The Excalibur Alternative

-IX-

"Are you certain, my love?"

Lady Matilda Wincaster reclined against the cushion under the brightly colored awning and regarded her husband with a serious expression.

Despite years of experience with their bizarre tastes, the demon-jester clearly remained perplexed by, if not incredulous of, the English's powerful preference for camping in mere tents outside the vast starship. They'd been persistent enough in their desires that he'd been forced to accept that it was what they truly wanted, yet it was obvious that he found the entire concept utterly inexplicable. In many ways, Sir George suspected, the "Commander" found it even more difficult to understand because the English were such "primitives." Whereas the demon-jester might have been prepared for the notion that civilized beings such as himself might desire an occasional, rustic break from the rigors of civilization, the idea that barbarians who'd been given a taste of the better things life could offer might choose not to wallow in them was beyond his comprehension. No doubt that helped explain his obvious suspicion that the humans' often expressed desire for the open air was merely a cover for something much more devious. Sir George still remembered how long the expressionless commander had gazed at him back on Shaakun after his initial request that his people be allowed to remain outside the ship. The demon-jester had considered the request for over two full shipboard days before he elected to grant it, and when he announced his permission, he had also warned against any thought that the English might be able to slip away and hide from their masters. His technology could find them wherever they might attempt to hide, he'd said in his toneless voice, and punishment for attempted desertion would be severe.

Sir George had doubted neither warning, and he'd taken steps to impress both of them equally strongly on his subordinates.

Those steps had succeeded. In all the years of their servitude, not a single one of his men had tried to desert. Or not, at least, from their encampments. Three men had been hunted down by the demon-jester's mechanical remotes after becoming separated from the company's main body on the march or during combat operations. None of them had been returned to the ship alive. In at least one case, Sir George was as certain as he could be that the trooper in question had simply become disoriented and lost in the heavy fog which had enveloped the column that day, but the demon-jester hadn't cared about that. The man-at-arms had been absent without permission. That constituted desertion, and desertion was punishable by death. He'd had no desire to determine the circumstances of the particular case at hand. The dead man had only been a primitive Englishman, after all. And the demon-jester had probably seen it as an opportunity to administer yet another of his object lessons. He was a great believer in object lessons.

Over the years, at least some of the English had come to share more of the demon-jester's view of life in the open air. Despite the splendor of the creature comforts available in their tents and pavilions, the luxuries aboard ship, or even in one of the mothership's landers, were even more splendid, and none of the humans were so stupid as to reject them out of hand, despite their captivity. But a majority of them still nursed that inborn hunger for open skies and natural air... even the "natural air" of planets which had never been home to any of their kind. They preferred to sleep amid the fresh air and breezes, the sounds of whatever passed for birds on a given planet, and the chuckling sounds of running water. And even those who invariably returned aboard ship for the night enjoyed the occasional open air meal. Indeed, the picnic feasts often took on the air of a festival or fair from Earth, helping to bind them together and reinforce their sense of community.

And they were a community, as well as an army. In many ways, Sir George had often thought, they were fortunate that there were so few gently born among them. He himself was the only true nobleman, and even he was the grandson of a common man-at-arms. Aside from himself and Maynton, only Matilda and Sir Anthony Fitzhugh could claim any real high-born connection. After a great deal of soul-searching and discussions with Maynton, Fitzhugh, and Sir Bryan Stanhope—and, especially, with Matilda—he had decided to bestow the accolade of knighthood upon men who'd earned it in battle. He was careful not to abuse the practice, and his men knew it. That made the knighthoods he'd awarded even more valuable to them, and it had also given him a solid core of exactly one dozen knights.

The fact that all but three of them were men of common birth had not only told all of his troopers that any one of them could aspire to the highest rank still available to them but had also helped to bind the entire community even more tightly together. And not just among its male members. Just as three quarters of his knights had been born of common blood, so had the vast majority of the company's women, which meant that, especially with Matilda and Margaret Stanhope to lead the way, they had decided to overlook the dubious origins of many of the unwed camp followers who'd joined them in their involuntary exile. Most of those camp followers, though by no means all, had acquired husbands quite speedily. A few had chosen not to, and Father Timothy had agreed, under the circumstances, not to inveigh against them for continuing to ply their old avocation. There were a great many more men than women, and the one thing most likely to provoke trouble among them was that imbalance in numbers. No doubt Father Timothy would have preferred for all of the women to be respectfully wedded wives, but he, too, had been a soldier in his time. He understood the temper of men who still were, and he was able to appreciate the need to adapt to the conditions in which they found themselves forced to live.

As a result, not even those women who continued to follow their original trade were ostracized as they might have been, and a tightly knit cluster of families formed the core of the English community. The steadily growing number of children (both legitimate and bastard) helped cement that sense of community even further, and for all the bitterness with which Sir George chafed against his servitude, even he had to admit the awe he felt that not a single one of those children had perished in infancy. That was undoubtedly the most treasured of the "luxuries" their masters had made available to them. The strangest, however (though it was hard to pick the single most strange) was the fact that so few of those children's mothers remembered their births. It had caused some consternation and even terror and talk of "changelings" at first, but as time passed, the women had adjusted to the fact that their babies were almost always born during one of their sleep periods. The Physician had explained the process, pointing out that it only made sense to get such time consuming worries as pregnancies out of the way when they were asleep in stasis anyway. After an initial period of extreme uneasiness, most of the women had come to agree. Led in almost every case, Sir George had been amused (but not surprised) to note, by the women who had birthed the most babies the "old-fashioned" way.

He smiled even now, at the memory, but his attention was on his wife's question. One of the real reasons he'd initially requested freedom from the ship for his people had been amply confirmed over the years. He was absolutely positive now that anything which was said aboard the ship would be overheard and reported by Computer or one of their master's clever mechanical spies, and while he was perfectly well aware that those same spies could eavesdrop upon them outside the ship, as well—Computer could hear and relay his orders even through the thunderous clangor of battle and even when he spoke in almost normal tones, after all—he hoped it was at least a bit harder. And he rather suspected that even the most clever of mechanisms would find it more difficult to keep track of several hundred individual conversations out in the open against the background noise of wind and water than to listen for a single command voice even amidst the bedlam of war. The fact that he or one of his trusted advisers had managed to find at least one spot in each encampment where Computer would not, or could not, respond to them also suggested that it was possible for some freak of terrain or atmosphere to produce blind spots in Computer's own coverage. Sir George had taken careful note of the fact that most of those "blind spots" seemed to occur in dips or hollows, depressions which allowed the speaker to put a bank of solid earth or stone between himself and areas where he knew Computer could hear him.

