The Excalibur Alternative

-XII-

Quentin Mugabi had never imagined such a warship. Unlike the flattened ovoid shape of the Federation's Ogres, this vessel was an almost perfect sphere, fourteen miles in diameter, more like a moon than anything Mugabi would have called a ship. As his cutter approached it, he'd watched domes, engine pods, and weapons housings swell across its surface, but the sheer size of the ship had prevented his emotions from truly recognizing and accepting their mountain-range height and ruggedness. It was only now, as the cutter passed along the flank of a drive housing larger than a Solarian Navy heavy cruiser at a range of barely a quarter-mile, that the true enormity of the ship came home to him.

Yet the size of the vessel was the least of the impossibilities his battered brain found itself compelled to deal with. He was honest enough with himself to admit that he was still in a state of semi-shock from the incredible violence and speed with which Lach'heranu's entire squadron had been destroyed. Not to mention his sheer astonishment that any of the ships under his command were still alive! No doubt that had a great deal to do with his sense that the entire universe was just slightly out of focus. But the appearance of a Ternaui as the spokesman for this "Avalon Empire," was just as stunning in its own way. Mugabi had requested a records search while his cutter prepared for this voyage, and the search had confirmed his own memory. The Galactic archives which had been penetrated by the human intelligence services contained any number of accounts of Ternaui bodyguards dying in defense of Galactic owners. So far as any information available to ONI was concerned, however, there was not a single record of any Ternaui turning upon the Galactics. Not one, in over twelve centuries of servitude.

So how had the most utterly reliable race of bodyguards in Galactic history wound up somehow managing to build what had to be an astonishingly powerful empire, judging by the size and power of its warships, without the Federation ever suspecting a thing? The fact that the Galactics hadn't had a clue as to that empire's existence was abundantly clear to him. If a primitive bunch like the human race had provoked such a... definitive response, then surely something like this "Avalon Empire" would have had the Council in a state of outright panic if the Federation had even dreamed that it existed, and the attack on Lach'heranu would never have come as such a complete and total surprise to her.

That was the most burning question, he reflected, although he had a few thousand others to go with it. For one, why should the Ternaui call themselves the "Avalon Empire"? For another, why should they be willing to risk revealing their existence, which they had obviously taken great and successful pains to keep the secret from the Federation, to come to the aid of the human race?

And why in Hell, he thought, with a sort of detached calm that resulted from far too many shocks in far too short a time, as his cutter approached the huge ship's main boat bay and he finally saw the name etched across the hull in letters two hundred feet tall, should a bunch of aliens name their flagship "Excalibur"?

The cutter drifted through the boat bay hatch into the gleaming, brilliantly illuminated cavern of the bay's interior and settled towards the designated landing circle. There were no docking tubes or umbilicals, only a beacon and a visual target for the cutter's pilot.

There was also no boat bay hatch, despite the fact that this bay, unlike that of his own flagship, was obviously pressurized, Mugabi noted enviously. The human race had made enormous technological strides over the past century, partly out of its own resources and partly by adapting any fragment of Galactic technology it could steal. In fact, as Mugabi was well aware, that very inventiveness was one of the things the Galactics had found most frightening about humanity. Yet rapid as their advances had been, humans had started so far behind the technology the Federation took for granted that the gulf between them had seemed completely insurmountable. One galling example of that gulf had been the ease with which the Federation generated force fields at the drop of a hat. The Solarian Navy had developed some ability to generate them—their warships' shields were based on the same technology, after all—but the energy and mass requirements of any force field generator human technology was yet capable of building prohibited human naval architects from using them for anything less vital than shields. Certainly no human engineer was yet capable of building the selectively permeable sort of force fields which obviously held in this boat bay's atmosphere!

And whoever had designed this ship hadn't stopped with simply pressurizing the bay. The admiral felt yet another flicker of envy as he saw the islands of greenery scattered artistically about between the landing circles. No one in his experience, not even the Galactics, had ever landscaped a warship's boat bay, but these people had. It was readily apparent that they'd taken pains to avoid compromising the efficiency of the bay's layout, but that hadn't prevented them from sprinkling it with towering banks of blossom-bedecked shrubbery, flower beds, fountains, and even a few groves of what looked for all the world like Bartlett pear trees.

The additional proof of this Avalon Empire's capabilities flickered through Mugabi's mind, but then it was abruptly displaced by fresh astonishment as the cutter touched down and he caught his first glimpse of the welcoming committee through a viewport. There were four people in it... and not one of them was a Ternaui.

Admiral Quentin Mugabi sat very still, gazing through the port at the last thing his brain had been prepared to see, then rose as the cutter's hatch cycled open.

"Admiral Mugabi," the tall, red-haired, blue-eyed, and very human man at the head of the welcoming party greeted Mugabi as the Solarian admiral stepped through the hatch. The redhead wore a black-and-gold uniform which managed to combine sharp military tailoring with obvious comfort. It was unlike any Solarian uniform Mugabi had ever seen, but its rank badges were completely familiar. His eyes narrowed as he saw the cluster of five five-pointed stars pinned to either side of the collar and the four broad bands of gold braid encircling the cuffs of the sleeves, and the stranger's eyes twinkled as he extended his right hand.

"Welcome aboard Excalibur," he continued in the same oddly accented English the Ternaui had used as Mugabi automatically reached out to return the handclasp. "I'm Fleet Admiral Maynton. I apologize for the absence of the regular military courtesies, but we thought that it might be a little less confusing to greet you without all of the fuss and nonsense of side boys and bosun's pipes."

