deep breath, savoring the fresh air. After being cooped up with squabbling farmers, fishermen and chickens, it was better than ambrosia to her lungs.
She quickly got out of the way as the locals began herding their livestock out of the shuttle, making her way around the back to where the luggage was being offloaded. Picking her duffel out from the pile where it had been carelessly flung by the cargo gorillas, thankful she'd had the foresight to not pack anything breakable, she slung the strap over her shoulder and began the hike towards the terminal building on the tarmac's edge. She briefly wondered what had become of Big Ned and Zeke, but the thought was no more than a passing distraction, and since the two men were nowhere to be seen, it was as quickly forgotten again.
As she walked she looked about -- the scenery was delightfully breathtaking. Nestled beside the placid waters of Blue Lake beside the rugged Cairn Hills, the town of Blue Lake -- at least the portion of it that was visible beyond the terminal building -- was a picture postcard. Small cottages and stores stood in neat rows along tree-lined streets, along which strolled locals and tourists alike. Not visible from her vantage point she knew was Blue Lake itself, a deep, wide, cold inland sea, and the town's many piers and docks thereon. Fishing was a prominent local industry, as was pleasure boating. It was an unlikely place to find the secret hideout of a villainous gang of interstellar brain suckers, (or a lake monster) but look closely at any sample of human civilization and you find evil lurking just beneath the surface.
Carter passed without incident through the small terminal and stepped out into the main street of Lake Town.
Up close, the place had a quaint but somewhat shabbier atmosphere about it than it had seemed from the distance of the spaceport. The street was dusty, and the footfalls of the many pedestrians and the wakes of wheeled vehicles threw up clouds of dust that hung in the still afternoon air. Still, it wasn't an unpleasant place, and most of the pedestrians looked like tourists happily going about the business of window shopping, while vendors loudly hawked their wares from sidewalk stands and carts.
Most of the buildings that lined the street were two stories tall above awning-covered sidewalks, the only exception being the particular establishment Carter happened to be looking for. The Ogopogo Inn was where West had told her to meet him if she decided to trust him, and there it towered, a full three stories high, a block to her right. A massive red brick building complete with requisite awning, it was clearly demarked by the gaily-painted sign of a grinning, serpent-shaped lake monster hoisting a tankard of ale above stylized lettering proclaiming that this was indeed the 'Ogopogo Inn'.
Carter hastened off, if only to get out of the hot, midday sun; she had no real desire to see West again. In her opinion, he was a necessary evil, a means to an end. As she approached the Inn, she recognized the lanky figure sprawled lazily in a cheap, plastic chair on the front porch under the awning. It was West. He, along with three other disreputable-looking beings, two porcine Tellarites and a disheveled, blue-skinned Andorian with a bent antenna, were squared off against each other across a lopsided card table. The three aliens were guarding hands of greasy, oval playing cards close to their faces, looking suspiciously across the table at the others through squinted eyes. West, on the other hand, was the very picture of sly confidence. He held his cards loosely, and wasn't even looking at them. Carter assumed that the aliens weren't very adept at reading human body language and facial expressions or else they would never have gotten into a card game with this scoundrel.
When West saw Carter walk up, he broke into a lopsided grin and offered a casual greeting. "Hi," he said, and looking her once up and down, commented, "You look nice," before returning his attention to the game.
Carter replied with a small, insincere smile of her own. She tried to discern the cause for West's self-assurance. He's probably cheating, she concluded to herself mordantly.
West was eyeing each of his opponents in turn, gauging how much he'd be likely to get away with. Still without having bothered to look at his cards, he used his free hand to shove all the rest of his latinum strips into the not-small pile in the center of the table. One of the Tellarites and the Andorian cursed under their breath and folded, throwing their cards down in disgust. Addressing the remaining Tellarite, West said, "All right, Pog, I'm calling your bluff. Let's see your cards."
Pog grinned ferociously, making his pudgy snout curl upward even more than usual, confident in the strength of his hand, and slapped his cards down on the table. "Sralk, human!" he crowed. "I win!" He started reaching for the pile of latinum.
"Not so fast, bub!" countered West. He made a big production of turning his own cards face up so Pog and the others could see. As far as Carter could tell from her vantage point, he had five unmatched cards, but she doubted that would deter him.
"Fizzbin!" said West triumphantly, reaching for the pile of money himself.
Unfortunately for West, Pog was not about to be that easily beaten. In a display of the famous Tellarite temper, he smashed his hairy paw down on the tabletop so hard that some of the latinum jumped and rattled clear off the surface and onto the dusty sidewalk in a noisy clatter. Pointing to West's cards, he growled, "That is not a fizzbin! That is not even a half-fizzbin! That is nothing!"
West regarded him with a look of such long-suffering patience that the poor Tellarite actually cringed. "How many times do I have to explain the rules to you boys before you get it?" he asked tiredly. "You're forgetting that today is, uh" --he quickly shot a glance at his wristwatch-- "Thursday. On Thursday kronks are wild, right?" The Tellarites looked at each other hesitantly and nodded tentatively. West wasn't giving them time to think about it though; he pressed on. "And since today is Thursday and" --he quickly looked at the sky-- "mostly sunny with a few scattered clouds, 7's and 5's are kronks, spades are clubs and vice versa, and even-numbered cards get one added to their value unless the sum is divisible by three, in which case you add 11 and take the square root, and before you know it, you have a fizzbin!" He began gathering the latinum again while the Tellarites were occupied arguing about the 'rules'.
"You're lucky," he commented offhandedly as he stuffed his pockets with his ill-gotten booty. "If today was Friday I would have had an Electric Boogaloo and you'd all be my indentured servants now!" but his audience wasn't really listening, being too preoccupied with their debate. When his pockets were full he started handing the leftover latinum to Carter. Startled and at a loss for anything else to do, she mutely accepted the loot and began filling her own pockets.
When the table was almost bare of everything except the scattered playing cards, West stood and backed slowly away. The Tellarites and Andorian were still arguing amongst themselves and weren't paying nearly enough attention to the fact that their money was about to make a clean getaway. West said amiably, so as not to disturb them, "Thank you, gentlemen, for a most enjoyable game. We'll have to do this again sometime." Then, grabbing Carter's elbow, yanked her after him as he ducked around the side of the Ogopogo Inn.
The aliens finally decided that they still didn't understand the rules and wanted to ask West to explain them one more time, but it was too late -- West was gone.
West and Carter ran for a few blocks, but when it was clear that no one was chasing them, they slowed and stopped beside what looked (and smelled) like a small bait-&-tackle shop. Now that she had the chance, Carter dug the latinum strips out of her pockets and dumped them back into West's arms. "Are you nuts?" she berated angrily. "Cheating those poor people out of all this money?"
West looked at her crossly for a moment, but then proceeded to begin shuffling the latinum into order and counting it. "In the first place," he explained reasonably, "those guys weren't 'poor' -- just stupid. In the second place, this is mostly just small change." He'd finished counting and was clearly disappointed that it wasn't more. "Well," he sighed at last, cheering up as he hefted the wad of money, "at least this means we won't have to sneak out of the hotel tonight!"
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