The Excalibur Alternative

-VIII-

The silent dragon-man stopped and stood aside as they approached the glowing wall, and Sir George glanced sideways at the creature. He'd seen more than enough of them over the years to know that they, like the wart-faced Hathori, were indeed flesh and blood, for all their oddness in human eyes, and not simply more of the guild's mechanical devices. But that was virtually all he knew of them, even now. Computer had been more than merely reticent about both the Hathori and the dragon-men, yet at least Computer had been willing to tell the baron what the Hathori were called. He'd been unable or unwilling to do the same for the dragon-men, but the baron was uncertain whether that was the result of a direct order from the demon-jester, or simply because the dragon-men had no name, even for themselves. If it were the latter, then the dragon-men were even more alien than any of the other creatures the English had met, yet he couldn't quite dismiss the possibility, for he'd never heard one of them so much as make a single sound. The wart-faces, yes. He hadn't learned a word of the Hathori's language of grunts and hoarse hoots, in large part because his masters clearly didn't want the English to be able to converse with them, but he and his men had been given ample proof that the wart-faces at least had a language... of sorts.

Of course, that was about all they had.

As the demon-jester's whip hand, the wart-faces had far more contact with the English than the dragon-men did. They were the prison guards, charged with driving and goading the English outside the ship as well as providing security within it, and they had all the imagination and initiative of the brutal, unthinking turnkeys they were. They appeared to perform their limited duties almost entirely by rote, and they had a pronounced taste for cruelty to help lend enthusiasm to their tasks. From odd bits the demon-jester and Computer had allowed to drop, Sir George had come to suspect that the demon-jester had originally hoped to use the Hathori as he had eventually used the baron's own English. If that had been the small alien's intent, however, it must have come to naught with dismaying speed.

There was no denying that, as individuals, Hathori made dangerous opponents. They were just as tough and physically powerful as they looked, and they appeared to be totally without fear... or any equivalent of the human emotion of compassion. There was no love lost between them and the English, which Sir George suspected was precisely what the demon-jester wished, and there'd been a few ugly incidents. Two wounded English archers had been killed by the Hathori—hacked to pieces, beyond any hope of resurrection even by the Physician—on the third world the English had been required to conquer. No one was entirely certain why. The best guess was that the wart-faces had thought the two wounded men were trying to flee the battle without cause, although one of them had barely been able to stand even with the assistance of his more lightly wounded companion. Sir George's men had been furious, and the baron's murderous rage had been even more terrible than theirs, if that were possible. But all the rage and fury in the universe had been insufficient to move the demon-jester to punish the Hathori in any way for their actions. Perhaps, Sir George had thought bitterly at the time, he'd believed that the wart-faces were too stupid to realize they were being punished for a specific mistake and feared that any penalty he inflicted would cause them to hesitate the next time something as unimportant as slaughtering a wounded Englishman came along.

Whatever his reasoning, the demon-jester's refusal to punish the killers had led to an even uglier sequel. The brother of one of the murdered men, apparently driven beyond the bounds of rational thought by grief and hatred, managed somehow to wrest the truncheon from the one of the Hathori detailed to guard the Englishmen aboard ship. The bludgeon, a one-handed weapon for one of the wart-faces, was a ponderous mace for a mere human, but it had crushed its previous owner's skull handily enough. The blood-spattered archer had turned upon the dead Hathori's companions, screaming in fury, and actually managed to wound another of them before the remaining wart-faces beat him to death.

The demon-jester might have declined to punish the Hathori for murdering wounded men who were only seeking medical attention, but he had quite a different attitude when it was one of his guild's guard dogs who died. The single individual actually responsible for the attack was already dead, but that hadn't dissuaded him from selecting an additional half dozen of Sir George's men at random and ordering their deaths as retribution.

One of those men had been Walter Skinnet.

The tough old warrior hadn't even turned a hair when his lot was chosen, and Sir George knew his master of horse would have been furious if he'd suspected the vehement, almost desperate manner in which the baron had implored the demon-jester to spare him. Not that Sir George had let that consideration stop him for even a moment. He was too honest with himself to pretend that his friendship and his duty to one of his own sworn men wouldn't have driven him to make the attempt under any circumstances, however ignoble it might have been to shift the death sentence to another. Yet however true that might have been, he'd also told the demon-jester no more than the exact truth when he argued that Skinnet and his skills and experience would be an irreplaceable loss.

But he might as well have spared himself the words and the bitter shame of humbling himself by literally begging for Skinnet's life. The demon-jester had been implacable, and he had rejected Sir George's arguments with cold logic.

"You may be entirely correct about his value, both to you and to my guild," his emotionless voice had piped. "Yet the example must be made. The selection was entirely random, and it is important for the remainder of your men to realize that in such circumstances any of them—regardless of rank, or even of their utility to the guild—may be called upon to pay the penalty for such actions. With that lesson before them, perhaps they will prove more assiduous in preventing such actions by others in the future."

