Read Daisy Wong, Space Marshal: The Case of the Runaway Concubine for Free Online Page A

look.  "I see what
you mean," he said, and led them back into the heart of the suite.
    "How is she?" Daisy asked.  "Motherhood agreeing
with her?"
    "She's happier than I've ever seen her."
    "How about Snakeskin?"
    "Excited.  Pissed off with us.  He wants to see his
baby.  It's a boy, by the way.  He's already making up excuses for why she took
a powder like she did."
    "He has to know better."
    "Deep down where it counts, maybe; but not up top where
he's making his decisions."
    "We're doing our jobs," Daisy said.  "That's
why the man's paying us, isn't it?"
    "Hell, Daiz, you'd do it for free."
    "I am assuredly believing that you are correct, Mr.
Fingers," Muffy said.
    "Nah, I'm not Mr. Fingers.  You don't get it.  My
family name isn't Fingers."  He held up his hand, displaying the stubs
where two of his fingers were missing.  "Jimmy Fingers is a nickname,
see?"
    Muffy blushed and nodded that she most certainly did now understand.
    In the anteroom they found the two gunsels clustered around
Meizhen and the baby.  The gunsels were cooing and making nonsense noises at
the baby, which was wrapped in a powder-blue blanket.
    Meizhen grinned like a hog in a full corncrib.
    The air in the room smelled like her perfume, like her baby,
like the men's aftershave, and like their freshly pressed suits.  It smelled
like death.
    Daisy's first thought was to gun the bitch down, but she had
no way to prove her suspicions, only a chain of suspicious circumstances.  Daisy
couldn't even prove that Meizhen had murdered Ray Gilmore.
    The best Daisy could hope for now was to keep her uncle
alive and to gull Meizhen into revealing her guilt.
    Daisy screwed her face up into a happy smile and stepped
forward to have a look at her newest bouncing baby cousin.
    The introductions were made, and Bitsy and Ralph, two of the
largest men Daisy had ever seen, stood off to one side.
    Daisy renewed her shit-eating grin and looked down at the
baby.
    Meizhen folded back the blanket.  "Here," she said
breathlessly.  "Isn't he beautiful?"
    Daisy had a hard time keeping her grin in place.
    Tiny scales covered the baby's body.  They were brown and
yellow, and rather than the random field one might have expected, they formed sharp-edged
rings, swirls, and stripes.
    "The doctors at the Willamette Genetics Foundry told me
his colors will intensify over the next few months," Meizhen said proudly. 
"By the time he's walking, he'll look just like Snakeskin.  He'll have his
own patterns but the same vibrant colors.  Father and son.  Isn't it wonderful?"
    Snake scales on a human baby.  What else would develop? 
Fangs, poison sacks, a tail with a built-in rattle?
    Muffy said, "Oh, but he is so cute."
    The baby gurgled and opened his eyes wide.
    Daisy and Muffy both gasped.  The baby's eyes had vertical
pupils, like a snake's.
    Daisy shuddered.
    The baby opened his mouth in a big reptilian smile.  There
were no teeth, not yet, but the structures where his fangs would come in were
plain enough.
    "I don't mean to be rude," Daisy said to Meizhen,
"but why did you run away?"
    Meizhen blushed.  "Poor Dr. Lopez was clearly in over
his head.  I looked around and figured the people at Willamette could intervene
and save our darling baby."
    "Why didn't you tell Snakeskin you were pregnant?"
    "I wanted to protect him from the disappointment of a
third miscarriage."
    "How thoughtful of you," Daisy said.  "Did
you enjoy your stay on New Ganges?  I've heard so much about it."
    "What a lot of questions you have," Meizhen said. 
She was graciousness personified.  "I'll gladly tell you about it, but
later.  Right now, Snakeskin's son and I have come to reunite our family. 
That's what matters most.  Wouldn't you agree?"
    The woman was unbelievable.  Daisy couldn't begin to square
the buttery, sweet, oh-so-maternal, oh-so-cooperative Meizhen standing in front
of her with the Meizhen who'd intimidated Snakeskin's household, who'd endured
two miscarriages and had