Mrax struck like a snake, his movement compressed into an impossibly small amount of time. But his blow did not land. The tip of the knife stopped a centimeter from Meathead’s chest, as if it had plunged into some invisible field that had brought it to a total stop.

‘Oh fuck!’ Neb gasped, automatically trying to pull his rifle from his inventory, and finding it was labeled ‘Disabled’, then reaching for his sidearm only to find the same message there.

Mrax was frozen in place, and the expression on his face was like a sculpture of the worst possible emotions. Neb could not take his eyes off the blade in his hand. Then Neb turned and almost yelped when he saw two more goblins frozen in the act of attacking him. They too were mere centimeters from landing their killing blows. The entire group of goblins had blades or blunt force weapons in their hands, but all of them had been frozen.

‘Strangers,’ said a voice from behind the humans. They turned to see the guard from the entrance. He looked at them impassively, as if judging them. ‘These creatures attacked when we asked them not to, and for that they will spend time in our cells.’ As he spoke more guards were appearing, and when the guards touched the goblins they loosened up from whatever force was holding them in position, but remained unconscious. They were hauled away by a guard on either side, feet dragging along the ground.

‘However you are not blameless in this sad event,’ the guard continued to Neb and Meathead. ‘We ask again -- what business have you in Edgetown?’

‘We seek only to trade,’ Neb answered, and he could hear the shakiness in his voice as much as he tried to hide it. ‘We did not seek a fight.’

‘Well that could be debated,’ the guard replied. ‘What do you have to trade? We ask that you complete your business and leave our town.’

Neb hesitated, but Meathead answered. ‘We have weapons,’ he said.

There was a long pause while the guard just looked at them. Finally he said: ‘Wait.’

He moved away a few steps and conversed quietly with another guard. They spoke for what felt to Neb like a worryingly long time. All of the goblins were taken away as he and Meathead waited, and Neb wondered what the cells of Edgetown were like. Probably pretty grim, it was safe to assume, especially if they were part of the original castle.

At last the lead guard came back to them. His demeanor had become even more unfriendly.

‘We do not like the trade of weapons in Edgetown,’ he said coldly. ‘However, we have decided in this one instance that we will review what you have.’

‘Thank you,’ Neb said, with a small bow.

They followed the guard deeper into the castle. The bustling market had already returned to normal. Neb and Meathead were flanked on either side by guards, but they kept their distance. Neb tried to take in as much of the detail of the market as he could, but there was just too much happening to get more than an impression of it, an overload of people and goods and movement and sound. They went through a small door in the northern tower, then down a narrow spiral staircase. It was a tight squeeze for Meathead, who had to bend and shuffle sideways down the steep, uneven stairs.

They came out into a room that was much larger than Neb had expected, and not at all what he had pictured. Rather than the ancient, crumbling stone of the castle above, the walls and floor were made of the quasi-metallic Main construction material. The contrast of the stone stairs meeting the futuristic material was jarring. At the back of the room were three huge old-fashioned safes, each taller and broader than Meathead, made of black metal, with brass fittings. In front of the safes was a long table with two chairs on one side and a single, more comfortable, chair on the other. In the single chair sat an older near-human man with neat gray hair that still held a trace of black. He was from the same civ as the guards, Neb guessed, but maybe with some other blood in his heritage. He looked fit and strong and in command. The guards who escorted Neb and Meathead arranged themselves quietly along the walls. Everything had the feeling of an event that had happened many times before. Neb got the sense this weapon trade was more regular than perhaps the lead guard understood.

‘Welcome,’ the man said. ‘I am Favian. Please, have a seat.’ He gestured, and they sat on the two chairs. Meathead’s chair creaked under his weight but held. ‘Now at your convenience,’ Favian continued. ‘Please show me what you have.’

They stacked everything on the table that they had taken from the first base -- a range of pistols, rifles, shotguns, swords, machetes, axes, bits of armor, ammo, magazines, holsters and other paraphernalia. It all looked to Neb a little Main-like, and yet it had been washed through countless generations of a local civilisation. It was an open secret on Earth that humans had been reverse engineering Main tech for hundreds of years, but with all these weapons laid out in front of them, it was clear that every civ was doing it. It was unsettling -- were all the civs just living in the Main’s shadow, running obediently down the paths the Main had laid out for them eons before? The thought took root in Neb’s mind, making him feel uneasy.

The last thing Meathead put on the table was the goose cannon, and Neb saw the sudden gleam in Favian’s eyes.

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‘Oh my apologies,’ Meathead said, reacting at once. ‘That’s not actually for sale.’ Meathead glanced at Neb and dropped a hint of a wink as he put it back in his inventory. Favian didn’t say anything. He had recovered his composure almost instantly, but the lapse had been enough to show his hand.

Various guards and officials and Favian himself examined the weapons as Neb and Meathead waited. Finally one of the guards presented Favian with a sheet of paper containing a long list. Favian looked it over carefully, then turned it around and slid it across the table to Meathead and Neb.

‘Our offer,’ Favian said.