There had been no moving him from his determination to drive his "lesson" home, and he'd followed through on the sentence. He had compelled the remainder of the English, including their women and children, who'd been awake at the time, to watch as the Hathori executed each of the chosen victims one by one. The men had died as well as anyone could, with Skinnet setting the example for them all, and the lesson that the Hathori were as inviolate as the demon-jester himself had certainly gone home among their surviving companions. But along with that lesson had come a fresh, colder, and far more deadly hatred of the demon-jester and the wart-faces alike, and Sir George wondered if the demon-jester recognized the bitter depth of that hate. If he did, he gave no sign of it, so perhaps he didn't. Or perhaps he simply didn't care. Perhaps, despite all evidence to the contrary, he still believed the English were no more than the Hathori themselves: brutal, incurious enforcers, smart enough to obey orders, but with no interest in anything beyond their orders.

That would have required even more arrogance—or stupidity—than Sir George had thought even the demon-jester capable of, yet the better he'd come to know his "Commander" the less he was prepared to dismiss the possibility. Anything was possible where the contemptuous "Commander's" prejudices were concerned, but the baron had also concluded that the limitations of the Hathori were the true reason the demon-jester had required the services of his own Englishmen. As individuals, the wart-faces were formidable killing machines, but they lacked the cohesion, the disciplined intelligence and ability, to fight as soldiers. Surely even the demon-jester must be aware, if only intellectually, that there were enormous differences between his pet Hathori and the English he had compelled to serve him, however little he showed it.

But whatever the wart-faces' shortcomings, it was clear that the eternally silent dragon-men were a very different proposition. Computer might have declined to answer questions about them, but the demon-jester had never once mentioned them directly in any of the conferences and conversations to which he summoned Sir George, and that simple omission all by itself carried an unmistakable significance. Surely there was some reason the demon-jester never so much as spoke of them, yet neither Sir George nor any of his closest advisers had been able to determine what that reason was. They were simply always there, looming in the background in their one-piece red and blue garments, as inscrutable and ominous as any cathedral gargoyle. Despite their greater height, they ought to have looked far less impressive than the armored, ax-wielding Hathori, but Sir George and his men never permitted themselves to forget the deadly lightning weapons sheathed at their belts as they guarded the demon-jester and the crew of the huge vessel.

Now the dragon-man who had accompanied Sir George this far returned the baron's glance with impassive silver eyes, motionless as a lizard on a stone and with the same sense of poised, absolute readiness. The glowing wall sealed the English into their own portion of their ship-prison, and none of them had yet been able to discover how the portal through it was opened or closed. They'd discovered a great deal about other controls in their quarters, ways to turn any number of clever devices on and off, and Sir George and Father Timothy were certain that the glowing wall must be controlled in some similar, or at least comparable, fashion, yet they'd never been able to detect how it was done.

Which was as well for their masters, Sir George thought grimly, and nodded to the dragon-man as he stepped past him into the corridor beyond the wall. As always, the towering creature didn't react in any way to the human gesture, but somehow Sir George felt certain the dragon-men recognized it as an acknowledgment and a courtesy of sorts. Whatever else they were, they were obviously capable of thought, or the demon-jester's guild would have replaced them with more of its clever mechanical devices. Equally obviously, it regarded both the Hathori and the dragon-men much as it did the English: as more or less domesticated, moderately dangerous, useful beasts of burden, although the demon-jester clearly placed greater faith in the loyalty of the dragon-men.

Sir George had often wondered how the dragon-men regarded the English. Did they, like the demon-jester's kind, consider them primitives and barbarians, beneath their own notice? Certainly they possessed and used more of the wondrous tools of their masters, but that didn't seem to make them their masters' equals or full members of the starship's crew. So did they see the English as companions in servitude, instead? Or did they cling to the need to look down upon the humans as a way to make themselves appear less wretched by comparison?

It seemed unlikely to make a great deal of difference either way, as neither Sir George, nor Father Timothy, nor any other human had ever discovered a way to communicate with them. Not even Matilda had been able to suggest a method which might have succeeded. Of course, their masters gave them precious little opportunity to experiment, but it was impossible to completely eliminate all physical contact between humans and dragon-men. Not if the dragon-men were to be useful as guards against the humans, at any rate. Most of the other humans had completely abandoned the task, but Father Timothy continued to try. The Dominican insisted that the dragon-men were far more intelligent than the Hathori, and that with intelligence must come at least the potential for communication. He was determined to someday discover a way to communicate with them, and Sir George shared his confessor's hopes for eventual success... although he lacked the priest's patience and dogged faith that he would ever achieve it.

Not even Father Timothy, on the other hand, still sought to communicate with the Hathori.

Sir George snorted at his own cross-grained nature as he followed the guiding light down the empty passageway. He shared Sir Timothy's hopes yet lacked the other's faith, a contradiction if ever he'd heard of one. Yet he couldn't quite turn off that tiny sprig of hope, and he often found himself dreaming of the dragon-men. Indeed, he'd dreamed of them more often during the last few periods of wakefulness than in quite some time.