"Less confusing... Sir?" Mugabi repeated, and Maynton smiled crookedly.

"Not, perhaps, the best possible choice of words," he conceded. "Still, I hope that our arrival was at least a welcome surprise."

"Oh, I think you can rely on that!" Mugabi assured him.

"Good! It was also a surprise we've been looking forward to delivering, not without some trepidation, for a very long time. And one which I'm happy to say appears to have come as just as great a surprise for the Federation."

"You have a gift for understatement, Admiral," Mugabi said dryly.

"I suspect that most people would, under the circumstances," Maynton replied with another small smile, then gestured at his companions. "I realize that you must have several thousand questions, Admiral, and I promise we'll answer them as quickly as we can. In the meantime, however, allow me to introduce Captain Veronica Stanhope, Baroness of Shallot, Excalibur's commanding officer." The slightly built, fair-skinned brunette to his right nodded to Mugabi and extended her own hand in turn.

"And this," Maynton continued, "is Captain Sir Anthony Moore, my chief of staff." Moore was almost as tall as Maynton, a good two inches taller than Mugabi's own six feet-two, a platinum blond with steady gray eyes, and his handclasp was as firm as his admiral's had been.

"And this," Maynton finished, "is Admiral Her Imperial Highness Princess Evelynn Wincaster, the commander of Third Fleet."

Something about the tone of his voice, even more than the title, made Mugabi look very closely at Admiral Wincaster. She was extremely tall for a woman, standing somewhere between Maynton and Moore and literally towering over Mugabi. Like Maynton himself—and all of his companions, for that matter—she seemed absurdly young for her rank, for not one of them could be much over thirty, yet she possessed a perceptible aura of command and authority that owed very little to her imposing height. Golden hair spilled over her shoulders, in direct contrast to the short hairstyles the Solarian Navy favored for men and women alike, and her eyes were a strikingly dark cobalt blue.

Mugabi hesitated for just a moment, uncertain whether or not he should initiate a handshake with someone who hung an "Imperial Highness" in front of her name, but Princess Evelynn resolved his doubts by holding out her own hand.

"Let me join Admiral Maynton in welcoming you aboard Excalibur." She spoke with the same oddly musical accent as Maynton, although it sounded even more exotic and intriguing in her soft, firm contralto, and her clasp on his hand was firm. "I've studied your career with great interest and the deepest respect, Admiral Mugabi. You and Admiral Stevenson, in particular, have accomplished an incredible amount in light of the tremendous handicaps you faced. I can't begin to tell you how pleased I am to make your acquaintance at last."

"Thank you... Your Highness." Mugabi felt acutely uncomfortable before the sincerity of her tone. "I appreciate the compliment," he continued, "but the truth is that we obviously didn't manage to accomplish enough. Without your... unexpected arrival, we'd all be dead."

"Her Highness is completely correct," Maynton disagreed firmly. "Given the technological handicap with which you started, the time pressure under which you were forced to act, and the degree to which the Galactics kept you under minute observation, your achievement in building a navy powerful enough that the Federation felt compelled to deploy a full battle squadron against it was nothing short of miraculous. In fact, our greatest regret is that we were forced to leave you to accomplish it on your own. Unfortunately, we dared not make direct contact with you."

"I don't understand any of this," Mugabi said frankly. "Why couldn't you contact us? And, for that matter, who are you people? The entire—"

He paused, then shook his head.

"I was going to say that the entire human race owes you an immense debt, but it would appear that what I should have said is that the entire Solar System owes you, because it's painfully obvious that what we always thought was the entire human race isn't."

"No, it isn't," Maynton agreed in a tone of deliberate understatement. "And I apologize for keeping you here talking instead of escorting you to His Majesty for the explanations you and the rest of Earth's population deserve. Please, come with us, and I promise that the answers will be forthcoming."

Mugabi followed Maynton and his companions out of the elevator which had transported them from the boat bay to the core of the immense warship. He'd felt a sense of awe which was becoming familiar as he watched the projected holographic schematic which had shown their progress on the way here. The elevator had streaked across the schematic with incredible speed, yet he'd felt absolutely no sensation of movement, which suggested that these people were even more competent gravitic engineers than the Galactics.

Not that he should have been too surprised by that, he told himself, given the way that nine of their ships had trashed Lach'heranu's entire squadron. Besides—

His reflections slithered to an abrupt halt as he stepped out into the trackless depths of space itself.

For just an instant, his brain came to a complete, shuddering stop in terrified anticipation of explosive decompression. He actually felt his lungs lock down in a desperate attempt to retain the air still in them, and then he exhaled in an explosive whoosh as his cognitive processes caught up with him once more.

It was the most breathtakingly perfect holographic display he'd ever seen. No wonder he'd felt such terror at the sight! The training required to survive in vacuum was driven into every recruit on an instinctive level from the very first day of suit drill at the Academy, and every one of those instincts had told him that he was dead as the display enfolded him in the consummate fidelity of its illusion.

He could have wished that his companions had bothered to warn him, he thought sourly, but then he shook himself. They were undoubtedly as accustomed to this as he was to his own command deck aboard Terra, so it had probably never even occurred to them that he wouldn't be.

He made himself draw a deep, calming breath, then stepped further out of the elevator and let his eyes sweep the awesome perfection of the display. It was as if his boots rested not on the alloy of the deck, but upon the insubstantial blackness of space—as if he floated among the stars, a titan looming above the children's toys of the warships drifting about him. He had never experienced anything like it, and after the first few seconds, he'd completely forgotten his original moment of terror in the pure delight of gazing upon the universe as God Himself must see it.

