They left in the early morning with only a minute remaining on the hotel clock. Neb wondered what would happen if they overstayed the timer, but didn’t bother asking Ver or Milletson. Their Game clock read just over nineteen hours remaining. Neb felt another tweak of stress in his stomach, but that organ was already pretty much maxed on how much discomfort it could express.

He and Anna said good morning cordially then did not look at each other again. The proper functioning of the team was infinitely more important than their disagreements, and he tried to focus on that. But emotions were emotions. And Mallory seemed full of the joys. It had been stupid to get tangled up with her, he told himself, but it was over now.

For all the discussion and thinking and planning the team had done for the approach to the new military base, the final plan was essentially to get close enough to see it and decide what to do from there. They traveled back along the road they had taken the previous day, passing the point where they had first joined it on the track down from the mountaintop, and marched in near-silence until the line of the Circle wall was ahead of them in the near distance. The new base was just two kilometers short of the wall, and they were able to observe it from the safety of a low wooded hill about a kilometer away. They took turns examining it using Gray’s scope. Gray met Neb’s eyes when she handed him the scope, and the thought arose in him as if transmitted telepathically: She knows I feel betrayed by Anna.

But he had plenty to distract himself with. The new base looked nothing like the previous one -- it was surrounded by a high stone wall which had been raised even higher with improvised extensions of rough metal and wood. Around it ran a thin stream of water, and there was a single arched entryway accessed by a wooden bridge over the stream. On either side of the base were two high square towers, built out of the same huge chunks of stone as the surrounding wall. They looked very old.

‘Doesn’t look like a base,’ Malloy said when he had his turn with the scope. ‘It looks like a castle that’s been turned into a town.’

They watched for another hour or so. Various people came and went through the arched entrance, and most of them looked more like farmers and workers and merchants rather than soldiers.

‘So can we just walk up to it, or what?’ Meathead asked, voicing the question they were all thinking. ‘Is it an open town?’

Buzz was scanning the walls and defenses minutely with the scope. There were figures doing patrols on the upper levels who were clearly armed, and two soldiers by the gate.

‘I fucking hope it’s open,’ the commander said, ‘because we’re not fighting our way in with the weaponry we have.’

Even though it was clear they just needed to just walk over there and find out if they could enter or not, they still spent a long time looking for alternatives, to Neb’s irritation. Approaching politely and non-threateningly just wasn’t in the DNA of these people, he thought. Even Anna tried to conjure up a stealth-based approach, and Gray said that using her new sniper targeting skill she could take out at least five of the wall guards. But sanity prevailed eventually.

‘All right, goddammit,’ Buzz said, when every other option had been discussed. ‘We walk in. Doc, Meathead -- you up for it?’

‘Yes sir,’ they said. It had already been discussed at length that the two of them represented the right levels of both threatening and non-threatening, depending on what the situation called for. They were bringing the various weapons they had gathered in the courtyard of the first base in the hopes they could trade them for something more useful.

‘You’ve got three hours,’ Buzz said. ‘If it’s a trap, make sure to get some shots off. Good luck, gentlemen.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ they said, and set off.

They settled into an easy rhythm, alert but relaxed. Neb was slowly learning how to get into that state, aware of everything around him but his mind not running unsustainably fast.

‘Do you think they could even hear gunfire back there?’ Neb asked Meathead as they walked. ‘If we were ambushed in the castle, I mean. Those walls are going to dampen the sound.’

‘Don’t you worry about that, Doc,’ Meathead said. He pulled a long reddish-brown weapon from his inventory and showed it to Neb. It had two large barrels side by side, and was elaborately decorated with circles and curlicues. ‘This is a Sirian goose-cannon,’ he continued. ‘The name’s based on a mistranslation, but it stuck. I found it at the military base. Pretty rare item. It fires a kinetic warp-magnifying round, kind of like a little starship engine, but with a lot less control. I only found one round with it, but this thing is so fucking loud that they’ll hear it on Circle Two if we fire it.’

‘I see,’ Neb said.

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The road swung slightly north until they were on a straight approach to the castle gate. On Neb’s suggestion, and to Meathead’s slight reluctance, they didn’t carry any weapons as they approached, though Neb’s sword remained on his back. As they got closer they saw that the people coming and going were from many different civs. Neb examined a few in his overlay, but the message for each only read: A citizen of Edgetown. We’re all friends here.

Neb could see how twitchy Meathead was getting. He’d be much happier coming in all guns blazing, Neb knew. They were close enough now to see that the soldiers of the town carried Main rifles and pistols.