His thoughts broke off as the guide light reached another hatch and stopped. It bobbed there imperiously, as if impatient with his slow progress, and he grinned. Such guides were necessary, for the constantly changing internal architecture of the ship could be bewildering, especially to one who spent almost all of his time aboard it locked into the portion assigned to the English. Sir George had been told by the demon-jester that the guide lights were only another of the endless mechanisms available to his masters, without any intelligence of their own, and he supposed he believed the alien. Yet he sometimes wondered, especially at times like this, when the lights twitched so impatiently, scolding him for dawdling and eager to be off about some fresh business of their own.

He stepped through the indicated hatch, and the light whisked off with a final bob and dodge. He watched it go, then stepped back and turned as the hatch closed.

The chamber was probably the same one to which the lights had guided him the last time the "Commander" summoned him, although they'd followed nothing remotely like the same path to reach it and its appearance, as usual, had changed completely between visits. This time, it was octagonal, with hatches in each wall, and perhaps fifteen feet across. Unlike the forest glades or the undersea vistas the demon-jester seemed to prefer for most of his meetings, this time the chamber was sparsely furnished, almost bare, with unadorned bulkheads of the ubiquitous bronze alloy. A glowing table at its center supported its sole decoration, one of the marvels the demon-jester called a "light sculpture." Sir George had no idea how the things were made, but they always fascinated him. All were beautiful, though the beauty was often strange to human eyes—so strange, sometimes, as to make one uneasy, even frightened—and almost always subtle. This one was a thing of flowing angles and forms, of brilliant color threaded through a cool background of blues and greens, and he gazed upon it in delight as its soothing presence flowed over him.

There are times, he thought dreamily, when I could almost forgive them for what they've done to us. Our lives are longer, our people healthier, than they ever would have been at home, and they can create such beauty and wonders as this. And yet all the marvels we've received are nothing but scraps from the table, dropped casually to us or—worse!—given only because it benefits them for us to have them. To them, we are less important, although not, perhaps, less valuable, than the things they build of metal and crystal, and—

"Your men fought well. But then you English always do, don't you?"

Sir George turned from the light sculpture. He hadn't heard the hatch open, but one rarely did aboard this ship. The main hatches, big enough for a score of mounted men abreast, yes. Not even their masters seemed able to make something that large move without even a whisper of sound, but the smaller hatches within the ship proper were another matter.

Not that most of his men would know that from personal experience. Only he, Sir Richard, Sir Anthony, and—on very rare occasions—Matilda had ever been permitted inside the portion of the vast ship reserved for the full members of the demon-jester's crew. Even then, they must submit to the humiliation of a search before they passed the glowing wall between their section of the ship and the rest of its interior.

Now he cocked his head, gazing at the demon-jester, and tried to gauge the other's mood. Despite the years of his servitude, he still found the task all but hopeless. That was immensely frustrating, and his inability to accurately evaluate the other's mood had become no less dangerous with the passage of time. But the "Commander's" piping voice remained a dead, expressionless thing, and the three-eyed face remained so utterly alien as to make reading its expression impossible. Certainly Sir George had never seen anything he could classify as a smile or a frown, nor had whatever translated the "Commander's" language into English become any better at communicating nuances of emotion. Father Timothy and Dickon Yardley had concluded that the upper of the demon-jester's two mouths was exclusively a breathing and speaking orifice, but Sir George had yet to hear a single sound emerge from it. Unlike the dragon-men, the demon-jester obviously did speak, but no human had ever heard his actual voice. From something Computer had once said in passing, Sir George had concluded that the demon-jester's apparent silence wasn't yet another security measure, however. From what Computer had said, the "Commander's" voice was simply pitched too high for human ears to hear.

Sir George had often wondered how much the artificiality of the voice he actually heard was responsible for how expressionless it sounded. He supposed it was possible that the demon-jester truly was as much a stranger to emotion as his translated voice suggested, but it seemed unlikely. The pompous superiority of the words he chose in their conversations seemed ample proof that the alien was capable of feeling contempt and disdain, if nothing else.

There were a great many questions the baron had never been able to answer about the exact nature of the demon-jester's translator, but he'd long since concluded that the "Commander's" failure or refusal to learn the language of his captive troops was another indication of his sense of utter superiority to them. Surely if whatever translated his words into English was capable of that feat, then it ought to be equally capable of making the demon-jester's own voice audible to humans, and in the demon-jester's place, Sir George would certainly have done just that. The "Commander's" decision not to was a foolish one, indeed, unless whatever translated his words into English did a far better job of communicating nuance and emotion when it translated English into his own language.

But however ridiculous the demon-jester might still look, and despite the foolishness of any decisions the "Commander" might make, Sir George's responsibility for the lives of the men and women who looked to him for leadership made it absolutely imperative that the baron never, ever make the mistake of underestimating him. And that was the true reason he found his continued inability to read the "Commander's" mood so maddening. He must watch his words with this creature far more closely than he'd ever watched them with any other commander, yet even after all this time, he was never quite free of the fear that he would choose the wrong one simply because he'd misunderstood or misinterpreted the "Commander." Of all the many frustrations of his servitude, that constant uncertainty was far and away the worst.