His hosts allowed him to stand there, absorbing the impact of the display for at least a full minute, before Maynton cleared his throat. The slight, polite sound seemed shockingly loud for just a moment, and Mugabi realized that it seemed that way because his eyes insisted that there shouldn't have been any atmosphere to carry it to him in the first place. The admiral swallowed a wry chuckle of amusement at his own reaction, and pulled himself back out of his fascination.

Three more people stood at the very center of the display, spangled in its starlight and shadow. One was the Ternaui who had first contacted Mugabi, towering over his companions while his silver eyes glittered with starshine. The second was a stocky, broad-shouldered, brown-haired human who wore a vaguely monkish-looking robe. And the third...

The third was another human, black-haired and a good four inches shorter than Mugabi, who somehow effortlessly dominated everyone else present.

The admiral wasn't certain how he managed it. He was powerfully built, but after Captain Stanhope, he was also the smallest person Mugabi had met aboard Excalibur, and he couldn't have been much over twenty years old. His eyes were dark, although Mugabi couldn't tell exactly what color they were in the dimness of the display, and there was a distinct family resemblance between him and Princess Evelynn, although his strongly hooked nose had been muted into an aquiline female attractiveness in her features. He was obviously too young to be her father, so he must be her brother, Mugabi decided. He wore a neatly trimmed, spade-like beard, and the white line of an old scar seamed one tanned cheek. Unlike any of the officers who'd greeted Mugabi, he was not in uniform. Instead, he wore a one-piece garment, very much like the protective suits the Galactics normally wore. This one was in a deep, midnight blue with silver trim, and it bore a heraldic device on its chest. Somehow, the dagger sheathed at the man's right hip didn't look at all incongruous with it.

"Admiral Quentin Mugabi," Maynton said in a voice which had suddenly become far more formal, "allow me to present you to His Imperial Majesty George, Emperor of Avalon, King of Camelot, Prince of New Lancaster, and Baron of Wickworth."

Mugabi felt himself come automatically to attention. He would undoubtedly have done so anyway, as a courteous mark of respect, once he'd thought about it, but there was no thought involved. Despite his obvious youth, the Emperor's sheer presence pulled the gesture out of him as naturally as breathing.

"Admiral Mugabi." The Emperor crossed the display to him and held out his right hand.

Quentin Mugabi had served the Solarian Union for over forty years. In that time, he had met and advised three different presidents and been introduced to system senators, cabinet ministers, and justices of the Union Supreme Court. He was the second ranking officer of the Solarian Navy, and he was unaccustomed to feeling socially awkward. Yet he felt oddly uncertain, almost hesitant, as the Emperor extended his hand, and he wondered once again what it was that gave this man such a palpable aura of command. Whatever it was, it appeared to operate almost independently of the fact that he was the ruler of what was obviously a powerful empire, because Mugabi had sensed it even before Maynton identified him.

"Your Majesty," he murmured, as he made himself return the Emperor's handclasp firmly. "Allow me to thank you, on my own behalf and that of the entire Solar System, for your timely arrival."

"You're most welcome," the Emperor replied with a slight smile. "Although I think you may find yourself just a bit surprised by how `timely' our arrival actually was." His smile grew broader. "It's been a while since my last visit," he added.

"Your last visit, Sir?" Mugabi repeated, his questioning tone carefully respectful.

"That was a bit before your time," the Emperor told him. "In fact, it was just over eight hundred years ago."

Mugabi stared at him in shock, and he chuckled.

"I see that some explanations are in order, Admiral," he said. "So if you will be so kind as to join me and my Chancellor in my quarters, I'll try to provide them."

Quentin Mugabi had never before sat in such a comfortable chair. Even the best Terran powered chairs adjusted far more slowly and imperfectly into the form and movement of the human bodies sitting in them. This chair seemed to have conformed to his shape and weight even before he'd sat down, and it readjusted itself so smoothly whenever he moved that he scarcely realized that it had.

On the other hand, he thought, maybe it's not so surprising that I didn't notice the chair moving, given how all the rest of my universe has just shifted!

"So you and the Ternaui managed to pull it off, Your Majesty?" he murmured as the Emperor paused.

"Indeed we did," the Emperor replied. "In fact, the actual fighting was considerably easier than my good friend here—" he nodded to the towering Chancellor seated to his right "—had suggested that it might be. And much easier than the rest of his little plan."

"We do not recall ever having suggested to you that any of it would be `easy,' Your Majesty," the Ternaui's electronically produced voice said serenely. "On the other hand, we believe that it might be argued that in fact the task was not nearly so difficult as it might have been."

"Well," the Emperor chuckled, "at least you had the common decency to turn to as babysitters when we needed you most!"

A chuckle ran around the comfortably furnished cabin. The compartment was a quarter the size of soccer field, yet despite the obvious comfort of its furniture and decorations, it seemed much less magnificent than something Mugabi would have expected to house the ruler of a mighty empire.

The Solarian let his eyes run back over the cabin. The light sculptures dotted about it had a cool, almost sensual beauty, but they were the only true decoration in the entire compartment, aside from a breathtakingly lifelike full-size portrait of Her Imperial Majesty Matilda, who had remained at home on the Empire's capital world of Camelot in her role as co-ruler while the Emperor was away. Well, that and the obviously well used sword displayed at the cabin's very center. The blade had been set point-down in a block of polished stone sitting on a small, round, tablelike pedestal.