The ingrained habits of extreme caution had become a matter of simple reflex to him during the years of his servitude, and he had no intention of risking any more than he must upon the unproven assumption that there was anywhere at all that Computer couldn't hear him. At the same time, however, he knew there was no place aboard ship where he couldn't be overheard, which meant that the only time he felt even remotely safe discussing dangerous matters was during their periods of encampment.

Although even then, he reflected, the only person with whom he truly discussed them was Matilda.

"Yes, I'm certain," he said at last, meeting her blue eyes as he answered her question. God, she's beautiful, he thought with a familiar sense of wonder and awe.

"I don't think he realizes he revealed so much," he went on after a moment, raising a wine goblet to hide the movement of his lips and speaking very quietly, "but I'm certain of it. More certain than I like."

"But surely there's no longer any doubt that we truly are as valuable to his guild as he's suggested," Matilda pointed out. "You've served him far better than even he could ever have imagined you might, with wit and counsel as much as with weapons. He himself has admitted as much to you, and, like you, I very much doubt that he was ever the sort to waste unmeant praise upon someone he considers so completely his inferior out of a sense of courtesy. Whatever else his guild may be, surely it would not lightly discard a tool whose worth it holds so high."

"Um." Sir George set the goblet aside, then stretched in an ostentatious yawn. He smiled at his wife and moved to lay his head in her lap, smiling up at her as she tickled the tip of his nose with a stalk of local grass. To the casual eye, they were but two people—people miraculously young and comely—in love, but his eyes were serious as he gazed up at her.

"We are valuable," he agreed, "but we're also the very thing you just called us: a tool. You've spent more time with him than almost any of our other people, love, because of the times he's `invited' both of us to dinner or the like. But not even you have spent anything approaching the number of hours with him that I have. I wish I hadn't spent them, but I have. And in the spending, I've learned that our worst fears of how he views us have actually fallen short of the mark. I doubt that he could be considered `cruel' by his own standards, but we fall outside those standards. We may be valuable for what we've achieved for him and his guild, but we aren't people to him. We have absolutely no value to him except as tools. He sees us as we might see a horse, or a cow: as things to be used for his purposes and discarded—or slaughtered—if they're no longer useful. Certainly he regards me, for all his praise when I accomplish his goals for him, with less affection than I hold for Satan!"

"Because we aren't of his kind?" Matilda murmured, her expression troubled. She and Sir George had touched upon this topic before often enough, both in their private conversations with one another and in guarded, cautious circumstances with other members of the baron's council. Nothing that her husband had just said came as a true surprise, yet this was the most frankly he had ever expressed it, and his voice had been harsh.

"In part, perhaps," he said after a moment in reply to her question, "but I think not entirely. At least he loves to boast, and I've gleaned what bits and pieces I can from his bragging. As nearly as I can tell, there are several kinds of creatures in the `Federation' of which he speaks. His own kind is but one sort of them, and there are great physical differences between them. But they seem much alike in spirit and outlook. All consider themselves `advanced' because of the machines and other devices they build and control, just as they consider us `primitives' because we lack the knowledge to construct such devices. And to the Federation, primitives are less than French serfs. As primitives, we have no rights, no value, except as tools and property. We aren't remotely their equals, and most of them wouldn't so much as blink at the thought of killing us all. So if our value in the field should suddenly find itself outweighed by the potential discovery that the `Commander's' guild has violated a Federation edict—"

He shrugged, and she nodded unhappily, glorious eyes dark. He felt the fear she tried to hide and smiled ruefully as he reached to pat her knee.

"Forgive me, dear heart. I shouldn't have burdened you with the thought."

"Nonsense!" She laid a slim, strong and hand across his mouth and shook her head fiercely. "I'm your wife, and if Father erred in abetting my deplorable taste for books and philosophy, at least my vices have left me with a mind willing to consider even your most preposterous theories, my love. And you, Sir George Wincaster, are neither Saint Michael nor God Himself to carry all the weight of our fate upon your shoulders alone. So if Timothy or I, or even Sir Richard, can help by listening and allowing you to test those same preposterous theories upon us, then it would be stupid for you to hide your fears from us lest you `burden' me with them!"

"Perhaps," he agreed, reaching up to caress the side of her face. She leaned down to kiss him, and he savored the taste of her lips. She broke the kiss and started to say something more, but he shook his head and drew her gently down beside him, pillowing her head on his shoulder as they lay on the cushions, gazing up at the sky.

She accepted his unspoken injunction to change the subject and began to talk more lightly of their children—first of Edward, and then of the four younger children born to them aboard their masters' ship. As far as Matilda was concerned, that was the greatest wonder of all after her acceptance of her barrenness back in Lancaster, and her children were the one unblemished joy of their captivity. They were Sir George's, as well, and so he listened with smiling, tender attentiveness, gazing at her face and never once, by even so much as a glance, acknowledged the presence of the dragon-man who had drifted out of the spidery trees. The creature paused for a long moment near the awning under which the baron and his lady lay. It stood there, as if listening intently, and then, as slowly and silently as it had come, it drifted back into the forest and was gone.

The demon-jester seldom appeared among the men of "his" army, but he continued to make a point of summoning them all before him after they'd won yet another victory for his guild. In turn, Sir George and his officers made a point of seeing to it that none of those men ever revealed how they felt about those summonings, for the "Commander" would have reacted poorly to their scorn and soul-deep anger. The baron was still unable to decide how even the demon-jester could be so utterly ignorant of the inmost natures of the men who fought and died for him because they had no choice, but that he was seemed undeniable. Who but a fool who knew nothing of Englishmen would appear before those he'd stolen from their homes as his slaves to praise them for their efforts in his behalf? To tell them how well they had served the guild they'd come to hate with all their hearts and souls? To promise them as the "reward" for their "valor" and "loyalty" the privilege of seeing their own wives and children?

Yet that was precisely what the demon-jester had done on other occasions, and it was what he did today. Usually, he summoned them to assemble in the portion of the starship to which they were confined, but sometimes, as today, he came to them aboard his air car. Now the car floated perhaps ten feet in the air above the flattened, dusty grass of the exercise area between the lander and the main encampment, surrounded protectively by a dozen dragon-men. Two score of armored wart-faces stood in a stolid line between the vehicle and the assembled Englishmen, as well, watching frog-eyed through the slots in their visors, and Sir George gritted his own teeth until his jaw muscles ached as that piping, emotionless voice wound its monotonous way through the endless monologue. He felt the invisible fury rising from his men like smoke and marveled once more that any creature whose kind could build wonders like the ship and all its marvelous servitors could be so stupid.

