PANDORA

Chapter 1

I watched the Nīpa's whiskers twitch and forced myself to take deep breaths, so my satisfaction wouldn't show on my face. He wasn't the first Nīpa I'd encountered with that particular tell. Most people never noticed, because the Nīpa's constantly sniffing noses made their whiskers twitch all the time. But this was a different kind of twitch, one I'd picked up on in nearly a decade of lingering in gambling dens. It followed a fast, short rhythm, tick-tick-tick, and made the Nīpa's pointy, rodent-like muzzle wrinkle. "Nīreep," the Nīpa said. His whiskers tick-tick-ticked all the faster. Ante-up, basically. I shifted my Kāchik bag in my hand, letting the stones roll beneath the worn leather as if contemplating. I knew what was in my bag. If this bluff went wrong, I'd have to make a run for it, and this was the last gambling den in the sector that I hadn't thoroughly plundered. I'd have to move, find a new shithole for me and my birds to live in. And I knew at an