Mugabi looked back at the Emperor and shook his head slowly.

"What?" The Emperor's question could have been abrupt, a rebuke, but it came out with a strong edge of what could only have been sympathetic amusement.

"I'm just still... trying to take it all in, Your Majesty." Mugabi smiled almost sheepishly. "You were really born in 1311."

"I most assuredly was," the Emperor replied, and chuckled again. "I realize that neither Timothy nor I look our ages, however. As a matter of fact, both of us replaced the Saernai's original nanites centuries ago, when Merlin and Doctor Yardley came up with their new, improved biochines. With the proper readjustment of the genetic code, they're capable of actually adjusting one's biological age rather than simply holding it unchanged, and Timothy and I had begun developing enough aches and pains as our original equipment ran down to make that highly welcome. But I understand what you're actually saying, and believe me, Admiral, you can scarcely find it more difficult to believe how old I am than I have from time to time over the years."

Mugabi shook his head once more and leaned back in his chair while his mind tried to sort out all he had already been told.

He supposed, realistically, that the Avalon Empire wasn't really particularly large when compared to the titanic size of the Federation. From what the Emperor and his advisers had told him, the Empire claimed only twenty-two star systems, of which only the seven "princedoms"—New Lancaster, New Yorkshire, New Wales, New Oxfordshire, Glastonbury, Avalon, and Camelot—could boast populations in excess of two billion. The Federation, on the other hand, claimed in excess of fifteen hundred stars, with an average population per star system of almost eleven billion. Given that sort of numerical superiority, Lach'heranu's fellow fleet commanders ought to find themselves with a comprehensive quantitative answer to the qualitative advantage the Empire's technology clearly gave it.

But that was assuming that the Federation had the opportunity to bring its ponderous might to bear... and overlooked the fact that over eighty percent of the Federation's population was to be found among the "protected" races.

"I'm astonished that you could have accomplished so much from such a limited beginning," he said aloud, and the Emperor shrugged.

"We were limited only in population size," he pointed out. "In every other respect we started even with the Federation's current technology base." He shrugged again. "It was mainly a matter of improving upon the head start with which we began."

"As usual, Your Majesty," a mellow tenor voice said out of the cabin's thin air, "you understate both the scope and the severity of the challenge you faced. Not to mention the magnitude of what you accomplished."

"And also as usual, Merlin," the Emperor replied with the air of a participant in a long-standing debate, "you overstate all three of them. Not to mention the highly capable advisors I had—starting with Matilda—or the magnitude of the role you yourself played in accomplishing it."

"Which it was possible for me to play only because you were so foolish as to reject the Federation's limitations upon the creation of artificial intelligences," the voice replied, and Mugabi felt his eyebrows arch. The Emperor obviously noticed his expression, for he smiled wryly and nodded.

"Yes, Admiral," he said. "Merlin was once called `Computer' by a primitive warrior too ignorant to realize that he was talking to a mere machine."

"And one so foolish as to extend the full legal equality of organic intelligence to artificial ones," Merlin pointed out.

"No, no," the Emperor said, shaking his head. "Not foolish—cunning. It was all a clever ploy to make you eternally grateful so that you'd help us out with our research and development! Not to mention running the imperial intelligence services for us."

"Of course it was," Merlin said with a sound suspiciously like a human snort.

"Seriously, Admiral," the Emperor said, looking back and Mugabi, "Merlin has been an enormous help to us. He isn't as intuitive as humans are, but the speed and accuracy with which he can process information far exceeds anything we've managed yet, even with personal computer implants."

"I should certainly hope so," Merlin said primly, and the Emperor and his naval officers laughed out loud.

"I don't doubt that... Merlin was a great help to you, Your Majesty," Mugabi said after a moment, "but you must still have faced an all but impossible task."

"Humans seem to be better suited to `impossible tasks' than most species," the High Chancellor put in.

"Perhaps we are," the Emperor agreed, "but that didn't keep us from being neck-deep in babies for the first hundred years or so." His reminiscent smile looked out of place on his unreasonably youthful face, and Mugabi wondered how much of that sense of presence he projected had always been his and how much of that he had acquired over the last five hundred years. Mugabi had met some of the Romans whose return to Earth had formed the pretext for the Federation's "final solution," yet none of them had radiated the same blend of youthfulness and ancient wisdom and self-confidence which seemed to be so much a part of the Emperor. Of course, even though they were technically over a thousand years older than he was, they'd spent the vast majority of their enormous lifespans in phase stasis, traveling between the stars, not awake and laboring to build an empire literally from scratch. The Emperor, he reflected, was undoubtedly the "oldest" human being he had ever met—that anyone had ever met—for that matter... with the possible exception of Archbishop Timothy, he amended. Of course, after the first two or three hundred years a mere forty years one way or the other was pretty much meaningless, he supposed.

"The hardest part, though," the Emperor continued, "was finding a way to increase our population quickly enough without losing all sense of family connection. None of us was familiar with the term at the time, but what we really faced was a problem of `mass production.' Still, we knew enough to be afraid of what would happen to us as a society when we began the mass cloning."

He shook his head and sighed, then waved at Admiral Maynton.

"Prince John here," he told Mugabi, who cocked an eyebrow at the title which Maynton had somehow forgotten to mention came attached to him, "and his entire house are direct descendants of one of our first generation clone children. Of course, there are—what? Nineteen cadet branches of the family, John?"

"Twenty-two, actually, Uncle," Maynton replied, blue eyes twinkling, then shrugged. "But who's counting?"