Still, he knew he'd made some progress over the years. He couldn't have spent so many hours conferring with the creature without gaining at least some small insight into his moods and attitudes. It would have been a great comfort to be able to feel certain that those insights were accurate and not dangerous misinterpretations, but at least the demon-jester appeared to take some pains to choose his words with care, as if seeking to make his meaning completely clear through what he said since he couldn't communicate fine shades of meaning by how he said it.

And, of course, there's also the fact that, as he never seems to tire of telling us, we're valuable to him and to his guild.

Sir George would never be so stupid as to assume that that value would preserve any human foolish enough to anger or appear to threaten their masters. Sir John Denmore's fate on that very first day would have been enough to prevent that even without the other deaths which had reinforced the lesson over the years. Two men who'd left their encampment without orders, fishnets in hand, unable to resist the allure of sunbaked golden beaches on a beautiful world of blue skies and deep green seas. Another who'd simply refused one day to leave the ship. Skinnet and the other five men executed for the wart-face's death. Another who'd gone berserk and attacked the dragon-men and the "Commander" himself with naked steel... .

All of them, and a handful besides, had perished for fatal transgressions against the demon-jester's decrees, slaughtered as helplessly as Sir John, and with as little apparent emotion on his part. Yet the "Commander's" actions and normal attitude, as well as Sir George could read the latter, were those of a being well pleased with his investment... and aware that his own masters were equally pleased. He would shed no tears (or whatever his kind did to express sorrow) over the death of any single human, but he valued them as a group and so took pains to avoid misunderstandings which might require him to destroy any of them.

Or any more of them, at any rate.

Sir George realized the Commander was still gazing at him, waiting for a response, and gave himself a small shake.

"Your pardon, Commander," he said. "The aftermath of battle lingers with me, I fear, and makes me somewhat slow of wit. You were saying?"

"I said that you English had done well today," the Commander said patiently. "My guild superiors will be pleased with the results of your valiant fighting. I feel certain that they will express that pleasure to me in some material form quite soon, and I, of course, wish to express my own pleasure to your men. Accordingly, I have instructed the Physician to awaken your mates and children. We will remain on this world for at least another several weeks while the details of our agreements are worked out with the natives. It may be that I shall need your services once again, or to trot a few of you out to remind the natives of your prowess, at least, during my negotiations. Since we must keep you awake during that period anyway, and since you have fought so well, rewarding you with the opportunity for a reunion seems only just."

"I thank you, Commander." Sir George fought to keep his own emotions out of his voice and expression, throttling back the familiar mixture of elation, joy, hatred, and fury the news sent through him.

"You are welcome, of course," the demon-jester piped back, and gestured for Sir George to seat himself on the human-style chair which had suddenly appeared. The usual "crystal" topped table rose from the floor beside it, and a second chair popped up on its other side. Sir George took the nearer chair gingerly. At least it was finally proportioned to fit a human's length of leg, but he was unable even after all this time to completely hide his discomfort with furnishings which appeared and disappeared as if out of thin air. Nor did he much care for the table. His suspicions about its top had been confirmed long ago, and the fact that it was actually as immaterial as the air about him left him with very mixed feelings. The tabletop was indisputably there. He could lay a hand upon it and feel... something. Yet he could never have described that something. It supported anything set upon it, but it was as if he couldn't quite place his hand on its actual surface, assuming it had one. It was more as if... as if he were pressing his palm against a powerful current of water, or perhaps an equally powerful current of air itself. There was a resistance as his hand approached what ought to be the surface of the table, yet there was no sense of friction, and he always seemed on the brink of being able to push just a little further, just a bit closer.

He put the thought aside once more and watched another of the ship's small metal servitors move silently into the compartment and deposit a crystal carafe of wine and an exquisite goblet before him. Another goblet and carafe, this time filled with some thick, purple-gold, sludge-like liquid was placed before the demon-jester, and Sir George managed not to blink in surprise. The "Commander" had offered him what amounted to a social meeting only five times before in all the years of his servitude, and as closely as he could estimate, each had followed on the heels of some particularly valuable coup which the English had executed for the guild. Which seemed to suggest that the hapless natives Sir George and his troops had slaughtered the day before must be the source of some commodity of particular value to his masters.

"You are wondering what brings us to this world, are you not?" the demon-jester asked, and Sir George nodded. The small alien had learned the meaning of at least some human gestures, and he made an alarming sound. Sir George wasn't positive, but he'd heard it a time or two before and he'd come to suspect it was the equivalent of a human chuckle, although whether it indicated satisfaction, amusement, scorn, impatience, or some other emotion was impossible to say.

"I am not surprised that you wonder," the demon-jester went on. "After all, these aliens are even more primitive than your own world. It must be difficult to grasp what such barbarians could possibly offer to civilized beings."