One of the guards stepped forward as they reached the entrance. Neb didn’t recognise his civ -- it was similar to human but with everything scaled to be slightly smaller and squatter, perhaps intended for a more intense gravity. The soldier kept one hand on his rifle. He was not smiling, but he was not overtly hostile, either. By Earth military standards, Neb thought, he was positively friendly.

‘Strangers,’ he said. ‘What brings you to Edgetown?’

Neb almost snorted when he realized that of all the scenarios they had planned for, a friendly greeting was not amongst them. He could sense Meathead was at a loss, and it took Neb a moment or two to come up with something to say.

‘We’re here to trade,’ Neb answered after a beat. ‘We’ve heard good things about your town.’

If the guard sensed their hesitation he did not show it. ‘That may be possible,’ he said. ‘Do you agree of your own free will to forgo the use of weapons in Edgetown?’

Meathead and Neb glanced at each other. Meathead shrugged.

‘We do,’ Neb said to the guard. He felt the words were a lie. But then a notification appeared in his overlay: Use of weapons disabled in Edgetown. Just like in a safehouse, their guns were no longer usable. Uh oh. He hadn’t been expecting that. But if Meathead was worried, he didn’t show it.

‘Enjoy your time here,’ the Edgetown soldier said, stepping back.

‘Thanks,’ Neb said, reflexively. He was getting a strange cognitive dissonance, as if he was entering a shopping mall back on Earth.

They came out into a large central courtyard where a market was in full swing. Neb saw a profusion of civs mingling there -- humanoid, quadroid, crustacean and other base-shape beings from dozens of civilisations, a hundred or more. A huge scorpion-like creature moved slowly through the crowd, far larger and heavier than the scorps the humans had fought, and people moved aside to let it pass. A creature with eight tentacles and an ill-defined head was speaking with the aid of a hovering machine to the proprietor of one of the market stalls. The stall owner was somewhat human-like but about three meters tall, with brown and gray patches on his skin that readjusted to light and shadow. There were dozens of stalls of varying sizes, selling food, clothing, equipment, armor, tools, jewelry and much else. In one corner there was even a range of vehicles. Everything was for sale, Neb thought, except the one thing he had most expected to see: weapons.

He was just about to say this to Meathead, and had touched the big man’s arm to get his attention, when he stopped dead. Right in front of them at the entrance to the market square were ten or more of the green and orange goblins.

In the center of the group was their leader, the one who had thrown the humans the funerary knife and set their cage on fire. He was missing his right arm from above the elbow, and Neb had a sudden image of a lowcrawler biting it off in a spray of blood. Even the orbs could not regrow missing limbs, it seemed. The goblin green face was almost neutral in its expression except for the eyes, which were the picture of hate. Neb checked him on the overlay, something he hadn’t had a chance to do in their previous encounters, and the description read: Mrax. Vilitin commander, Level 6.

Meathead had clearly also just scanned him. ‘Looks like you got a little problem with your arm, there, Max,’ he called out, intentionally mispronouncing the name. Neb smiled, trying not to show his fear.

Everyone was preternaturally still. Neb looked from one goblin face to the other. They all looked extremely strong, almost animal-like, and yet there was fierce intelligence in their eyes.

‘I’ll teach you my proper name in time, human filth,’ Mrax answered, his teeth barely parting as he spoke, huge chest rising and falling. ‘You will use it to beg for death.’ Other creatures at the market were moving out of the way. Hope the weapons limitation holds for everyone, Neb thought. But what about physical combat? Maybe there were no rules for that. There were eleven of the goblins and just two humans. And probably there were more goblins out of sight elsewhere in the market.

‘You’re missing a few folks, looks like,’ Meathead said, looking around. He did not show a trace of fear. And Neb knew him well enough to know he wasn’t hiding anything. Meathead felt only anticipation. ‘A few cousins, maybe,’ the big man continued. ‘Didn’t make it out of the zoo, I guess?’

This insult landed. There were growlings and murmurings of anger, some shufflings forward. A wide space had formed around the humans and goblins. There was no sign of any of the human-like guards.

‘Just two of you here,’ Mrax answered, his lips curling off his teeth. ‘Wonder where the others are. Nearby, I’m willing to bet. Outside.’

Uh oh. Was this all somehow a trap? Neb desperately wanted to turn and run, but Meathead was completely calm.

‘Two’s all we need,’ Meathead replied. ‘And don’t feel bad about your friends -- at least they died giving the lowcrawlers a good meal.’

That was too much. The goblins charged as one. The speed of their movement was incredible, Neb thought in the instant he had to consider it, from stationary to full flight in just a fraction of a second. The funerary knife was in Mrax’s hand and he slammed it down on Meathead’s chest with a snarl. Meathead was not fast enough to even raise his arms in self-defense.