"You are, you young whippersnapper," the Emperor told him with a chuckle, then turned back to Mugabi. "I decided from the outset that the law would make no distinction between cloned children and those carried to term in utero, but I wasn't really certain that our people could accept them as their own. Today, of course, that entire worry seems ridiculous, since clones and the descendants of clones outnumber `old-fashioned' offspring by literally millions to one in the Empire, but it was a real concern at the time."

"True," Archbishop Timothy put in. "On the other hand, you approached it sensibly enough to avoid the sort of problem it might have turned into, My Lord." The prelate, Mugabi had already noticed, very seldom addressed the Emperor as "Majesty," and the admiral wondered if that was a distinction limited to the Emperor's oldest and closest advisers.

"If you mean I was smart enough to let Matilda talk me into being sure that you approved the entire process in the name of Mother Church, then I suppose I did," the Emperor agreed.

"Children are children, and souls are souls," the archbishop replied serenely. "As long as the medical science is sound, and the children who are born are born whole and healthy, the miracle is the same for every child."

"And the people who raise that child are that child's parents," the Emperor agreed softly, then chuckled and glanced over his shoulder at the portrait of his Empress. "Matilda certainly made that plain enough to me at the time!" he added wryly.

"And speaking from personal experience," Captain Stanhope put in, "Ternaui make excellent parents." She smiled warmly at the High Chancellor, and Mugabi had the sudden sense of a matching smile from the immobile, saurian features of the Chancellor.

"Thank you, daughter," the Ternaui said after a moment. "Still, we must admit that raising human young is an... interesting experience. And one, we suspect, which has corrupted us rather more than our queens would ever have anticipated."

"Life is sufficient to do that on its own without blaming it on the children, old friend!" the Emperor laughed. "Not that raising them isn't an `interesting experience' for anyone... whatever their own species might be."

Mugabi managed to hide his surprise, but it wasn't easy. He had to keep reminding himself that these people had absolutely nothing in common with the Federation. Still, the Galactics were the only "advanced" civilization with which the Solarian branch of the human race had ever had any experience, and the very notion of cross-species adoption was anathema to the Federation. In fact, it was expressly forbidden by law, and the admiral wondered how much that might have had to do with the ease with which the Empire had embraced the practice.

"At any rate," the Emperor went on after a moment, turning his attention fully back to Mugabi, "we did succeed, and we have maintained the bonds of family. In fact, I believe that we've retained our focus on the centrality of family to a much greater extent than your own branch of the family has, Admiral. Of course, we began from a far more homogenous template, and we've managed to preserve much of that homogeneity. No doubt the fact that we're still a hierarchical—some might say feudal—society and that Mother Church remains so central to virtually all of our institutions has a great deal to do with that, but I suspect that the outside threat of the Federation is another factor. Unlike your own ancestors on Earth, we knew from the beginning that the Federation existed and that eventually it must almost certainly come to open conflict between it and us. That gave us a sense of purpose and a focus, not to mention a powerful source of fear, which helped force us to maintain a sense of unity which was bound up inextricably with our concept of who and what we were. Your own branch of humanity has only really become aware of the Federation in the last hundred or hundred and fifty years, so in a very real sense, you've had much longer to develop a broad menu of different family structures and lifestyles which were never really an option for us."

"Perhaps we have," Mugabi replied. "On the other hand, from what you've already told me it's evident that the Solarian branch of the `family' is actually a fairly small minority of the total human race."

"I suppose it is," the Emperor conceded. "And I suppose that there will be some inevitable pressure on Earth-born humans to conform to the practices of the Empire. I assure you, however, that the Empire has no intention of forcing anyone to embrace our own laws or our own form of government. If we did that, Matilda would kick my imperial arse up between my imperial ears when I got back to Camelot! Besides, there would be no real practical difference between us and the Federation if we acted in such an arrogant manner, now would there?"

"I suppose not," Mugabi agreed. "Although I imagine that the fact that the Empire doesn't have any interest in exterminating us might be considered at least a small difference, if someone wanted to get picky about it."

"Oh, perhaps a small one." The Emperor chuckled. He and Mugabi grinned at each other, but then the admiral glanced at his watch and shook his head again.

"I'm certain that it will take years for us to even begin to really catch up with all of the details of what you and your people have accomplished, Your Majesty. I personally look forward to the time when I can properly appreciate the challenges which you must have faced and the ways in which you overcame them. But as you know, President Dresner, Admiral Stevenson, and the President's Cabinet are en route to Excalibur. According to the schedule they transmitted to me, they should be arriving within the next half-hour, and I have no doubt that they'll expect me to have at least the bare bones of a military briefing for them."

"Of course," the Emperor said. "Forgive me. I'm afraid that having a fresh ear to put up with my recollections of the `good old days' has gone to my head. God knows that this ungrateful younger lot—" he waved at Maynton and the other officers "—aren't slow about letting me know how boring they find it when I reminisce!"

"Not boring, Grandfather," Princess Evelynn disagreed demurely. "Merely... well polished."

A general rumble of laughter rolled around the compartment, led by the Emperor, but then he turned his gaze back to Mugabi.

"Very well, Admiral, let's look at those bare bones of yours."

The Emperor leaned back in his chair, and despite his amusement of only moments before, his expression was serious, almost grim.

"It may well be, Admiral, that future generations of historians will look back upon my reign as a total disaster, a case of missed opportunities leading to utter ruin that a wiser man might have avoided entirely." Mugabi opened his mouth quickly, but the Emperor's raised hand cut him off before he could voice his protest.

