Chronicles of a Space Mercenary

The lizard behind the bar gave me an inscrutable look as I came up to it.  Most of the lizard races were incapable of facial expression.  They simply did not have any facial muscles at all, other than their jaws.  Their jaws were always well muscled.  Lizards invariably communicated their feelings amongst their own kind through phenomenal release, which I of course could not detect.  Coto could, however, and I had but to watch him to know what the lizards around me were thinking.  Lizards could be tough inscrutable poker opponents sometimes, but their body language wasn’t as unreadable as their facial expressions, and there was usually some tell which gave them away, if you studied them long enough, and I could read body language like a book.  This lizard’s face may have been giving nothing away, but its body language was saying it would be happy to take my custom.  All sentient races loved money, as well, without fail.  The lizard unclipped an auto-translator from its belt, a thin little palm sized job that was mostly display screen, and held it out for me to speak into.