‘Yes, aliens,’ Adrana said, like it was old news. ‘They come here. It’s close enough to the dock that they can do business, especially those of them in the banking line. Speaking of aliens, aren’t these clothes beautiful?’

I tore myself away from the Crawly as it shuffled past, trying not to stare at the little whiskery appendages that came in and out of its proboscis. Adrana, unimpressed by the alien, was standing at a shopfront. Behind the glass were mannequins done up in glittery dresses and skirts made of tiny shimmering facets. ‘That’s Rattler skin,’ Adrana said. ‘They discard it. Used to discard it, anyway. Turns up in baubles, sometimes enough of it to make a dress out of. It’s illegal on some worlds – they don’t want to offend the Rattlers if they ever come back.’

‘I don’t think the Rattlers are coming back,’ I said, remembering the bar in the Hall of History. The Rattlers had come and gone during the Fourth Occupation, about nine million years ago, and nothing had been heard of them since.

‘Probably fake anyway,’ Adrana said, with a knowing sniff, as if she had plenty of experience in this area. ‘C’mon. Don’t want to dawdle, not when there’s so much to see. The next one’s a Limb Broker.’

‘A what?’

She raced ahead of me. ‘You’ll see.’

The window of the next shop was full of hands and arms and legs, stuck on velvet plinths or glass brackets or kept in bubbling vats. Some of them were alive and some of them were artificial, made of metal and motors and circuitry.

‘That’s horrible,’ I said, watching as a tin hand opened and closed its fist in slow motion, like it was catching an invisible ball.

‘You wouldn’t say that if you needed a hand. Out on the ships people are always having accidents. More so in the baubles, when doors close on them or something, and they can’t get out quickly enough. They can buy a new one here, if they need one – metal or flesh, doesn’t matter. They can fix them all on.’ Adrana eyed me with lingering disappointment. ‘Doesn’t take much to make you wilt.’

‘Why is it called a broker?’

‘Because that’s what it is. You can sell a limb here too, if you need some quoins in a hurry. Then buy it back at a loss, or let the shop take the profit from a sale.’ But then Adrana stiffened and planted her hand on my sleeve. ‘Paladin.’

‘What?’

‘I just saw Paladin, coming through Dragon Gate.’

‘All right,’ I said, with a shaming relief. ‘We’ve had our fun, haven’t we?’

‘We’ve barely started. Let’s go and hide in that stall. The robot’ll never look in there.’