"No, hear me out, Admiral. I don't say that I would agree with that verdict; I only say that some people may judge it so, because there were two possible alternatives open to me, and I never even considered pursuing one of them."

"Two alternatives?" Mugabi furrowed his brow.

"Two," the Emperor repeated firmly. "One possibility would have been to develop our own phase drive, build our military and technological bases up to a level which would give someone as cautious and basically cowardly as the Federation pause, and then demand a seat of our own on the Council."

Mugabi stared incredulously at him, and the Emperor chuckled.

"I realize that, particularly from the perspective of the Solar System's experience with the Galactics, the notion that they might have admitted any human representative to their precious Council must seem ridiculous. But what we can never know, Admiral, is whether or not what appears to be so obvious with the benefit of hindsight would have seemed quite so obvious if we'd pursued a different alternative at an earlier time. It's possible, however remote the probability, that if we'd contacted the Federation on our own terms as soon as we'd thoroughly developed New Lancaster, they might have reacted differently. After all, at that point they hadn't yet placed the Solar System under tight surveillance, which probably indicates that they hadn't yet recognized the threat which humanity's basic nature presents to their precious stability."

"With all due respect, Your Majesty, I can't see that happy state of affairs lasting very long once they'd gotten to know you. Leaving aside their reaction to the Romans and their `stolen ship'—which certainly suggests how they would have responded once they discovered the foundation of your own beginning technological base—your Empire, from the very beginning, was busy creating exactly the sort of bad example they were afraid that we would present to their subject races."

"I believe you're correct," the Emperor said quietly, "yet there are times when I lie awake at night wondering what would have happened if I hadn't automatically assumed that hostility between us and the Federation was inevitable. What if I'd pursued the alternative of seeking peaceful coexistence and working to reform the Federation from within once we were seated upon the Council?"

"I don't lie awake at night wondering about that," Archbishop Timothy said tartly, "because I bloody well know—pardon my language—what would have happened. We'd all have been dead three hundred and fifty years ago!"

"My analysis of humans' ability to endlessly reinvent and reinterpret their own history suggests that you are undoubtedly correct that some scholar with more credentials than brainpower will eventually suggest precisely what you have just described, Your Majesty," the voice of Merlin put in. "All that that demonstrates, however, is that individuals who are not responsible for making crucial decisions are the ones who feel the greatest freedom when it comes to second-guessing those who did have to decide."

"Be careful, my friends!" the Emperor said with a wry grin. "Arguing an emperor out of feeling a healthy sense of self-doubt is an excellent way to encourage him to believe in his own infallibility, and then where will you all be?"

"Watching Her Majesty... convince you of the error of your ways, Your Majesty," Maynton replied in a tone whose solemnity went poorly with the twinkle in his blue eyes.

"Ouch!" The Emperor winced at some image only he could see, then shook himself and his amusement vanished once more into that same grim intensity.

"Whatever possibilities might or might not have existed, Admiral Mugabi, I chose to pursue a second alternative—the one Matilda christened the `Excalibur Alternative.' Perhaps it was presumptuous of us to see ourselves in just that light, but it seemed to Matilda that, in a sense, we had become Arthur's sword." He met Mugabi's eyes levelly. "It hadn't been our choice, but surely we'd been cast into the depths of the stars as thoroughly as ever Excalibur was cast back to the Lady of the Lake. In our case, those depths were also the furnace in which we were forged, and the anvil upon which we were hammered, not simply a safe hiding place, but like Excalibur, it was our duty to return in our homeland's darkest hour. And so, rightly or wrongly, we gave no thought to the alternative of `peaceful coexistence.' We judged that there was no realistic hope of ever reforming something as huge and as static as the Federation, and that if it could not be reformed, then for the sake not only of our own race but of every `primitive' species the Federation ever had or ever would encounter, it must be destroyed."

"We chose the Excalibur Alternative," the Emperor said, his voice harsh as clanging steel, "and we never looked back from that day."

Silence hovered in the cabin, and Mugabi inhaled deeply as he realized that he'd actually been holding his breath. The sense of presence he'd felt from the Emperor from the beginning was stronger than ever, and despite the youthfulness of his appearance he sat in his chair like some ancient granite boulder, unbroken and unbreakable.

Four hundred and fifty-one years. That was how long this man had dedicated himself and all of his people unswervingly to the task of building the weapon—of transforming himself and those he ruled until they became the very Excalibur he'd spoken of—to overthrow the most powerful and arrogant federation in the history of the galaxy. No wonder he radiated that steely aura of raw power and purpose.

"And what, if I may ask, Your Majesty," the Solarian said very quietly after a long, silent moment, "does the `Excalibur Alternative' consist of?"

"It consists of everything we have been able to accomplish in four and a half centuries. Of every warship, every weapon, every strategy and tactic and technological advantage we've been able to put together. We certainly can't guarantee victory, Admiral Mugabi, but we can guarantee, especially if the Solar System joins with us, that the Federation's unwavering belief in its own superiority won't survive what happens.

"In more specific terms, however," the Emperor continued in a more normal tone of voice, sitting back in his chair once again, "we've already placed certain forces in motion, and we intend to activate still more of them in the very near future.

"First, we are prepared to station Evelynn's Third Fleet here in the Solar System indefinitely. As currently constituted, Third Fleet's battleline consists of sixty Sword-class dreadnoughts like Excalibur and two hundred Pendragon-class battleships, each of them about two-thirds the size and power of a Sword. They're screened by three hundred and forty Gawain-class battlecruisers and supported by one hundred Nimue-class carriers, each of which carries a thousand phase-capable fighters with an individual combat power roughly equivalent to a Federation Harpy-class destroyer."

