The Excalibur Alternative

"As you yourself said before we were `processed,' My Lord, I see no alternative but to accept that... that... creature's demands." Father Timothy's tone was heavy. "For the moment, at least."

"I mislike such advice," Sir Richard Maynton sounded like a man drinking soured wine, "yet I have no better to offer in its place, I fear."

"Nor do I." Sir George kept his own voice calm and measured, though he doubted that it fooled anyone. Or perhaps it did. After all, at the moment most of the men in this compartment undoubtedly wanted to be fooled.

The baron leaned back in the obscurely uncomfortable chair the bodiless voice—"Computer," if he'd understood the outlandish name aright—had provided at the demon-jester's orders. None of the humans had the slightest idea of how that chair and the others like it had been made to appear. They had sprung up out of the metal deck like fairy toadstools, and they appeared to be made of the same alloy as that deck. How anyone could make bronze or steel "grow," or make it soft and yielding beneath the weight of their bodies, was yet another of the unending mysteries which had enveloped them, but at least this one gave them someplace to park their arses.

It would have been nice if the chairs had been properly proportioned for the people sitting in them, but it was obvious that the otherwise luxuriously enfolding furniture had been designed for something with longer legs and shorter torsos than any human would ever have. It was yet one more reminder of how completely outside their previous existences they had been thrown.

Nor was it the only reminder.

Sir George looked down at the odd garment he wore. It was like and yet unlike the garments worn by the demon-jester and his dragon-man guards. It was a different color, to begin with—a dark green, with black trim along the sleeves and legs—and it didn't cover his hands as theirs did. It did include incredibly comfortable "boots" that were extensions of its legs, and it was also a looser fit than any of the alien creatures aboard this ship seemed to prefer. For all of that, its fit was far snugger than anything he had ever worn before. And more comfortable, he admitted almost against his will.

He and the men who had been "processed" with him had found the peculiar, one-piece garments waiting when they emerged. All had appeared to be of one size, and none of them had known how to open the strange seals which served in place of buttons or laces. The baron hadn't been alone in his dismay at the sight of the strange clothing, but the tenor voice had insisted that this was what they must wear, and then it had patiently instructed them in how to unseal the garments' closures and get into them.

Once do

Sir George had to admit that he shared their happiness over the boots, but he was less than completely delighted by the garments. He wasn't the only one wearing one of them at the moment, for everyone in the chamber, including Matilda and Father Timothy, wore precisely the same thing, and he felt a fresh stir of resentment as he glanced at his wife. The clothing that was simply "snug" for him clung to every supple curve of Matilda's body, and he would have been more than human not to note how the eyes of the other men in the compartment were very carefully not noticing that.

Matilda, on the other hand, appeared completely oblivious to how revealing her clothing was. He doubted very much that she could be as calm as she chose to appear, but he would not embarrass or shame her by showing his own anger at seeing her so displayed. Besides, she was undoubtedly correct. Irritating and infuriating as their captors' insistence on clothing all of them in these same, revealing garments might be, it was minor beside all of the other things which had already happened to them. And which might, as she had quietly reminded him on the way to this compartment, happen yet.

And if he had required any additional reminding, there were the two wart-faces and the pair of the dragon-men standing against the compartment wall. Sir George suspected that the watchful guards were there precisely to remind them of their helplessness. Certainly, if the demon-jester's words and those of the other voice which had guided them through their "processing" could be made to sound in their very ears, then their captors could also listen to anything they said without being physically present. The guards were simply the demon-jester's way of reminding them of his presence... and demands. No doubt the baron would have called exactly such a meeting if left to his own devices, but he had not been given that option, and the demon-jester's order to call it had stung. Sir George was a soldier, accustomed to obeying commands, as well as giving them, but he had never chosen to serve the demon-jester, and the ridiculous looking creature's uncaring arrogance was infuriating. He gave his orders as if Sir George and all of the other humans with him were of less importance than the same number of hunting hounds.

But however infuriating their "Commander" might be, Sir George had no intention of allowing his fury to show. He might not be able to read the demon-jester's emotions or expression, but that didn't necessarily mean the reverse was true, and the demon-jester had made his readiness to kill to make a point only too clear. So when he had ordered Sir George to "inventory" his guild's new "assets," the baron hadn't even been tempted to argue. Nor had he been blind to the need to establish and maintain an unshaken internal human chain of authority, and now he considered the six men and one woman in the compartment with him. He and Matilda had taken the two chairs at the very front of the chamber with a calm assurance of their right to precedence. The baron had allowed no sign of hesitation or doubt to cross his face or color his ma

The fact that Father Timothy and Sir Richard had settled down to his and Matilda's left and right respectively had helped knock any temptation to challenge him on the head. Father Timothy would have supported him under any circumstances, but Sir Richard was another matter. Given how the death of Earl Cathwall and the unca

On the other hand, all of them knew by now that none of them would ever see France or their own homes again, and all of them were desperate for someone to tell them what to do.

"What are our numbers, Father?" the baron asked after a lingering moment of silence.

"Better than I had feared, My Lord," the Dominican replied. As Sir George's confessor, Father Timothy had assumed the duties of chief clerk for the baron's portion of the expedition from the very begi