The Royal Scam (The Martian Alliance) Read Online Free

“He can be so…protective.”
    The cashier looked as well. He was about half the other Arachnidan’s size. “Ah. I would not want to upset a joyfully mated pair.” He slid my money to me quickly.
    “Oh.” I did my best to sound disappointed. “Well, thank you for the compliment. Good day.” I took the money and herky-jerked my way over to the big guy. I sidled up next to him. “Hey, can I get a kiss for luck?”
    He grinned, tossed the dice, put down one drink, and wrapped that arm around me, bent me back, and planted one. Fortunately, we kissed without tongues involved, mostly because I kept my lips clamped shut. I’d had to kiss an Arachnidan romantically in the past. If you think eight limbs is odd, try three separate tongues, two of which are very sticky.
    “Winner!” the dealer shouted.
    My “mate” was happily distracted by this. “Heading to an Easy Eights table,” I said, pretty much to no one. He nodded, his focus back on the dice. I wandered off, confident he’d never remember me and that the cashier would be doing his best to forget me.
    A big clutch of a wide variety of beings stood around the Easy Eights section. I mingled into a group that had several Arachnidans taller than me. A dark alcove was nearby—very small, but large enough for what I needed.
    I stepped into the alcove, altered the cloak’s color just slightly, and went to Earther form. I pulled the cloak around me now, ensured the hood was up, moved back through the crowd, and left the casino. No one followed me; no one tried to stop me.
    Headed to the next casino on the list and did the process all over again. Over the course of the next twelve hours, I shifted from one look to another. This kind of shifting was easy and didn’t need the same dedication a full impersonation required. Men, women, humanoids—I covered all the major planets and all the major races. No bet paid out higher than ten thousand credits. I hit the Joint early, lest I disappoint Dr. Wufren, and added his old winnings to our new haul.
    The biggest risk we had was conversion. Planetary money is fine, and space credits are nice, but nothing travels like precious gemstones. The Andromeda Royal Family understood this well, but Roulette’s goal wasn’t to send you home rich beyond your wildest dreams. Theirs was to have you give all your winnings back and then some.
    The risk with conversion was that the only one of our crew who could determine real from fake was Bullfrog, and it was hard to hide a Polliwog anywhere or anytime, unless you were actually on Polliworld itself.
    So, I gathered payouts and slipped them to Roy. Roy handed them off to Bullfrog, who made conversions in almost as many places as Roy, and the crew had placed our bets. Difference was, while I got a variety of small payouts, Bullfrog collected a larger amount before he went to make the trades. His cover—as a runner for the Polliworld Underground—seemed to work well. No one liked to run afoul of organized crime from any planet.
    Twelve hours is a long time, and we allowed ourselves a couple of breaks. But the faster we could collect and convert, the faster we could get off this particular rock and head somewhere safer. No extradition on Roulette didn’t mean no prisons.
    Roulette’s prisons were nasty and even though I’d gotten out, I didn’t want to press my luck and go back. Ever. Sure it had been a long time ago. Sure Roy had rescued me. Sure the entire situation had ended up changing my life in a good way. I still didn’t want to make a return visit. Call me unadventurous.
    We were almost done. Roy, Bullfrog, and I sat together at a small café, comparing experiences, tallying payouts and conversion rates, and ensuring our plan was still working. The news feed blathered on about Princess Olivia’s “death.” I hoped she was okay. I always tried not to get truly attached to any of our clients or marks, but working with Andromeda so often made it difficult, at least in the