Mugabi knew his jaw had dropped, but right that moment he couldn't do anything about it. Sixty of these monster ships? Three times that many battleships? His mind reeled at the inconceivable firepower the Empire's Third Fleet represented, but the Emperor continued calmly.

"At the moment, Third Fleet is the largest and most powerful of our formations, although its margin of superiority over Home Fleet is relatively slight. The problem, of course, is that the Federation already knows where the Solar System is, whereas it doesn't even know where to begin looking for us. That may change, but in the worst possible case, it will take them decades to locate any of our star systems. Which means that we can anticipate that any attacks it launches will be directed here and mandates that this is the point at which we must place our strongest defense. Particularly since the Galactics will soon enough deduce approximately how the Empire must have come into existence. Once they've reached that point, they will also appreciate just how vast their advantage in numbers and star systems must be, and I don't doubt for a moment that their response will be to attempt to utterly destroy any of our star systems they can identify.

"At the same time, our intelligence sources within the Federation indicate that it will take them at least eight years to concentrate a fresh squadron as powerful as Lach'heranu's to attack here. It will take considerably longer than that for them to assemble a force stronger than hers was, and I expect that it's fairly safe to assume that the Federation won't commit to any follow-up attack until it can muster a substantially more powerful force than the one it's already lost.

"While the Council is trying to put that sort of force together, we are prepared to transfer to the Solar System automated shipyards and supporting industrial modules. Initially, those yards and modules would be dedicated to replicating themselves, and we would use the same time to begin the transfer of our general technology base to Earth in order to bring the entire system up to date as quickly as possible. Our current estimate is that the first Solarian-built Sword could be delivered within six and a half years; production of fighters for local defense could begin at least two years before that. Once the first capital ships began emerging from your shipyards here, we estimate that your maximum sustainable rate of construction would be a tonnage approximately equal to seventeen Sword-class dreadnoughts per month."

Mugabi could feel the eyes of everyone else in the cabin upon him, but he himself could not look away from the Emperor.

"In the meantime, we intend to make full use of certain other advantages to keep the Federation as thoroughly off-balance as possible for as long as possible. I feel quite confident that what happened to Lach'heranu and the implications of the Empire's existence will come as a tremendous shock to the Council, especially when it realizes that what it actually faces is the very thing it was prepared to commit genocide to avoid. Unfortunately for the Council," the Emperor's thin smile was a cold and frightening thing to see, "that's only the first of many shocks headed in its direction. One that it will find particularly unpalatable is the fact that the Empire has substantially improved upon the performance of the Federation's own phase drive. In fact, our starships are almost eleven times as fast as theirs are."

Mugabi would have felt a fresh spasm of shock at that little tidbit... if he hadn't already been anesthetized by the cumulative impact of all the other shocks these people had administered to his system. There was no way that they were going to really surprise him again, he thought.

He was wrong.

"In addition," the Emperor continued calmly, "we've made a few other improvements. In particular, we've developed what we call the singularity comm."

"Singularity comm?" Mugabi repeated cautiously.

"Yes." The Emperor's eye gleamed with something suspiciously like amusement. "At the moment its maximum range is limited to only sixty-two light-years, but its effective transmission speed is approximately seven hundred times the speed of light."

"Faster than light?!" Mugabi jerked upright in his chair so quickly that even it couldn't keep up. "You've got an FTL communications capability?!"

"Of course," the Emperor said mildly, and this time there was no question about his broad grin. "Doesn't everyone?"

"My God," Mugabi murmured while his mind raced over the incredible strategic advantages inherent in what he'd just heard. The superior speed of the Empire's warships would have been a huge boon by itself, but coupled with the ability of a high command to deploy and redeploy them using the sort of communications the Emperor had just described, that speed became truly priceless.

"And finally," the Emperor continued after giving him a few moments to digest the strategic implications, "the Federation's `civilized' races are about to discover that they have all manner of problems closer to home."

"Closer to home?" Mugabi cocked his head, half afraid of what he was going to hear next.

"Much closer," the Emperor said with an evil chuckle. "To be completely honest with you, Admiral, if Lach'heranu hadn't moved to attack Earth, you still wouldn't know that we existed. Our military potential is still climbing relative to that of the Federation. In fact, the curve of increase is still accelerating. Unfortunately, our potential still remains enormously short of the full power the Federation could concentrate against us if left to its own devices. Because of that, we would actually have preferred to wait another fifty to seventy-five years to contact you, but the Council's decision brought our preparations to a head sooner than we might have liked.

"Nonetheless, our projections of the Federation's probable actions had always suggested to us that we would find ourselves in precisely this position, and because of that we've taken certain additional precautions. One, although neither you nor the Federation were aware of it, was to maintain a powerful fleet presence within one month's transit time from Earth for the past sixty years, ready to intervene if Lach'heranu's orders had been issued sooner. Another, however, was to make very cautious contact with certain of the `protected' races. In fact, we've spent the past century or so creating resistance cells on scores of `protected' planets scattered throughout the Federation. It was a particularly risky strategy in many respects, especially given that the Federation would have assumed that Earth was behind it if any of their security forces had realized what was happening. That could very well have ended up accelerating their decision to move against you, but we felt that it was a risk we had to run.