Sir George gritted his teeth and made himself take a sip of the truly excellent wine. It was strange that the demon-jester's words could still evoke such anger within him. After all this time, he should certainly have become accustomed to the other's dismissive contempt, and he could even admit, intellectually, that there was some point to the alien's attitude. Compared to the "Commander's" people, humans were primitive. On the other hand, Sir George had long since concluded that the demon-jester's guild wasn't actually so very different from human guilds or other powerful groups of his own experience. He would have given a great deal, for example, to see how the "Commander" would have fared bargaining with a Cypriot or a Venetian. Without the advantage of his "technology," he strongly suspected, the demon-jester would be plucked like a pigeon.

"In actual fact," the demon-jester continued, seemingly oblivious to Sir George's silence, "this planet does not offer us any physical commodity. As you know, some of the worlds which the guild has used you to open to our trade have offered such commodities, although normally only in the form of resources the primitives who live upon them are too stupid to exploit themselves. In this case, however, it is the position of the world which is of such value. It will provide us with a location for... warehouses, I suppose you might call them, and one from which we may fuel and maintain our vessels."

He paused, looking at Sir George with that impossible to read face, then raised his goblet to tip a little of the purple-gold sludge into his lower mouth.

"You may think of it as a strategically located island or trading port," he went on after a moment, his own inaudible voice obviously issuing from his upper mouth while the lower one was busy with the goblet. "It will bring us many advantages. And of particular satisfaction to me personally, it will cut deeply into the flank of the Sharnhaishian Guild's trade network."

Sir George pricked up his ears at that. Impossible though he found it to reliably interpret the demon-jester's tone or expression, he'd formed some conclusions about the other's personality. He knew it was risky to draw parallels between such unearthly creatures and the personality traits of humans, yet he couldn't help doing so. Perhaps it was simply that he had to put the demon-jester into some sort of familiar framework or go mad. Indeed, he often thought that might be the best explanation of all. But he also felt certain that he'd read at least one aspect of the "Commander" correctly: the thick-bodied little creature loved to brag... even when his audience was no more than a primitive, barbarian English slave. Perhaps even more importantly—and, again, like many boastful humans Sir George had known—the alien seemed blissfully unaware of the weakness such bragging could become. A wise man, Sir George's father had often said, learns from the things fools let slip.

Fortunately, the demon-jester had never met Sir James Wincaster.

Sir George realized the demon-jester had said nothing for several seconds, simply sat gazing at him with that disconcerting triple stare, and he shook himself.

"I see... I think," he said, hoping his deduction that the "Commander" wanted him to respond was correct. "I suppose it would be like capturing, oh, Constantinople and seizing control of all access to the Black Sea."

"I am not certain," the demon-jester replied. "I am insufficiently familiar with the geography of your home world to know if the analogy is accurate, but it sounds as if it might be. At any rate, there will be major bonuses for myself and the members of my team, which is one reason I wish to reward you. You and your kind are a very valuable guild asset, and unlike some of my guild brothers, I have always believed that valuable property should be well cared for and that assets are better motivated by reward than by punishment alone."

"I've observed much the same," Sir George said with what might charitably have been described as a smile. He managed to keep his voice level and thoughtful, whatever his expression might have briefly revealed, and he castigated himself for that teeth-baring grimace, reminding himself yet again that his masters might be better versed at reading human expressions than he was at reading theirs. Unlike humans, they at least had experience of scores of other races and sorts of creatures. They must have learned at least a little something about interpreting alien emotions from that experience, and even if they hadn't, it was far better to overestimate a foe than to underestimate one.

"I suspected that you might have reached the same conclusion," the demon-jester said with what Sir George rather thought might have been an expansive air, had he been human. "Yet I must confess that for me, personally, the fact that we have dealt the Sharnhaishians a blow is of even greater satisfaction than any bonus."

"You've mentioned the... the—" Sir George snorted impatiently. He simply could not wrap his tongue about the sounds of the alien name, and the demon-jester made that alarming sound once again.

"The Sharnhaishian Guild," he supplied, and Sir George nodded.

"Yes. You've mentioned them before, Commander."

"Indeed I have," the demon-jester agreed. There was still no readable emotion in his voice or face, yet Sir George suspected that if there had been, the emotion would have been one of bitter hatred. "I owe the Sharnhaishians a great deal," the demon-jester went on. "They almost destroyed my career when they first produced their accursed `Romans.' "

Sir George nodded again, striving to project an air of understanding and sympathy while he hoped desperately that the demon-jester would continue. The other had touched upon the Sharnhaishian Guild, obviously the great rival of his own trading house, in earlier conversations. The references had been maddeningly vague and fragmentary, yet they'd made it plain that the Sharnhaishians were currently ascendent over the demon-jester's own guild. It was equally plain that the demon-jester deeply resented that ascendancy, which might explain why he'd exercised such uncharacteristically complete control over operations on this planet. If he saw this as an opportunity to obtain a measure of vengeance upon his hated rivals, he might have been unwilling to share the moment with anyone.

Whether that was true or not, the Sharnhaishians' success seemed to have a great deal to do with the Romans the demon-jester had also mentioned more than once. Sir George found it all but impossible to believe, even now, that the "Romans" in question could be what it sounded as if they were, but if he was wrong, he wanted to know it. It might be ludicrous to believe he could hope to achieve anything against his alien masters, yet Sir George had seen too much of purely human struggles to surrender all hope, despite the huge gulf between their physical capabilities. There were times when a bit of knowledge, or of insight into an enemy's thoughts and plans (or fears), could be more valuable than a thousand bowmen.

