Chapter 1

"The wind is changing my lord," it was Gozewijn, one of the Flemish mercenaries who had come to Rouen in search of adventure, stating the obvious as per usual. In William's eyes the man was a fool but he was some distant relative of his wife's so it would have been a sin to run him through with a sword.

"Thank-you Mr Gozewijn," Duke William of Normandy replied, looking out over the sea. It was a bright, clear day and he could almost see his kingdom, the land that was his by rights and was now finally within his grasp. "Tell the men to get chopping, we need to get some boats built before the wind changes again. How long does it take to get to England?"

"I'm not sure my lord, I've never been. A few hours I think," Gozewijn said. "I will carry out your orders at once." The mercenary bowed his head and turned to walk back across the beach to the encampment leaving the duke alone.

Whenever William thought of the adventure that lay ahead it made his stomach lurch with excitement. All that gold to plunder, all those people to enslave, more women than he could possibly rape in 10 lifetimes, and he would be a king. A king! Just thinking about it made him so horny he felt like he was going to explode but there were no comely lasses within grabbing distance. He would be patient, the next time he dragged some poor girl into the bushes and tore off her clothes he would be doing it as King of England.

Movement in the sky caught his attention and he looked up, it looked like a shooting star. Already one had gone past a few days earlier, he had taken it as an omen that God approved of the conquest he was planning, but this one was even bigger and brighter. What further proof could be needed? Something was different about this star though, it seemed to be falling closer and closer.

Good god! It wasn't a star at all, it was some kind of flying cart. What wicked sorcery was this? The flying cart landed on the beach, mere feet from where William was standing, as gently as a peasant girl's dress might fall to the floor as William cut it off. He pulled out his sword and stood looking at the cart for several moments before the diabolical vehicle seemed to open up and a man stepped out.

He looked to be a Saracen or perhaps a Turk, swarthy-skinned and dark-haired with funny features and his ears were pointed like some horrid monster. He was the ugliest thing William had ever seen. "Who the devil are you?" he cried, hoping his fear would not be audible in his voice.

"William the Bastard?" the foreigner asked.

"I am Duke William of Normandy!" William spat back in anger. "Lord of this land and you are a guest in my country sir. Tell me who you are and what business you have on my beach!"

The foreigner raised an eyebrow, "My name is Sylok. I am from beyond the stars, another world many light-years... millions of miles... from here. My people, the Vulcans, have been monitoring this world for a few decades. We have a tiny observation station on one of Saturn's moons and watch you through a telescope."

William had no idea what the hell the stranger was talking about.

"I am here because I have made a leap of judgement as it were, merely by standing here talking to you I have destroyed my career and perhaps even given up my liberty. I will likely spend the rest of my life in prison for what I am about to do but it must be done. I will not idly sit back while you carry out atrocities. It is morally wrong and my people must reconsider their policy of non-intervention. You, William the Bastard, must die." With that the stranger pulled a strange device from his belt, held it up and pressed it, a bolt of light shot out and struck William in the gut.

The pain was agonizing, William could smell his own flesh cooking and his guts were spilling out onto the sand.

"My apologies," the foreigner said, "You are tougher than most humans. I did not intend for you to suffer." With that he pressed his device again and this time a bolt of light came right to William's face.

Sylok looked down at the charred remains of the human. Having never killed anyone before it would have been fairly easy to give into his base emotions of guilt and remorse but that would have been illogical. This man was a rapist and murderer who stood as slave-master over a large mass of land and hundreds of thousands of people, he was planning to expand his little empire across the sea, killing him had been the correct ethical course of action. All that remained now was to kick his body into the sea and fly back to the station where Commander T'Ral would have him arrested. They would say he was a criminal, not only a murderer but guilty of the far worse offence of interfering in the natural development of a foreign planet.

Natural development? No planet was an island, every meteor that entered its atmosphere changed the progression of events, every solar flare or passing comet had an impact on the way the people thought and behaved. To let the people of this planet suffer under brutal warlords was an immoral act and if he was the only one who could see it then so be it. He would be taken back to the homeworld and spend the next 100 years in a cell playing chess with himself but he would still have done the right thing. That was all that mattered, doing the right thing.

And yet, this William the Bastard was but one man. Another would rise up to take his place and there were countless others across the world not much better than him. Perhaps it would be logical for Sylok to remain on Earth and try to stop them all. His phaser made him a one-man-army in a world where the people still fought with sharpened pieces of metal and even more primitive technologies. He could lead the humans through a thousand years of social and cultural development in a single century, teach them of ethics and morality, make them work together instead of killing each other over meaningless titles and tiny portions of land. People were starving here, actually starving to death, in a world larger and more fertile than Vulcan with only a few hundred million people living on it. Sylok could save them, he could save them all.

While he was thinking about all of this two more humans came walking onto the beach, at the sight of their dead duke they pulled their weapons and charged at him. For some illogical reason they were shouting as they ran, a pointless waste of energy. Sylok shot one of them with his phaser, killing him instantly and the other one looked shocked and horrified.

"Mercy!" the human begged, falling to his knees. He lay his weapon, a stick of wood with a piece of metal tied crudely to the top, at Sylok's feet. "Please have mercy."

"On your feet," Sylok told him.

The human was visibly in shock, breathing heavily and shaking like a leaf, but eventually he got to his feet.

"I am an emissary sent by the one you call God," Sylok told him. "I am here to make all of your lives better."