"... reward you for your courage and hardihood," the piping voice went on. "I salute your loyalty and bravery, which have once more carried our guild's banner to victory, and I hope to grant you the rewards you so richly deserve in the very near future. In the meantime, we—"

"Reward I deserve, hey?" Rolf Grayhame muttered. He stood beside Sir George, his voice a thread, leaking from the side of his fiercely moustachioed lips. "Only one reward I want, My Lord, and that's a clean shot. Just one."

Sir George elbowed the archer sharply, and Grayhame closed his mouth with an apologetic glower. He knew Sir George's orders as well as any, but like his baron, he felt only contempt for the demon-jester. Well, that and raw hatred. Walter Skinnet had been his friend, and the burly archer would never forget the day of his death. The demon-jester was far from the first arrogant or heedlessly cruel lordling Grayhame had seen in his career, but he was arguably the stupidest. Secure in the superiority of his mechanisms and guards though he might be, he was still witless enough to infuriate fighting men by dragging them out to hear this sort of crap. Not even a Frenchman was that stupid!

"Sorry, My Lord," the archer captain muttered. "Shouldn't have said it. But not even a Scot would—"

He clamped his jaw again, and Sir George gave him a stern look that was only slightly flawed by the smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. That small lip twitch emboldened Grayhame, and his gray-green eyes glinted for just a moment. Then he shrugged his shoulders apologetically and returned his attention to the "Commander."

"... and so we will spend several more of your weeks here," the demon-jester was saying. "The craven curs you have whipped to their kennels will offer no threat," he seemed completely oblivious to how foolish his rhetoric sounded to human ears, especially delivered in his piping, emotionless voice, "and you and your mates and children will have that time to enjoy the sunlight and fresh air you relish so greatly. Go now. Return to your families, secure in the knowledge that you are valued and treasured by our guild."

Sir George started to lead his men back to their pavilions when the demon-jester dismissed them, but a gesture from the chunky little creature stopped him. Grayhame, Howice, and Maynton paused as well, their eyes meeting Sir George's questioningly, but a tiny shake of his head sent them on after the others. He watched them leave, then turned to his master.

"Yes, Commander?"

"Not all of this planet's primitives have been sufficiently cowed by your defeat of the local clans," the demon-jester said. "I suppose that by now I should be accustomed to the ability of such aborigines to persistently deny the inescapable proof of their own inferiority. Like so many other primitives, these appear able to grasp that their local colleagues' forces have been utterly destroyed, but they do not seem to believe the same could be done to their own. Apparently they feel that those you have defeated were poorly led and motivated... unlike, of course, their own warriors. While cautious, they have not yet accepted that they have no choice but to do as we bid them or be destroyed in their separate turns."

He paused, his three-eyed gaze fixed on Sir George's face, and the human tried to hide his dismay. Not from concern over what might happen to his own men, but because the thought of yet again butchering still more of the local natives for the benefit of the demon-jester's guild sickened him.

"I see," he said at last, and wondered how he could diplomatically suggest that the demon-jester might wish to draw upon his own negotiating expertise to convince the locals of their helplessness without still more bloodshed. "Will it be necessary for us to destroy their forces in the field, as well?" he asked after a moment.

"It may," the demon-jester replied in that emotionless voice, "but I hope to avoid that. We would be forced to recall you all aboard the ship and use the landers to transport your troops into reach of their warriors. That would be inconvenient. Worse, it might actually encourage them to resist. Such primitive species have exhibited similar behavior in the past, particularly when they believe their numbers are greatly superior. My own analysis suggests that moving the lander from point to point, thus emphasizing the fact that we have but one field force, and that it consists of but a limited number of you English, might encourage some among them to overestimate their ability to resist us. In the end, of course, they would be proven wrong, but teaching them that lesson might require us to spend much longer on this single world than my superiors would like."

"I see," Sir George repeated, and this time he truly did.

He found it humorous, in a black, bitter sort of way, to hear the demon-jester lecturing him on how stubborn "primitives" could be. As if the fatuous little creature had had any grasp of the complexities involved in using a thousand bowmen and men-at-arms to conquer entire worlds before Sir George explained them to him! Yet for all the situation's biting irony, he understood precisely why the demon-jester preferred to spend no more time here than he must. Even before he'd fallen into the hands of the "Commander's" guild, Sir George, too, had sometimes found himself looking over his shoulder at superiors who insisted that he accomplish his tasks with near-impossible speed. Not that understanding the "Commander's" quandary woke any particular sympathy within him.

"No doubt you do," the demon-jester replied. "I hope, however, to avoid that necessity by demonstrating their inferiority to them. Accordingly, I have summoned all of the principal chieftains from within reasonable travel distance from our current location. They will begin arriving within the next two local days, and all should be here within no more than twelve. While your bows are clumsy and primitive in the extreme compared to proper small arms, the locals have nothing which can compare to them in range and rate of fire. When the chieftains arrive, you will demonstrate this fact to them, and the leaders of the clans you have already defeated will explain to them how your weapons allowed you to annihilate their own troops. With this evidence of their inferiority incontrovertibly demonstrated before their own eyes, they should be forced to admit that they cannot, in fact, withstand you in open combat and so have no choice but to accept my terms."

He paused once more, waiting until Sir George nodded.

"Very well. I will leave the details of the demonstration up to you. Be prepared to describe them to me in two days' time."

The demon-jester turned his air car away without another word, and most of his dragon-man guards closed in around him, but Sir George ignored the alien creatures as he fixed hot eyes on the "Commander's" arrogant back while the wart-faces fell in behind the demon-jester and his entourage.

Plan a demonstration, is it? Sir George thought venomously. Jesu, but I know what I'd like to use as a target! The sight of your precious hide sprouting arrows like peacock feathers ought to impress the "local lordlings" no end!

He snorted bitterly at the thought, then drew a deep breath and turned on his heel, only to pause in surprise. A single dragon-man had remained behind, and now the towering alien looked down at the baron, then gestured for the human to accompany him from the assembly area. The creature obviously intended to escort him back to his own pavilion—no doubt to ensure that he got into no mischief along the way. That had never happened before, yet Sir George saw no choice but to obey the gesture.

Obedience didn't come without a fresh flicker of anger, yet he knew there was no point in resenting the dragon-man. The silent guard was undoubtedly only following his own orders, and Sir George tried to put his emotions aside as the dragon-man steered him back towards the encampment as if he were incapable of finding his way home without a keeper.

The two of them passed the screen of shrubbery separating the English camp from the assembly area, and Sir George smiled as he caught sight of Matilda, waiting for him. He raised his hand and opened his mouth to call her name...

... and found himself lying on the ground with no memory at all of how he had gotten there.