And given all the marvels the "Commander" and his kind possess, knowledge is the only thing which might aid me against them, he reminded himself.

The demon-jester ingested more purple-gold sludge, all three eyes gazing at the "light sculpture" as if he'd completely forgotten Sir George was present, and the human had a sudden thought. The wine in his goblet was perhaps the finest vintage he'd ever sampled, and potent, as well. Was it reasonable to guess that the sludge was equally or even more potent for the demon-jester's kind? The more he considered it, the more possible—and probable—it seemed, and he smiled inwardly, much as a shark might have smiled.

Truth in the wine, he reminded himself, and took another sip (a very small one this time) from his own glass.

"It was the Sharnhaishians and their Romans who kept me from being appointed a sector commissioner long ago," the demon-jester said at last. He moved his eyes from the light sculpture to Sir George, and the Englishman hid another smile as he realized the flanking eyes had gone just a bit unfocused. They seemed to be wandering off in directions of their own, as well, and he filed that fact away. He could be wrong, but if he wasn't, recognizing the signs of drunkenness in the demon-jester might prove valuable in the future.

"How was I to know they might come up with something like the Romans?" the demon-jester demanded. "It must have cost them a fortune to bribe the Council into letting them buy the damned barbarians in the first place." Sir George cocked his head slightly, and the demon-jester slapped a double-thumbed hand on the table top. On a normal table, such a blow would have produced a thunderclap of sound; on this table, there was no noise at all, but the demon-jester seemed to draw a certain comfort from the gesture.

"Oh, yes." He took another deep sip of sludge and refilled his goblet once more. "The Federation has rules, you know. Laws. Like the one that says none of us can use modern weapons on primitive worlds. The `Prime Directive,' they call it." He slurped more sludge, but his upper mouth never stopped speaking. "Bunch of hypocrites, that's what they are. Carrying on like the thing is supposed to protect the stupid primitives. You know what it really is?"

His large, central eye fixed on Sir George, and the Englishman shook his head.

"Fear, that's what," the demon-jester told him. "Stupid bureaucrats are afraid we'll lose some of our toys where the barbarians can find them. As if the idiots could figure them out in the first place."

He fell silent again, and alien though his voice and face might be, Sir George was increasingly certain that he truly was as moody as any drunken human.

"Actually, it makes a sort of sense, you know," the demon-jester went on finally. He gave the table another silent thump and leaned back in the oddly shaped, bucketlike piece of furniture which served his kind as a chair. "Takes years and years to move between stars, even with phase drive. One reason the ships are so damned big. Don't have to be, you know. We could put a phase drive in a hull a tenth the size of this one. Even smaller. But size doesn't matter much. Oh, the mass curve's important, but once you've got the basic system-"

He waved a hand, and Sir George nodded once again. He didn't have the faintest idea what a "mass curve" was, and only the vaguest notion of how the "phase drive" was supposed to work, but at the moment, he didn't much care. Other bits and pieces did make sense to him, and he listened avidly for more.

And, he thought from behind his own masklike expression, it doesn't hurt a bit to watch the "Commander." "Truth in the wine," indeed! His voice and face may not reveal much, but his gestures are another matter entirely. Perhaps I've been looking in the wrong places to gauge his moods. He filed that away, as well, and sat back in his chair, nursing his goblet in both hands while he listened attentively... and sympathetically.

"Thing is, if it takes a decade or so to make the trip, better have the capacity to make the trip worthwhile, right?" the demon-jester demanded. "You think this ship is big?" Another wave of a double-thumbed hand, gesturing at the bulkheads. "Well, you're wrong. Lots of ships out there lots bigger than this one. Most of the guild ships, as a matter of fact, because it doesn't cost any more to run a really big ship than a little one like this. But that's the real reason for their stupid `Prime Directive.' "

"The size of your vessels?" Sir George made his tone puzzled and wrinkled his forehead ferociously, hoping the demon-jester had become sufficiently well versed in human expressions to recognize perplexity, although if his estimate of the other's condition was accurate it was unlikely the other would be noticing anything so subtle as an alien race's expressions. But whether or not the demon-jester recognized his expression, it was quickly clear that he'd asked the right question.

"Of course not," the demon-jester told him. "Not the size, the speed. Might be fifteen or twenty of your years between visits to most of these backwater planets. Maybe even longer. I know one planet that the guild only sends a ship to every two and a half of your centuries or so, and the Federation knows it, too. So they don't want to take any chances on having some bunch of primitives figure out we're not really gods or whatever between visits. Want to keep them awed and humble around us. That's why they passed their `Prime Directive' something like—" The demon-jester paused in thought for a few seconds, as if considering something. "Would have been something like thirty thousand of your years ago, I think. Give or take a century or two."

