“I have 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 smile, reminding himself yet again that his masters might be—indeed, almost certainly were—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 Commander said with what Sir George rather thought might have been an expansive air had the Commander 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 Commander 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 Commander 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 Commander 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 Commander 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, yet they had made it plain that the Sharnhaishians were currently ascendent over the Commander’s own guild, and their success seemed to have a great deal to do with the Romans the Commander had 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 Commander 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 Commander’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 Commander 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 Commander might prove valuable in the future.
“How was I to know they might come up with something like the Romans?” the Commander 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 Commander 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 Commander seemed to draw a certain comfort from the gesture.