He blinked, head swimming, and peered up as a hand stroked his brow anxiously. Matilda's worried face peered down at him, and beyond her he saw Father Timothy, Dickon Yardley, Sir Richard, Rolf Grayhame, and a dozen others. And, to his immense surprise, he saw the dragon-man, as well, still standing behind the circle of far shorter humans and gazing down at him over their heads.

"My love?" Matilda's voice was taut with anxiety, and he blinked again, forcing his eyes to focus on her face. "What happened?" she demanded.

"I—" He blinked a third time and shook the head he now realized lay in her lap. It seemed to be still attached to his shoulders, and his mouth quirked in a small, wry smile.

"I have no idea," he admitted. "I'd hoped that perhaps you might be able to tell me that!"

Her worried expression eased a bit at his teasing tone, but it was her turn to shake her head.

"Would that I could," she told him, her voice far more serious than his had been. "You simply stepped around the bushes there and raised your hand, then collapsed. And—" despite herself, her voice quivered just a bit "—lay like one dead for the better part of a quarter-hour."

She looked anxiously up at Yardley, who shrugged.

"It's as Her Ladyship says, My Lord," the surgeon told him. Yardley lacked the training and miraculous devices of the Physician, but he'd always been an excellent field surgeon, and he'd been given more opportunities to learn his craft than any other human battle surgeon the baron had ever known. Now he shook his head.

"Oh, she exaggerates a little. You were scarcely `like one dead'—I fear we've seen all too many of those, have we not?" He smiled grimly, and one or two of the others chuckled as they recalled men, like Yardley himself, who most certainly had lain "like one dead."

"Your breathing was deeper than usual," the surgeon continued after a moment, "yet not dangerously so, and your pulse was steady. But for the fact that we couldn't wake you, you might simply have been soundly asleep. Have you no memory of having tripped or fallen?"

"None," Sir George admitted. He pushed himself experimentally into a sitting position and patted Matilda's knee reassuringly when he felt no sudden dizziness. He sat a moment, then rose smoothly to his feet and raised one hand, palm uppermost.

"I feel fine," he told them, and it was true.

"Perhaps you do, but you've given me more than enough fright for one day, Sir George Wincaster!" Matilda said in a much tarter tone. He grinned apologetically down at her and extended his hand, raising her lightly, and tucked her arm through his as he turned to face his senior officers once more.

"I feel fine," he repeated. "No doubt I did stumble over something. My thoughts were elsewhere, and any man can be clumsy enough to fall over his own two feet from time to time. But no harm was done, so be about your business while I—" he smiled at them and patted his wife's hand where it rested on his elbow "—attempt to make some amends to my lady wife for having afrighted her so boorishly!"

A rumble of laughter greeted his sally and the crowd began to disperse. He watched them go, then turned his gaze back to the dragon-man.

But the dragon-man was no longer there.

Matilda watched him closely for the rest of that long day, and she fussed over him as they prepared for bed that night, but Sir George had told her nothing but the simple truth. He did, indeed, feel fine—better, in some ways, than in a very long time—and he soothed her fears by drawing her down beside him. Her eyes widened with delight at the sudden passion of his embrace, and he proceeded to give her the most conclusive possible proof that there was nothing at all wrong with her husband.

But that night, as Matilda drifted into sleep in the circle of his arms and he prepared to follow her, he dreamed. Or thought he did, at least...

"Welcome, Sir George," the voice said, and the baron turned to find the speaker, only to blink in astonishment. The voice had sounded remarkably like Father Timothy's, although it carried an edge of polish and sophistication the blunt-spoken priest had never displayed. But it wasn't Father Timothy. For that matter, it wasn't even human, and he gaped in shock as he found himself facing one of the eternally silent dragon-men.

"I fear we have taken some liberties with your mind, Sir George," the dragon-man said. Or seemed to say, although his mouth never moved. "We apologize for that. It was both a violation of your privacy and of our own customs and codes, yet in this instance we had no choice, for it was imperative that we speak with you."

"Speak with me?" Sir George blurted. "How is it that I've never heard so much as a single sound from any of you, and now... now this—"

He waved his arms, and only then did he realize how odd their surroundings were. They stood in the center of a featureless gray plain, surrounded by... nothing. The grayness underfoot simply stretched away in every direction, to the uttermost limit of visibility, and he swallowed hard.

"Where are we?" he demanded, and was pleased to hear no quaver in his voice.

"Inside your own mind, in a sense," the dragon-man replied. "That isn't precisely correct, but it will serve as a crude approximation. We hope to be able to explain it more fully at a future time. But unless you and we act soon—and decisively—it's unlikely either your people or ours will have sufficient future for such explanations."

"What do you mean? And if you wished to speak with me, why did you never do so before this?" Sir George asked warily.

"To answer your second question first," the dragon-man answered calmly, "it wasn't possible to speak directly to you prior to this time. Indeed, we aren't `speaking' even now. Not as your species understands the term, at any rate."

Sir George frowned in perplexity, and the dragon-man cocked his head. His features were as alien as the "Commander's," yet Sir George had the sudden, unmistakable feeling of an amused smile. It came, he realized slowly, not from the dragon-man's face, but rather from somewhere inside the other. It was nothing he saw; rather it was something he felt. Which was absurd, of course... except that he felt absolutely no doubt of what he was sensing.

"This is a dream," he said flatly, and the dragon-man responded with an astonishingly human shrug.

"In a sense," he acknowledged. "You're most certainly asleep, at any rate. But if this is a dream, it's one we share... and the only way in which we could communicate with you. It's also—" the sense of a smile was even stronger, but this time it carried a hungry edge, as well "—a method of communication which the `Commander' and his kind cannot possibly tap or intercept."

"Ah?" Despite himself, Sir George's mental ears pricked at that. No doubt it was only a dream, and this talkative dragon-man was no more than his own imagination, but if only—

"Indeed," the dragon-man reassured him, and folded his arms across a massive chest. "Our kind don't use spoken speech among ourselves as most other races do," he explained. "In fact, we aren't capable of it, for we lack the vocal cords, or the equivalent of them, which you and other species use to produce sound."

"Then how do you speak to one another?" Sir George asked intently. "And, for that matter, what do you call your kind among yourselves?"

"We are what others call `telepaths,' " the dragon-man replied. "It means simply that we cast our thoughts directly into one another's minds, without need of words. And no doubt because we do so, we don't use individual names as other species do. Or, rather, we don't require them, for each of us has a unique gestalt—a taste, or flavor, if you will—which all others of our kind recognize. As for what we call ourselves as a species, the closest equivalent in your language would probably be `People.' Since meeting you humans, however, and especially since establishing a contact point in your mind, we aboard this ship have been rather taken by your own descriptions of us." The dragon-man's amusement was apparent. "The notion of playing the part of one of your `dragons' against the `Commander' is extremely attractive to us, Sir George."