He made the alarming sound again, and Sir George was certain now that it was his kind's equivalent of laughter. For just a moment, that hardly seemed to matter, however. Thirty thousand years? His alien masters' civilization had existed for over thirty millennia? Impossible! And yet—

"Even for us, that's a long time for a law to be in effect," the demon-jester said. His piping voice was less clear, the words beginning to blur just a bit around the corners as he leaned towards Sir George, and the baron had to fight back a chuckle of his own as he realized that whatever did the translating was faithfully slurring the translation to match the drunken original. "We don't like to change things unless we have to, you know, so once we write a law, it stays around a while. But this one's made lots of trouble for the guilds, because without using weapons, we couldn't just go in and rearrange things properly. Actually had to bargain with barbarians so primitive they don't have a clue about the value of the things they're sitting on top of. Couldn't violate the damned `Prime Directive' after all, now could we?"

Another thump on the table. This time, it wouldn't have made any sound anyway, because the demon-jester missed the table top entirely, and Sir George began to wonder how much longer the creature would last before he passed out.

"So what did the Sharnhaishians do?" the alien continued. "I'll tell you what. They went out and found another primitive world, one the Council didn't even know about yet, and they bought their damned `Romans.' Never occurred to any of the rest of us. But the Prime Directive doesn't say we can't use force. All it says is that we can't use modern weapons. It just never occurred to any of us that there was anything we could do without using our weapons except negotiate and bribe."

He lowered his goblet and peered down into it for several seconds, then made a sound suspiciously like a human belch and returned his central eye to Sir George.

"Not the Sharnhaishians, though. If they want a primitive world, they just send in their Romans. Just as primitive as the local barbarians, so the Council can't complain, and I'll say this for the Romans. They're tough. Never run into anything they couldn't handle, and the Sharnhaishians've used them to take dozens of backwater worlds away from the other guilds. Whole trade nets, cut to pieces. Strategic commodities sewn up, warehousing and basing rights snatched out from under us, careers ruined. And all because the Sharnhaishians acquired a few thousand primitives in bronze armor."

He fell silent for a long time, swirling sludge in his goblet and peering down into it, then looked back up more or less in Sir George's direction.

"But they're not the only ones who can play that game. They thought they were. The other guilds got together to complain to the Council, and the Council agreed to take the matter under consideration. It may even decide the Sharnhaishians have to stop using their Romans entirely, but that may take centuries, and in the meantime, Sharnhaishian is shipping them from one strategic point to another and taking them away from the rest of us. And they slipped someone on the Council a big enough bribe to get your world declared off-limits for all the rest of us."

Sir George stiffened, and hoped the demon-jester was too drunk to notice. He wasn't surprised that the other guild could have bribed the Council the alien was yammering about. Bribing a few key rulers was often more efficient, and cheaper, than relying on armies. Although if His Majesty had spent a little more money on his army and a little less on trying to buy allies in his first French campaign he might have been on the throne of France by its end!

But if the demon-jester was telling the truth, if the Council to which he referred had the authority to declare that contact with Sir George's home world was no longer permitted and had done so, then the demon-jester's guild must have violated that decree in order to kidnap Sir George and his troops. And if that was the case—if their servitude was unlawful in the eyes of what passed for the Crown among these creatures—then they were in even more danger than he'd believed.

"It took me two or three of your centuries just to figure out where your world was," the demon-jester went on, and now Sir George seemed to sense an air of pride. "Some of the other guilds recruited their own primitive armies, like the Hathori. But none of them have been able to match the Romans. Course they couldn't! And the Sharnhaishians knew that before the rest of us did, too. Reason they went and bought their damned Romans in the first place. They'd already tried the Hathori 'n found out what the rest of us had t' learn the hard way. I still remember the first time we sent the Hathori in against a bunch of natives."

The alien stared down into his goblet, and his ears flattened.

"Damned aborigines cut them to pieces," he said after a long moment. "Cost them a lot of casualties at first, but then they swarmed right over the Hathori. Butchered them one by one. I doubt we got one in twenty back alive at the end, but that wouldn't have happened against the damned Romans. Those aren't just warriors—they're demons that carve up anything they run into. So it occurred to me that what we needed were Romans of our own, and I managed to convince my creche cousin to convince his sector commissioner to speak to the guild masters for me. I needed all the help I could get, thanks to the Sharnhaishians and their Romans. Course, it helped that by then they'd done the same thing to dozens of other guildsmen, and not just in our guild, either. So they gave me a chance to reclaim my career if I could find where the Romans came from, get past the Council ban, and catch us some Romans of our own. And I did it, too."

This time his slap managed to connect with the table top again, though it was still soundless, and he threw himself untidily back in his chair.

"But we're not Romans," Sir George pointed out after a moment. He was half afraid to say another word, for if the demon-jester remembered any of this conversation at a later date and realized all he was letting slip, there would be one very simple way to rectify his error.