The total was over 10,000 credits. The two humans glanced at each other.

‘We may also be interested in buying,’ Meathead said.

Favian smiled. ‘Of course,’ he answered. ‘What did you have in mind?’

The store carried a wide range of merchandise, all of it described on neat sheets of paper which Favian pulled from the drawers in his desk. But in trying to support so many weapons systems from so many civilisations, stocks of any one thing were limited. Favian had some ammo that was compatible with their rifles, and twenty rounds of thumper ammunition, but that was it. He had nothing for the SPUR, to Meathead’s disappointment. They settled on 1,000 credits for everything, which Neb felt was probably not a great deal -- they seemed to be buying much less than a tenth of what they had sold. But that wasn’t the real point of any of this.

Neb was just wondering how to bring up the ultrafusion device, when Favian said: ‘You do have one more item I am interested in.’

Meathead raised his eyebrows. ‘What item is that?’

Favian looked to Neb, and said: ‘Your sword. A sawfish item, if I am not mistaken. Would you permit me to examine it?’

‘Of course,’ Neb said. He glanced at Meathead. Was this a distraction, part of a play to get the goose cannon? Neb stood and drew the sword from the scabbard on his back. The weapon made an ominous sliding metal-on-metal sound, the white line of the blade’s edge bright in the dim room. The various guards in the room stiffened, getting ready for action. But Neb just laid it carefully on the table.

‘A sawfish commander’s blade,’ Favian said softly. ‘Quite rare, Doctor, as I’m sure you know.’ He picked it up and examined it with a specialist’s eye. ‘The sawfish had a near-extinction-level asteroid impact in their middle history,’ he continued, ‘leading to their semi-aquatic evolution. In the modern era a select number of blades are made each year from the asteroid’s metal, in remembrance of times past. I doubt there are very many outside sawfish hands. In fact, I suspect this is the only one.’ He turned it in his hands carefully, examining every detail minutely. ‘Would you consider parting with it?’

‘Well,’ said Neb, looking to Meathead as if he could communicate with him telepathically. ‘As you can imagine, I went through some difficult circumstances to obtain this weapon.’ He didn’t let the images arise in his mind. He needed to focus.

‘Of course,’ Favian murmured. ‘I can only imagine.’

‘However,’ Neb continued. ‘There is another item I am interested in. Also very rare. But perhaps you may know something of it.’

The atmosphere of the room deepened. ‘Perhaps,’ Favian said carefully. ‘What is it you seek?’

‘An ultrafusion weapon,’ Neb said quietly.

The words hung. The room was completely silent.

‘Ah,’ Favian said. ‘Very rare indeed. Very hard to come by.’

‘I can only imagine,’ Neb answered with a little smile.

There was a long silence. At last Favian said: ‘I may have some information. But even information on such a thing is very expensive.’

‘Good information often is,’ Neb replied. Every previous hint of this being a routine transaction was now forgotten. Neb ran the tip of his finger down the sawfish sword where it sat on the desk, tracking the delicate paths of solid metal amongst the negative space of the holes and arcs. The sword was an evil thing, but he found he was very reluctant to be parted from it.

‘A moment, please,’ Favian said. He stood and left the room. No-one spoke. The guards along the walls stood stiffly, watching the humans as if they suspected trickery at any moment. Finally Favian returned, and took his seat again. He edged his chair forward, and placed his hands on the table.

‘In return for the sword and the goose cannon,’ he said, ‘we will provide information about an ultrafusion weapon.’

There were some sharp intakes of breath in the room, and some murmurs that were clearly disapproval.

Neb looked to Meathead, who nodded.

Meathead put the goose canon on the table beside the sawfish sword. Neb hesitated. Again he felt a tug of longing for the sword. He thought of his fight with the sawfish, the feeling of having his bones broken for fun, and of what he had done to the creature in return. His eyes closed momentarily. He had earned that fucking sword, dammit. But there was no other option. He took his fingers away from it, and laid the scabbard beside it.

‘We accept,’ he said.

Favian bowed, hands together. ‘A momentous day,’ he said. He looked around at all those assembled. ‘We’ll need the room.’

The guards filed out, some with curious looks, some disapproving. The lead guard took the sword and the goose cannon with him, and Neb watched the sword until he couldn’t see it any longer. Then they were alone with Favian.

Favian sat silently for a long moment, as if perhaps giving himself one last chance to change his mind. But then he stood and went to the middle safe at the back of the room. He twisted the combination lock left and right, blocking them with his body from seeing the number sequence, and turned the handle. The safe unlocked with a metallic thump.

He opened the door slowly. Sitting on a metal shelf in the center of the tall space was the squat quasi-metallic case of an ultrafusion device. It was identical to the empty case they had seen on the destroyed truck at the ambush site.

‘Not many people even know about these,’ Favian said. ‘Fewer still have seen one.’

Neb tried to keep himself calm.

‘What would it take to acquire it?’ he asked. ‘What would be the price?

‘A thing like this,’ Favian answered slowly, ‘can’t be bought with money.’