“I am not surprised that you wonder,” the Commander 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. He had no idea whether or not the Commander realized how insulting his words were, and the voice in which they were delivered gave no clue. He suspected the Commander wouldn’t have cared a great deal if he had known, and he could even admit—intellectually—that there was some point to the other’s attitude. Compared to the Commander’s people, humans were primitive. On the other hand, Sir George had come to suspect that the Commander’s Guild wasn’t actually so very different from guilds or other powerful groups of Sir George’s 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 Commander continued, seemingly oblivious to Sir George’s silence, “this planet does not offer us any physical commodity. Some of the worlds which the Guild has used you to open to them 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,” his piping voice said after a moment, 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 Commander’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 it in 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 Commander 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 Commander had never met Sir James Wincaster.
Sir George realized the Commander had said nothing for several seconds, simply gazing at him with that disconcerting triple stare, and he shook himself.
“I see . . . I think,” he said, hoping his suspicion 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 Commander 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.”