Sir George smiled. It was amazing. The perpetually silent, completely alien dragon-man was no longer silent or alien. Or, rather, he remained alien, but unlike the demon-jester, his tone was as expressive as any human's, and his body language might have been that of Father Timothy or Rolf Grayhame. Was that because the "contact point" the dragon-man had mentioned somehow gave them an insight into how humans expressed emotions, so that they might do the same? Or was it some sort of natural consequence, a... translating effect of this "telepathy" the dragon-man had spoken of?

"If you find the notion pleasing, we'll no doubt continue to call you dragons," he said after a moment, putting aside his speculations until there was time to deal with them properly, and the dragon-man projected the sense of another fierce grin as he nodded.

"We would find that most acceptable," he said. "Yet the need for you to give us a name because we've never developed one is another example of the differences between your kind and us which result from the fact of our telepathy. Despite several of your millennia as the Federation's slaves, we have still to evolve many of the reference points most other species take for granted. Indeed, it was extremely difficult for our ancestors to grasp even the concept of spoken communication when the Federation discovered our world. They took many years to do so, and only the fact that they had independently developed a nuclear-age technology of their own prevented the Federation from classifying us as dumb beasts."

" `Nuclear-age'?" Sir George repeated, and the dragon-man shrugged again, this time impatiently.

"Don't worry about that now. It simply means that we were considerably more advanced technologically than your own world... although the Federation was even more relatively advanced compared to us than we would have been compared to your `Earth.'

"Unfortunately," the alien went on, and his "voice" turned cold and bleak, "we were too advanced for our own good—just enough to be considered a potential threat, yet not sufficiently so to defend ourselves—and the Federation declared our world a `protectorate.' They moved in their military units `for our own good,' to `protect' us from ourselves... and to insure that we never became any more advanced than we were at the moment they discovered us."

"Because they feared competition," Sir George said shrewdly.

"Perhaps," the dragon-man replied. "No, certainly. But there was another reason, as well. You see, the Federation is entirely controlled by species like the `Commander's.' All of them are far more advanced than our own race, or yours, and they regard that as proof of their inherent superiority."

"So I've noticed," Sir George said bitterly.

"We realize that, yet we doubt that you can have fully recognized what that means," the dragon-man said, "for you lack certain information."

"What information?" Sir George's voice sharpened and his eyes narrowed.

"Explaining that will take some time," the dragon-man replied, and Sir George nodded brusquely for him to continue.

"Life-bearing worlds are very numerous," the dragon-man began. "They're far less common, statistically speaking, than non-life bearing or prebiotic worlds, but there are so very many stars, and so very many of them have planets, that the absolute number of worlds upon which life has evolved is quite high."

The creature paused, and Sir George blinked as he realized he actually understood what the other was talking about. This wasn't at all like the explanations Computer had given him over the years. Then, he'd frequently required careful explanation of terms Computer had used, and even when the explanations were provided (which they often weren't), he was seldom certain he had fully grasped them. But this time, ideas and concepts he had never imagined, even after all his years in his masters' service, seemed to flood into his mind as the dragon-man spoke. He didn't fully comprehend them—not yet—but he grasped enough to follow what he was being told without fear of misunderstanding. It was as if the dragon-man wasn't simply telling him things but actually teaching him with impossible speed in the process, and he was vaguely aware that he should have been frightened by this. Yet he wasn't. That fundamental curiosity of his was at work once more, he realized, and something else, as well. Something the dragon-man had done, perhaps.

And perhaps not. He shook himself, grinning lopsidedly at the stretched feeling of his brain, and nodded for the dragon-man to continue.

"While life-bearing worlds are numerous," the alien said after a moment, "intelligent life is very rare. Counting our own species, and yours, the Federation has encountered just over two hundred intelligent races with technologies more advanced than chipped stone tools. While this sounds like a great many, you must recall that the Federation has possessed phase drive and faster-than-light travel for more than one hundred and fifty thousand of your years. Which means that they have discovered a new intelligent species no more than once every seven hundred and fifty years."

Sir George swallowed hard. Computer's partial explanations of relativity and the distances between stars, coupled with the experiences of his people in the demon-jester's service had half-prepared him for such concepts, but nothing could have fully prepared him. Still, much of what the dragon-man was saying wasn't terribly different from concepts he and Matilda and Father Timothy had been groping towards for years. In fact, the priest had proved more ready in some ways than Sir George himself to accept that Computer's half-understood comments indicated that Mother Church's teachings and Holy Scripture's accounts of things such as the Creation stood in need of correction and revision. Not that even Father Timothy had been prepared to go quite so far as this!

"Of all the species the Federation has encountered, only twenty-two had developed the phase drive themselves, or attained an equivalent technological level, when they were encountered. Those races, more advanced than any others, are full members of the Federation. They sit on its Council, formulate its laws, and enjoy its benefits. The rest of us... do not.

"In the eyes of the Federation, less advanced races have no rights. They exist only for the benefit of the Federation itself, although the Council occasionally mouths a few platitudes about the `advanced race's burden' and the Federation's responsibility to `look after' us inferior races. What it means in practical terms, however, is that we are their property, to be disposed of as they will. As you and your people have become."

The dragon-man paused once more, and Sir George nodded hard. He could taste the other's emotions—his hatred and resentment, burning as hot as Sir George's own—and a distant sort of amazement filled him. Not that he could understand the other, but that under their utterly different exteriors they could be so much alike.

"Some of the subject species, however, are more useful to the `advanced races' than others," the dragon-man resumed after a long, smoldering moment. "Yours, for example, has proven very useful as a means to evade the letter of their Prime Directive, while ours—" the dragon-man seemed to draw a deep breath "—has proven equally valuable as bodyguards and personal servants."

"Why?" Sir George asked. The question could have come out harsh, demanding to know why the dragon-men should be so compliant and submissive, but it didn't. There was too much anger and hatred in the dragon-man's "voice" for that.

"Our species isn't like yours. We are not only telepaths, among ourselves, at least, but also empaths. While we aren't normally able to make other species hear our thoughts, nor able to hear their thoughts, we are able to sense their emotions, their feelings. This makes it very difficult for anyone who might pose a threat to anyone we've been assigned to guard to slip past us.

"But those aren't the only differences between us. Your kind has but two sexes, male and female. Our species has three: two which are involved in procreation, and a third which might be thought of as our `worker' caste."

"In the same way as bees?" Sir George asked, and the dragon-man paused, gazing intently at him. For a moment, his brain felt even more stretched than before, and then the alien nodded.