" 'Course not," the alien said. "Good thing, too, in a way. Surprised me, of course. I never expected to see so much change on a single planet in such a short period. Couldn't have been more than eight or nine hundred of your years between you and the Romans, and just look at all the differences. It's not decent. Oh," he waved a hand again, "you're still primitives, of course. Haven't changed that. But we got there in just the nick of time. Another seven or eight of your centuries or so, and you might actually have been using practical firearms, and we couldn't have that. Unlikely, I admit, but there you were, already experimenting with them." The demon-jester eyed Sir George. "I have to wonder how you stumbled on the idea so soon. Could the Sharnhaishians have slipped up and suggested it to you?"

"The idea of `firearms'?" Sir George frowned.

"Pots de fer, I believe you call them," the demon-jester said.

"Fire pots?" Sir George blinked in genuine consternation. "But they're nothing but toys, Commander! Good for scaring horses and people who've never before encountered them, perhaps, but scarcely serious weapons. Even bombards are little more than noisy nuisances against anyone who knows his business! Why, my bowmen would massacre any army stupid enough to arm itself with such weapons. Crossbows are more effective than they are!"

"No doubt they are... now," the demon-jester replied. "Won't stay that way, though. Of course, you've still got another thousand years or so to go before anyone develops truly effective small arms. Still, I suppose it's a fairly good example of why they passed the Prime Directive in the first place. If the Sharnhaishians hadn't somehow contaminated your world, you never would have come up with gunpowder at all. Not so quickly, anyway."

He took another deep swallow, and Sir George decided to stay away from the question of where gunpowder came from. He himself knew only a very little about the subject; such weapons had become available in Europe only during his own lifetime and, like most of his military contemporaries, he'd had little faith that they would ever amount to much as effective field weapons. Certainly such crude, short-ranged, dangerous devices would never pose any threat to the supremacy of his bowmen! Yet the demon-jester seemed to find their existence deeply significant and more than a little worrying. It was almost as if the fact that humans had begun experimenting with them was somehow threatening, and Sir George had no intention of suggesting that the Sharnhaishians hadn't had anything to do with the development. Besides, how did he know the rival guild hadn't?

"Anyway," the demon-jester said, the words more slurred than ever, "it's a good thing we found you when we did. Couldn't have used you at all if you'd been armed with firearms. Would've been a clear violation of the Prime Directive, and that would've gotten questions asked. People would've noticed, too, and the Council would've started asking questions of its own."

He leaned back towards Sir George again, and this time he patted the Englishman on the knee with what would have been a conspiratorial air from another human.

"As it is, nobody really cares. Just 'nother bunch of primitives with muscle-powered weapons, nothing to worry about. None of the Council's inspectors even know enough about humans to realize you and Romans are the same species, and if any of 'em ever do notice, we know where to put the bribes to convince them they were mistaken. Besides," another pat on the knee, "you're all off the books." Sir George frowned, puzzled by the peculiar phrase, and the demon-jester thumped his knee a third time. "No document trail," he said, the words now so slurred that Sir George found it virtually impossible to understand them even as words, far less to grasp the meanings of unfamiliar phrases. "Grabbed you outa th' middle of a storm. Ever'body on your stupid planet figures you all drowned. Would have 'thout us, too, y'know. But that means even if th' Council investigates, won't find any evidence of contact between us an' your world, because aside from picking you outa th' water an' grabbing a few horses in th' middle of th' night, there wasn't any. So we've got our own little army, an' 'less some inspector does get nosy, nobody'll ever even ask where you came from."

The demon-jester leaned back in his chair once more and reached out for his goblet. But his groping hand knocked it over, and he peered down at it. His central eye was almost as unfocused as the secondary ones now, and his strange, sideways eyelids began to iris out to cover them all.

"S' take that, Sharnhaishian," he muttered. "Thought you'd wrecked my career, didn' you? But who's goin' to..."

His voice trailed off entirely, his eyes closed, and he slumped in his chair. His upper mouth fell open, and a whistling sound which Sir George realized must be his kind's equivalent of a snore came from it.

The human sat in his own chair, staring numbly at the demon-jester, until the door opened silently once more. He looked up quickly then and saw one of his masters' guards in the opening. The dragon-man beckoned imperatively with one clawed hand, and Sir George noted the way that its other hand rested on the weapon scabbarded at its side.

Could that be what the "Commander" actually meant by "firearms"? he wondered suddenly. Not even a true dragon could hurl hotter "fire" than they do... and they're certainly far more dangerous than any stupid fire pot!

The dragon-man beckoned again, its meaning clear, and Sir George sighed and rose. Of course they wouldn't leave him alone with the senseless demon-jester. No doubt they'd been watching through one of Computer's "visual sensors" and come to collect him the instant the demon-jester collapsed. But had they paid any attention to the demon-jester's conversation before he collapsed? And even if they had, had they guessed that Sir George might realize the significance of what the demon-jester had told him?

He hoped not, just as he hoped the demon-jester wouldn't remember all he'd let slip. Because if the others had guessed, or the demon-jester did remember, Sir George would almost certainly die.

After all, it would never do for the guild's pet army's commander to realize that if anyone from the Council—wherever and exactly whatever it was—did begin to question that army's origins, the entire army would have to disappear.

Forever... and without a trace that could tie the demon-jester's guild to a planet that the Council had interdicted.