The Excalibur Alternative

"No doubt you have duties to which you should attend," the alien's voice piped into his ear, "so I will detain you no longer. Inform your men that I am pleased with them. I will, of course, tell them so myself at a suitable moment."

"Of course, Commander," Sir George managed to say in a nearly normal voice, and watched the silent air car float away across a sky heavy with Shaakun's equivalent of ravens.

Matilda and Edward looked up from her cherished illuminated manuscript of the tale of King Arthur, opened on the table between them, as Sir George walked into the pavilion. Almost a week had passed since the battle, and they'd seen little of him during that time, for the demon-jester had indeed made extensive use of his services. Not only did Sir George show a better understanding of the natives than the demon-jester ever would, but he was also the very personification of the cost of defying the demon-jester's will. The tribal chieftains who'd fought under the baron's orders regarded him with awe and near deification, while potential enemies feared him like the very angel of death.

It had not been a comfortable week.

Now Edward started to jump to his feet and reach for the chilled ewer of wine which had been awaiting him, but Sir George waved him back and slumped wearily into an empty camp chair.

"Stay where you are, boy," he said, and grimaced. "I've had all the wine I can stomach for one day."

Matilda's eyes narrowed, and she gazed at him speculatively. He saw her expression and gave a short laugh.

"Oh, it's not so bad as all that, love," he told her. "It was just that our `Commander' was feeling... generous—" his mouth twisted wryly on the word, "—and opened his cellars wide for me." He inhaled deeply. "It appears that we've now accomplished his goals here on Shaakun," he went on. "He's most grateful for my assistance, although, of course, as a member of a truly advanced race, he could have accomplished the same without me."

A trace of alarm flickered in Matilda's blue eyes, but he shook his head quickly.

"Don't worry that I've turned down fresh wine," he said. "It's not because I'm drunk. I walked all the way here without stumbling once, and my head was clear enough to let me repeat his exact words to you."

His wife relaxed at the oblique assurance that he was using the demon-jester's own words and not allowing his obvious fatigue and disgust to betray him into indiscretion.

"So the other tribes have acceded to his demands?" she asked.

"Indeed, they have. It wasn't as if they had a great deal of choice, after all," he replied with another grimace. "All that was truly necessary was to... explain that to them. And to suggest that what befell the Thoolaas, Laahstaar, and Mouthai could also befall them if they refused."

"I should think so," Matilda agreed. "So he's satisfied with their submission?" Sir George nodded, and she wrinkled her brow. "I must confess, my love, that I remain puzzled by all of this."

"I should hope you do!" he snorted with a sudden burst of true amusement. "I've been `puzzled' by everything that has happened to us since the day we first set foot upon that accursed cog's deck!"

"You know perfectly well that wasn't what I meant!" she scolded, and he nodded again, this time with an edge of contrition. "I still don't understand what these creatures could possibly possess to make it worth the `Commander's' guild's time and effort to bring us here in the first place. Or be the cause of so much bloodshed and killing once we were here."

"I'm far from certain of that myself," her husband admitted, "but I've learned more in the past few days than I did know. I'd already discovered that some ore which is mined here is of considerable value to the guild, but until just yesterday, no one had explained the process by which it is extracted to me. I still have no idea what it is, or what makes it sufficiently valuable to bring the `Commander' here, but I believe I've discovered why the natives were so... reluctant to allow his guild to mine it, and it wasn't at all why I'd thought they were. You see, I'd thought that they would be required to mine it as part of their submission."

"They won't be?" she asked in a surprised tone.

"No. The `Commander' and Computer explained to me yesterday that some other guild has already installed machinery on this world to accomplish that without the need for supervision. Their devices extract the ore and store it until a ship calls to collect it."

"Some other guild," Matilda repeated very carefully.

"Yes." Sir George frowned. "Computer actually did most of the explaining, and he was less than completely clear." He held his wife's eye for just a moment, and she nodded in understanding of the limits the demon-jester clearly had placed upon what Computer was allowed to tell them. "From what he did say, however," Sir George went on, "it would appear that this other guild had previously gained the right to mine the ore, whatever it is, from the Thoolaas at some time in the past. Those rights have now been transferred to the `Commander's' guild."

"But if they'd already conceded those rights to someone else, then why were they so unwilling to transfer them to the `Commander' when he arrived?" Matilda asked. "Were they that loyal to whomever they'd already granted them to?"

"Hardly!" Sir George snorted. "So far as I can tell, the Thoolaas were no fonder of the previous owner of the mining rights than they were of us. From what I've been able to discover, however, this mining process is very destructive and dangerous for the natives. There's so much more `technology' involved in it that I'm completely unable to understand everything that it entails or how it works. But however it works, it lays the area in which the mining takes place completely waste. According to Computer, it kills every living creature in the immediate vicinity of the mine and poisons the water and the land for centuries."

"And these... people permitted that on their own lands?"

"I would assume that the Thoolaas had no more choice in the original `negotiations' than our `allies' had in these," Sir George said dryly. "On the other hand, I believe I now understand the position of the Laahstaar and Mouthai better than I did. Although the Thoolaas had been forced to concede the original rights, they had at least managed to restrict the area covered to a desolate, unused area on the far side of their tribal lands. But it seems that one reason for the combined tribes' resistance to the `Commander's' demands was that he required not only that the right to mine be transferred to his guild, but that the area to be mined be extended into the heart of the Laahstaar tribal lands, as well."

"Sweet Jesu," Matilda murmured, and crossed herself slowly, her eyes haunted—as Sir George's own had been—at the realization of what they had been given no choice but to help bring to this world.

"But if this process is so destructive and dangerous, how can the `Commander' expect that they won't destroy the mine and all of its equipment once we leave? Especially if it threatens their own lands and the lives of their own people?" she asked after a moment.

"They can't," Sir George said simply. "Again, I don't pretend to understand how it's accomplished, love, but Computer says that the equipment itself is protected by something he calls a `force field' which prevents its destruction. Besides, the area around the actual site of the mine is so heavily poisoned that any native who attempted to enter it would perish long before he could do any significant damage to it."

"I see... I think," Matilda said slowly, but she also frowned and shook her head. "Yet if their equipment is invulnerable, and if the natives dare not even approach it lest they die, then why seek an agreement to mine it in the first place? Why not simply establish the mine and ignore the natives entirely if there's nothing they can do to prevent the operation in the first place?"