"Very much like your `bees,' " the dragon-man told him. "All of our kind aboard this ship are from that worker caste, which also provides our warriors. We are neither male nor female, as you use the terms, but we are the most numerous sex among our kind. And, like your world's `bees,' we exist to serve our `queen.' " The dragon-man paused and cocked his head once more. "It's actually considerably more complex than that. There are nuances and— Well, no matter. The analogy will serve for the moment."

It seemed to refocus its attention upon Sir George.

"The point is that, unlike your kind, our kind are not entirely what you would think of as individuals. We are more than simple parts of a greater whole, and each of us has his—or her, depending upon how one chooses to regard us—hopes and desires, yet we see into one another's minds and emotions with such clarity and depth that it's almost impossible for us to develop a true sense of `self' as you nontelepathic species do.

"More than that, our `queens' dominate our lives. According to our own histories, or those the Federation hasn't completely suppressed, at any rate, that domination was far less complete before the Federation encountered us. The development of our own advanced technology and the society which went with it had apparently inspired our reproductive sexes to extend a greater degree of freedom—of equality, one might say—to the worker caste. But the Federation quickly put a stop to that, for it was the queens' very domination which made us so valuable.

"You see, Sir George, unlike your species, our young receive their initial educations from direct mind-to-mind contact with their parents... and queens. And during that process, the queen is able to influence us, to `program' us, in order to direct and constrain our behavior. We believe this was once a survival trait of the species, but now it's the thing which makes us so valuable to the Federation, for guilds like the `Commander's' `recruit' us from our home world. For all intents and purposes, they buy us from our queens, and our queens have no choice but to sell us, for the Federation controls our world completely and we continue to exist only at the Federation's sufferance."

"This `programing' of which you speak," Sir George said very carefully. "Of what does it consist?"

"Of mental commands we cannot disobey," the dragon-man said softly. "The guilds specify what commands they wish set upon us, and our queens impress those orders so deeply into our minds that we cannot even contemplate disobeying them. And so, you see, the Federation regards us, rightly, as even more suitable for slaves than your own kind."

"And yet..." Sir George let his voice trail off, and again he received that impression of a fierce and hungry grin.

"And yet we've now communicated with you," the dragon-man agreed. "You see, our queens are most displeased at the manner in which so many generations of them have been forced to sell their children into slavery. And they are aware that the guilds buy us primarily to be used as the `Commander' uses us, as security forces for exploration and trade vessels. Even with phase drive, a few ships are lost in every decade or so, of course, but we suspect that not all of those which have turned up missing have been lost to, ah, natural causes."

"Ah?" Sir George looked at the dragon-man with sudden, deep intensity, and the alien's mental chuckle rumbled deep in his brain.

"Our queen programmed us exactly as the `Commander' demanded when he bought us for this expedition," the dragon-man told him. "We must obey any order he may give, and we may not attack or injure our masters. But that's all we must do. We feel quite certain that the guild also wanted us programmed to protect our masters at all times, but that wasn't the way the `Commander' phrased his demands. Nor did he demand that we be programmed so as to be unable to watch others harm them without intervening. We believe—hope!—that over the centuries some of our kind have found ways to turn similar chinks in their programing against their masters. Just as we now hope to turn this against our masters."

"Ah," Sir George said again, and this time his voice was dark and hungry.

"Indeed. And that brings us to your species, Sir George. You see, your kind are unique in at least two ways. Most importantly, in terms of our present needs, your minds operate on a... frequency quite close to our own. We realized that from the beginning, though our masters never asked us about it, and so we weren't required to tell them. It's far from a perfect match, of course, and to communicate with you as we are required the linked efforts of several of our kind. Nor could we do it while you were awake without immediately alerting our masters. Simply establishing the initial contact point rendered you unconscious for twelve of your minutes, and we hadn't previously dared risk causing such a thing to happen."

"But now you have," Sir George said flatly.

"For two reasons," the dragon-man agreed. "One was that we were able to do so when neither the Commander, the Hathori, any other guildsmen, nor any of the ship's remotes were in position to observe it. Such a situation had never before arisen. Indeed, we were able to create it only because the one of us who accompanied you back you to your encampment very carefully guided you into the required sensor blind spot."

Sir George nodded slowly, and the dragon-man continued.

"The second reason is that, for the first time, it may be possible for us to win our freedom from the guild... if you will act with us." The alien raised a clawed hand as if he sensed the sudden, fierce surge of Sir George's emotions—as no doubt he had—and shook his head quickly. "Do not leap too quickly, Sir George Wincaster! If we act, and fail, the `Commander' will not leave one of us alive. Not simply you and your soldiers, but your wives and children, will perish, as will all of our own kind aboard this ship."

Sir George nodded again, feeling a cold shiver run down his spine, for the dragon-man was certainly correct. The thought of freedom, or even of the chance to at least strike back even once before he was killed, burned in his blood like poison, but behind that thought lay Matilda, and Edward, and the younger children... .

"Before you decide, Sir George, there is one other thing you should know," the dragon-man said softly, breaking gently into his thoughts, and the baron looked up. There was a new flavor to the dragon-man's feelings, almost a compassionate one.

"And that thing is?" the human asked after a moment.

"We said that two things make your people unique," the dragon-man told him. "One is our ability to make you hear our thoughts. The second is the terrible threat you represent to the Federation."

"Threat? Us?" Sir George barked a laugh. "You say your kind were far more advanced than ours, yet you were no threat to them!"

"No. But we aren't like you. To the best of my knowledge, no other race has ever been like you in at least one regard."

"And that is?"

"The rate at which you learn new things," the dragon-man said simply. "The `Commander's' guild regards you as primitives, and so you are... at the moment. But now that we've established contact with you, we've seen inside your minds, as the `Commander' cannot, and what we see confirms our suspicions. You are ignorant and untaught, but you are far from stupid or simple, and you've reached your present state of development far, far sooner than any of the Federation's `advanced' races could have."

"You must be wrong," Sir George argued. "The `Commander' has spoken to me of the Romans his competitors first bought from our world. My own knowledge of history is far from complete, yet even I know that we've lost the knowledge of things the men of those times once took for granted, and—"

"You've suffered a temporary setback as a culture," the dragon-man disagreed, "and even that was only a local event, restricted to a single one of your continents. Don't forget, we were aboard this ship when the `Commander' carried out his initial survey of your world, and it was well for your species that he failed to recognize what we saw so clearly. Compared to any other race in the explored galaxy, you `humans' have been—and are—advancing at a phenomenal rate. We believe that, from the point your kind had reached when you were taken by the guild—"

"How long?" It was Sir George's turn to interrupt, and even he was stunned by the sheer ferocity of his own question. "How long has it been?" he demanded harshly.

