“Excuse me, how much for that one?” She looked up at the shopkeeper and pointed through the smeared glass.

The Callite booth attendant bent down behind the counter to see which one she was pointing to. He rubbed his brown, scaly jaw, and a forked tongue flicked out over his lips. “Three hundred,” he said in a gruff voice not yet accented by his time on Lok. “And, of course, a vote for the Freedom Party.”

Molly groaned and clenched her fists protectively. Beside her, the Wadi pulled its head back and shot out a forked tongue of its own. It wasn’t that Molly had anything against the Freedom Party—she didn’t care one way or the other about Lokian politics—she was just sick and tired of being polled in general.

“How much if I don’t vote?” she asked.

Through the glass, she could see the shopkeeper’s eyes narrow, his pupils squeezing into vertical slits. He stood and peered over the counter at her. “It’s the elections,” he said. “Everyone votes.”

Molly held up her hands, palms out, to show him her fingers. “I’ve already voted dozens of times. I’ll give you three-fifty for it.”

“The Freedom Party really needs your vote,” the shopkeeper whispered. His English was impeccable, obviously learned in an off-planet school and at a young age, nothing at all like the drawling slang common to Lokians and local Callites. He narrowed his eyes at her silence, the sideways lids coming together like elevator doors. “Don’t you care about what’s going on up there?” He pointed up to the tattered fabric roof of his stall. “The Navy is putting together a new fleet, disguised as aliens. The Liberty Party is behind it all.”

Molly shook her head but kept her mouth shut.

“What about my people?” the Callite asked, moving to a sales tactic Molly had heard too often. “Every day more and more are shipped out—”

“Only the illegals,” Molly interrupted, unable to contain herself. She looked down at the reader behind the glass, wondering if it was worth getting in an argument over.

“But now those shuttles are being shot down. My people are being daily murdered, and you hesitate to vote.”

“I’ve voted plenty,” she said.

The Callite hissed. “For all I know, half those marks on you are for the Liberty Party. The least you can do is cancel one out. And I’ll make it two-fifty.”

Molly blew out her cheeks. “Four hundred and no vote,” she said. “I promise you, I’ve voted Freedom twice as much as Liberty.”

A mother trailing three squealing kids approached, stopping for a moment to look in the shop’s display case. Molly and the Callite stared at one another, waiting for the family to move on.

“Fine,” he finally said, his pupils relaxing. “Do me a favor, though—” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Stick your finger in and pretend, just in case anyone’s watching. I can’t have you making this a trend.”