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its support systems, and it will take us some time to properly program them to manufacture such crude items."
Once again, Sir George felt himself afloat upon a sea of half-understood and completely foreign concepts and ideas. Whatever device or magical power translated the demon-jester's own language into English obviously found itself required to create completely new words to label some of those concepts. That was undoubtedly a marvel. Unfortunately, simply attaching a label to something did nothing to explain what that something was. Not that the demon-jester seemed particularly concerned about explaining anything to someone he manifestly considered so far beneath himself.
"The one need you have identified which may pose some small challenge," the half-sized creature said, "is the matter of the horses. For technical reasons which need not concern you, the transport of such large animals is sometimes difficult. In the case of some similar species, the phase drive survival rate is low. We do not yet know whether this would be the case for your 'horses,' but the possibility exists."
He paused, looking—expressionlessly, of course—at Sir George, and the baron frowned.
"Are you saying . . . Commander, that there is no point in acquiring them in the first place?"
"I am saying that it may turn out in the end that there is no point," the demon-jester corrected. "That, however, is something we do not yet know for certain. w