"Some three hundred and fifty-six of your years, approximately," the dragon-man told him, and Sir George stared at him in shock. He'd known, intellectually, that he'd slept away long, endless years in the service of his masters, but this—!

"Are... are you certain?" he asked finally.

"There's some margin for error. None of us are truly trained in the mathematics to allow properly for the relativistic effects of the phase drive, and the guildsmen do not share such information with us. Nor would they permit the ship's computer to give it to us. But they do speak among themselves in front of us, and they frequently forget, in their arrogance, that while we cannot speak as they do, we can hear. Indeed, that our kind has been forced to learn to understand spoken languages so that we can be ordered about by our `betters.' "

"I... see," Sir George said, then shook himself. "But you were saying... ?"

"I was saying that even after so brief a period as that, we would estimate that your kind has certainly advanced at least to water-powered industrial machinery. You are probably even experimenting with steam power and crude electrical generation by now, and we suspect that the earliest forms of atmospheric flight—hot air balloons and other lighter-than-air forms, for example—are within your grasp. But even if you've come only so far as water-powered hammer mills and, perhaps, effective artillery and rifled small arms, you will have advanced at more than double the rate of any of the so-called `advanced' members of the Federation. If you're left alone for only a very little longer, perhaps another six or seven of your centuries, you will have discovered the phase drive for yourselves."

"We will have?" Sir George blinked in astonishment at the thought.

"Such is our belief. And that's also what makes your species so dangerous to the Federation. Compared to any human institution, the Federation is immensely old and stable, which is another way of saying `static,' and possessed of an ironbound bureaucracy and customary usages. By its own rules and precedents, it must admit your world as a co-equal member if you've developed phase drive independently. Yet your kind will be a terribly disruptive influence on the other races' dearly beloved stability. By your very nature, you will soon outstrip all of them technologically, making them inferior to you... and so, by their own measure, justifying your people in using them as they have used us. Even worse, though we think they will be slower to recognize this, your race, assuming that you and your fellows are representative, will not take well to the pyramid of power the Federation has built. Within a very short period of time, whether by direct intervention or simply by example, you will have led dozens of other species to rebel against the `advanced races,' and so destroyed forever the foundation upon which their power, wealth, and comfortable arrogance depends."

"You expect a great deal from a single world of `primitives,' my friend."

"Yes, we do. But should the Federation, or another guild, learn that you, too, are from Earth and return there too soon, it will never happen. They will recognize the threat this time, for they will have a better basis for comparison... and will probably be considerably more intelligent and observant than the `Commander.' They can hardly be less, at any rate!" The mental snort of contempt was unmistakable, and Sir George grinned wryly. "But if they do recognize it, they will take steps to deflect the threat. They may settle for establishing a `protectorate' over you, as with us, but you represent a much more serious threat than we did, for we never shared your flexibility. We believe it is far more likely that they'll simply order your race destroyed, once and for all, although the Federation is far too completely captive to inertia to choose its course quickly. It will undoubtedly take the Council two or three hundred years to make its official decision, but in the end, it will decide that your kind are simply too dangerous to be allowed to exist."

Sir George grunted as if he'd just been punched in the belly. For a long, seemingly endless moment, his mind simply refused to grapple with the idea. But however long it seemed, it was only a moment, for Sir George never knowingly lied to himself. Besides, the concept differed only in scale from what he'd already deduced the demon-jester would do if his violation of the Council's decrees became public knowledge.

"What... what can we do about it?" he asked.

"About your home world, nothing," the dragon-man replied in a tone of gentle but firm compassion. "We can only hope the Federation is as lethargic as usual and gives your people time to develop their own defenses. Yet there is something you may do to protect your species, as opposed to your world."

"What?" Sir George shook himself. "What do you mean? You just said—"

"We said we couldn't protect your home world. But if your kind and ours, working together, could seize this ship, it is more than ample to transport all of us to a habitable world so far from the normal trade routes that it wouldn't be found for centuries, or even longer. We here aboard this ship are unable to reproduce our kind, but, as you, we have received the longevity treatments. You have not only received those treatments but are capable of reproducing, and the medical capabilities of the ship would provide the support needed to avoid the consequences of genetic drift or associated problems. Moreover, the ship itself is designed to last for centuries of hard service, and its computers contain a vast percentage of the Federation's total information and technological base."

"But would Computer share that information with us?" Sir George asked.

"The computers would have no choice but to provide any information you requested from them if you controlled the ship," the dragon-man said in a slightly puzzled tone.

"Computers?" Sir George stressed the plural and raised an eyebrow in surprise, and the dragon-man gazed at him speculatively for several seconds. Then the baron felt that stretched sensation in his mind once again, and gasped as yet another tide of information and concepts flooded through him.

"We cannot implant a great deal more of information directly into your mind in a single evening without risking damage to it," the dragon-man told him. "But given the importance of the ship's information systems to what we propose, it seemed necessary to provide you with a better concept of how those systems work."

" `Better concept,' indeed!" Sir George snorted while his thoughts darted hither and yon among the sharp-faceted heaps of knowledge the dragon-man had bestowed upon him. "I see that `Computer' isn't precisely what I'd thought," he said slowly after a moment, "but I think perhaps `he' may be a bit closer to what I'd thought than you realize."

"In what way?" the dragon-man asked, gazing speculatively once more at the baron. Then he nodded. "Ah. We see. And you're certainly correct in at least some respects, Sir George. What you call `Computer' is actually an artificial gestalt which is shared between several different data storage and processing systems throughout the ship. It would be fair enough, I suppose, to call it an artificial intelligence, but it is scarcely what might be thought of as a person."

"And why should he not be thought of as a person?" Sir George demanded, stressing the pronoun deliberately.

"Because the computer systems are no more than artifacts." The dragon-man seemed puzzled by the human's attitude. "They are artificial constructs. Tools."

"Artificial, indeed," Sir George agreed. "But don't the `Commander' and his guild regard your people and mine as no more than `tools'? Haven't you just finished explaining to me the fashion in which they treat all of their `natural inferiors' as property to be used and disposed of for their benefit?"

"Well, yes... ."

"Then perhaps it would be wise of us to extend our concept of just what makes a person a person a bit further," Sir George suggested.

"The Federation has imposed strict laws, backed by very heavy penalties, against the unrestrained development of AI," the dragon-man said slowly. He thought for a few more moments, and then Sir George received the strong impression of an equally slow smile. "My people hadn't really considered the full implications of those laws until this very moment," he went on, "but now that we have, perhaps you have a point. The Federation has banned such developments because the creation of a true artificial intelligence, one which was permitted or even encouraged to regard itself as an individual who might actually enjoy such things as rights or freedom, might well prove a very destabilizing influence."