"Actually, what we would most have preferred would have been to be able to set up such cells on Earth herself, but that simply wasn't practical. Our stealth systems are much better than anything the Federation has, and in this instance, at least, we could have inserted our own people as agents, since they would have blended neatly into the background. Unfortunately, the Federation has had Earth and the Solar System so heavily seeded with listening devices—and at least some human turncoats as informers—for so long that we dared not make contact. For us to have played any significant role in helping you to prepare against a Federation attack, we would have been forced to communicate directly with your government, or at least your military, and those are the areas of your society which the Federation has taken the greatest pains to spy upon. Had they suspected our existence for a moment, they would have reached their decision to destroy you much more quickly—probably before we were in a position to stop them.

"But at the same time that they were concentrating on you, it never seems to have occurred to them to worry about anyone else. As your own intelligence services have discovered, their security arrangements on the `protected' worlds leave a great deal to be desired. What you haven't known, because we were at considerable pains to be sure that you wouldn't, is that one reason so many of the `protected races' have been so ready to share information with you is that they were already in contact with us. We had to be very cautious about the information we used that conduit to pass on to you, but it's been extremely useful to us upon occasion. And even though we dared not communicate with you lest their listening devices pick up on it, we were able to use our own technology to tap their communication links and to set up listening posts of our own here in the Solar System. That's how we knew who to communicate with and how to reach you aboard your flagship when Lach'heranu began her attack.

"Perhaps even more importantly, though, we're now in the process of beginning to distribute weapons to many of our resistance cells. We refuse to arm any planetary cell that we feel has a less than even chance of overwhelming the Galactics and seizing the Federation infrastructure on its world. There are several cells whose leaders desperately want arms even though the chance of success on their worlds is much lower than that, but we know how ruthlessly the Federation will respond to any threat to its authority, especially in the wake of what's happened here. Desperately as we may need distractions to weaken and divert any counterattacks headed in our direction, we can't justify throwing entire planetary populations to the wolves if they have no realistic chance of achieving victory.

"Nonetheless, we project that at least three hundred subject worlds will revolt, with at least some degree of success against the Federation. We've chosen our targets as carefully as possible, with an eye towards crippling major industrial hubs and depriving the Galactics of naval bases wherever possible. Coupled with a series of preemptive strikes that Admiral Maynton's fleets are prepared to execute, we estimate that we can cripple or outright destroy almost half of the Galactics' total war-fighting ability before their slower communications can even pass the word of what happened here."

"My God," Mugabi whispered again. He stared at the Emperor for several endless seconds, then drew a deep breath. "I can't—" He paused again, then shook his head. "This morning I knew that the entire human race was about to be destroyed," he said softly. "Now this." He shook his head yet again.

"Don't mistake us, Admiral," the Emperor said very seriously. "Even if our plans work perfectly, even if we manage to destroy more than half of their war-fighting ability and to distract them with rebellions on scores of their planets, their total military potential will remain vastly higher than our own. Once they realize they're under attack and fully gear up for wartime production, they should be able to replace all of their lost building capacity within no more than thirty or forty years, although the rebellions in their rear areas may slow them down a bit more than that. By the time they can repair the damage, however, we should have your own system fully industrialized, and we intend to offer the same terms of alliance to every star system in which a `protected' race manages to win its freedom, so our own production capacity should also be climbing rapidly. We believe the odds will move steadily in our favor, assuming we can survive their initial counterattacks, but there are no guarantees. At absolute best, I believe we have perhaps a sixty percent chance of ultimate victory, and even if we win in the end, our casualties will be very, very high. And none of that even considers our moral responsibility for the deaths of all the beings our underground network will bring into open rebellion against their masters. We aren't offering you a promise of salvation—only its possibility."

"Which is infinitely more than we had this morning," Mugabi replied. "Your Majesty, the Galactics passed a death sentence on us long before your fleet ever opened fire this afternoon. Every single day of additional life Earth enjoys will result solely from the fact that you attacked a Federation naval squadron to save us. To use a cliche, fighting the Federation, whatever the odds, is the only game in town, and at least you people seem to have spent an awful long time buying us the best odds we can get."

"We've certainly tried to," the Emperor said quietly. "And from our viewpoint, there's at least one good thing about the Galactics."

"There is?" Mugabi raised both eyebrows.

"Indeed there is, Admiral. They take so long to make their minds up about what they want to do that we had that `awful long time' to prepare an alternative that we like much better."

"May they go right on dithering," Mugabi said fervently, and silence fell once more. It lasted a bit longer this time, and then the Emperor cleared his throat.

"So, Admiral Mugabi. Do you think President Dresner and your Senate will decide to join us?"

"Obviously, I can't speak for them or commit them to anything before they've had a chance to speak to you themselves, Your Majesty," Mugabi said, "but I don't really see any alternative to your `Excalibur Alternative.' The Galactics have already decided to kill us all, so—as you say—the only option open to us is to destroy the Federation first." He nodded slowly. "I can't commit my government on my own authority, but I think you'll have a star system full of new allies as quickly as the President can put a treaty proposal before the Senate."

"Good." The Emperor's voice was level, almost calm, but underneath it Quentin Mugabi heard the slithering scrape of a steely blade as it was drawn from a boulder of English granite.

His Imperial Majesty George, King of Camelot, Prince of New Lancaster, Third Baron of Wickworth, Defender of the Faith, Prince Protector of the Realm, and by God's Grace, Emperor of Avalon, let his hawklike gaze circle his cabin, and then those raptor eyes came to rest once more on Quentin Mugabi.

"Good," the Emperor repeated. "Our sword is drawn. It will be sheathed again only in victory or in death... and may God defend the right!"