"Such was my own thought," Sir George agreed. "But there are two other points which I believe should be considered, My Lord Dragon. First is that to retain Computer as a servant with no will and no freedom of his own is to run precisely the same risks which the `Commander' and his guild ran with your own people. Just as your queens `programmed' you exactly as they were required to rather than as they knew your purchasers actually intended, so might we one day discover that Computer has plans of his own and loopholes which might permit him to attain them. If he does, and if we've acted to thwart them and treated him as our chattel, then he would be as justified in regarding us as enemies as we are justified in regarding the Federation as an enemy. But second, and perhaps even more important to me after my own people's experience with the kindness and compassion of this Federation you speak of, is my belief that Computer is already far more a `person' than you realize. I've worked with him many times over the years, and while I realize that I understand far less about the Federation's technology than you do—what you've already taught me this evening would be proof enough of that!—that may actually permit me to see a bit more clearly than you do. You begin from what you already know of the capabilities and limitations of the technology about you. I begin with no such knowledge, and so I may see possibilities and realities your very familiarity blinds you to.

"I believe that Computer is already an individual, even if, perhaps, he himself hasn't yet recognized that, as much in bondage to the `Commander' and his guild as you or I. If we would free ourselves of our bondage, do we not have an obligation to free him from his? And if my belief is correct, would he not prove as invaluable as an ally as he might prove dangerous as an enemy?"

"We cannot answer your questions," the dragon-man replied after a moment. "So far as we know, no one in the Federation has ever so much as considered them. Or, if they have, no one has dared to ask them aloud. Not one of the `advanced races' would ever contemplate the risk to their own positions and their own beloved stability inherent in injecting such an element of change into their social matrix."

The dragon-man was silent for several endless seconds, and then he gave another of those very human shrugs.

"You may very well be right, and your ability to ask such questions and consider such answers without instant rejection may well spring from the very qualities of your species which make you so innovative. The idea of `freeing' the ship's computers is certainly one which deserves the closest consideration. Even without liberating the ship's AI, however—assuming, of course, that liberating it is in fact possible—this vessel would provide a nice initial home for both of our races, as well as a very advanced starting point for our own technology. With human inventiveness to back it up, no more than a century or two would be required to establish a second home world for your kind. One that would certainly provide the threat we have projected that your original home world may someday pose."

"And why should you care about that?" Sir George demanded.

"For two reasons," the dragon-man replied imperturbably. "First, there would be our own freedom. We would, of course, quickly find ourselves a tiny minority on a world full of humans, but at least we would be freed from our slavery. And, we believe, we would have earned for ourselves a position of equality and respect among you.

"But the second reason is even more compelling. If we're correct about the impact your species will have upon the Federation, then you offer the best, perhaps the only, chance our home world will ever have to win its freedom." The dragon-man allowed himself a dry chuckle. "And we must admit that your willingness to embrace the right to freedom of a machine bodes well for what you might demand for other organic species!"

"Ummm..." Sir George gazed at the other, his thoughts racing, and then he nodded—slowly, at first, but with rapidly increasing vigor. If the dragon-man was telling the truth (and Sir George felt certain that he was), all he had just said made perfect sense. But—

"Even assuming that all you say is true, what can we possibly do?"

"We've already told you that we believe we have a chance—a slim one, but a chance—to gain our freedom. If we succeed in that, then all else follows."

"And how can we hope to succeed?"

"Assume that you English had free access to the ship's interior and to your weapons," the dragon-man replied somewhat obliquely. "Could you take it from its crew?"

"Hmm?" Sir George rubbed his beard, then nodded. "Aye, we could do that," he said flatly. "Assuming we could move freely about the ship, at least. Even its largest corridors and compartments aren't so large as to prevent swords or bows from reaching anyone in them quickly. Of course, our losses might be heavy, especially if the crew would have access to weapons like your fire-throwers."

"They would," the dragon-man said grimly. "Worse, they might very well have access to us, as well."

"What do you mean?"

"We told you we were conditioned to obey orders at the time we were... acquired. As it happens, the `Commander' personally purchased us for this mission, and his demand was that we obey him. He may have intended that to apply to his entire crew, but that wasn't the way he phrased himself. Even if he realized that at the time, however, we believe he's long since forgotten, since we've always been careful to obey any order any guildsman gave us. By the same token, we were never conditioned not to attack the Hathori, who are no more guildsmen or proper crewmen than you or we. The Hathori, unfortunately, truly are almost as stupid and brutish as the `Commander' believes. Whatever happens, they'll fight for the guild like loyal hounds. But as you've already seen, they are no match for you Englishmen with hand to hand weapons... and they're certainly no match for our own energy weapons."

The sense of a smile in every way worthy of a true dragon was stronger than ever, and Sir George laughed out loud. But then the dragon-man sobered.

"Yet all of this hinges upon what happens to the `Commander' at the very outset. If he should have the opportunity—and recognize the need—to order us to crush you, we would obey. We would have no choice, and afterward, our deeper programming would prevent us from attacking any surviving guildsmen."

"I see." Sir George regarded the dragon-man thoughtfully. "On the other hand, Sir Dragon, I doubt that you would have spent so long explaining so much unless you had already considered how best to deal with those possibilities."

"We have. The key is the `Commander.' He wears the device which controls the force fields which keep your people sealed outside the core hull of the ship on a chain about his neck." Sir George nodded, recalling the gleaming pendant the `Commander' always bore with him. "That pendant is the master control, designed to override any opposing commands and open any hatch or force field for whoever possesses it. The programming can be altered from the control deck, assuming one has the proper access codes, but the process would take hours. By the time it could be completed, the battle would be over, one way or the other."

"So we must find some way to capture or kill the `Commander' as the first step," Sir George mused. The dragon-man nodded, and the baron shrugged. "Well, that seems to add little extra difficulty to an already impossible task."

"True," the dragon-man agreed gravely, yet a flicker of humor danced in his voice, and Sir George grinned crookedly.

"So how do we capture or kill him?"

" `We' do not," the dragon-man replied. "You do."

"Somehow I'd already guessed that," Sir George said dryly. "But you still haven't explained how."

"It has to do with his weapons-suit," the dragon-man said, and ran his own clawed hand over the red-and-blue garment he wore. "Unlike the clothing issued to your people, it has many protective capabilities. He has great faith in them, and under most circumstances, that faith would probably be justified. Alas!" Another, hungry mental grin. "Certain threats are so primitive, so unlikely to ever face any civilized being from an advanced race, that, well—"

Again that very human shrug, and this time Sir George began to grin in equal anticipation.